What I Thought Was True(101)

He says this last sentence so forcefully, I’m a little stunned.

When I don’t answer instantly he moves to sit up, looks me in the eye. “What?”

“So are we . . . ?” Dating? A couple? Together? “Seeing each other? It’s not that you have to take me home to your family or—”

Cass groans. “Are all island girls this crazy, or did I luck out?”

I sigh. “Well, you know. Picnic baskets.”

“Gwen. I mean this is in the nicest possible way. You will never be a picnic. Which is one of the things I lo—” He stops, takes a deep breath, starts again: “Can we just put the whole picnic basket thing away with the lobsters? For the record, to be clear, we’re doing this right.”

“The man with the maps.”

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He shakes his head, moving to his feet, tipping back against the railing of the boat so he can pull out the lining of first one of his pockets, then the other, then extend his open palms.

“Map free. Know what that means? Need SparkNotes? You’re my girlfriend, not my picnic basket, or any other screwed-up metaphor.”

He says all of this firmly, his logical voice.

After a minute or two, he adds, “I mean . . . unless I’m your picnic basket.”

I laugh. But he’s not even smiling. He seems to be waiting for something. And I don’t know what it is. Or exactly how to give it to him. Instead I say lightly, “I think of you more as a Dockside Delight.” I slide over, lean into him, my hand tight against his heart, wishing that how I feel could just flow between us that way, without getting tangled up in words.

On the way home after sailing we don’t say much. I’m yawn-ing—a long day of being in the sun and the water—and so is he. We hold hands. It feels perfect.

It’s only after I’m home, scrubbing off in the outdoor shower, that I realize he never did tell me what he thought the right thing to do was.

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Chapter Thirty-three


Spence and Cass are on their way over to Sandy Claw, and Nic’s already swimming drills. He’s working on the one that helps your elbow-bending at the start of the pull, which involves swimming with his fingers closed into a fist. His eyes are tightly shut too, giving him this look of total absorption, com-plete intensity.

The sky’s sharply blue, summer at its shiniest, sun glint-ing off the waves, horizon bright with spinnakers, schooners, every size of boat at home on an ocean big enough to contain them all. As I’m squinting out at Nic, Viv slides into place next to me, her dark hair wind-blown and loose today, none of her usual contained styles. Our legs swing side by side over the edge, like old times. “He never forgets,” she says, touching the pile of flat stones next to the piling. “That Nic.”

“He was looking around to claim his kisses before he got started.”

She casts a quick look out at the water, then starts chipping at her nail, flicking at one of the little flowers painted on her ring finger. “Has Nic seemed . . . okay to you lately?”

I’ve never needed to be Switzerland, respecting boundaries 351

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and borders with Nic and Viv. When we were younger, we all told one another everything. When they became a couple, there were different retellings, from Nic to me, from Viv, but it was all the same story. Now . . .

I didn’t think, ever, that I’d have to scramble about which truth to tell. I never thought “other people’s stories” would apply to the three of us. We are one another’s stories.

“Tense,” I finally say. “With you too? I thought maybe he was being weird with me, because of . . . well, because of me being with Cass. Has he talked about that with you?”

She shrugs, chews her lip. I recognize the look on her face, the “torn between loyalties” one.

“He’s sort of macho-macho with Cass, giving him these ‘don’t lay a finger on my cousin’ looks . . .” I say, trailing off so she’ll talk.

“Yeah.” Viv sighs. “He’s pretty testosterone-heavy lately.”

I wait for her to make a joke about not minding that, but instead she asks, “You don’t think he’s . . . on anything, do you?”

“On . . . you mean drugs? Like steroids? God no. This is Nic, he would never . . .”

I know that’s not it. But . . . Nic’s moodiness, his darkness, his obsession with weight lifting, the tension with Dad . . . No.

He wouldn’t.

Vivien doesn’t look at me, her eyes fixed on the water, on Nic. He’s now rolled over and is doing the backstroke, his form so perfect, it’s almost mechanical, like the wind-up scuba Superman who swims doggedly in Em’s baths.

“He would never,” I repeat again. “You know that, right?

You know him. Better than anyone.”

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I pull on her hand, bringing her gaze back to me. Then I realize it’s like I’m asking her for reassurance when I should be the one giving it. I put my arm around her, give her a little shake. “Nico doesn’t even take aspirin.”

She’s picked up one of the rocks, studies it, turning it over and over. Dark orange, worn smooth by countless waves, marked by holes. A brick. Probably from the steps of one of the houses on Sandy Claw, unwisely built on the beach, long ago swept out to sea in some forgotten hurricane. “You’re right. Ugh. Don’t pay attention to me. Al got the contract to some big political thing and was spazzing out all over me today. I kept calling Nic to talk and getting bounced to his voicemail. I thought maybe he was . . . I don’t know. Doing the same thing with me that he does with your dad. Mike was calling him the other day when Nico was helping me pack up for a clambake and he kept checking his phone but not picking up. I’m just being paranoid.”