Page 56 of Ghost on the Shore

“He was headed off to Northwestern, wasn’t he?”

Sky asked, “How do you remember that?”

The first thought that popped into my mind was something along the lines of:Please, hardly anyone makes it out of that town, so a kid making it into a school like Northwestern sticks out in your mind, but I’d never say something so rude. Skylar made it out, despite a road that was long and bumpy, and Sienna and Garth are settled there and happy about it. Who am I to judge? Instead, I said, “Northwestern is no jokeandhe was a particularly good writer. He wrote poems, short stories...”

Sienna laughed. “I would have killed for a poem from that broody jerk back then, but alas, he just wasn’t into me.”

Sky poked her sister. “So what’s the dirt?”

“Oh! So you remember when he was seeing Charlotte Mason towards the end of senior year?”

Sky nodded. “She was such a cutie.”

And that’s when I reached for the tequila bottle and poured a little something to steady myself.

Not the best day for a trip down memory lane. I was already feeling a little blue, what with it being my birthday and feeling like my feet have been set in concrete for the past couple of years. Add to that the plethora of happy couples and young families at this shindig. It was only four or five couples and three families, but still, I was comparing my lonely life to those more fortunate. God, I was making myself sick with the sad sack routine.

Lost in my own head, I still caught the basics: Simon was already more than halfway through law school and Charlotte was a junior at University of Michigan. But I perked up when Sky put her hand to her chest, eyes wide. “He’showold?”

Sienna nodded. “Right? I couldn’t believe it either. Simon was always looking for her, and all that time, Charlotte was just a few hours away raising their baby by herself.”

ThenIwas the one with my hand to my chest, eyes wide and finding it hard to breathe. “What?”

Sienna said, “She had a baby. His name is Ethan. I think he’s four? Anyway, they’re together now.”

Olivia came over at that very moment, situated herself on my lap and reached up to curl her fingers into my hair. What normally felt awkward and unwanted was now something I needed.

A baby. I knew she was pregnant.

Skylar was thinking out loud when she said, “Wow, she left school because she was pregnant,” and then looked to her sister again. “How did they reconnect?”

“I don’t know the details,” Sienna said, “but I do know that Simon was in the dark up until pretty recently.”

Dragging my ass over to the fridge in the pool house to get myself some much needed water, I replay the conversation in my head. Charlotte Mason. What was she, fifteen or sixteen at the time? Uneasy, maybe, but she didn’t flinch that day when I called her down to my classroom. A girl with a spine made of steel.

I was four years older than her when I found myself peeing on a stick, my heart racing as I waited for those faint lines that would determine my future.

I was a coward.

I still am.

I remember looking away, blinking back tears last night, only to see that guy Owen looking right back at me. His eyes were searching and kind, like maybe he somehow knew I was struggling.So I did my best to shake it off and then pasted on my winning smile like I always do, but damn, I was exhausted.

No more, I thought to myself last night.I’m not doing this anymore.

And if I’d had just one more shot I might have spilled my sob story to Skylar, Sienna, and to anyone else who happened to be within earshot.

Thank God I had the sense to excuse myself. I slipped out back, curled up on a sofa in the pool house and drifted off to sleep dreaming of what could have been.

My bag, my keys.

Fixing my hair into a topknot and then looking down to make sure the sundress I wore yesterday is in place and covering my goodies the way it should be, I’m hoping that I can just slip into the kitchen, grab my stuff and make a quick getaway.

“Aunt Grace! Can I have a dance lesson today?”

Right, little kid on the premises. The house is up and buzzing.

Sky looks at me and then smirks as she pours syrup over a plate of pancakes, Olivia is alternating between dancing in circles and playing with my birthday present, and Leo is sitting at the kitchen table with some guy I don’t know and one that I definitely do.

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