Page 57 of The Sun and the Moon
Or I just didn’t try hard enough.
I scan the area, my eyes stinging, my heart aching, until I see her.
Sydney.
She’s emerged from the barrel room, her hair down from her high bun and streaming free in the light breeze. It’s foolish how much seeing her calms me down. How I want to tell her what I learned about Moira’s work, but I don’t want to leave out the part where I realized I was a shitty friend to one of the only people in my life who really feels like family. This longing to be seen by her is a new sensation, one I am unfamiliar with wanting.
One that scares me more than whatever scheme Moira is trying to pull. More than her being right about my soulmate.
Even more than her knowing she might be right.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sydney
Dad finds me outside the barrel room as confusion over my own feelings wars with a desire to keep my cool, and any words I might have get caught in my throat. Dad finding happiness, feeling secure in setting down roots with another person, is harder for me to accept than who the person is. He spent years struggling with the loss of my mom, and watching him go through that—seeing how it stripped back the persona of stable father and exceptional pilot that had always been there—has had no small effect on me.
I’m not holding on to the wholeus against the worldthing as a strict rule of life. It’s more that the mentality of placing myself in constant opposition with my world is why I am a twenty-eight-year-old who has never had a long-term committed relationship. It’s not that I can’t do it. It’s not that I don’t want it deep down. It’s that having that would mean running the risk of getting hurt so deeply by losing it that I’d also lose my way.
Lose myself.
Lose my job and security and control. Just like Dad did.
“It’s beautiful country up here,” Dad says, and I flick a quick look at him. Dad isn’t a fan of nature unless it’s a birdie on a golf green. That whole adage of how golf is a good walk spoiled, he doesn’t believe it. That’s his preferred way to engage in a stroll.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, and even though I’m grappling with big feelings, I’m nothing if not an excellent compartmentalizer. You can’t be a good pilot without the skill to shut away outside distractions.
Lola’s proposition that this engagement party is actually a wedding is stuck in my head.
“It’s a lot of trouble for an engagement party,” I say.
“It’s what we want,” he says, shrugging. “If you can’t get what you want when you’re our age, when can you?”
“Fifty-nine isn’t old, Dad,” I reply. I don’t think this is a late midlife crisis, but if it’s even a little bit about that, then reminding him he’s still relatively young can’t hurt.
“It’s not young, either,” he says, flashing me a self-deprecating smile.
“Tell me you’re not marrying this woman because you feel old.”
He laughs me off, not offended, and clearly not swayed.
“I’m marrying her because she makes me feel young,” he says, winking at me. We have the same bright eyes. The same strong jaw. That same sense of mischief. But his soft, squishy heart breaks easily, and mine is walled up like Rapunzel.
Dad continues. “I would think you’d be starting to come around, at the very least because you and Cadence seem to be hitting it off.”
This assessment throws me. “How do we seem like that?”
He looks at me like he’s surprised by my surprise. “Birdie, I know you. I know when you like someone.” He pauses, his smile drooping slightly. “I know when you don’t.”
I refuse to acknowledge that I understand his meaning.
I refuse to acknowledge any of this.
“Rick, love!” Speak of the devil. Moira approaches, full wineglass in hand, eyes cutting through me like lasers. “Can I steal you for a walk through the kitchen? They’ve prepped appetizer samplers for us.”
“Excellent,” Dad replies, extending one hand for her to take while the other presses to his belly to feign hunger. “A snack before we head back for the brats at the festival is just what I need.”
“You’re joining in the festivities tonight, I hope, Sydney,” Moira says. It feels like an order. I’m not sure what festivities there are that I’m expected to take part in, but I’m guessing if I say no, Dad will go all wounded puppy dog and Moira will have an argument prepped and ready for why my decision isn’t the right one.
