When Megan showed up for her salon appointment, the receptionist informed her Donna had canceled it. Canceled everyone’s. She’d told the receptionist there’d been a family emergency.
Vacillating between calling her mother to check on her and leaving her be, Megan finally settled on making the best of a situation that wasn’t actually terrible. In fact, getting ready for the rehearsal dinner with Paulina and Brianna in Paulina’s room ended up being much more fun.
Megan was pretending this was her first time through this, and the fantasy was blissful.
It was a small act of doing exactly what she wanted. Not as dramatic as running away with a college crush or hijacking her grandparents’ boat, but still, it was a victory. That life she wanted, the picture of it, was becoming less fuzzy.
Paulina, Brianna, and Megan reminisced about summers spent on the island—the times they’d rented scooters and had slow races up winding roads framed by endless forests; the game they’d played where they’d buy the grossest candies they could find and eat them blindfolded, trying to guess the flavors.
Megan almost never saw Brianna without Donna lurking in the shadows, but now they were remembering that they actually enjoyed each other’s company. That, in addition to sharing a mother, they also shared a sense of humor and so many good memories.
“Should I check on Mom?” Brianna asked in a rare show of selflessness.
“I texted her and invited her to join us, but she said she needed some time to herself. Just leave her be, Bree.” Paulina finished applying a second coat of mascara to her lashes and turned around. “Now. Please lie to me and tell me I look radiant, because my sciatic nerve is acting up and I have hemorrhoids the size of baby chicks.”
Megan laughed and grabbed Brianna’s hand, and together they hugged her, making a Paulina sandwich.
“You’re gorgeous,” Megan assured her.
“A true yummy mummy,” Brianna chimed in.
This rare alliance with Brianna reminded Megan of their childhood. When the winter temperatures would plummet and blizzards would descend, they’d tiptoe into the basement and hang an old sheet over the nook under the stairs using thumbtacks, and Megan would read to her little sister. Their favorite book was Matilda. After every chapter, they’d put a small object on the floor in front of them and try to move it with their minds.
It was funny how the years had made Megan forget how much she used to genuinely enjoy being with Brianna. It was helpful that, in this version of the day, Brianna hadn’t even mentioned her move to New York yet, though Megs knew it would eventually come up.
But before she could deal with her sister, she had another flame to extinguish. One she’d let burn for far too long.
She inspected her makeup one last time, had Brianna zip up her dress, and blew them both kisses. “I have to go check on a few details,” she lied.
“Of course you do.” Brianna rolled her eyes. “Megan Givens, first of her name, keeper of to-do lists and master of efficiency.”
“I’ll take that title.”
“Good luck.” Paulina blew her a kiss. “Let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.”
A kaleidoscope of butterflies hatched in Megan’s stomach as she walked out of the hotel. She planned to catch Leo on his way to the restaurant, so she lurked in the shadows of the trees, taking up residence at a table outside the hotel’s miniature market. It offered a good view of both the hotel lobby and the restaurant’s entrance.
She shouldn’t be nervous. She’d seen Leo so many times in so many ways over the past few days. But since she’d successfully avoided him during this incarnation, this would be his first time seeing her.
She’d spent the morning on one of her favorite trails on the island. After wrestling with what she wanted and what moving forward could look like, she’d gained the insight she needed.
Now all she had to do was communicate this to Leo and hope he’d understand.
She recognized his lazily confident gait, smiling at his familiar gesture of running his hands over his hair, an indication, she now understood, that he was nervous. She waved at him, leaning forward until the lights from the market bathed her face.
As he drew nearer, his smile grew. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“I know.”
“You know?” His smile faltered just a little. “Have you been avoiding me, Givens? Because that’d be par for the course, considering the past ten years.”
“Eight,” she corrected him. There was a tug in her chest.
The one thing she couldn’t get used to as she relived this day was how she had to wait for him to catch up, listen to him address her as though for the first time.
Saying goodbye to him wouldn’t be easy, but she was ready. That tug in her chest wasn’t one of longing or regret. It was a response to knowing she could move on from him. Finally.
“You were my biggest what-if,” she told him once he’d taken a seat. He scooted his chair closer and they both winced as its legs scraped against the cobblestone.
“I’m nervous,” he admitted. “Because you’ve been my biggest what-if too. And if we pause this conversation right here, I can live in a world where you feel the same way I do. But if this conversation continues, I’m afraid you’re going to say something that’ll break my heart.”
“I don’t want to break your heart, Leo,” she offered truthfully. “But I realized something very recently—you and I have been using the memory of what happened between us as an escape. As long as we didn’t pursue anything further, this relationship of ours could be the perfect fantasy. But that’s just what it is. A fantasy.”
His eyes shone in the twilight. “How do you know it’s just a fantasy? I know I could make you happy. More than anything, Givens, I want to see you happy.”
“Happiness is fleeting. And there are already a lot of incredible and wonderful things in my life,” she said. “I don’t have any regrets right now, Leo, even though you think I do. In another life, you and I could be really great friends. But it’s too late for that. Too much has happened. And as far as a relationship goes, we don’t want the same things. You think you know me, but you only see the qualities that align with you. And I know that even if we let anything happen between us, it wouldn’t last.”
She let eight years of tension ease out of her body, relieved to have told him the truth. To have told herself the truth. “We aren’t each other’s endgame, Leo.”
He shook his head, reaching for her hand. “How can you be so sure? Aren’t we just going to walk away from tonight wondering What if again?”
Megan gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it. “Not this time, we won’t.”
“But…”
The morning she’d graduated, after they’d had sex on the roof, there’d been a moment between realizing what time it was and rushing off so she wouldn’t be late to meet Tom and his parents. A moment when time seemed to take a breath. She’d often thought back to that moment, to what she could have said or should have done. Some nights she imagined she’d grabbed his hand and they’d hopped in her Nissan and driven off wherever the highway took them. Other nights she’d envisioned telling him it was a mistake and that he should never contact her or Tom again.
But that moment had been all it needed to be. A breath. And sometimes it was hard to remember to breathe.
It was nearing seven o’clock. Megan stood up from the table, indicating he should too. That it was the end. “Goodbye, Leo. I hope you find a lot of happiness out there.”
Without a backward glance, Megan walked away, feeling lighter than she ever had.
It was okay not to have all the answers right now. Because at least she finally saw what she needed to hold on to and what she was ready to let go.