“Exactly. Wait—when did I tell you about it? And what are you doing on the course wearing work clothes? And you know you need golf clubs to golf, right?” Brody took a sip from his flask. “You just gave me an idea for a new game: I’m going to take a drink every time you do something stupid today.”
On any other day, Tom would’ve silently seethed, pushing down his resentments at his brother’s constant jabs.
On any other day.
He’d spent his entire life thinking of himself as a peacekeeper, not a coward, and now he was seeing his willingness to be silent in a different light. It was like Kenneth Birch said—he’d listened to Megs and was trying to do better. To be better.
“Hey, Brody.” He rested one arm on the back of the seat and turned his attention to his brother. “I’m sorry your marriage is falling apart and I’m sorry you don’t seem to have the capacity to deal with it. But get into couples counseling or get into therapy or both, because I can’t be your punching bag anymore.”
Brody was so stunned he quite literally stumbled. By the time he was righting himself, Tom was already lead-footing the cart in the direction of his father. But then he stopped.
He needed to be the best version of himself.
He turned to look back at Brody and added, “If you ever need someone to talk to—not punch, talk to—I’m here for you.”
At the first hole, John was placing his ball on the tee. Tom watched his father examine his clubs, eventually slip one out of the bag, and readjust his grip.
He’s a sad old man, Tom thought. A sad old man who clings to work because he doesn’t know how to connect with his own family.
Tom had never really known his paternal grandfather, as he was quite ill by the time Tom was born. When Tom turned four, his grandfather passed. Tom had fuzzy memories of sitting in a church pew while a man droned on, quoting Scripture Tom didn’t understand, as Tom’s grandmother touched a cloth handkerchief to her eyes. He’d been too young to comprehend the rare example of Prescott vulnerability he was witnessing.
His paternal grandmother, however, had been a formidable presence in his life. They spent most major holidays at her Connecticut home. Her voice, though now frail, would echo through the halls as she barked orders to her staff and castigated her family. He’d always been terrified of her and suspected John had too. The question of who’d raised John to be cold and calculating wasn’t a question at all. But his father never spoke of his upbringing or his past, preferring to focus on the things he could control: work, the firm, his wife, and his sons.
Even though Tom was softer than his father, there was still a scenario in which he could continue this cold spiral, train himself to ignore the people he loved because he didn’t have the capacity to deal with them. He thought about how many nights he’d wasted stressing about work when he’d had Megs right in front of him. How he hadn’t made the space for her that she needed.
Understanding took time. And the universe had granted it to him.
“John.” Tom didn’t consciously choose to use his father’s given name instead of “Dad,” but here they were.
Nothing startled John. He slowly relaxed his grip and turned toward Tom, waiting for his second-born to speak, which for once Tom was more than happy to do.
“You’ve been comparing me to Brody my entire life, bombarding me with examples of how I keep coming up short. Maybe you thought it’d push me to work harder, but all it did was push a wedge between Brody and me, and now his life’s shit, my life’s shit, and you don’t even care. You don’t care.” Tom’s voice was on the rise. It felt so good to finally yell at his dad. “Because for you, it’s all about how we reflect the Prescott name. How many zeroes are in our bank accounts, how attractive and demure our wives are.”
John wasn’t a man to interrupt or make excuses. Tom barreled on, ignoring the swift flicker of pain in his dad’s eyes.
“I know you disapprove of Megan’s family, but, quite frankly, I’ve been disappointed in you. And me. And the way you’ve dictated the entire scope of my life without ever once considering that I may want something different.”
“Do you?”
Tom was breathless, hopped up on adrenaline. His mind was working faster than his mouth. “Do I what?”
“Do you want something different?”
John’s look wasn’t one of cold calculation; it was genuine curiosity. Tom wasn’t sure what reaction he’d expected, but a seemingly authentic interest in what Tom wanted from his life wouldn’t even have made his top ten guesses.
So this was it. The moment. The opportunity to choose something else.
“Yeah. I think I do want something different. Totally different. In fact, I quit.”
“You quit?” The surprise in John’s voice was palpable.
Tom checked in with himself to make sure he wasn’t doing anything he regretted. A warmth vibrated through him as he saw an unknown future. One he could choose himself. He threw his arms out and declared, with a note of glee, “I. Quit.”
And then he spun on his heel and whistled as he sauntered off the golf course.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Megan
When Megan showed up for her salon appointment, the receptionist informed her Donna had canceled it. Canceled everyone’s. She’d told the receptionist there’d been a family emergency.
Vacillating between calling her mother to check on her and leaving her be, Megan finally settled on making the best of a situation that wasn’t actually terrible. In fact, getting ready for the rehearsal dinner with Paulina and Brianna in Paulina’s room ended up being much more fun.
Megan was pretending this was her first time through this, and the fantasy was blissful.
It was a small act of doing exactly what she wanted. Not as dramatic as running away with a college crush or hijacking her grandparents’ boat, but still, it was a victory. That life she wanted, the picture of it, was becoming less fuzzy.
