June 23rd
I’M SECONDS AWAY from drifting off to sleep when my phone buzzes on the bedside table. It’s probably Terry, I think, with more bad publicity news, or an addition to the fall tour schedule I’ll have to stress about. Maybe a label guy, wondering when to expect the new music. Or my mom, who still likes to check in and say good night.
Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.
Thirty seconds later: another buzz. I sigh and flip the screen over, the blue glow illuminating the dark of my small room.
Two texts from Jed: Hi, and then, You there?
A quick burst of adrenaline shoots through my veins. I’d finally managed to stop obsessing over the last time he called. Since he didn’t leave a message, I’d convinced myself that it was an accident. A pocket dial, or an awkward slip of his thumb.
But now there’s proof. He finally wants to talk.
It’s been eleven days. Eleven days since my life collapsed, my world turned totally upside down. It feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at once.
I swipe the screen awake. My thumbs hover over the keypad. Do I answer? Right after the breakup, it would have been easy. All Jed would have needed to say was that he’d made a mistake. That he missed me and wanted things to go back to the way they were. We could wipe the slate clean, pretend that none of it had ever happened.
But now, it’s different. The things he said—the things that were printed—will live on, long after the magazines have been tossed in the trash. Anytime anyone searches my name, it will all come back. We were a team, and now we’re not. It’s over.
I toss my phone back onto the nightstand and lean heavily into the pillows. I feel almost sick. How can somebody be two people at the same time? There’s Jed, the guy on the balcony I couldn’t wait to get to know, the person I imagined would be my other half forever. Jed, the guy who knew exactly how I was feeling, exactly what I was going through, exactly all of the time.
And then there’s the other Jed, at the restaurant, playing with his soup. Jed in print, telling our secrets, betraying my trust, making me look like a fool.
I groan and throw off the covers. Sleep is definitely out of the question.
Through the window, the moon is big and ringed in gauzy white. I pull on a long cardigan over my pajamas and stuff my journal and a pen into the oversize front pocket. Maybe I can distract myself by writing. I creep downstairs and find my flip-flops and a towel.
Outside, the air smells like rain. Afternoon showers kept us inside most of the day. I had taken out my guitar for the first time since we’ve been here and messed around while Sammy read and Tess tried to nap. I hadn’t played music just for fun in a while. Without the stress of trying to come up with a melody, it started to feel natural again.
I follow the moonlit path to the stretch of beach behind our house. It’s quiet, and a little bit eerie, and I think for a minute about turning back, but there’s something about the ocean that draws me in. I need to feel something big, bigger than the doubts and anxieties that live inside my head. Something powerful and self-assured.
I strip and leave my clothes and towel in a pile on the rocky shore, then splash into the ocean before I have time to change my mind. The water is brutal and exhilarating. It shocks my limbs and turns them instantly numb. My heart feels like it’s stopped beating. Good, I think. Maybe if my heart is frozen, it will stop aching once and for all. Moments or minutes later, when I feel on the verge of true hypothermia, I stumble over the rocks toward the beach.
Back on dry land, I close myself in the big, warm towel, and stare up at the glow of the moon. Ahead, the coastline stretches out for miles. I find a clear patch of sand, wiggle into my clothes, and nestle into a spot on the shore.
I lean back and close my eyes. A snatch of melody has been running through my mind since this afternoon. Sometimes it feels like songs flutter in and out of my consciousness like teasing butterflies, daring me to catch them.
I almost have the lyrics—something about morning amnesia, waking up in a strange bed and remembering, every time, that you’re alone. When I open my eyes each day, I’ve forgotten where I am, and why I’m here. It’s sort of like meeting yourself for the first time, just for a moment, before it all comes rushing back.
It’s not only the fact that I’m in a strange house. For the first time in years, I’m totally and completely unattached. The last time I spent a full week on my own was when I’d recently moved to LA. In what is now essentially part of the public record, I took a waitressing job and worked all of one shift before quitting. Sebastian was at my first table. He asked for my number with the check, and we went out the next night. Three weeks after that, we moved in together.
I’m not exactly used to taking things slow.
The melody—simple, and a little bit melancholy—runs through my whole body, but as soon as I find it, it’s gone again. I open my eyes and stare up at the star-studded sky, waiting for something, anything, to find me.
There’s a whooshing sound in my ears. My eyes snap open, dusty sunlight blurring the horizon. What time is it? Have I been out here all night? I hear a ragged panting and feel a slobbery tongue on my cheek. I sit up in alarm, but it’s quickly replaced by a pleasant surprise: there’s a long-haired black-and-white dog investigating my towel.
