Page 88 of What's in a Kiss?

This is a mindfuck on so many levels. I know Jake and I need to talk, but I don’t know what to say. I can’t go near the future children he wants to make with me. Jake and I have beenplaying house this week, but starting a family is too real, too big for me to pretend I know what I’m talking about.

Which is why my apologies this afternoon have been insufficient. Which is how we made it all the way to the hotel without having quite made up.

I want to make up. Because when things are good with Jake and me, they’re really good. And when things are rough—as I’ve seen for the first time in the past hour—it paints a stark picture of the rest of my life here.

If I don’t have Jake, I don’t have anything.

“Are you going to lie there all day?” he says, picking up an envelope tucked in Aurora’s hospitality basket. “Or are you going to read about the mandatory fun we’re about to have?”

Is this how married people fight? They go at it for a while, then change the subject, knowing they can always resume the dispute when the mood strikes—because where are they going to go? They’re together till death does them part.

“What should I do?” I ask Gram Parsons, whose kiss recommends fun.

I rise from bed and go to Jake, but he doesn’t put his arms around me the way I’ve gotten used to this week. And though I’m desperate to feel our easy intimacy, though I crave the warmth of his skin where I put my cheek against his neck, I’m not confident enough to make a move. Instead, we stand chastely beside each other, reading the calligraphed schedule.

“Welcome to Aurora’s Boot Camp?” I say, taking the opportunity to lean in a little closer. “Personalized especially for Olivia and Jake... Zip-lining at three, mini golf at four fifteen, submarine whale watching at five twenty-five. Is she serious?”

“Champagne sabering with the full group at six fifty-seven,” Jake reads, flipping over the card. “In what world would we follow these orders?”

I wonder for a moment how Jake and Aurora endured each other in the real world. It looks impossible from this vantage point, high atop Mt. Ada on an alternate Catalina Island.

“Fuck it,” I say. “We’re adults possessed of free will. We don’t have to do anything we don’t want to.”

“Really?” Jake looks at me with warmth for the first time since the disaster on the ship. “Even though Aurora’s paying for all of this?”

“Our time is not for sale,” I say, wanting to take the itinerary from his hands and rip it up. But something stops me. Free will hasn’t worked in the High Life. In fact, each lunge at freedom backs me further into a corner. Nothing I do rectifies my wrongs.

Maybe I can’t get Masha or my mom back. Maybe those wounds are too old and deep. But can’t I at least repair what I broke on the yacht ride? If Masha were here, she’d tell me to leave bad enough alone, but she’s very much not here. There is no calm hand on this tiller, no even keel to guide me beyond emotional icebergs.

In the name ofEverything’s Jake, I turn to him and say, “Actually, I really love ziplining. Can we start there and then quit?”

“Um,” Jake says as a flicker of what looks like fear crosses his eyes.

Oh wait—he’s scared of heights. Exhibit A, the palm tree incident. Exhibit B, the climbing wall clip, where I and the rest of the world saw him face this fear. His wife should knowabout her husband’s single primal fear, and so it seems I’ve stepped in it yet again. I’m about to backpedal when Jake meets my gaze and smiles. Whatever hesitation was there a moment ago is gone.

He kisses me. “Let’s go.”

••••••

We leave GramParsons napping diagonally on the bed and take the windy path toward town. I’m glad to feel a variety of clouds begin to part. The sun is bright, we’re holding hands, swinging them slightly, watching two red-tailed hawks wheel at each other in the sky. The air smells like lemon blossoms, and we can hear the ocean lap against the rocky shore. By the time Jake and I reach Crescent Ave., I feel lighter, like I don’t have to be the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The last time I zipped this line was during winter break of my junior year, when I tagged along with Masha’s family for a Catalina New Year’s Eve. I remember how free I’d felt zooming through the trees. How, in a way, I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. That would have been the winter Jake moved from San Francisco, just before he started as the new kid at our school. I wonder what he was doing on the day I was zip-lining. Was he here yet? Was he in an airplane with the family he hates, leaving behind his friends, his life? Who was hardest to leave? As I felt my horizon widening that day, what was happening to his? Did my subconscious register the rumble of his jet as it squared up to land at LAX and I zip-lined like a bullet in the same sky?

These are things I’d know if I remembered spending the past ten years with Jake. They’re things it’s too late for me to askabout now. If I can’t get home, if I end up staying in this life, I’ll always be pretending to know more than I do. Which is my least favorite trait to encounter in other people. This prospect is so daunting that it hurts, a physical stabbing pain in my stomach that stops me in my tracks.

“Are you okay?” Jake asks.

When I look at him, my heart sinks. I missed out on getting to know him. I missed out on falling in love with him. I missed out on the moments that make life worth remembering.

I clutch my stomach, shake my head.

“Detour,” Jake says. “You look hungry.” He tugs my hand toward Scoops, the overpriced and delicious ice cream shop on Catalina’s downtown strip.

I try to be a woman standing in an ice cream shop, deciding on a flavor. But it’s hard. This life tends to show me that simple decisions have tectonic repercussions. Suddenly I’m paralyzed, staring at the menu like it’s a list of all life’s choices, and this is my one chance to do something right.

“Strawberry waffle cone for the lady,” Jake calls across the counter.

“Did you just order for me?” It’s hard to tell if I’m annoyed or turned on by this patriarchal display.

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