Paulina, Brianna, and Megan reminisced about summers spent on the island—the times they’d rented scooters and had slow races up winding roads framed by endless forests; the game they’d played where they’d buy the grossest candies they could find and eat them blindfolded, trying to guess the flavors.
Megan almost never saw Brianna without Donna lurking in the shadows, but now they were remembering that they actually enjoyed each other’s company. That, in addition to sharing a mother, they also shared a sense of humor and so many good memories.
“Should I check on Mom?” Brianna asked in a rare show of selflessness.
“I texted her and invited her to join us, but she said she needed some time to herself. Just leave her be, Bree.” Paulina finished applying a second coat of mascara to her lashes and turned around. “Now. Please lie to me and tell me I look radiant, because my sciatic nerve is acting up and I have hemorrhoids the size of baby chicks.”
Megan laughed and grabbed Brianna’s hand, and together they hugged her, making a Paulina sandwich.
“You’re gorgeous,” Megan assured her.
“A true yummy mummy,” Brianna chimed in.
This rare alliance with Brianna reminded Megan of their childhood. When the winter temperatures would plummet and blizzards would descend, they’d tiptoe into the basement and hang an old sheet over the nook under the stairs using thumbtacks, and Megan would read to her little sister. Their favorite book was Matilda. After every chapter, they’d put a small object on the floor in front of them and try to move it with their minds.
It was funny how the years had made Megan forget how much she used to genuinely enjoy being with Brianna. It was helpful that, in this version of the day, Brianna hadn’t even mentioned her move to New York yet, though Megs knew it would eventually come up.
But before she could deal with her sister, she had another flame to extinguish. One she’d let burn for far too long.
She inspected her makeup one last time, had Brianna zip up her dress, and blew them both kisses. “I have to go check on
a few details,” she lied.
“Of course you do.” Brianna rolled her eyes. “Megan Givens, first of her name, keeper of to-do lists and master of efficiency.”
“I’ll take that title.”
“Good luck.” Paulina blew her a kiss. “Let us know if there’s anything we can help you with.”
A kaleidoscope of butterflies hatched in Megan’s stomach as she walked out of the hotel. She planned to catch Leo on his way to the restaurant, so she lurked in the shadows of the trees, taking up residence at a table outside the hotel’s miniature market. It offered a good view of both the hotel lobby and the restaurant’s entrance.
She shouldn’t be nervous. She’d seen Leo so many times in so many ways over the past few days. But since she’d successfully avoided him during this incarnation, this would be his first time seeing her.
She’d spent the morning on one of her favorite trails on the island. After wrestling with what she wanted and what moving forward could look like, she’d gained the insight she needed.
Now all she had to do was communicate this to Leo and hope he’d understand.
She recognized his lazily confident gait, smiling at his familiar gesture of running his hands over his hair, an indication, she now understood, that he was nervous. She waved at him, leaning forward until the lights from the market bathed her face.
As he drew nearer, his smile grew. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“I know.”
“You know?” His smile faltered just a little. “Have you been avoiding me, Givens? Because that’d be par for the course, considering the past ten years.”
“Eight,” she corrected him. There was a tug in her chest.
The one thing she couldn’t get used to as she relived this day was how she had to wait for him to catch up, listen to him address her as though for the first time.
Saying goodbye to him wouldn’t be easy, but she was ready. That tug in her chest wasn’t one of longing or regret. It was a response to knowing she could move on from him. Finally.
“You were my biggest what-if,” she told him once he’d taken a seat. He scooted his chair closer and they both winced as its legs scraped against the cobblestone.
“I’m nervous,” he admitted. “Because you’ve been my biggest what-if too. And if we pause this conversation right here, I can live in a world where you feel the same way I do. But if this conversation continues, I’m afraid you’re going to say something that’ll break my heart.”
“I don’t want to break your heart, Leo,” she offered truthfully. “But I realized something very recently—you and I have been using the memory of what happened between us as an escape. As long as we didn’t pursue anything further, this relationship of ours could be the perfect fantasy. But that’s just what it is. A fantasy.”
His eyes shone in the twilight. “How do you know it’s just a fantasy? I know I could make you happy. More than anything, Givens, I want to see you happy.”
“Happiness is fleeting. And there are already a lot of incredible and wonderful things in my life,” she said. “I don’t have any regrets right now, Leo, even though you think I do. In another life, you and I could be really great friends. But it’s too late for that. Too much has happened. And as far as a relationship goes, we don’t want the same things. You think you know me, but you only see the qualities that align with you. And I know that even if we let anything happen between us, it wouldn’t last.”
She let eight years of tension ease out of her body, relieved to have told him the truth. To have told herself the truth. “We aren’t each other’s endgame, Leo.”
He shook his head, reaching for her hand. “How can you be so sure? Aren’t we just going to walk away from tonight wondering What if again?”
Megan gave his hand a squeeze before releasing it. “Not this time, we won’t.”
“But…”
The morning she’d graduated, after they’d had sex on the roof, there’d been a moment between realizing what time it was and rushing off so she wouldn’t be late to meet Tom and his parents. A moment when time seemed to take a breath. She’d often thought back to that moment, to what she could have said or should have done. Some nights she imagined she’d grabbed his hand and they’d hopped in her Nissan and driven off wherever the highway took them. Other nights she’d envisioned telling him it was a mistake and that he should never contact her or Tom again.
