“Tyson would know better,” Hannah says, giving me a loaded look that Lainey doesn’t miss.
“Wait. Why would Tyson know better?” she asks Hannah.
Hannah shrugs, still looking at me.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” Lainey says.
“You’re not missing anything,” I say, giving Hannah a warning look that Lainey also picks up on.
“Guys. What’s going on here? I have the right to know!”
“And why’s that?” I ask. “Why do you have the right to know?”
Lainey stares at me, incredulous. “Because it’s obvious that you told Hannah something you aren’t telling me!”
As Hannah not so subtly raises her eyebrows, Lainey ratchets up her inquisition. “Tyson! Tell me right this second! Did you and Summer hook up or something?”
“Jesus, Lainey,” I say under my breath.
“What?”
“That expression. ‘Hooking up.’ I hate it. You sound like a teenager.”
Lainey is undeterred and unabashed. “Fine, then. Did you and Summer ever kiss?”
I stare back at her, then say, “And what if we did?”
“Wow. Wow. Wow,” Lainey says, shifting her gaze to Hannah. “How long have you known about this?”
“Only a couple of days. He told me in Dallas.”
“This is crazy!” Lainey says.
“Why is it so crazy?” I ask, getting more annoyed and defensive by the second.
“Because. I always suspected that she had a crush on you, but I didn’t think she was your type.”
“I don’t have a type,” I say, bristling.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Give me a break, Tyson. Your last three girlfriends are the same exact type—”
“First of all,” I say, now annoyed for multiple reasons, “three people is not a statistically significant sample size. Second of all, how are they the same type? Are they all lawyers? Are they tall?” I ask, thinking specifically of Laurie, my girlfriend preceding Nicole, who was a very petite yoga instructor.
“No. But they’re all drop-dead gorgeous Black girls—”
“So by that logic, Dog Guy must be the same type as Surfer Guy?” I ask, cutting her off.
“Okay.” Lainey nods, looking a little sheepish. “I get your point.”
“Besides,” Hannah says, “it’s not really about how someone looks. Tyson and Summer had a lot in common…. They both loved baseball…and books.”
I glance away, remembering how Summer and I used to pass novels back and forth. We loved all the same stuff and shared several favorite authors: John Green, Khaled Hosseini, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld. Summer had actually introduced me to Sittenfeld’s work, and I still had her copy of Prep. I’d thought about giving it back to her parents, but I couldn’t bear to part with it, as it had all of her little notes in the margins. Summer annotated books even when she was reading for fun, underlining passages, highlighting the names of new characters, and circling words she didn’t know. We had talked about teaching high school English once—how satisfying we thought the job would be. Looking back, I think we both discarded the idea for the same reason; at the time, it didn’t seem ambitious enough. I can see now that we were both thinking about life the wrong way, and for the first time, I wonder if Summer had truly been passionate about medicine.
“So were you guys in love?” Lainey asks me now.
I look back at her, my stomach twisting in knots, so many emotions hitting me at once. I feel the usual grief, of course, but also remorse and guilt that I hadn’t better understood the pressure she was feeling. I’m also angry that Lainey feels entitled to these answers. What happened between Summer and me is none of her business. I almost lash out at her but manage to hold back.
“Lainey. Please,” I say instead. “I really don’t want to do this—” My voice cracks, surprising both of us.
She stares at me, looking worried and appropriately sheepish. She might not understand all the emotional layers I’m feeling, but at least she seems to realize there is subtext to my resistance. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to upset you—”
“It’s fine,” I say. “Can we just move on?”
“Of course,” she says, nodding. “We can do that.”
“Thank you,” I say.
After several long seconds, Lainey finds my hand under the table. She wraps her fingers around mine, then squeezes. The warmth and subtlety of her gesture catches me off guard, but what surprises me even more is that I don’t pull away.
Chapter 17
Hannah
As we make our way down to the harbor, I feel at peace in the company of my two best friends, surrounded by such incredible natural beauty. Frankly, it also helps that more than five thousand miles and an entire ocean separate me from Grady and my mother, and I’m in a place with zero memories shared with either of them. It occurs to me, not for the first time since our flight took off yesterday, that Grady had never expressed any real desire to travel beyond his mainstays of St. Bart’s, Aspen, and Nantucket—the favored destinations among my old circles. Now that I’m no longer tied to him, I will inevitably get to see more of the world. It’s a silver lining.
