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“How is it yours?” I take a step toward Hope. For long moments, no one speaks. The air is thick with the thing Hope hates the most—pity.
Hope’s gaze falls on Maeve, who’s watching her with a tenderness that almost—almost—makes me want to trust Maeve too. You can’t look at someone with that much affection if you’re actively trying to hurt them, can you?
“You’ll have another chance.” Maeve sets a gentle hand on Hope’s arm. She shoots me a meaningful look and announces she’s going to meditate by the water. Hope and I are alone again.
When I reach for Hope, she steps into my embrace like it’s the most natural thing in the world. My arms wrap around her waist as her hands slide around my neck. “Are you okay?” I breathe into her hair, which smells like fire smoke, and think of our first night here.
We promised to take care of each other. What started as a joke has taken on gravity.
The words I should have said outside that bar in Newport churn somewhere in the pit of my stomach. It’s an effort to drag them past the sharp edges of my bad choices.
“I understand why you won’t say ‘I’m sorry.’ But, Hope, Brandon knows you didn’t mean what you said, even if you can’t tell him. The fact that you stayed is all the proof anyone needs.”
The bonfire crackles. Hope startles. She looks toward the flames, half her face bathed in light, the other half concealed.
She shakes her head. “That’s the thing. I did mean it.” Her voice is hollow, sending chills shivering down my spine. “I lied.”
“What?”
“I lied to you. I told you I didn’t mean what I said to Brandon—but I did. I did want a break. Maybe even more. Everyone thought Brandon and I were destined for forever, and so that’s what I thought I wanted. But I always felt like I was living someone else’s life, and I just—I loved Brandon, with my whole heart. But I wasn’t in love with him anymore. That night was the first time I’d said it out loud to him. And it was the last thing he heard.”
My heart squeezes. “Hope, you’re allowed to want something different. You’re allowed to choose something else.”
“I don’t want to be absolved of my guilt.” Her gaze lifts to mine, full of disbelief.
“What can I do?” I would give anything to fix this for her.
“Please just let me go. I need to be alone.” She steps back again.
Disappears into the darkness.
And this is what it feels like to be the one left behind.
29
HOPE
That fleeting hour before night gives way completely to day used to be our favorite time of day. It was when I used to crawl into bed after a long night shift and Brandon would curl his body around mine before he’d have to get up and go to work. Brandon and I spent that entire hour talking about everything and nothing as gray light filtered into our bedroom. Sometimes we listened to birds chirping, sometimes to the sigh of the garbage truck rumbling down the street. Sometimes we just listened to each other breathe, matching our breaths by instinct rather than choice.
It was our hour, our time to be just Hope and Brandon—not sister, son, nurse, lawyer, all the things that made it hard to remember who we were.
All the things that broke us. That had been breaking us for months.
“I want a break.” I wanted more than a break. I wanted a new life.
Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
The few early risers walking the streets flash me strange looks—maybe because I’m wearing last night’s clothes and makeup, or maybe because the truth I’ve been trying to hide is now at the surface.
Brandon and I weren’t soulmates. Our story wasn’t special. We were just two people who fell in love as kids and got caught up in the story everyone else wrote for us.
The air around me thins as I get closer to Birch. Blood roars in my ears, and each step is an effort. My aimless drifting has not been aimless. I’m done walking ... and running.
Goose bumps prickle along my skin as I spot the bench in the corner. My breath saws in and out of me as images and moments come—the same ones that haunt my dreams and the hours that I haven’t been able to fill with work.
On the street, cars follow a familiar traffic pattern. The traffic light—thetraffic light—flashes from red to green. A blue van honks at the driver of the white sedan that’s first in line to go. The driver, a teenage boy, pops his head up from his phone and presses down hard on the gas, overcompensating for not paying attention.
The wheels screech as they work to find purchase on the gravel. It’s not brakes squealing, but the sound sends my stomach to my toes. The world feels as if it’s narrowed to just the intersection.
