“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 of Everything’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 know about 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 Gram Parsons 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 ask about 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.

  “We go through this every time,” he says. “You stare at the menu for ten minutes, then you order strawberry in a waffle cone and proclaim it the perfect flavor. And we have a zipline to catch.”

  I know he’s right, but what feels wrong is I have no idea what kind of ice cream he likes. Thus I re-enter my wobbly shame spiral . . . until it hits me that, actually, I do know. Rum raisin. He’s the one person in either realm who likes it. I know this from prom, that interdimensional colossus straddling both domains.

  “Rum raisin,” I proudly tell the teenaged Scoops employee. “Sugar cone.”

  Ice creams in hand, Jake and I stroll Crescent Ave. It crosses a tiny, touristy downtown full of rock shops and T-shirt stands, before winding around a rocky coastline. We pass the art deco casino, where big bands of the thirties and forties serenaded elaborate soirees in the world’s largest circular ballroom. We pass the white umbrellas of Descanso Beach Club and its pebbly shore. It’s still spring, too early in the season for peak summer crowds, so the town has a sleepy local vibe that makes me want to linger. It makes me want to make new memories with Jake, ones that I can access, too.

  “Taste this,” he says, through a mouthful of ice cream. “Maybe the best rum raisin ever.”

  “I’d rather bob for garbage in that trash can over there. I swear, if you make our kids like rum raisin . . .” I trail off, wishing I could snatch the words out of the air.

  Where did that come from? And how can Jake seem so unfazed by it?

  “Oh yeah, that’s all you’re going to eat while pregnant. Then you can partner with Baskin-Robbins and write Dr. Josslyn Munro’s Rum Raisin Pregnancy Diet. You’ll be a pariah in the medical community, but our kids will be biologically programmed. Master plan.”

  “Not going to happen.” I mean it lightly, but it comes out with such gravity that Jake stops walking. He hears that I don’t only mean his ice cream master plan. I mean all of it—the future as he sees it.

  “Uh-oh,” he says. “What’s that look?”

  “Jake, what I said on the boat—”

  He groans. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I need to explain why I acted that way,” I say. “And it’s going to sound crazy. But at that Yankees game, Amy discovered the wrong person.”

  “That was ten years ago—”

  “It shouldn’t have been me,” I say, my voice rising. “It was supposed to be you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘supposed to’? According to what? Your imposter syndrome?”

  “According to reality,” I say. My mind hurts and I know I’m making things worse, but maybe that’s a necessary stop on the way toward the truth.

  “I care about Amy Reisenbach almost as little as she cares about me, so why are we talking about her?”

  “Because you should care about her. Because she should care about you.” I put my hands on his chest and look into his beautiful green eyes. I’ve stared at them in magazines for years. I can’t keep them all to myself. It feels like I’m robbing the world of Jake and robbing Jake of the world.

  “Doesn’t some part of you feel it? Don’t you know that your life was supposed to be glorious?”

  “My life is glorious. I found you.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I know,” I say. “I’ve seen . . . things you haven’t. You were destined for a lot more than you’re getting. With me. I’m not even supposed to be here.”

  “Is this a passive-aggressive way of saying you’re not happy?”

  “I’m not happy.” What truth serum is in this Scoops ice cream? Suddenly I can’t stop myself telling him as much of the truth as he might be able to hear.

  He sucks in a breath and cuts his eyes at me. “Oh.”

  “I’m not happy with anything—except you. And I don’t know if I’m staying or going, but if I stay—”

  “If you stay?”

  “Then I need to—I need the chance to help you get a piece of the life you deserve. And that’s why we have to go find Amy at the zip line. So you can be the star, not me.”

  “Just because you don’t think you deserve your success,” Jake says coldly, walking so fast I have to run to keep up with him. “Because it’s not up to Juilliard standards . . . because it cost you your relationship with your mother—”

  “I told you that?”

