Page 104 of What's in a Kiss?

“Oh my God! Youhaveto see it. Gwyneth plays the same woman in two different realities.”

“Kind of like now.”

Sarah’s eyes go wide. “Exactly! Look at you, standing in your former life.”

“Look at me,” I say. Tears fill my eyes.

“Are you okay?” Sarah asks.

“Here’s something they never tell you about getting married, Sarah. Don’t forget to tell your husband you love him. At least one time.”

“I’ll remember that,” Sarah whispers, taking a step away from me.

We stare at each other for a freakish moment, and though I wouldn’t say no to a hug, I realize we should probably be done here. That she’s extended enough kindness to a stranger in one day. But it’s hard to leave, because this is my house, too, and in my other life it’s a sanctuary from a hard world. I don’t know when I’ll be here again or what I’ll have to go through to get back. The only thing I know is what I have to give up.

Jake. Glasswell. My husband. The only man I’ve ever loved.

••••••

A little-known factabout Malibu is that even though it covers twenty-one miles of stunning coastline, only a small portion of it faces west. So if you want to watch the sun skinny dip into the sea, Zuma is one of the only places to go. But as I wind down Kanan Road toward PCH, a storm rolls in from the north, complicating the sky with dense gray clouds.

I’m anxious about finding Jake. Zuma is huge and usually crowded. The times I’ve gone there to meet friends, we’ve always had to drop a shared pin to find each other. But Jake expects me to know. We have a place we always go.

I pull up a list of prior places in the Lucid’s GPS—I scroll through Musso and Frank, North Weddington Park, the Bungalow at the Fairmont Hotel. But there are no coordinates forZuma. My next best plan is to drive along the coast until I find Jake’s red Jag, then look for him nearby.

But as I turn onto the beach access road, a sureness comes into my body. It’s in my fingers on the wheel, in my toes on the accelerator. It’s in my hips and ribs and eyes. It reminds me of something I used to experience long ago, when I acted in plays—right around the time I’d get down on myself, thinking I could never learn my lines in time, there would come a moment when I’d step onto the rehearsal stage, and my body would click into some hidden gear. The lines would come, not merely matching the script, but with a depth of emotion I’d spent months reaching for. The role had arrived, a gemstone polished by bone-deep intuition.

Now, the same thing happens. I know where Jake is. I let intuition guide me to a gorgeous inlet I’ve never been to before in Real Life. And there, parked on the shoulder, is his car.

I get out and run barefoot toward the water. The spray of sand stings my ankles, and the cleansing scent of the impending storm fills my nose. I scan the waves. There must be fifty surfers scattered in the water, all in black wet suits and dripping hair.

My heart picks up because I don’t have much time, and there’s more I have to do, and I want as much as I can get with Jake before I go. I stop running when I reach a surfboard resting on the sand. It’s a green and black Odysea longboard, and I recognize it from the ceiling rack in our garage. Mine. A wet suit is folded on top of it, held in place by a beautiful abalone shell.

I pick up the wet suit and a sense memory washes over me: the give of the material, the heft of its weight. In this world I’veworn this many times, with confidence and poise. I’m only here for a little while longer. I can do this. I can go out in the ocean and get up on this board.

I think of Jake leaving the suit and board here for me. Of his faith that I’d show up, even during a difficult argument, because that’s what real love is. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I leave here, but I do know—far better than I could have a week ago—what intimacy means. I’ll never settle for anything short of this.

Which means I’ll be alone for the foreseeable future. I’m headed back to a world where Jake is Glasswell, and he hates me. And he’s ruined me for everyone else.

“You came,” he says, coming out of the water, wet hair whipped back out of his face. His smile melts me. I drop the wet suit and jog toward him. Then I’m running, sprinting all the way into his arms. They catch me, lift me up, and hold me against his chest. I close my eyes and breathe him in, eucalyptus and ocean. I shudder with the relief this closeness brings. He spins me once then sets me down.

I’ve never known love like this. And I can’t take it with me.

“We need to talk,” I say.

“I know.” His hand touches my face, my neck, my shoulder, the length of my arm. Goose bumps rise on my skin. They always do when he touches me.

But if this is the last sunset I get with Jake, I want it how we came here for it. I glance at my phone. Twenty minutes of daylight left.

“Surf first?” I say, and he kisses me. Like we’ve got all the time in the world.

“I waxed your board,” he says, and I can tell this is something he always does for me, without my asking. It’s so simple, so kind, so Jake.

I slip into my wet suit, grab my board, and follow him to the water. The first frothy step into the cold shocks my feet, but once I go further in, deeper out, the suit keeps me warm. It’s drizzling, the horizon moody, only patches of clear sky peeking through, turning amber in the fading light. We wade until the water reaches our waists, then we climb onto the boards and paddle out, parallel to the waves.

I know where to stop. I know which size and shape of wave to seek, how to mount the board right before the wave breaks—like intuiting which music is right for your mood. I can’t remember the last time I swam out far enough in the ocean for my feet to come off the ground. Yet I know I’ve done it recently in this world with Jake. I wonder if I’ll get to keep this expertise, this fearless giddiness when I go home.

“This one!” I call to Jake and we point our boards toward the shore as the wave rolls toward us—

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