Page 19 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain

F OR A TRIP THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE, AT LEAST PARTLY, ABOUT REST and relaxation, I’ve been sleeping terribly. And it isn’t Halia Falls’s fault. The mattress is firm, the pillows are plush, and the sheets are soft. The problem, once again, is me.

I left Jamie at the tiki bar with Genevieve three hours ago and have been lying here ever since, unable to shut my brain off.

In an attempt to exhaust myself into sleep, I try an old trick: coming up with an animal for every letter in the alphabet.

Aardvark. Beaver. Cat. When I get to Zebra, I start over, this time coming up with Texas towns for every letter in the alphabet.

I drift off somewhere between McKinney and Nacogdoches.

Except when I do get to sleep, I slide into one of those awful, lucid dreams, and I’m curled in a ball, crying uncontrollably, hardly able to breathe—like I’m drowning.

One of those panic attacks I used to have a lot that first year of college, after the bad breakup with Liam.

Full-body sobs wrack through me. From somewhere far away, I hear Nikki’s voice, trying to soothe me.

Telling me to sit up and wipe my eyes. When I finally do, I’m not in my USC dorm—I’m at my wedding venue in Malibu.

And Jamie’s there at the end of the aisle, telling me he has to do the right thing—which is to not marry me.

And then I’m running away, but the aisle keeps growing longer with every step I take.

I’ll never make it to the end. I’ll never escape the shame.

My eyes dart open for real this time, and I gulp in a breath, trying to calm myself. I’m here. In my hotel room in beautiful Hawaii. I sit up, trying to shake the dread and heartbreak from my dream. It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those panic dreams.

I reach over for the glass of water on my bedside table and take a large gulp, letting the uncomfortable feelings pass through me instead of trying to fight them off.

My phone screen says it’s a quarter past four—so just after eight a.m. back in Dallas. I go to my contacts and dial EMMA.

“Oh, thank god,” she says immediately, “I’ve been trying to give you space, but I am dying to hear what the hell is going on with you and Jamie. Wait, why are you up right now?”

“Hello to you too,” I say with a laugh. Emma’s always been my fiercest protector, my mama bear.

When we lived together in New York after college, she was the one keeping track of my insane schedule of side jobs, the one making sure I got home okay from a wild night out and didn’t have toothpaste or vodka in my hair the next day.

And I know she’s always willing to go the extra mile, drive to the end of the road and back to help me mend any mess I’m in—in fact, she basically tried to last year when I briefly ditched my own wedding.

The irony is, Emma found love along the way, and I was left with a shattered heart.

It’s been hard for us both since then; hard for her to watch me struggle when there’s nothing she can do to fix it, and hard for me to watch her build the perfect relationship—like the one I thought I was going to have.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still crave her advice—and her fiancé’s—in pretty much every situation. “Is Finn home?” I ask her.

“Yeah, he’s downstairs.”

“Go put him on speaker, and I’ll give you both the latest.”

I fill them in on last night’s conversation with Jamie—everything from the way my stomach swooped when he laid out the sexy vision of what our honeymoon at Halia Falls would have been like, to my shock at hearing his version of what happened on our wedding day.

How he believed that the right thing to do was to set me free.

“It kills me to realize that we both misunderstood each other so badly,” I say into the phone.

“But maybe that’s just further proof that we were never right for each other.

I mean, you guys know me better than anybody.

Tell me straight: was the idea of me and Jamie together just crazy from the start? ”

“I don’t think so,” Finn says softly.

“Sybil,” Emma says, her voice thick with sardonic amusement. “Finn and I literally drove across several state lines trying to find you and drag you back to the altar. Would we have bothered with that if we didn’t believe your relationship with Jamie was worth saving?”

I suppose she has a point.

“It sounds like the problem wasn’t incompatibility, it was communication,” Finn says.

“When did you get to be so wise?” I say, half joking, half not.

Finn has definitely matured from the guy I knew in high school.

But even back when we were crashing bonfires in the woods or cramming late at night for a chem test, he always did have that kind of clear-eyed way of looking at the world.

“Maybe when I realized my own communication issues were standing between me and the love of my life,” he says. I can hear a faint ruffling of fabric and imagine Emma wrapping her arms around Finn for a hug.

