Whether it was out of morbid curiosity or because she was moving in some sort of trance, Megan continued on through the day as she already had once before. Although, by skipping the part where she’d met Tom at the ferry, Megan found herself in the hotel lobby at the same time Paulina arrived. She held on to that small change in her day like a precious heirloom. Proof she wasn’t losing her grip on reality.
There were the family members you were born with and the family members you chose; Paulina Tate-Shahid was both to Megan. Despite being the much younger sister of Megan’s erratic mother, Paulina had a calming presence—and a wicked wit.
While nervously sipping her extra-large coffee and waiting for Donna, Megan saw her aunt. Paulina’s husband, Hamza, was beside her, hauling their luggage. Megan ran to them. “Paulina!”
Her aunt embraced her fully, her pregnant belly wedged between them. “Hi, my darling girl. Hamza and I are so excited to be here.”
“So excited she may piddle on the floor,” Hamza added, a twinkle in his warm maple-syrup eyes.
Paulina spun on him, her endless auburn locks twirling with her. She held up an index finger. “Once. That happened once. And in my defense, this kid of ours seems to have set up camp on my bladder.”
“You look gorgeous,” Megan said as Hamza kissed Paulina’s forehead sweetly.
“I look like I swallowed another person. Who’s also pregnant.”
Megan laughed despite her unease at the inexplicable day she was having. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have some voices of reason here.”
Paulina and Hamza exchanged a knowing look.
For the first fourteen years of Megan’s life, Paulina had lived down the street, babysitting her and her siblings whenever Donna would abruptly leave, claiming she had a job interview, only to return smelling of cigarette smoke and perfume samples.
Megan had been crushed when Paulina left to do her undergraduate degree at Boston University, which felt light-years away from Great Falls. But it was one of their first long-distance conversations that had clarified her own path. Megan had told Paulina about a photography class she was taking in which she was documenting how a recent drought had affected Montana, and Paulina said, “Oh, Megan, that’s amazing. I can definitely see you spending your days telling stories. Artists aren’t created, you know. They’re born. That’s who you’ve been since day one.”
Her words had flipped a switch in Megan. She began watching documentaries, admiring how filmmakers brought focus to overlooked stories, infused them with atmosphere and context. Paulina went on to pursue a graduate degree in England, where she fell in love with Hamza and decided to stay permanently, so Megan’s horizons expanded even further.
Applying to Ivy League schools was Megan’s version of making a wish and blowing dandelion seeds into the wind. She didn’t expect her wish to come true. And yet the acceptances rolled in, so she chased the legacy of her aunt, the only role model she’d ever had, to Massachusetts, believing she had two options: become Donna or emulate Paulina.
At Harvard she’d found purpose. And Tom.
“How are you holding up?” Paulina tucked some stray hairs behind Megan’s ear. “Where’s everyone else?”
As though on cue, Brianna breezed into the lobby, already halfway through a monologue about how she’d exacerbated Donna’s self-consciousness with one “innocent” comment about her bazongas.
Paulina gave Megan a quick squeeze and took Hamza by the hand. “We’re going to get checked in and settled. Good luck.”
The day took a familiar shape from there. Megan rode to Friday Harbor for an impromptu and wholly unnecessary shopping trip with Brianna and Donna. When Brianna brought up staying with her and Tom in New York, Megan stopped herself from saying that she was apparently moving to Missouri, because with any luck, that part would stay in her dream. A small relief amid all the confusion.
“Has anyone heard from Alistair?” Brianna asked out of the blue as they drove back to Roche. Brianna had never been comfortable with silence.
Donna openly ignored the question. Megan shook her head, both an answer and a Don’t go down this road gesture. Donna was very sensitive about matters concerning her firstborn, and Megan wasn’t sure she could take any more of her mother’s antics this morning.
“Well,” Donna huffed, “if you hear from him, remind him he still has a mother, should he ever want to speak to her.”
“I’d text him, but he told me not to,” Brianna continued, oblivious to the emotional temperature shift. “He said he doesn’t always have international plans on his phone and my messages were costing him too much money.”
This time Megan ignored Brianna too.
Despite a few variations here and there, Megan was experiencing everything she had the day before and the repetition left her feeling more and more disoriented. As the details added up, she was finding it increasingly difficult to believe it had all just been a dream.
