Hypothetical Heart (Farewell Fairwood #2)

Chapter 18

18

I wake up with my arms around Winnie, and the best part is, it doesn’t even feel wrong anymore. Every wonder of the world has brought me to this place repeatedly, posing it as an accident.

Every time she stretches, her tank top rises up her stomach. The sweatshirt she wore to bed last night is no doubt tangled within the blankets somewhere, and I only know because I felt her sit up in the middle of the night, pulling it off and throwing it somewhere at our feet.

At one point a bit earlier this morning, I heard the sliding glass door creep open before I heard Jameson whisper, “Oh, they must be in there.”

Once Winnie wakes up, she’s quick to get out of the hammock and make her way into the house. Genevieve and Jameson are in the living room, sitting next to one another on the couch with coffee cups in their hands. The only thing that would make them seem more like an elderly couple would be if they were passing a crossword puzzle back and forth. I wouldn’t even put it past them .

“Same plan?” Winnie asks, sitting on the ottoman in front of them.

“Obviously,” Genevieve answers. “It’s tradition.”

“The plan” is sitting on the beach for the majority of the day before we head to dinner. A lot of our days at the beach house are the same, which makes it easier. My favorite vacations are the ones where no time is spent stressing about what to do or where to go.

We’ve become so accustomed to this small town near Myrtle Beach that we don’t even need a plan anymore. It’s just called a plan so that Genevieve doesn’t go off the deep end.

“How’s your arm?” I ask Jameson.

He shrugs and sets his coffee cup on the end table. “Fine.”

“Are you going to forgive Eloise now?” Winnie asks Genevieve.

She leans back into the cushions as if contemplating. “She’s already forgiven. We talked last night.”

Jameson stands from the couch and walks into the kitchen. I follow, giving the girls time to talk.

“Gen actually talked to Eloise last night?” I ask, turning on the coffee pot.

“She couldn’t sleep because the argument was eating her alive. It was close to three in the morning when she went to Eloise’s room, and she was also awake. They talked and everything seems good.” Jameson takes a bit of the apple he grabbed from the bowl in the middle of the island.

“Well, that was easy.” I was worried this argument was going to turn into an all-out civil war, one that I would be forced to break up because I’m the peacekeeper.

“Not for her,” Jameson sighs, referring to his girlfriend.

“How so?” Genevieve was the one who went to Eloise in the middle of the night to talk.

We both sit. “She was having a hard time deciding whether she was hell-bent on defending me and proving a point or if she was more concerned about keeping her friendship intact.”

Before Jameson, Genevieve poured all of her love into her friendships because she didn’t have any other relationship dynamic she cared as much about. Now that she’s dating Jameson, it’s become increasingly difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that she is allowed to give some of that love to her boyfriend.

“She’s worried that she’s betraying her friendships over a boy she’s known a fraction of the time,” I realize. Jameson nods.

“To be clear, I never expect her to choose me over you guys,” he clarifies. Jameson knows how much Genevieve cares about the friendships she’s clung to her entire life, and that’s all she’s ever wanted.

“It’s okay if you do at times,” I tell him. “She might be our best friend, but she’s also your girlfriend. Different relationships require different expectations.”

“When I first came to Fairwood, I joined this friend group because of you, and throughout that time, I formed smaller friendships with everyone else before Genevieve ever became my girlfriend. I don’t just want to be an extension of you all just because I’m attached to Genevieve. Your guys’ friend group is something important and special, and I want to be a part of it.”

The sheer emotion of his voice almost causes a lump to form in my throat. “We all want that too.”

Ever since Jameson came to our school, even when he was Genevieve’s biggest rival and I thought she wanted to kill him in his sleep, he’s been a friend to me. Hell, he lives with me, and that makes him feel like a brother.

“I’m happy for you and Gen,” I tell him for the first time. “Nothing makes me happier than seeing two of my best friends find happiness within each other.”

He runs his hands through his hair, smiling. “God, I love her, man.”

“I know you do, and she does, too. That’s all that matters.”

“I hope you find that,” Jameson says. “You’ve always been the complacent one, going out of the way for everything except yourself. Genevieve tells me all the time how good of a friend you’ve always been, how much of a people pleaser you are. I just hope you don’t let that hold you back from what you truly want.” He glances back toward the living room—where the two girls are sitting—and when he looks back at me, he’s grinning. “You have to do things for yourself every once in a while. Just remember that, alright?”

The sound of Eloise and Luke bounding down the stairs is just the alert we need, one that says it’s time to get the day started.

“Thanks, man.” It’s not often we get to have these talks. Despite living under the same roof, our lives are packed to the brim with people and places. It’s hard to make time to talk about the important stuff when it feels like all we do is talk.

But maybe the constant, everyday conversations that seem so mundane are what are really important. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to pull the conversation–gems out of the sand. The normality of frequent talks is what makes the really important ones stick out.

As Jameson walks away, his words linger, settling deep into my mind. You have to do things for yourself every once in a while. It’s something I’ve heard before, but coming from him, in this moment, it feels different—like an unspoken challenge.

I glance toward the living room, where Winnie’s laughter floats out, warm and familiar. She’s always been there, at the center of everything, but somehow just out of reach. Jameson’s right; I’ve spent so much time making sure everyone else is happy, so much time worrying about being the good friend, the reliable one . But what about what I want? What about the things I’ve been too afraid to say, too afraid to reach for?

Maybe it’s time, I think, feeling a stir of determination mixed with a hint of fear. Maybe it’s time to stop holding back.