“Ugh, stop. You guys are so cute, it’s going to make me barf.”

“Sorry, Sybs.” Emma laughs, at the same time Finn says, “Not sorry!”

“Finn’s right,” I say, with a soft laugh. “Don’t be sorry. I love you guys.”

“We love you too,” Emma says. “And you know what else I love?”

“What?”

“Those cute biker shorts I made you pack. Put them on and go for a run.”

“I don’t run,” I remind her.

“You know what I mean. Move a little. Shake it off. I know how you get when you’ve been languishing.”

I roll my eyes, even though they can’t see my face. “Got it. Thanks, Mom.”

“And don’t forget your sunscree—” she says, but I’m already hanging up. Some things really never change.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

B Y THE TIME I ’M actually out of bed, the first few rays of dawn are licking across the ocean and tropical birds are calling to one another from the thick foliage over my balcony.

On this side of the island, the sunrise is slow and spectacular, revealing itself in one layer of silvery-gold light after another, lighting up the sea from a dark, undulating mass into something bright blue and alive.

It’s early enough that when I get to the hotel gym, it’s still totally empty.

One side of the large room is entirely windows lined with treadmills that look out onto the ocean.

The other side of the room is one long mirror.

I check myself out as I grab a yoga mat.

Emma’s not wrong; the pink biker shorts are doing their job.

With the vivid red cropped cut-off T-shirt I threw on, my hair back in a ponytail, and a slight sheen of humidity across my cheeks and brow, I look less like a sleep-deprived Millennial and more like a dewy, human lip gloss tube. A lip gloss I would buy.

When Gwendolyn suggested my mental health might benefit from getting more physical activity into my routine, I was skeptical, even though Emma had been telling me the same thing for years.

While I do occasionally enjoy swimming, I’ve never been able to hold down a gym membership.

I’ve never been a runner like Emma, either, or a booty boot camp aficionado like Nikki.

But much to my couch-potato dismay, it turns out they’re right.

I pull up a YouTube that walks me through a flow for “Inner Sanctuary,” put in my noise-canceling earbuds, and prop my phone up against a kettlebell.

Halfway through the video, I spot movement out of the corner of my eye but keep pushing myself.

My thighs are shaking as I hold Warrior 2.

Windmilling down into triangle pose, I finally see who’s joined me in the gym and almost topple over.

Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. Jamie’s regular early-morning exercise routine is something I used to find sickening but later came to appreciate as just another example of his discipline and dedication.

He’s on the erg a few yards from me. His rowing form is still impeccable. He makes the worst exercise machine in the room look effortless. Straightening up, I pop my earbud out. “You weren’t going to say ‘hi’? I know you’re not listening to anything.”

Jamie doesn’t listen to music or podcasts or audiobooks when he exercises because he is a masochist. One time he told me that he doesn’t want to be distracted from the feeling of working out.

He slows his strokes down at my words, the corner of his mouth tipping up in a smile. “I didn’t want to interrupt your flow.”

I return to my triangle pose, wincing briefly when my ankle buckles.

Concern clouds Jamie’s face. “Should you be working out on that ankle?”

I attempt a shrug, but all it does is knock me off-balance.

I catch myself, but Jamie stops mid-row, hooking the handle back on the machine before coming toward me.

I let myself sprawl into a distinctly un-yoga-like pose.

He squats down beside the mat, his elbows braced against his thighs.

It’s such a familiar pose it unlocks something in me, longing for a time when we were always this comfortable with each other.

Reaching toward my ankle, he pauses, meeting my eyes. “May I?”

My pulse flutters against my throat, and instantly the memory of our flirty exchange from last night rushes back through my entire body.

Not trusting myself to use words, I nod.

Jamie gently presses his thumbs along the thin skin of my ankle.

It is a little swollen, but it’s been improving every day. “I should have taken you to the medic.”

I clear my throat. “They wouldn’t have done anything other than ice it. I just need a few days.”

He reaches down to help me up but lets go of my hand as soon as he’s sure I’m steady on my feet. For a moment, we just stand there, staring at each other, a swarm of unanswered questions filling the space between us. Then my stomach lets out the most obnoxious growl.

Jamie chuckles. “Hungry?”

“Maybe just a little,” I admit.