  The look he gives me makes me wonder how many rounds of this bout we’ve fought.

  “I was raised by narcissists too, remember?” he says. “Your issues with your mother would have still exploded, even if you hadn’t come to New York—”

  “No!” I say. “That’s the thing! They wouldn’t have. I’d still have her. Same with Masha. If I hadn’t left, if I hadn’t gone to New York, if I hadn’t been . . .”

  I stop just before I say with you. But Jake knows me well enough to hear it in my silence.

  “Things would be better if you hadn’t chosen me? If you didn’t work on a successful show that makes people happy? If you didn’t have a loving husband? If you gave up your dreams to take on your mother’s grief, which by the way is a ridiculous request for a parent to make of a child? Things would be better then?”

  It’s a complicated question. I want to tell Jake yes, and I want to tell him no, and I want to say the same goes for him—that his life would be better if he hadn’t chosen me. But I can’t say anything. I’m crippled by the ignorance of every small decision I don’t know we’ve made. Every conversation, every argument, every thoughtless movement in the night.

  “No wonder you can’t imagine having kids,” Jake says, turning to walk away. “Who would bring a child into a life they don’t even want?”

  * * *

  • • • • • •

  We climb the rest of the way in silence, especially not remarking upon the incredible family of deer—a doe, a buck, and two fawns—that pass us, inches away, going the other direction, down the steep-inclined road. The doe locks eyes with me as she passes, and it feels like a sign that Jake and I should stop fighting and appreciate these moments. You don’t get an unlimited amount of magical island interactions.

  The zipline office sits beneath a canopy of trees. Awaiting us are five of the longest ziplines in California, looking out over the ocean. I recognize Aurora’s stylist, and Miguel Bernardeau, who’s tightening a harness around his young Spanish girlfriend’s waist. And there’s Amy, my mark, fastening her helmet. She waves like she’s not groaning to see us again, lighting a little Olympic flame of hope inside me as Jake touches my elbow.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I’m going to take a walk and meet you later—”

  “Please,” I beg him. “Please do this with me.”

  A woman with a clipboard approaches us. “Names?”

  “Olivia Dusk and Jake Glasswell,” I tell her.

  “No,” she says.

  Jake spins on his heel. “Just the word I was hoping to hear.”

  “Wait.” I grab the collar of his T-shirt. “Those are our names,” I tell the woman.

  “Not if you want to be on the three fifteen shuttle.”

  “I think the issue is we were supposed to be on the three p.m. shuttle,” I say, “but we got a little . . .”

  Divorce-y?

  “But we’re here now,” I say. “Can we join the three fifteen group?”

  “Under normal circumstances yes,” she says. “But Ms. Apple has been quite specific about the schedule, and I’m afraid the shuttle is full for the rest of the day.”

  “It’s a real tragedy,” Jake says. “Somehow we’ll have to find a way to carry on.”

  “Olivia!” Ivy sticks her helmeted head out of the shuttle. She clocks Jake’s annoyed and my distressed expressions. “Is there a problem?”

  “You’re on this trip?” I say, walking to the van. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You’re the one who insisted Aurora put me on the list!”

  “Oh yeah,” I say. “Good thinking.”

  Ivy looks over my shoulder at Jake and lowers her voice. “What’s going on?”

  “We missed our shuttle,” I say, “and now—”

  “We’re going to skip it,” Jake finishes.

  “Give me two minutes,” Ivy says and pushes her way off the van. She pulls the woman with the clipboard aside.

  Jake and I stroll a bit, walking past the ropes course, gazing at Descanso Beach below, then the mainland far off in the hazy distance.

  “Great news!” Ivy calls, cupping her hands around her mouth.

  I slink my arm around Jake’s waist. “See? I knew this would work out.”

  “They have one more seat,” Ivy says, her gaze on Jake then back at me. “For you.”

  “What?” I narrow my eyes at her.

