In Five Years: A Novel - Rebecca Serle Page 0,37

until the sun slips into the horizon.

Ariel and Morgan go for a walk in between swim sessions. I see them down the beach, clad in matching board shorts, holding hands. David and Aaron toss a Frisbee for a little while. Bella and I lounge under an umbrella. It’s idyllic, and I have a flash of years ­forward—all of us here, together, and her baby, toddling by the shore.

“Want to go for a walk?” I ask David when he comes back. He plops down on the blanket next to me. His shirt is wet at the chest, and his sunglasses hang down by his nose. I take them off and see that the skin around his eyes is sunburned—rimmed. We love it out here, but neither of us was made for the sun.

“I was hoping for a nap,” he says. He kisses my cheek. His face is sweaty, and I feel the moisture on my skin. I hand him the sunblock.

“I’ll go.”

I look up to see Aaron dripping over me, a beach towel flung over his right shoulder.

“Oh.” I look to my side, to where Bella is fast asleep on a beach blanket, her mouth slightly ajar, her foot dangling softly in the sand like a limp puppet.

I look to David. “Problem solved,” he says.

“Okay,” I say to Aaron.

I stand up and brush myself off. I’m wearing board shorts, a bikini top, and a wide-brimmed hat I got at a resort in Turks and Caicos on a trip with David’s family three years ago. I tighten the string.

“East or west?” he asks me.

“I actually think it’s north or south.”

He’s not wearing sunglasses and he squints at me, his face scrunching against the sun.

“Left,” I say.

The Amagansett beach is wide and long, one of the many reasons I love it so much. You can walk for miles uninterrupted, and many stretches are nearly deserted, even in the summer months.

We start walking. Aaron loops his towel around his neck and pulls with each hand at the edges. Neither one of us speaks for a minute. I’m struck, not by the silence but by the crash of the ocean—the sense of peace I feel in nature, I feel here. I don’t think I realize, living in New York, how much light and noise pollution affect my day-to-day life. I tell him this now.

“It’s true,” he says. “I really miss Colorado.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

He shakes his head. “It’s where I lived after college. I just moved to New York like ten months ago.”

“Really?”

He laughs. “Am I that jaded already?”

I shake my head. “No, I’m just surprised whenever someone has spent a good portion of their adult life somewhere else. Weird, I know.”

“Not weird,” he says. “I get it. New York kind of makes you feel like it’s the only place in existence.”

I kick up a shell. “That’s because it is. Says its insanely biased inhabitants.”

Aaron threads his fingers together and stretches upward. I keep my eyes on the sand.

“David’s great,” he says. “It’s been nice to spend some time with him this weekend.”

I look down at my left hand. The ring catches the summer light in sudden, brilliant bursts. I should have taken it off today. I could lose it in the water.

“Yeah,” I say. “He’s great.”

“I’m jealous of your relationship with Bella. I don’t have that many friends from high school I’m still that close with.”

“We’ve been friends since we were seven years old,” I say. “I barely have a childhood memory she’s not a part of.”

“You’re protective of her,” he says. It’s not a question.

“Yes. She’s my family.”

“I’m glad someone is looking out for her. You know, besides me.” He tries for a smile.

“I know you are,” I say. “It wasn’t you. She’s just dated people who didn’t really put her first. She falls in love quickly.”

“I don’t,” he says. He clears his throat. The moment stretches out to the horizon. “I mean, I haven’t, in the past.”

I know what he’s saying—what he’s hesitant to say now, even to me. He’s in love with her. My best friend. I look over at him, and his eyes are fixed out on the ocean.

“Do you surf?” he asks me.

“Really?”

He turns back to me. He wears a sheepish expression. “I thought I might be embarrassing you with this bleeding heart.”

“You weren’t,” I say. “I think I brought it up.” I walk a few paces down to the water’s edge. Aaron joins me. “No,” I say. “I don’t surf.” There are no surfers out there right