Page 40 of The First Kind of Love
I’ve never met anyone like her before. She’s sunshine in a goddamn bottle. I want to tuck this memory into the back of my mind for safekeeping so I can revisit it whenever I need a reminder that life’s worth living.
But then she says the worst thing I could possibly imagine.
“Fulton, you know this is just a three-week thing, right?”
World: crushed. Heart: shattered. Dignity: hanging on by a thin strand.
“Yeah, of course,” I lie, scrambling off her so quickly that I accidentally kick up a fuckton of sand. Some of it gets in my mouth, but I feel like choking would really ruin the mood right now.
I don’t want Shiloh for just three weeks, and I don’t know what I’m going to do once our world of play pretend is finally up.
13
SAY YES TO THE DRESS
SHILOH
Fulton Cazzarelli has violated me. My heart, not my body.
I don’t know how he managed to elbow his way into my every thought and feeling, but I’m no longer preoccupied by work-related existential crises. I still can’t believe he went out of his way to research when the turtle hatchings were going to happen. And I can’t believe I’m even saying this—having been voted “Most Likely to Have Their Vision Board Come True” in high school—but having someone else take the wheel for once was actually…freeing.
That night on the beach was one I’ll never forget, even though I ruined everything by practically friend zoning him. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet right now. I haven’t forgotten about that night in the hotel room, either. How is it that he was willing to sacrificeeverythingfor me?
The longer I’m here, the tighter the potential for failure sinks its claws into my shoulders—a repulsive conglomeration of blood and flesh accumulating beneath rotting fingernails—and the only way I’ll ever be free is if I tear myself into pieces trying to live two separate lives. A life with Fulton, or a lifedominated by work.Oh my God. I need to make up my mind. I can’t just keep going back and forth like this. It isn’t fair to him; it isn’t fair to me. Why am I trying to sabotage the best thing that’s ever happened to me?
My fingers curl around the stem of my champagne flute, and I polish off the last of my drink to disband the nausea currently staging a rebellion in my gut. The alcohol burns going down, but that doesn’t stop me from asking for a refill.
I’m not sure if Aeris invited me to her dress fitting because she felt bad leaving me out, but here I am. The bridal dress shop is family owned and quaint—a nice change from the rolling hills of wealth back at the hotel. A teardrop chandelier emits a golden glow over one of the small adjoining rooms, where upholstered couches have been positioned into a circle in front of a row of dressing rooms.
The east-facing window accounts for a lot of the natural light, flanked by long, chiffon curtains that dangle down its astounding length. Pink floral arrangements dot every flat surface, and portraits of wall-pressed flowers hang in bronze-brushed frames. Racks of silk, lace, and tulle advertise the perfect dress, alongside a complementary display of heels.
While the rest of the girls are all fawning over a gown that costs more than the down payment for my house, I’m all by my lonesome on one of the freakishly comfortable couches. And I stupidly think that my self-imposed exile has kept me safe until Aeris comes over to me and sits down, probably picking up on the depression emitting from my body like signals from a phone tower.
For someone tasked with choosing the dress of a lifetime, she doesn’t appear to be nearly as nervous as I thought she would be. “Are you okay?”
I startle. “What?”
Considering how direct Aeris has been this entire trip, Ireally shouldn’t be surprised. I guess I was just hoping to hide my emotions better.
“Sorry, you just…you’ve been really quiet today.”
This is the first time I’ve actually wanted tofeelinvisible. I should brush her off with a convincing, rehearsed smile. My problem isn’t her problem, and I don’t want to bring down the mood. Aeris is the last person who should be consoling the weird girl who tagged along on her trip.
But the words come tumbling out like a furious torrent of water perforating a hole in the hull of a ship.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not good enough? Like no matter what you do, you’re bound to end up disappointing the people closest to you?”
If you were good enough at your job, Shiloh, you wouldn’t have to pick between work or love. Hell, if you were good enough at being apartner, you wouldn’t be half as miserable as you are now.
Think about what Fulton said in the hotel room that night. You know how to swim, so why aren’t you trying to save yourself?
She ponders my words for a moment. “I used to,” Aeris eventually says, her tone tinged with a contagious sorrow—the type that’s lingering, subtle, and sometimes peeks through the cracks in her composure. I can deduce that if I’d asked her this question years ago, tears would most likely web down her cheeks. But it’s like her pain has been sieved slowly, consistently.
“I felt that way all the time about my brother. His name was Roden, and he lost his life to suicide. I was supposed to be his protector, and the self-blame only got worse after he died, you know? I kept replaying this narrative that everything was my fault, and if I’d only worked harder to…tokeephim here…then maybe things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.”
My belly wobbles, and it feels like there’s an emotional vacancy in my chest where my heart is supposed to be. I’m fortunateenough to be a stranger to loss and grief—at least in the conventional sense. Most of my relatives are still alive. I can’t even imagine what Aeris and her family must have gone through. The funny thing is you wouldn’t know it based on how she presents herself.
“I’m so sorry, Aeris. I had no idea.”
