Not all of Megan’s interventions were going as planned. Leaping too quickly with Donna first thing that morning had in fact knocked down a series of flammable dominoes. Most upsetting, it had cast Megan as the villain, taking the spotlight off her gran. Megan spent countless minutes on a sofa with her mother in the hotel lobby trying to convince her she loved the dress she already had but simply wanted to ensure Donna felt her best. Brianna, ever the contrarian, had stomped into the lobby, a Snickers bar in hand, and declared, “I don’t see why we have to buy a new dress for Mom. I think her bazongas look resplendent in the one she has.” Somehow, in this version of the day, Brianna got to be the hero.
“Don’t get too excited, we’re just going to buy her a shawl to cover up her cleavage.” Patience waning, Megan realized her answer hadn’t passed through her normal filter; she’d been too busy trying to remember what time Leo arrived so she could coordinate her return from Friday Harbor.
“I don’t know why you’re turning Mom’s outfit into such a plot point,” Brianna said wickedly. “Mom has a banging body and should show it off if she wishes. God, Megan, you’re such an ageist.”
“I—”
“And a sexist,” Brianna added, gleefully clocking that she was getting under Megan’s skin.
The actual shopping trip didn’t fare much better. Donna was so upset over being called a floozy by Gran and by Megan’s outburst, her mood was all over the place. A British accent came and went, and she didn’t seem to have any idea what she wanted. She kept moaning about Husbands Number One and Four. To top it all off, Donna hadn’t yet heard Carol refer to the hotel as dark, so Megan’s early-morning insistence that they buy the vases and candles was ramping up her insecurities to new heights.
Megan regrouped and got a handle on her next orders of business:
Calm Donna down by continuing to build her up.
Encourage good behavior from Brianna.
Find Leo before he found her.
She felt like she was using every ounce of energy she had placating Donna and Brianna as they made their way through the shops of Friday Harbor. It was working well on her mother; however, her sister was growing increasingly suspicious.
“Why are you being so nice?” Brianna asked after Megan pointed out a retro-chic duvet cover she thought Brianna should buy for her New York bed.
“Because I care about you.” What Megan really wanted to say was Because I need to get out of this day before I give up and lobotomize myself.
Brianna scoffed. Sure, Megan hadn’t delivered that line with much emotion. She worried she wasn’t making enough headway with Brianna.
There was an ace up Megan’s sleeve for her enfant terrible of a grown sister, but she didn’t want to use it unless she really had to. If by tonight, Megan sensed she still wasn’t doing things right with Brianna and was angering the universe somehow, she’d take a more concrete approach to helping her sister move to New York.
But only if she felt it was totally necessary.
The car ride home was full of loud music and singing, though Megan’s voice strained with the force of convincing everyone she was having a great time.
Once back in Roche Harbor, Megan practically ran to the lobby, knowing Leo would be there at any moment. Her heart both soared and plummeted when she saw his back, the muscles pulling his shirt taut across his shoulders.
“Hey!” The word escaped louder and faster than she’d expected, her voice echoing through the hotel. An elderly couple looked up in alarm, as did a bellhop.
Leo seemed to turn around in slow motion. He operated at a different pace than the rest of the world. His smile rattled her resolve.
But this was the day to do things right.
“Megan.” He pulled her into a hug, the warmth of his body and his scent familiar—not just from the other versions of this day but from lifetimes past.
“Can we talk?” Her voice wobbled only slightly, as did her ankles.
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
Leo slipped his hotel key card into the pocket of his worn jeans and offered the crook of his elbow for her hand. She pretended she didn’t see it. Forgoing a long walk over to the pool, she stopped him just outside the hotel.
To the uninformed, Leo’s smile might have appeared easy. But Megan saw the worry creeping into the small creases at his eyes, the faint lines between his brows. If the uneven cobblestone didn’t bring her down, knowing what was in his heart and what she had to say might.
Just as she opened her mouth to speak, Leo said, “Wait. Before you say anything, can I have a minute? I’ve missed you for so long, I just want to enjoy not missing you.”
The interruption was throwing off the speech she’d been mentally preparing.
“I’m sorry, maybe that was the wrong thing to say,” Leo continued when she didn’t respond. “It’s just…I think about us a lot. About what happened. And I couldn’t come here without checking to make sure…is this what you want?”