“ L ogan, catch!” I hear only a split second before a foam football hits the side of my head. “Whoops,” Eloise winces.

I pick the ball up from where it’s floating in the water, lofting it back over to her.

“How about a little heads up next time, E?” I joke as I walk past her, putting a hand on her head and dunking her under the water.

“You’re dead, Callaghan!” She gasps as she comes up. “You hear me?” We’re all laughing, watching her try to maneuver her sopping hair out of her face while also trying to chase after me.

Eventually, I stop abruptly, so she runs straight into my back. She laughs before jumping on my back, wrapping her legs around my torso for leverage so she can pull me underwater.

One of the main things I’ve always loved about Eloise is how easy it is to rile her. All of us have way more fun when Eloise is amped because that’s how she operates. She’s outgoing and crass and can make anything enjoyable.

“Eloise, don’t you dare!” I catch the tail-end of Winnie’s plea as I get the water out of my ears before seeing the giant splash in my peripheral. Eloise is officially on a mission to dunk everyone.

Genevieve is already diving in—because she’d rather do it herself than be tackled under—and I see the gleam in her eye when she grabs onto Jameson’s leg as she comes up, pulling him all the way into the water. He doesn’t even care, he’s just happy to be in the water with his girlfriend, but all I can think about is how his arm is probably getting infected as we speak.

“I’m washing your arm with rubbing alcohol tonight!” I yell at him, and all he does is smile.

By the time everyone has gone underwater, it has turned into all-out warfare. Everyone is dunking everyone, with no mercy in sight. I think I’ve been tag-team-dunked by all the girls at least seven times, to the point where now I just let it happen.

Amid the chaos, I feel a hand grab my wrist, tugging me toward more shallow water. It's Winnie. Her eyes are bright with mischief, and she doesn't say a word, just pulls me along until we're out of the main splash zone.

“Truce?” she asks, her voice low and playful as she lets go of my wrist, raising her hands in surrender.

“Truce,” I agree, though I’m not entirely sure I believe it. There’s a certain look on her face that tells me she’s not done with the dunking just yet.

But instead of attacking, she surprises me by stepping closer, her laughter softening into something more gentle .

“You know, you’re pretty terrible at avoiding foam footballs,” she teases, reaching up to brush a bit of water off my forehead.

“Yeah? Well, I think you’re just trying to distract me,” I shoot back, trying to ignore the way my heart skips when her fingers linger a second too long.

“Maybe,” she admits, her eyes meeting mine in that way that always makes it hard to breathe. “But it worked, didn’t it?” Maybe a little too well. Her hand trails from my sternum down toward my abs.

Before I can respond, Eloise’s voice rings out from across the pool. “No secret alliances! Everyone’s fair game!” And just , that, the moment breaks as Winnie and I exchange a quick glance before diving back into the fray, the unspoken connection between us lingering even as the water splashes around us.

It continues like that for a while, and eventually, we’re all gasping for air as we make our way out of the water. It’s one of the best feelings in the world, one that’s reminiscent of playing chicken in this same water when we were little kids.

Our towels are all laid out in the sand, and we all sigh as we take our seats. The sun is just starting to set over the horizon, slowly turning the sky an ombre of orange. It’s nearly seven o’clock at night.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to hear out of this ear again,” Winnie groans, tipping her head to the right, no doubt trying to get the water out.

“I’m not going to be able to walk straight for at least a month.” Luke lays back on his towel.

“You got tackled a couple of times. Stop acting like you got fucked.” Eloise smacks him in the back of the head.

“Yeah, Luke, you should be able to handle it better than any of us,” I say. “You got tackled on turf every Friday night.”

“That was different,” he says breathlessly, like he’s recalling war memories. “Eloise isn’t a football player. She’s much, much worse.” We all laugh.

“I don’t think it’s fair that I’m being compared to a two-hundred-pound lineman,” she replies.

Luke rolls his eyes. “I think I almost blacked out underwater when you tried to Muhammad Ali me.”

“You did not just use Muhammad Ali as a verb,” Genevieve scoffs.

“Honest to God, E, you should take up a contact sport because holy shit ,” I joke.

Once the conversation dies down and music starts playing from someone’s speaker, the atmosphere takes a dramatic turn.

We’re no longer chasing after each other, worrying on-lookers that we’re trying to kill one another. Instead, we’re simply enjoying the company of being surrounded by the people we’ve known our entire lives.

We laugh at the jokes we make, and by the time the clouds start to cover the sky, we’re all dancing in the sand.

Eloise and Winnie have their arms hooked as they spin in circles. Genevieve is on Jameson’s back as he runs up and down the shore.

Everything feels peaceful, and once the sun has almost completely set and all our stomachs begin grumbling, we reconvene.

“Can we go to a seafood boil for dinner tonight?” Winnie asks, referring to our favorite restaurant, and we all immediately agree. It’s one right on the beach, and on weekends, they do huge seafood boil dinners.

Even Genevieve enjoys their food, which says something. “It will be Jameson’s first time!” She smiles, and we all pretend to congratulate him.

That’s how we’ve convinced ourselves to call it a night, with the promise of the best seafood in town. We head back in the house so we can all shower and change before heading into town.

There’s no wonder why people in these types of beach towns all eat dinner so late. Everyone wants to soak up the sun while it’s still light out, only going to dinner once it’s dark.

“Everyone, get your bike!” Eloise yells through the house. “We’re leaving!”

There are many memories I have made that I believe people will forget when I die. But, as we all ride our bikes to dinner–laughing because Winnie barely knows how–and being so happy together under the street lights illuminating our path, I know it’s one I’ll remember forever.