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“He didn’t dump me,” Athena says quietly. Harlow puts a hand on her sister’s back and rubs it slowly. “And it was my first time.”
“Your first time going out with him?” Harlow’s eyes drift out to the water; the sun is dancing on the waves.
“No, my first time…ever. I was a virgin.”
“Wait, what?” Harlow’s attention snaps back instantly. “You were seriously still a virgin at twenty-three?” Athena turns her head and looks up at Harlow, her eyes as wounded and sad as they’ve ever been. “Sorry, sorry—I didn’t mean it that way,” Harlow says quickly, trying to cover her surprise so that it doesn’t sound judgmental. “I just didn’t know.” She goes back to rubbing her sister’s back in slow circles.
“Yeah,” Athena croaks, hiding her face between her knees again. Her hands dangle toward the ground next to her calves. She looks like a broken rag doll. “I got in over my head.”
“Okay, okay.” Harlow’s mind is racing. A guy ghosting a girl after a one night stand isn’t unheard of, but the way her sister is taking it is completely heartbreaking. “So then can you just chalk it up to a mistake? I mean, if it wasn’t horrible in the moment, then that’s something. Of course it’s bad that he didn’t want to go out with you again, but—“
Athena lifts her head from her knees and sits bolt upright, turning to face her sister with sad, wild eyes. “It’s not that, Lo,” she says. “It’s worse than that.”
“Did he say rude things about you to a mutual friend?”
Athena shakes her head. “Worse.”
“Told everyone you work with that you guys did the deed?”
Another shake of the head from Athena. She puts her hands over her eyes and keeps them covered when she finally reveals the truth: “He’s married.”
“WHAT?” Harlow stands up. She feels a rush of indignation on her sister’s behalf. “No freaking way, Athena. You didn’t know, of course—I know you, and you’d never sleep with a married man. Unless you were drunk—did he get you drunk?” She’s angry and in a rage just thinking of some jack-hole intentionally getting her naïve sister tipsy just to take advantage of her. Harlow paces back and forth as Athena sits on the bench, watching her. “I’ll kill him.”
“Actually, he got married the week after I slept with him. In Bali. We don’t work in the same department, and I didn’t know until I went looking for him the morning after. His secretary had to tell me that he’d be out for a week for his wedding.”
“That’s not your fault,” Harlow says quickly, standing right in front of Athena so that she has to look up and shield her eyes from the sun. “This is one thousand percent his fault.”
Athena sighs. “I know. It just hurts.”
“Of course it does. Do you want me to stalk him on social media and find his new wife and tell her?”
“No,” Athena says sadly. “That won’t make me feel any better. It’s not her fault either—it’s his.”
Harlow shrugs. “But maybe she needs to know what kind of guy she just married…”
Athena waves her hands adamantly. “No, no, no. I need to worry about me right now, and messing up a whole relationship just to get revenge is not going to help me in any way.”
Grudgingly, Harlow tilts her head to one side and lets her eyes roll up like she’s agreeing—but only barely. “Okay. I hear you. So how can we makeyoubetter?” She sits back down on the bench so that she and Athena’s arms are touching as they face the water.
“I think just being here is helping, to be perfectly honest. I love my job, but…I don’t really want to go back. Is that weird?”
Harlow gives a soft laugh. “I feel the exact same way, so no, it’s not weird.” They’re quiet for a long moment. “Hey, how long do you think Mom will let us stay down here? And how long can we be away from our jobs and apartments without losing everything?”
Athena thinks about this for the time it takes three different waves to roll in, crash, and retreat again. “Ummm, I’m not sure. But to be honest, Lo, I don’t really care right now. We’re both just out of college. Life handed us both lemons, and we’re down here—“
“Don’t say making lemonade!” Harlow puts both hands to her own throat and pretends to gag.
A huge grin spreads across Athena’s face for the first time since she got to Shipwreck Key. “I was going to say ‘squeezing the shit out of them,’ but maybe weshouldjust make lemonade.”
“You were not going to say that,” Harlow protests, shaking her head fervently. “You never swear, which is why Dad always trusted you to go to events with him and not me.”
This makes Athena giggle, and Harlow instantly knows what she’s thinking of.
“Remember the time you said that Dad wanted to bitch-slap that guy from the protest who threw rocks at the motorcade and that lady from theWall Street Journalheard you?” Athena is full-on laughing now. “Dad was so mad.”
“Hey, I’m the kind of girl who says what she feels.” Harlow tosses her hair haughtily, but she’s not lying: she absolutelyisthe kind of girl who has a hard time censoring herself when she gets worked up about something.
“I love that about you, Lo.”