But that moment had been all it needed to be. A breath. And sometimes it was hard to remember to breathe.
It was nearing seven o’clock. Megan stood up from the table, indicating he should too. That it was the end. “Goodbye, Leo. I hope you find a lot of happiness out there.”
Without a backward glance, Megan walked away, feeling lighter than she ever had.
It was okay not to have all the answers right now. Because at least she finally saw what she needed to hold on to and what she was ready to let go.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tom
Tom got ready alone in the suite he was still technically sharing with Megs. Whether it was to allay his nerves or because he’d really do anything to be his best self, he’d taken extra care showering, shaving, and dressing for the occasion.
The adrenaline spike of telling off his dad and quitting (God, he’d really quit the firm) had settled, leaving him with a sense of ease he hadn’t experienced…maybe ever. He’d spent the remainder of his afternoon on a rented scooter, seeing the island, carefree. Letting his mind wander to the great unknown, Tom had indulged the history major still kicking within, signing up to tour the island’s best-known historical attraction.
He listened intently to the costumed actor pretending to be a nineteenth-century soldier who told him how a war had raged between two camps, the American and the English. How the English camp had thrown parties with women and a surplus of food while American soldiers had faced isolation, supply shortages, and mind-numbing boredom.
How they’d never actually engaged in battle. And how a war that had stretched for fourteen years had been started, unbelievably, by the death of a pig.
Tom kept thinking about all the times he and Megan had opted not to fight, like two separate camps, two sides of the same island.
As he wound his way through the forests, he kept trying to envision what he’d do with his life if he ever got a true tomorrow. Switch to a more fulfilling type of law? Go to culinary school? Get a PhD in history? Run away to New Zealand and become a hermit? The possibilities were, quite literally, endless. They were also terrifying. Terrifying in the greatest possible way.
He was free. From expectation, from self-delusion and doubt and loathing. Today he was a man he himself could be proud of; something, he’d learned, that was more important than his father’s approval.
Tom wondered benignly if his father would show up to the dinner tonight.
Of course he would. John lived for appearances. And there was no way Carol would agree to sit at the table alone with the Givenses.
It was too early to leave, but Tom didn’t want to wait in the hotel doing nothing. He decided to take a stroll around the grounds to pass the time. It was a warm night, the end of summer, a full moon reflecting off the ocean. Soft folk music rolled lazily through the air as guests for the wedding on the front lawn found their seats. Tom sat down on the stub rock wall to watch from a safe distance.
If time had continued as it was supposed to and he and Megs had never fought, that would’ve eventually been them on that front lawn with their guests. He thought he’d feel regret watching the brides walk down the aisle together. But instead, he felt an enormous sense of gratitude. He and Megs had uncovered so many layers between them, aspects of their personalities, their wants and desires, their grudges and vexations; layers they’d been actively ignoring and burying for years.
They would’ve been saying “I do” in a state of denial. Disingenuously.
With a deep heaviness in his chest, resolute, Tom understood that if he could turn
back the clocks and take control of time, he wouldn’t. Even if it meant missing the hell out of the woman he loved so much.
“Tom.” Leo ambled toward him, looking as though his usual confidence had been steamrolled.
Tom stood, nearly giving his oldest and dearest friend a hug out of sheer habit.
“Hey.”
“I’m glad I found you.” Leo quickly recovered from Tom’s aloof greeting. “I…I don’t know how much I should tell you, but I’m sorry, man. I can’t stay for your wedding.”
Tom nodded. He didn’t need to yell or punch Leo again. He didn’t need to let Leo off the hook either. He wasn’t sure when or if he’d be ready to forgive the brother he’d chosen, but now was definitely not the time.
Clearly uncomfortable with the lack of follow-up questions, Leo rambled on. “Again, sorry to leave you in the best-man lurch, buddy.”
“You’re not the best man.”
“I…what?” Leo chuckled nervously.
“You’re not the best man,” Tom repeated. “Not for me, and obviously not for her.”
Tom didn’t need to say which her he was referring to. Leo slumped, all bravado slipping.
An uneasy silence plunged between them. Tom made no move to speak. He had nothing else to say.
“For what it’s worth,” Leo began, raking his fingers through his hair before gaining the courage to look Tom in the eye. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t think you are, Leo. And that’s okay. I can’t blame you for falling for someone I fell for too. But considering everything that’s happened and everything you’ve kept from me, I’m not sure I can ever see you again.” The words no longer stung quite so acutely; they felt right.
Without another word, Leo left. Tom didn’t stay to watch him go. After all, he had a rehearsal dinner to get to.
Tonight Tom was going to absorb every detail. Everything he’d missed all the other times.
The first thing he noticed was the music. It was a song he’d put on a playlist for Megs in college, one they’d argued about the meaning of over bagels and cream cheese. Every time they heard the song afterward, Megs lovingly referred to it as “The Great Debate-Over-Bagels Song, or: How I Learned to Love Tom Despite How Wrong He Can Be.”
The Rehearsals Page 25