Happy Place

SABRINA PRACTICALLY SKIPS down the dock toward the sleek white rental boat.

Wyn brushes past me to follow Parth down the pier, and my legs fully forget what we’re doing at his sudden closeness, stopping abruptly.

When I got downstairs this morning, he was already eating fruit and toast on the back deck, his hair damp and clothes changed. He must’ve sneaked in at some point in the night and out again before I woke up. Ever since then, we’ve been politely dodging each other.

Cleo pauses to dig a tube of motion sickness pills out of her backpack. “Want one?”

“Did you just happen to bring these with you?” I say. “And here I was, proud of myself for remembering floss.”

Cleo’s shoulders hitch. “For the drive down. I can’t read in the car without getting sick.”

Wyn climbs in, then turns to offer his hand to Cleo as she makes the hop down. He moves to help me too, but I pretend not to notice and jump down.

Right then, some traffic in the harbor sends a wave under the boat, and my knees buckle. Wyn has to catch me around the hips, and the pressure of his body against mine from chest to hips is, oh, three trillion times worse than accepting his hand would have been.

“You okay?” he asks.

To which I reply, “Mm!”

Cleo settles onto one of the marshmallowy benches. “Where exactly are we going?”

Sabrina has already taken her station at the chrome steering wheel, and Parth is zigzagging around the little vessel, loosening lines. At least I assume that’s what he’s doing. Everything I know about boats I learned while high out of my mind, so it’s hard to say.

“Wherever the wind takes us,” Parth cries over his shoulder.

“So we’re going to die,” Cleo says.

“Possibly,” Sabrina says. “But first we’re going to see some puffins and harbor seals.”

Parth undoes the final knot, and the breeze nudges us away from the dock as Sabrina spins the wheel to point us toward the open water, the smell of brine thickening as the wind brushes salt over our skin.

At the back of the boat, Wyn watches the harbor shrink, his shirt rippling to show off slices of his low back and upper arms, only to hide them again.

Overhead, the clouds part, Sabrina’s hair and the white knit of her matching halter and shorts gleaming in the sun against her olive skin. Parth joins her at the wheel, in his own white linen combo, the top and bottom buttons of his shirt casually undone in a way that truly makes him look like he’s filming a Tom Ford commercial, or like the two of them are Hollywood A-listers off the coast of Ibiza.

I, meanwhile, look like a frazzled camp counselor holding on for dear life through the end of the summer. Not so different from how I feel.

“I think the itinerary’s prompt to dress comfortably could have been a little more specific,” I say to Cleo.

Sabrina beams over her shoulder. “You actually read the itinerary!”

Cleo leans into me, the light glancing off her septum ring, and says, “Oh, Harriet. Sabrina can’t help it that she’s most comfortable in Gucci.”

Sabrina scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous. This is Chanel.”

“Oh my god, are you kidding?” Kimmy flops onto the bench opposite us. “You’re wearing Chanel? On a boat?”

Wyn takes the seat beside her, and I tip my head toward him. “So is Wyn.”

It’s our first moment of direct eye contact of the day. It makes me feel like my bathing suit is disintegrating beneath my clothes.

“Really, Wyn? Chanel?” Kimmy says. “I had no idea you were so fancy.”

His gaze snags on mine for a second before dragging to hers. “Only my briefs.”

“Well, I think you’re all overdressed,” Kimmy says. “The itinerary said comfortable, and if you wanted to be comfortable, then you, like me, would not be wearing underwear.”

“Hard agree,” Parth says.

Sabrina looks nonplussed. “Are you seriously not wearing any underwear?”

Parth drops into the seat beside Wyn. “What, it’s fine for Kimmy but not for me?”

“Kimmy isn’t wearing white pants made out of tissue paper,” Wyn points out.

Parth’s hands go protectively toward his crotch, then he sighs, resigned. “Whatever. Everyone in this boat has seen me naked at some point or another.”

“I actually haven’t,” Kimmy says thoughtfully.

“Well, Kimberly,” Parth replies, “it might just be your lucky day.”

Wyn’s eyes catch mine for a second again. In my chest, an engine turns over.

•   •   •

WE CRUISE THROUGH the smattering of islands that dot the coast, sail past two separate lighthouses, and pause for giddy pictures when we spot the first slew of plump seals sunbathing on the rocks. Pretty quickly, we realize the water is brimming with them. A horde of them, an embarrassment of seals.

“Quick,” Kimmy says to Cleo, “help me grab one to take home.”

“This isn’t my exact area of expertise,” Parth says, “but I’m guessing there are laws against that.”

“Yes, and there are higher divine laws about little whiskered faces needing kisses,” Kimmy says, leaning out over the edge of the boat toward a seal who’s either scratching his back on the rock or possibly trying to roll upright. “Plus, taking a seal home was my secret goal for this week.”

“Sometimes when you love something,” Cleo says, squeezing Kimmy’s shoulders, “you have to let it go.”

I have to work not to look over at Wyn.