You mean reliving the same day three times? Megan was tempted to say. Having my life blow up in my face, only to wake up at the beginning of the war every day still wounded from a battle that doesn’t appear to have occurred?
Instead, what came out was an impatient “Is what what I want?”
Megan was tired and thrown. Her brain wasn’t working as it should. It was Leo’s fault. He was going off script. She should’ve anticipated that changing her approach would have an impact on how he behaved. She’d never been good at improvising. Megan was a planner. And now they were having an intimate conversation out in the open.
She pulled him off to the side of the entrance, where they’d at least have a pocket of privacy.
Leo didn’t miss a beat. “This. Is this what you want? The Prescotts. Their life.” He took a deep breath, scuffing at the ground with his shoe like a lost little boy, then squinting in the sun. “I wasn’t planning on being this blunt, but you’re looking at me and you don’t seem to be the blushing bride-to-be. I care about you. I want you to be happy. Is Tom what you want? Because—”
Everything snapped into place. She couldn’t let herself fall into the philosophical loop of wondering who she’d be happier with, which life she wanted. She couldn’t believe she’d let that happen the first time he’d shown up on the island. Right now what Megan wanted was normalcy. She wanted emotions that operated within reasonable parameters and for the weekend she’d been planning for years to actually move forward. The universe had made it clear where she was supposed to be, and she had to trust that.
And so Megan replied, “Of course Tom’s who I want.”
“But—”
“Leo. This wedding is happening. My life with Tom has already happened. You have to move on.”
“Givens,” Leo pleaded, “come on, just hear me out. It might have been eight years ago, but I remember every detail of that night—that morning—we had together.”
“Like you just said, that was eight years ago.”
“So you think all my feelings have just shut down?” Leo ran his fingers through his wavy hair. “Do you know I buy a copy of GQ every time I’m at the airport? I thumb through the pages and try to figure out which ones you worked on—so I can feel closer to you.”
Megan’s breath hitched. It’d been a while since Tom had taken an interest in her work. He was so buried in his own, he simply didn’t have the bandwidth. And vice versa. Their conversations tended to revolve around what they were going to eat and watch and which of their college friends or coworkers had a baby shower coming up. This was what a decade of domesticity looked like…right? She was starting to wonder if there was more to why she and Tom didn’t feel as close as they once had. Or at least to why this one day, and its new revelations, could’ve exploded their relationship so disastrously. But this wasn’t doing things right. Everything here was wrong. Leo was wrong. She had to get rid of him.
“That’s all very sweet, Leonardo.” She regretted using his full first name the second it escaped her mouth because it contained just enough warmth to make him smile. “It’s also ridiculous. We’ve hardly spoken in years.”
“That may be true, Givens, and yet you can’t tell me there’s nothing between us.” His words, his tone, grew more serious.
He seemed to believe he was gaining ground. She had to shut him down.
She spoke with the conviction she’d had to use on many men in the media world. “I know you’ve come here thinking you have these highly romantic lingering feelings for me, but you love the thrill of the chase and I love Tom. So.”
That last syllable didn’t have the weight of finality she’d tried to infuse it with.
His laugh was timid. Bitter. She’d taken him by surprise. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Her eyes whipped up. She took inventory of Leo’s every atom and the way they formed and chilled to exude casual indifference. If you don’t choose me, I’ll go back to my life of beautiful people and even more beautiful places, the atoms seemed to say. And then his cold expression crumbled, just a little.
“I mean, I can’t talk you into loving me. I just thought…I hoped, I guess…”
The tears in his eyes weren’t fair. She had to look away. She couldn’t say she was sorry or tell him he hadn’t imagined their chemistry. She wasn’t allowed to share all those nights she’d googled his name just to feel closer to him. Those confessions would make Leo feel better and Tom, if he ever found out, feel worse. If she indulged those feelings even a little, she really would be single-handedly responsible for ruining Tom’s future, and hers. “You should go, Leo.”
“You seem to be forgetting that I’m the best man.”
“Tom will understand, trust me.” She muttered the last part under her breath.
They looked at each other, him waiting for her to crack. It wasn’t going to happen. Not today.
