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My family still comes to Bald Head, a tiny island of less than five square miles, every summer. Pa passed last year, and Granny had to go to an assisted living facility not long after. But they kept their house in Harbour Village, and now Aunt Lady splits her time between Wilmington and Bald Head to care for the house. Mom drives down whenever Dad isn’t traveling enough.
Point being, I’ve heard them mention Riley’s name a time or two. Apparently he’s hit it big as a real estate mogul or something on the island. To be honest, I leave the room whenever he comes up.
I almost failed my freshman year of college thanks to him. It took me years to learn how to trust myself and others again. He ruined what was once upon a time my favorite place on the planet. I got over Riley a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean I ever, ever want to revisit that particularly awful period in my life.
That particularly awful text he sent me. The one I got when I was on this same ferry. God, I hope I don’t see him. I leave on Sunday morning, which means I’ll only be here for five days.
I also hope I don’t see Patrick.
Patrick and Coop are—were?—friends. I don’t think Patrick would have the balls to show up to the wedding. But he had the balls to ask me to marry him while he fucked other women behind my back, so really, who knows?
It’s been fourteen days since he walked into our townhouse as I was making dinner—our favorite meal, a kale salad made with Aunt Lady’s garlic dressing and flank steak done in Granny’s cast iron skillet—and tore my heart out of my chest, telling me he didn’t think he loved me anymore. “I can’t be faithful no matter how hard I try,” he said.
Ten days since I had a panic attack at my gynecologist’s office while a kind nurse in polka-dot scrubs poked my arm and swabbed my cervix for an STI test.
Less than one day since I moved back in (albeit temporarily) with my parents as a twenty-eight-year-old. I got rip-roaring drunk off excellent Chardonnay with my mother, who must be pickled because she woke up this morning fresh as a daisy while I feel like I got hit by a truck.
Wiping my eyes, I blink and Bald Head comes into view. It’s a flat sliver of green, punctuated by the battered concrete lighthouse lovingly known as Old Baldy.
For a second the heaviness in my chest lifts. I spent every June, July, and August out here since Granny and Pa built their house on Row Boat Row when I was six. Those summers were pure magic. Cousins. Chaos. Popsicles at the pool, and bonfires on the beach.
Then came high school graduation. Little did I know that summer would be the last I’d spend on Bald Head.
It was the best summer of my life. And then the worst.
We glide into the marina. The ferry lurches, its engines grumbling loud enough to make our bench vibrate. This time it’s Goldie who grabs onto me.
“Wow,” she breathes. “I am . . . not okay.”
I reach into my tote bag, which is wedged awkwardly between my feet. “Here, I think I still have that bag from Chick-Fil-A—”
“Oh, no, girl, I don’t need a barf bag. I need you to look.”
“Look at what?”
She gives my leg a squeeze. “Look at that.”
“Is it an alligator?” Looking up, I see Harbour Village, Bald Head’s quaint version of a downtown, come into view. The broad strokes haven’t changed since I was here last: same neat rectangle of blue-green water that makes up the marina. Same cute, cedar-shingled homes, shops, and restaurants that border the water on all sides. Same quiet sense of peace.
But the boats that bob in the slips have gotten bigger.
Much bigger.
Where there used to be cute little fishing boats and pontoons you could rent for pleasure cruises, now sleek yachts and Tony Soprano-sized trawlers rise and fall silently in the soft chop of the water. Who owns those?
Goldie scoffs. “You think I’d get this excited about an alligator? Hell no. Louise, look.”
She tilts her chin in the direction of the large, covered dock beside us. Mom turns her head and looks too. I follow her gaze to the line of porters and deckhands scrambling to tie up the ferry.
My pulse hiccups. This is where Riley used to work, hauling luggage and running fishing charters for Mr. Biggers.
But that’s not what makes me lean forward to get a better view.
“They’re naked,” I blurt.
“Some of them are mostly naked,” Goldie corrects. “I believe they’re wearing pants. Shorts. Whatever.”
Goldie’s only been to Bald Head once before. Cooper’s the one with ties to the island, his family having visited throughout his childhood.