“Hi there, handsome.” I nuzzle the dog’s nose and he licks me again, this time more aggressively, until I’m pinned on my back, smothered in his salty, damp fur.
“Murphy!” a voice calls from down the beach. In the dim morning light, I see the shadow of a person running, a head bobbing up and down at the water’s edge. “Murphy, come!”
I’m laughing, shielding my face with my arms to ward off any further advances, when someone appears beside me.
“Murphy, enough,” the guy says firmly, lugging the dog by the scruff of his neck and nudging him behind his legs. His face is turned away, but I recognize the subtle smile in his voice. Noel. “Sorry. He’s usually not so forward.”
I wipe the slobber from my cheek and smile. “No problem.” The dog grips one of my flip-flops in his teeth and takes off toward the water.
“Murphy!” Noel groans. “Are you kidding me?”
“Let him go.” I laugh. “He’s having so much fun.”
“You sure?” he asks. “He’s probably going to sell it on eBay or something. He has pretty questionable morals.”
“Yeah,” I say, watching as the dog darts up and down the winding beach, waving my shoe back and forth like a giant chew toy. “He seems like a real menace.”
Noel chuckles, still out of breath from running up the beach.
“Do you want to sit?” I ask. “Looked like you worked up to a full sprint there.”
“That was nothing. You should see me when he steals a wallet.” He settles into the sand beside me. I fiddle with the tattered seam of the towel and pull down the sleeves of my sweater. Noel stares out at the calm of the ocean, and I sneak a glance at his profile. It still seems insane, and almost cruel, that there could be somebody so spine-tinglingly good-looking on an island so remote, and that I would end up sitting beside him, alone, on a beach, at sunrise.
I try to distract myself by wondering how old he is. His blue eyes are deep and ageless, but there’s something boyish about him, too. Even when he’s not smiling, there’s a lightness to him, like he’s remembering a joke he’s not yet ready to share.
“You live near here?” I ask, trying to strike a perfect balance of breezy and polite.
Noel gestures up the beach toward a cluster of houses on a hill. “Just beyond the point,” he says. “There’s a path. It’s a bit of a hike from the water. That’s where the real people live.”
“Real people?”
“Year-rounders,” he explains. “People from here.”
“Not Tess,” I clarify.
“Not Tess. Not you,” he says. “You’re from away.”
“You can say that again,” I say, hearing the wistful self-pity in my voice and wishing I could erase it. I clear my throat. “What about you? You grew up here, I know. But do you still live here all the time?”
“Every day,” he says. “I left for college, but only lasted a little while. There’s a lot to complain about, especially in the winter, but after growing up here, it’s hard to live anywhere else.”
“I can see why.” I look out at the painted clouds creeping around the rising sun. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve spent this much time outside. It’s amazing how far away everything else feels. In a good way.”
“It’s like everything’s on a different scale,” he says. “Stripped down or something.”
I nod. It’s exactly how I’ve been feeling. Unencumbered. Raw. Exposed.
We’re quiet again for a moment, sitting in an easy, comfortable silence. It’s hard to believe this is the same guy from the car accident, the same guy from the boat. I no longer feel the insane urge to make him like me because, I realize with a jolt, he’s sort of acting like he does.
“Sorry, about before,” he says suddenly, as if reading my mind.
“What do you mean?” I ask innocently.
He sighs, leaning back to look me in the eyes. “I wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest host.”
I stare at him carefully, waiting to see if he’ll say more.
“Bad day?” I ask when he doesn’t.
“A few of them,” he says with a tentative smile. It’s a smile I recognize right away: the one you try on when your face wants to be happy but the rest of you hasn’t quite caught up. It’s been a permanent part of my wardrobe, of late. “And when you . . . when I saw you . . .”
“You thought I was some privileged celebrity here to invade your island and screw up your summer?” I guess.
Noel runs his hand through his hair sheepishly. Adorably. “Not in so many words, but . . . something like that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “I understand.” I look out at the ocean and watch Murphy splashing in the frothy surf. A breeze rolls off the water and I pull my sweater closer.
“Did you sleep out here?” he asks, as if noticing for the first time that my hair is full of sand.
“I guess so.” I laugh. “I came out last night to go for a swim, and the next thing I knew . . .”
His eyes widen in surprise. “You went in? You’re insane!”
“I am?”