She was so thrown, she ignored every call and message from Tom. She couldn’t trust herself to have a normal conversation with him, was terrified she’d blurt out echoes of their fight from the night before or let something slip about Leo. Until she could fully understand what was happening, she needed to keep her head down.
And she did. Right up until she realized she was approaching her potential run-in with Leo. That, she definitely could not handle a second time. She’d barely survived the first.
The only mature response to this was to hide.
As Donna parked the car back at the hotel, Megan could only assume Leo was in the lobby. “I’m going to go for a walk,” she told her mother and Brianna.
“Maybe she’s making a run for it,” Brianna stage-whispered to Donna. “I wouldn’t blame her. Tom’s the exception. The rest of the Prescotts are real pieces of work.”
As Megan weaved up the steep driveway toward the island’s private residences, she heard her mother say, “Oh, Brianna. Watch your mouth. Wouldn’t you put up with a little snobbery for that lifestyle?”
Her sandals kept slipping on the gravel path. A trail of sweat was making its way from underneath her thick hair down the length of her spine. Most distressing, she had no solid game plan. Megan’s only strategy was to stay away from Leo. It was shortsighted, considering he was the best man at her wedding, but it was all she had.
Once she dead-ended at a wealthy private home, one designed by a real-life Disney architect who’d created some iconic sets (a fact Megan had been thrilled to learn in her youth), she was trapped. If she lurked nearby and there were people in the house, they’d likely call security. Damn it. Where could she go?
She started pushing her way through the dense forest and brush, her legs getting scraped, spiderwebs snagging her body, her hair increasing in size with the mugginess. By the time she popped out the other side, she was in shambles—thin streaks of blood on her legs from thistles, the topknot she’d put her hair in earlier totally wild. Her eyes felt as though they could leap from her head at any moment.
Megan found herself near the back employee parking lot of the hotel. Relieved, she sat in the shade of a maple tree. She dabbed at the sweat on her forehead and was attempting to arrange her hair into a bun when she heard her name.
“Megan?”
She could weep; she could run. But suddenly this meeting felt inevitable. The only way out was through. “Hi, Leo.”
“Hey!” He jogged toward her, clearly expecting her to stand and give him a hug. When she stayed put, he knelt down beside her. It was hardly fair of him to catch her in this state. Especially since Leo always looked so comfortable in his skin—not to mention his clothes. On Leo, a T-shirt that cost five dollars looked like it cost five hundred. Something about how he carried himself made casual seem couture.
“I’ve been searching for you,” he said. “You look—”
“Like Bigfoot’s bride?”
“I was going to say beautiful. Although…” He carefully picked a few twigs and a small leaf from her hair and handed them to her like peace offerings.
But there was no peace where Leo was concerned. She knew that now, although she still couldn’t decipher how or why.
“Can I talk to you? Please?” His voice was tentative, but he had a spark in his eye. A look that dared her to say yes, to love him. Leo, with his lazy smile and easy charm, was meant to be adored. And Megan had adored him. But that adoration was self-destructive. More than she’d let herself realize in her late-night fantasies. Because Leo was the type of guy Donna would choose—unpredictable and wild.
A pang of nostalgia, so sharp it made her short of breath, came on suddenly. She remembered the first time she and Leo had hung out, just the two of them. Tom had strep throat and they’d decided to go to CVS to find things to cheer him up. They’d bought a yo-yo, a packet of baseball cards, Popsicles the color of nuclear waste, and teen magazines with quizzes like “What Shade of Lip Stain Best Represents Your Personality?” and “Are You Ready to Tell Him How You Feel?” They’d laughed so hard in the incontinence aisle, Megan nearly peed. Leo, oversize brat that he was, offered to buy Megan a package of Depends.
She briefly indulged one of her favorite forbidden daydreams of living out of a tent with Leo, him scouting locations for new tours while she pursued the subject of her documentary, the one that would sweep the awards at international film festivals. They’d have no family members for miles and miles. And she wouldn’t have to work at a job she’d taken because it was convenient for his career.
Because that’s exactly what she’d done for Tom. While he went to law school, she’d stayed in Cambridge with him and got her master’s. When he moved to New York to be an associate at his dad’s law firm, she’d gotten a job at GQ so they’d be together. Every decision she’d made was to stay in step with him. What would things look like now if she hadn’t?
