“I need to do this, Dyl.”
First he’d wanted to drive the unpaved back roads without guardrails, and now he needed to jump fifty feet into a pool of water that was maybe twenty feet deep? What was next? Skydiving without a parachute? Two young couples, probably in their twenties, were walking toward them, and she didn’t want them to overhear her trying to convince him this was a bad idea. It was already too embarrassing to admit that her feelings weren’t going to weigh into his decision. That he simply didn’t care what she thought. She knew he was jumping whether she wanted him to or not.
“Fine. But if you end up paralyzed, I’m not going to wipe your ass and spoon-feed you applesauce. That will be your wifey’s job.”
“Harsh,” James said, and hurled his body over the edge before she could respond. She watched him fall into the water below, his body a rigid, straight line. He plunged below the surface, feet first, and finally reappeared, letting out a wooooh! and pumping his fist above the water. The two couples behind her oohed and aahed over James’s jump, thankfully not noticing the tension on Dylan’s face long after he’d sailed over the edge. They might have been impressed, but Dylan wasn’t.
James had been right: nothing had happened to him. But in the last two minutes, something had happened to her. She’d seen a side of James she hadn’t known was there, or hadn’t wanted to believe existed. She couldn’t be sure. She was forced to accept the truth. Their little bubble could be penetrated by reality after all. She liked existing in it not just because it shielded them from the rest of the world, but because it hid their flaws. If they spent all their time drinking and dancing at bars or rolling around between the sheets, they didn’t have to deal with tense situations like these, where their true personalities would shine through. But on this vacation, where they were spending so much time together, the flaws were coming out without permission.
And now Dylan realized one very important thing about James that was not going to change: he was going to do what he wanted, when he wanted, whether she agreed with him or not. She pressed her hand to her stomach and sighed. What did that mean for their future?
CHAPTER THIRTY
JACKS—AFTER
“What was that all about?” Beth and I are standing next to the Jeep, and I glance back toward the restaurant wondering if Nick is going to follow us out. Wanting him to appear almost as much as not. “You storming out like that?”
“Nothing.” I say. A huge lie. Obviously.
“It definitely wasn’t nothing,” Beth says slowly, pursing her lips to accentuate her point. “It just seemed like a real fight, you know, like one between—”
“Between whom?” I dare her with my eyes. Say it. Accuse me.
“I don’t know. Never mind,” she says, wringing her hands.
I release a long steady stream of air through my lips. Thank God. I’m not ready to discuss Nick. Or our relationship. Or whatever it is. I’m not even sure I could put it into words if I tried. All I know is I’m pissed at him for not wanting to finish what he started in Maui. Or maybe I’m pissed at him for not wanting to finish what he started with me.
“So now what?” Beth asks.
I wait a beat, watching my sister. Imagining if it had been her husband who’d been in Maui with his mistress when he was supposed to be on a business trip in Kansas. She would collapse into herself. Thinking first about their three kids—how would they move forward? Then eventually about herself. But in between, she’d be like a lab rat in a maze, desperately trying to find her way out, but only hitting dead end after dead end. Because Mark is her center. Her gravitational pull. His yin to her yang. Sure, she’s buttoned up, and I guarantee she printed an Excel spreadsheet of her kids’ activities and prepped a slow-cooker pork roast before she left for her flight here this morning, but that’s part of her routine.
But this. This would paralyze her.
I’m not saying the same hasn’t happened to me, that I’m not half of who I was. But it’s different. James and I were a mess more than we weren’t. Always one terse word away from someone sleeping on that damn red chenille couch. Even though I had no idea he was cheating on me, that he was lying to me, it wasn’t an unusual occurrence for us to be shocking each other, pushing the edges of our relationship, testing our endurance. But I’d naively thought we kept the betrayals inside the walls of our own house. That our messy relationship was the canvas of our life together.
“I’m calling Officer Keoloha,” I say, and press his name in my phone.
And he answers. Just like he always has. Thank God this man hasn’t stopped taking my calls, hasn’t given up on me. Beth watches as I tell him I’m at the Hana Ranch Restaurant with my sister. And that I’m ready to see where the accident happened. He tells me to stay put. That he’ll come right over. And I think about this man whom I’ve never met in person, but who has listened to me cry, babble, question, you name it—without so much as a complaint—and I wonder how he’s able to be so unflappable, how he can do his job without getting emotionally attached.
I think of Nick again. And the pressure he’s constantly under as a firefighter, the pain and anguish he sees. And I wonder if it simply takes a certain type of man—who is calm, who knows his limits. Nick must really know himself, how much he can take. And that what he will see and feel if he goes to the accident scene, he won’t be able to detach from.
“He’s coming,” I say to Beth after I end the call.
“And then what?” she asks, wringing her hands. The planner in her needing to know what comes next.
“And then we go,” I say, looking down at my feet, noticing the polish on my big toe is chipped.
“What do you think Nick’s going to do?” She glances at the restaurant.
“I have no idea,” I say, following her gaze to the front patio where we can see a couple with matching vests and white hair perusing a guidebook and sipping fruity drinks. I feel my eyes well with tears thinking of what Nick said about wanting to grow plastic-hip old with Dylan. And it really hits me that I’ll never know James with gray hair. That he’ll never see the lines that will eventually crease my face. “Am I crazy?”
Beth puts her arm around me, and I lean into her. “No. Not at all. You’re brave.”
“Me? Brave?” I scoff. She might as well be telling me I’m a supermodel.
“Yeah, you.” She gives me a long look. “You’re stronger than you think, you know. I could never have made it through something like this.”
“I haven’t yet.”
“But you will.” She grabs my shoulders and looks me directly in the eye. “You will.”
“I want to believe that.”
“You know, Jacks, I loved James. I did. There were things about him that made him a great husband. Especially for the first few years. But there was something about him—”
“That you didn’t like. I know. I know. I know.” I drag the last one out for dramatic effect.
“I suppose I deserve that,” Beth says. “But that’s not it. I did like him. Because you loved him and he was your husband. What I was going to say was that something about him sucked something out of you. Over time with him, your confidence slowly seeped out of you. Do you see that?”
“I do,” I say, tears starting to fall.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I shouldn’t criticize him. Not now.”
“It’s okay, it’s not you,” I say, thinking about how everything changed after I told him about the 20 percent chance.
“Then what is it?”
And that’s when I tell her. Everything.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JACKS—AFTER
Beth hugs me for several minutes and doesn’t say anything. She strokes my hair, and I squeeze her, letting my tears fall thanks to the silent permission only a sister can give. It’s hard to put into words how it feels to have finally told Beth the truth about why James and I had unraveled. Why he’d changed. Maybe even why he’d had the affair.