Page 32 of The Four Engagement Rings of Sybil Rain

“Is this about Tokyo?” Seb asks, a slight edge of defensiveness creeping into his voice. “Because I did apologize for that, Sybil. I thought you wanted to come with me.”

“And I thought you were going to pick me up. Like you said you would.”

The debacle was classic Sebastian. He always means what he says when he says it, but somehow, something always seems to come up.

An opportunity he can’t say no to. A freak traffic delay that maybe could have been avoided if he hadn’t waited to leave until the last minute.

A misunderstanding because he was only half listening when making plans…

I remember sitting at the arrivals gate at Tokyo-Haneda International Airport, waiting for Seb to pick me up.

Waiting hours, with no international cell phone plan, in a foreign country where I didn’t speak a word of the language, didn’t know the address of the place I was going to be staying at.

Finally, after I’d cried myself to sleep on a bench near baggage claim, Sebastian came and found me.

He’d gotten the times wrong. He was wrapped up in a shoot.

He was sorry. I accepted his apology and went to stay with him in his new Tokyo apartment for the week like we’d planned, but the sour, stilted feeling between us lasted the whole trip.

We were planning to get married; I still had that strand of kelp wrapped around my finger.

But I couldn’t stop thinking that while I had been willing to drop everything and join him on the other side of the world, he hadn’t been willing to drop his photo shoot to meet me halfway across the city.

When the trip was over, I returned home, and he stayed.

That was that. I think the trip had simply confirmed what I’d always suspected.

That some part of me was always going to be left disappointed and heartbroken by Sebastian.

“I don’t want to talk about Tokyo,” I say. “That’s water under the bridge. Besides, that’s not even what I meant, about wanting different things.”

A squeal of microphone feedback makes us both wince. On the stage, the hula dancers have been replaced by a new band. They have just finished setting up, and the lead singer steps up to the mic as the musicians start playing a sweet folk song.

Seb and I watch a father pull his young daughter onto the street in front of the bandstand. She places her little feet on top of his, and they start dancing—really just swaying in place—her crooked smile beaming up at him.

“Did you ever want kids?” The words tumble out of me. I can’t look at Seb while I wait for his answer, so I start picking at the label on my beer again.

After a moment, I hear Seb say, “Not really, no.” He says it simply, not apologetic or defiant.

Just a statement of fact. “I mean, I love my nephews like crazy, but… I never wanted that life for myself. I value my spontaneity too much.” He chuckles.

“I don’t know if you know this about me, but I kiiiind of like winging it. ”

This gets a laugh from me. “You don’t say?”

“I do, in fact.”

For a moment, we just grin at each other.

“I think… I think I knew that,” I say, putting my beer bottle down on the table and stilling my fidgeting hands. “I mean, we never really talked about it, but I knew that’s how you felt. And I think I found that comforting.”

“Comforting?” Seb wrinkles his brow.

“Yeah.” I nod at him, realizing the truth of what I’m saying as I say it. “Because I wasn’t sure if kids were in my future. And being with you, it was like the decision was made for me. It was the safe choice.”

“But…” Seb prompts me, and I both hate and love that he knows me so well. That I can’t get away with anything when I’m with him.

“But as I got older, my feelings changed. I knew I wanted a family, but I was afraid to say it.”

“I hate that you felt like you couldn’t tell me,” Seb says. “I’m not sure if I would have changed my mind, but we could have at least talked about it.”

I shake my head. “It wasn’t you. I was afraid to say it because… I wasn’t sure if I could have children. Like, physically.”

“Sybil,” Seb says, his spine tensing. “Are you okay? I mean, are you sick or—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assure him. “Just some stuff with my ovaries that doesn’t quite work right.

It’s called PCOS. I’ve known about it since I was in high school.

” I remember sitting on that cold exam table, doctors saying words I could barely define, like “polycystic” and “mild adrenal hyperplasia.” All I remember understanding was that my own anatomy had betrayed me.

And it likely would again. I was lucky—and still am—that my symptoms mostly took the form of irregular periods, but the doctors said it could affect my fertility.

They just couldn’t be sure to what extent.

“Anyway,” I say to Seb, swallowing down the memory, “I think I was afraid to voice what I truly wanted, because I was afraid I’d never get to have it. And being with you, I could sometimes let myself forget that I even wanted it. But then a few weeks before my wedding, I found out I was pregnant.”

Seb looks at me in surprise, reaching a hand across the table to hold mine. I see confusion across his face as he pieces together the inevitable. Because clearly, there is no baby here today with us.

“Sybil,” he says, his voice low. “Does Jamie know?”

“Obviously I’d been planning to tell him. I wanted it to be a surprise. Once I was confident that it would, you know… last.”

Seb nods.

“Only,” my throat feels like it’s closing up, “it didn’t. I miscarried Wednesday night before our wedding.”

Now he looks pale, shaking his head. “Sybil, I just… I can’t believe you went through that. And that you didn’t say anything.”

“I was such a mess. I think I was kind of in denial,” I admit.

He’s quiet for a minute, digesting all of this. “Look, it’s not really my business, but if that’s why you didn’t marry him—because you were afraid you couldn’t give him children—I think the guy at least deserves to know the truth.”

It sounds absurd—that isn’t why Jamie and I ended things.

At least not on the surface. But I guess deep down, maybe I did think that if, on top of all my other failures, it turned out that kids also weren’t in the cards, it would just be one more strike against me.

I had never said it out loud because I didn’t rationally think Jamie would break up with me over it.

But was it there in the background, a part of the larger puzzle?

Or was it never really about Jamie at all?

Maybe, just as I’d told Seb, I was simply afraid of saying what I really wanted.

Because then I’d have to face the heartbreak that I might not be able to have it.

Maybe what I was running away from was the fear deep down that I’d never have a true sense of home and family.

Just then the band strikes up “Come Monday,” and the familiar chords cause Sebastian’s expression to soften.

He’d never admit, but he’s a secret Parrothead.

This very song was playing on the boat in Key West the day Sebastian proposed.

As if remembering the same thing, Seb extends his hand, and I reach for it.

His hands curl around mine, and he pulls us both to our feet.

I let him guide me over to an empty patch of grass near the side of the stage.

My right hand remains clasped in Sebastian’s while my left comes to rest on his shoulder, a healthy distance between our bodies as we start to sway to the music.

At one point, he tries to twirl me around, but my feet get tangled in each other.

I land hard on Sebastian’s toes, and we both wince, laughing.

“Sorry. Some things never change, I guess.” I’ve never been the most elegant dancer. Enthusiastic, sure. But graceful, not so much.

“We really had our moments though, didn’t we?”

It feels like we’re having another moment now. The warm sun and the distant roar of the ocean, not fully drowned out by the music. “We really did.”

I’ve always tried to hold our best moments at the forefront of my memory. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for us to keep getting back together, even after Tokyo. The good memories crowded out the bad, making me forget why we ever broke up in the first place.

Seb spins me out and reels me back in, and I try to lose myself in the feeling, my body flush with his, the warm breeze tickling my skin.

The familiar last lines of the song float up around us, I just want you back by my side .

A lump forms in my throat. Because even though I’m here with Sebastian, dancing to a song that’s always been ours, I still can’t get Jamie out of my mind.

Questions stirring. Wondering when it all went wrong—not with Jamie, but with me .

What was the point in my life where I lost some key ingredient to myself that I’ve been trying, ever since, to find again?