  “I’m sorry. I tried. They’ve only had one cancellation. It would give us the chance to catch up on some very pressing business. But I mean, if you want to, you can take my spot, Jake—”

  “Oh no,” Jake says, throwing up his hands. “I’ll see you later, Liv—”

  “Jake, wait—” I say.

  “I’m scared of heights,” he says. “I hate this kind of thing. You know that.”

  “I’ll go with you. We can get more rum raisin.”

  “No,” he says, his voice unyielding. He takes a breath, meets my eyes. There’s love in them and a breaking point, the kind of thing married people learn to respect in each other. “Do the ride. I’m going to take a walk.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Shuttle’s leaving,” the clipboard lady calls.

  “Have fun,” Jake says. “I’ll meet you at the champagne sabering.”

  I board the shuttle and slump onto a bench at the back of the van. This was supposed to be a shared experience.

  Ivy squeezes onto the bench beside me. I sense that she’s bursting with things to tell me, but experience seems to have taught her to wait out my mood.

  “Thanks for getting me the seat,” I say.

  The shuttle chugs up a long and winding hill, past herds of grazing buffalo, until we’re faced with staggering panoramic views of the sea. Across the steep canyon below stretch thick steel wires of sheer exhilaration. I tell myself Jake’s happier wherever his walk took him than he would have been with his eyes jammed shut, zooming in a leather diaper through the sky. I tell myself that what I said earlier only came from good intentions, and that Jake knows that, too. By 6:57 we’ll be cracking jokes about the size of Aurora’s saber, then we’ll be sipping champagne and dancing—our first time since Masha’s wedding. This time, I’ll enjoy it.

  One by one the other zip-liners depart, screaming and laughing as they fly high across the canyon.

  “Are you ready?” the guide asks me at the threshold. The drop is death-defying and my heart soars into my throat. I remember from years ago that it takes a leap of faith to lift your feet on this initial jump, to trust that the rope and wire are strong enough for the weight of all you’ve brought.

  I could use a leap of faith. I take a breath—

  And feel my phone buzz.

  I inch backward, away from the edge. “I’ll just be a second,” I say to the guide who’s waiting for me to go.

  I unlock my phone. It’s a text from Jake.

  My walk led me to the ferry terminal, and I caught the last boat home. Let’s take a beat and talk tomorrow when you get back? Have fun tonight. I love you.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I skip the zip line, take the shuttle back down, and run to the ferry dock and confirm there are no more boats to the mainland tonight. I’m stuck here without Jake. Without Jake is the last place I want to be.

  I stand on the dock and look across the lonely, foggy sea, feeling every inch of the three miles back to Los Angeles. I call Jake five times. Each one goes straight to voicemail. Either the ferry has no service or he doesn’t want to speak to me.

  Have fun tonight, he’d texted. How?

  I love you, he’d texted. He’s wrong. He doesn’t know me.

  I climb back to the Wrigley Mansion. The living room’s ghostly quiet, and I realize everyone’s getting ready for the champagne sabering. The thought of showing up for that is exhausting. No one will miss me.

  I close myself in the hotel room, where the sight of Jake’s earbuds and sweatshirt makes me slide down the door in despair. It’s like he was raptured. He wanted so badly to escape me, he left his things behind.

  Gram Parsons trots over and curls up in my lap.

  “Thank you.” I let him lick my nose. “You don’t know how lost I’d be without you.”

  I take him out to use the bathroom on the front lawn of the mansion. Holding a plastic bag like a glove, I watch him poop under a sign that reads “No Pets Allowed.”

  “There you are,” a familiar voice says.

  “Hi, Ivy,” I sigh even as I admire her blue-sequined formal dress. “Sorry I dragged you into hell with me.”

  “Are you kidding?” Ivy says. “I’m having a blast. You were right when you said not to call or text, or to take any calls or texts from you—it’s much more fun.”

  “That feeling seems to be contagious,” I say, disposing of the poop bag.