“I promise I’ll go if that’s what you really want. I just…” He widened his stance enough to indicate he was staying put. “Look, I know Tom’s the lawyer, but humor me for a minute. Let’s have a little debate about this whole thing.”
“You want to debate our feelings?” Irritation coiled alongside the thrill of potential banter. Part of Megan wanted to prolong their talk, to wander down this road. But she couldn’t.
“Okay, maybe not a debate. But definitely a discussion. And then…look, I’m not going to stick around if it really is him.”
“Then I’ll see you later.” Megan still couldn’t move, despite her farewell, so she added, “Don’t forget the duffel bag you dumped in the lobby.”
“But…” He moved to brush the hair that had come loose from her topknot out of her eyes before seemingly thinking better of it. “I can’t leave knowing you’re unhappy. That you might have regrets. Can you answer one question for me?”
Megan nodded. The other versions of this day hadn’t prepared her for this. Those were feeling more and more like dress rehearsals for a different play.
A family hauling endless luggage accidentally knocked into her as they tried to get to the hotel’s front entrance. She motioned for Leo to follow her toward the docks.
“How do you know it’s him? That he’s the one?”
Thankfully, he’d asked her an easy question. And so, as she always did, Megan relished the memory of Tom’s first note to her. “Do you remember the first time I came over to watch Mystery Science Theater with the two of you?”
“I mean, we watched it a lot. I don’t know if I remember the first—”
“I basically had a meltdown on your couch.”
His face softened. “Yeah. I remember.”
Megan had been hiding so much about who she was with Tom and, by extension, with Leo. She hadn’t confessed her mother’s lack of maternal skills, her emotional manipulations. She certainly hadn’t told them about the parade of subpar husbands and boyfriends Donna marched through their home. She didn’t say how alone she felt when she wasn’t with them. How much she missed Paulina. The depth of her resentment toward her brother and sister.
But that night, she’d just gotten off the phone with her mother. Donna had been in rare form, accusing Megan of abandoning the family, of being as bad as all the men who’d left her. She’d wailed as Megan stood in the middle of her dorm room, phone pressed to her cheek, clad in flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt, a partially written essay about the globalization of contemporary art on her computer screen, and took it. Every jab, every unfair accusation. She let herself be the scapegoat for her mother’s misery.
Megan didn’t fight back, and once Donna had exhausted herself, she hung up. Megan sat down in the middle of her floor and silently began to bandage her psychological wounds.
Then she stood up, brushed her hair, got dressed, and held it all in until she got to Tom and Leo’s place.
They’d greeted her with such easy joy. When they offered her a beer and a package of licorice, knowing it was her favorite candy, their unmotivated kindness was too much. She cried on their couch and let everything out. It wasn’t until after she’d composed herself that the horror of her moment of unbridled vulnerability overcame her.
They would look at her differently now.
Tom would see her as weak. High-maintenance. Someone with baggage.
The rest of the night was fine, but she’d cried herself to sleep when she got back to her dorm. The next morning, she’d overslept, then had to run to her car to retrieve a textbook. On her windshield, tucked under one of the wipers, was a note. A note that was so small and yet meant everything to her.
Megan floated out of the memory and back to Leo. “It was the note,” she said.
“Tom wrote you a note.” Leo’s voice was skeptical. “Tom texts and e-mails. He doesn’t write notes.”
“He left it on the windshield of my car back when we were freshmen. Remember that old Nissan I’d inherited from Paulina?”
A dark cloud was passing over Leo’s face. He must know he was beaten. He’d have to turn around and leave the island now.
“After I was a mess in front of you both and told Tom about my family, I was convinced he’d start pulling away. Instead he wrote me a note that said, ‘I don’t know why people call it falling when I feel like I’m soaring.’”
Even now the words gripped her. A salve, a salvation.
“Anytime I get frustrated with his family—or with him—I remember that he decided to love me unconditionally years ago. And then I vow to love him unconditionally back.”
Leo swallowed hard and nodded. “That’s great, Megan. I totally get it.”
She’d done it. Closed this chapter. Finally.
She reached out to give him one last hug. Any lingering feelings, she squashed with her resolve. She knew what she had to do.
As they embraced, he said into her ear, “Except I wrote that note.”