“You’re a good boy!” Kimmy shouts at the seal as we pull away. “Or girl! Or whatever!”

Around lunchtime, we dock on one of the summer community islands and climb over the jagged shoreline, watching horseshoe crabs dart and scuttle through the murky shallows.

“These things freak me out,” Parth says.

“They look like something out of Jurassic Park,” Wyn says, lightly touching my elbows as he leans over me to see. The breeze swirls his scent around me like a length of silk.

“I love them,” Cleo says.

“I’ll let you take one home,” Kimmy says, “if we go back for my seal.”

“I’m sorry, babe, I just don’t think we’ve got room for that kind of responsibility in our lives.”

“If life’s too hectic for your best friends to visit,” Sabrina says, “then you don’t have time to start a horseshoe crab preserve.”

“Would you quit picking at me,” Cleo says.

Sabrina’s eyes widen. “I was kidding.”

“Well, it’s not funny,” Cleo says.

“Okay, okay,” Sabrina replies. “I’m sorry!”

Cleo turns away, hiking up the shore toward the gnarled woods, and Sabrina looks at Kimmy.

She shakes her head. “She’s under a lot of pressure right now. Give her a break.”

It’s as close to an admonishment as I’ve ever heard Kimmy give, and she doesn’t wait around for Sabrina’s reply before striding up the path after Cleo.

Sabrina turns away, looking out at the water, shoulders square and arms folded. She gives one firm shake of her head on a laugh that rides the line between exhausted and hurt.

“Maybe we should eat,” I suggest.

“Great idea,” Parth chimes in, clearly as eager as I am to smooth things over.

“I’ll go grab the picnic basket,” I call, already picking my way back over the kelp-strewn rocks toward the docked boat. I kick off my sandals and hop in.

“What was that about?” comes Wyn’s voice.

I turn to find him walking up the dock. I look back toward the others. Sabrina and Parth are having an animated conversation on the shore, and Cleo and Kimmy are ambling through the woods, partially obscured by twisted branches of thick dark pine needles and yellow-green leaves.

“From what I’ve gathered,” I say, looking away before his closeness can hit my bloodstream, “Sabrina’s jockeying for an invitation to the farm, and Cleo’s annoyed that she’s jockeying.”

“And Kimmy?” Wyn asks.

“Annoyed with Sabrina for being annoyed with Cleo.”

The boat rocks under my feet as he steps down. “So where do we fit into this?”

“I don’t know, I guess I could be annoyed with Kimmy about being annoyed, and then that could potentially annoy you?”

“You never annoy me,” he says.

I look up, catch him watching me.

My laugh is breathless, woozy. “We both know that’s not true.”

He studies me for a second, brow furrowed. “Frustrate, maybe. Not annoy.”

“What’s the difference?” I ask.

His eyes drop to my legs and back up. “When you’re annoyed, you don’t want to be around a person.” His chin shifts to the left, not quite a shake of his head. “I always want to be around you.”

I want to call him out, to trot out those key moments from our history that decidedly disprove this. But I can’t. I can remember what the arcuate fasciculus does for the human brain but not exactly how to use it to make words.

“Here,” he says, reaching for the cooler. “I can get that.”

“So can I,” I say, lifting it against my shins.

“Harriet.”

I shuffle sideways.

He laughs. “So we’re back to this?”

“Back to what?” I say.

His brow scrunches against the sun, his full upper lip inching up like there’s a string tied to his Cupid’s bow. “Fighting about every tiny thing.”

“Is this fighting?” I say.

“Harriet,” he says. “Compared to the rest of our relationship, this is a brawl.”

I glance down the shore. Parth has his arm around Sabrina and they’re climbing the rotting wooden steps from the beach to the forested hill, catching up with Kimmy and Cleo now. I fight an urge to sprint after them, to take up the role of buffer or referee.

“Don’t,” Wyn says gently.

I look back at him, my low back aching. “Don’t what?”

“Go after them,” he says, drifting closer.

I swallow. “Why not?”

He pulls the cooler out of my hands and sets it on the bench. “Because we’re talking.”

“You mean brawling,” I say.

His lips twitch.

“Shouldn’t we be done fighting,” I say, “now that we’re broken up?”

The corners of his mouth twist downward now. “Harriet, we never fought when we were together. If we had . . .”

He trails off, doesn’t land that final blow. I feel it all the same, a knife twist in my heart.

From the shore, an air horn blasts, three times in rapid succession.

Neither of us moves, or even looks away. The wanting is palpable.

“Shit,” Wyn says, shaking his head. “I don’t like not touching you.”

I look away. Now my heart feels like one giant blister, too tender, too delicate. If only he’d felt that way sooner. If only I had any clue what went wrong, how I lost him. If only I believed there were some way to fix it. But he’s not the only one who’s done things he can’t take back. And revisiting what’s happened will only make the pain worse.

The air horn blows again. I clear my throat. “You get the cooler, and I’ll grab the picnic basket.”

He nods for several seconds, then hoists the ice chest into his arms and turns away.