“I don’t swim in this water until the middle of August.” Noel shakes his head. “Nobody does.”
“It was refreshing,” I insist. “You should try it.”
Noel cocks his head as if he’s trying to figure out if any of this is real. “This has got to be pretty different from the way you normally vacation, right?” he says. “Private yachts. Infinity pools. That’s more your scene, I bet.”
“You have me all figured out,” I say. “Ibiza or bust.”
He laughs, a genuine laugh that makes my cheeks warm with pride. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to work so hard to earn a real laugh from somebody. I realize, with surprise, that I like it.
“My sister is going to lose it,” he says. “I promised her the next time I hung out with you guys I’d bring her along. She’s kind of obsessed.”
“Really?” I smile.
“Really,” he says. “It’s weird. I mean, she’s fourteen. But she’s super smart.”
“And smart people don’t like my music?”
“No, I didn’t mean . . .” Noel lowers his head onto his crossed forearms. “This is why I try not to talk. It usually just gets me in trouble.”
“I’d like to meet her,” I say. “Your sister.”
“You will.” Noel lifts his head back up. “She’s probably hiding in the bushes right now. Or she would be, if she hasn’t stayed up all night doing her homework.”
“Homework?” I ask. “Isn’t school out for the summer?”
“She takes classes,” he says. “For fun. She’s not normal.”
“She sounds great.”
“She is.” Noel stares up at the blue sky and stretches his legs out toward the ocean. “She’s the reason I came back.”
It’s clear there’s more to the story, and I get a strange sensation that he wants to talk about it, but I feel like I’ve done enough prying for one morning. “Well, I hope you didn’t tell her what a terrible driver I am,” I say lightly.
“I sure did,” he says. “I also told her you were a pretty solid first mate.”
I sneak another glance at him, trying to fight back a smile. “I can live with that.”
Noel looks at me for another long moment, like he wants to say something else. But instead of speaking, he hops up to his feet, hooks two fingers in his mouth, and whistles loudly. “Let’s go, you lunatic,” he calls to Murphy, who sprints toward us, my flip-flop still clenched in his jaws.
“Give the lady back her shoe,” Noel orders, and amazingly, the dog obeys, dropping it onto the sand between my feet.
“Wow. You really have him trained.”
“You wouldn’t believe the money I spend on treats,” he says. “He’s got expensive taste. Only organic.”
I scratch behind Murphy’s ears. “It was nice to meet you,” I say as the dog licks me one last time.
“The pleasure is all his,” Noel says gallantly. “Glad to see you’re keeping off the roads.”
I hug my sweater tighter. “Strictly pedestrian,” I vow.
He taps the outside of his dark jeans and starts walking, Murphy skipping behind him to keep up. He’s almost to the water when he turns around and cups his hands around his mouth. “Hey! Can I ask you something?” he calls out.
“Sure!” I yell back.
“Would you want to maybe hang out sometime?”
Before I can help myself, I’m laughing, harder than I have in a long time. Partially because it’s so unexpected, and I’m not sure how else to respond, but also because I’ve just spent the night in the sand and a guy I barely know is yelling at me on a beach. And for some stupid, misguided, and all-too-familiar reason, I don’t want him to stop. Murphy runs back and sniffs my ankles, and Noel follows.
“Sorry,” he says. “I thought it might be easier that way, in case you said no.”
“Okay,” I say, regaining my composure and standing up at last.
“Okay, you want to hang out?”
“Sure,” I say, even though everything rational in me knows it’s the opposite of what I should be saying. The opposite of why I’m here. The last thing I need to do. “Why not?”
“Cool.” He smiles, wrinkling the corners of his crystal-blue eyes. “Like, at a reasonable hour, maybe?” He points to my pajamas. “You could wear real clothes.”
“I’d like that.”
Noel nods, as if still convincing himself that I actually said yes. “Right. Okay. So we’ll hang out.”
“We’ll hang out.”
We stand there, sort of awkwardly nodding at each other for a second, until I remember my journal in the pocket of my sweater. “Here,” I say, handing him a pen. “Write down your number.”
He scribbles it sideways in the margins of a blank page. “Just, you know. Don’t go passing it around,” he fake-whispers. “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”
“Scout’s honor,” I promise.
He holds up his hand in that same lazy wave and calls to Murphy again. They run back along the water toward the faraway cluster of houses. I watch as they get smaller, bobbing alongside the coastline, turning the bend and disappearing around the point. I gather my things and head back up the path, shaking my head.
Here we go again.