In another life she could’ve chosen the path that would take her through the brambles with Leo. She could’ve dropped the idea of security and pursued passion instead. Together they could’ve spent months off the grid, making love in shabby tents, pretending everyone else had evaporated from the earth.
In another life.
Or this one.
Her skin prickled. The thought was a betrayal of everything she believed. So Megan did what she always did when her resentments grew too loud. She plucked a Tom memory from the drawer in her mind that she kept locked up and safe just for moments like this. The memory was of the first note Tom had ever written her (not including the Cure lyrics in her notebook). She recited the note’s contents to herself, just as she did whenever her doubts about Tom loomed too large.
“Come on, Megan.” Leo picked a few blades of grass and playfully tossed them at her nose to get her attention. “You’ve been avoiding me for years—don’t think I haven’t noticed. You can give me ten minutes now.”
“I’ll give you two,” she said, against her better judgment.
Leo chuckled. “Remember when you used to time me to see how fast I could get to the liquor store and back with more beer?”
“You’d always show up with these weird craft-brewery samples that had flavors like Fruity Pebbles and Bull Testicle.” She shook her head at the memory. “You now have one minute.”
“You’re killing me, Givens.” Leo rubbed at his eyes in frustration. “We have this unspoken conversation between us that’s been steeping for eight years and I don’t know where to even start.”
“Thirty seconds, Leo.”
“Givens. Please. Just hear me out?” While Leo waited for her to respond, he continued to pick nervously at the grass, an alluring smile on his face but fear in his eyes. “Aren’t you afraid of what you’re signing up for? Of what you’re signing away? I care about you, Givens. I’m worried about you. I just…your happiness means a lot. To me. And it should mean a lot to you too. I just have to know. Are you happy?”
She risked a look at her former best friend, a hundred different scenarios playing out in her mind, underscored by the sound of her own voice chanting, What do you want? What will make you happy?
Megan thought of the gifts Leo had sent her and Tom over the years. When they’d moved to SoHo, Leo sent them a sculpture by an artist she loved as a housewarming gift. Two Christmases prior, they’d received a rare copy of Megan’s favorite episode of Mystery Science Theater. Leo sent gifts they’d both enjoy but that were particularly meaningful to Megan. She didn’t know whether to be flattered or appalled.
Before she could decide just what to say to him, what magical combination of words would make everything right, a shadow loomed over their heads. She looked up, expecting for a moment to see Tom. It was merely a cloud passing over the sun.
This was why everything was happening again.
Maybe Megan was psychic and whatever she had experienced the day before was a warning. Was she supposed to choose a different path? Megan absorbed that…if so, this was her second chance. She was getting a do-over. An opportunity not to get caught up in reliving a decade-old mistake that shouldn’t matter. Didn’t matter.
She had friends who subscribed to the theory that the universe gave them signs, that there was some sort of—not necessarily a God, but a divine tapestry of energy guiding people toward their destinies.
Rebooting an entire day was a hell of a sign. And Megan was not going to ignore it.
Today was about leaving Leo in her past, about keeping her one error in judgment in the shadows so she could embrace her trajectory with Tom. Above everything else, Tom was her future. He had to be.
Because why else would they have stayed together for twelve years? And even though things weren’t perfect, and it could sometimes feel like they were stuck in a rut, they still had so much good between them. When their demanding jobs and even more demanding families didn’t get in the way, when she didn’t let herself resent him for being the sole decision-maker, she knew what they had was special. He could still give her butterflies with his sexy smile, make her laugh with an inside joke. And she never felt safer or more secure than when she was with him. Everything with Leo was unstable. Unpredictable. Unwritten. But Tom, Megan’s Tom—he was safe.
“I don’t have time for this today, Leo.” Megan stood, brushing stray strands of grass off her jersey dress. “What happened between us happened when we were kids. It has nothing to do with Tom and me now.”
As she left Leo behind, Megan could feel the phantom I miss you note in her hand, so she mentally cradled the first note Tom had ever written her in her other palm. She squeezed her fists tight, running off toward the salon, wanting to proceed with her appointments, with the festivities of the weekend and the plans that had been set long ago. No more distractions.
She was getting a do-over, and this time, when she showed up to the rehearsal dinner in her beautiful dress to sit with her beautiful fiancé, the evening would end with a kiss.