“You thought what, Bobby?” I whipped around to face him. “You wanted to come here and remind me of what a great guy you are? How fun? How worldly? You want to teach me to laugh again?” I snapped. “Well you’re not such a great guy. Because you left me here. Stranded. Alone. Without you. You walked out with my heart and then you died. You died, Bobby. And now you’re here.”

“You chose this life, Lilly! I didn’t leave you stranded. I left you, married to Rory. I left because I couldn’t even be happy for my own brother. I couldn’t look at him without jealousy. I couldn’t look at his wife without craving her. I didn’t want to become that person.”

“And so you bring me here to do what? Because this place is just a reminder of everything I lost when I made that choice.” I crossed my arms and turned my chin up as if answers could be found above. A glory of brilliant stars flickered against the ebony sky. I had forgotten how much clearer things were out here. “What are you trying to accomplish?” I pleaded.

“I'm just trying to make you happy again.”

“Bobby, a happy Lilly is a Lilly who is with you!” I shouted. “All you're doing is reminding me you aren't Rory and that Rory can never be you.”

Bobby took a step back, like my words had the power to physically move him. “I didn't mean to. I want what's best for you guys.”

“There's no such thing. One of us will have to get hurt for that to happen, Bobby. We tried that before. To make Rory happy, and all it did was make both him and me miserable.”

Bobby ran his fingers through his hair and clenched it at the roots. “Lilly, I am trying here. I am trying so hard to do the right thing. I've been selfish. I left. I did screw things up, and I'm just trying.”

I snickered to myself. “He never had a chance. Rory never had a chance.” I shook my head in pity for the man I had grown to begrudge. “From the first day of our marriage, he couldn't win because he wasn't you.” I spun around, looking to the black forest for a way out, an exit from my tragic dilemma. “I don't know how to fix this. He'll never be you. It's not his fault or our fault. It just is. And for years I resented him for that. I loved you. I loved hating you. I loved loving you. And when you left, I blamed him. It's not fair. None of it is fair. For him. For us.” My shouts vanished into the dark night. Just like all my efforts, they meant nothing. “We tried so hard to do the right thing. We sacrificed us for him. And I think it just made things worse. Look at him.”

“Stop,” Bobby said firmly.

“I was so cold to him. I pushed him away so much. I created that man you see today. Do you think that was the right thing?”

“Stop,” Bobby repeated.

My emotions erupted out of me, explosive from years of being crammed into a secret space. Years of secrets I couldn't tell. Of unrequited love. Of a life unfulfilled. Of dreams demolished. I pounded my fist to my chest. “It hurts. It physically hurts to see you every day. You are the first person I think about when I wake up. When I thought you died, I died. Rory was with a corpse.”

Bobby stepped closer to me. “Stop it, Lil.”

“And you keeping being you and I am trying so hard not to love you.” I didn't care anymore about pretending. The threads were ripped and I felt as raw as the festering wound I had dealt with for the past seven years.

“And then you take me dancing and you tell me how you wrote me letters that you never sent and you bring me here. You make it impossible not to love you, dammit.” I thrust a finger in his direction and scowled. “And I hate you for that.”

“God dammit,” Bobby said, charging at me and pulling me towards him. His lips collided against mine and there was no fight left in me to resist. Just like the night before the wedding. The magnetism between us was unrelenting, and as long as we were close, it was only a matter of time before we came crashing together.

Seven years earlier

We shut off the light in the boathouse attic so no one might find us as we lay naked, beside each other. We didn't say much for a while. I stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of a future whose foundation had completely collapsed, as Bobby wrestled with the guilt of betraying his brother. I could see the pain in his eyes mixed with the exhilaration of having a taste of his own dream.

Bobby ran the tip of his middle finger from my shin, up the curve of my bent knee to my hip, and back down.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, knowing there was no good answer.

“I don't know, Lil. I just want to lock that door and never leave.”

“Me too,” I said. If we could, I would have done it in a heartbeat.

“Do you love Rory?” he asked.

“Yes . . . no . . . yes,” I shook my head. “I mean, I've known him my whole life and he's good and . . .” I pinched my eyes shut as I realized I had been trying to convince myself all along. Rory and I being the same age, our entire lives we had been unconsciously paired together. I was fulfilling someone else's prophecy. The person I truly loved, my soulmate, was the annoying little brother I couldn't even consider. Bobby was smart, he was athletic, he was full of potential, but he was never seen as the serious boy. Rory was the serious brother. Rory was the one you should marry. Bobby was always going to be floating around his life. Taking a year off from college. Passing classes based on his natural brilliance with no effort. He expressed a deeper love for fixing cars and boats than some high-level executive job. Bobby would never settle down with one girl. Rory had always made it clear he had eyes for me. It was like I had blinders that only allowed me to consider men like Rory.

“Bobby, it's you,” I said through a sob.

“It's you for me, too,” he pledged.

“Why didn't you ever say anything?” I asked.

He sighed and laid on his back, crossing his arms behind his head to stare at the ceiling with me. “Because I thought you hated me, that you just saw me as some annoying little brother. Because Rory has always been in love with you and you don't do that to your brother. I automatically just knew you were off limits.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“How long have you loved me?”

“Since before I even knew what it was,” he answered nonchalantly.

“I want to be with you.” I sat up, resolute. My heart was full of Bobby and there wasn't room for anyone else. It became all too clear to me how I had acted towards him all these years, trying to convince myself that the wrong brother wasn't the right one. How I mocked him to keep him at a safe distance. How I teased him about his girlfriends to protect my own heart. And now we finally said the things we needed to say and I was allowing myself to feel the high of being madly enamored with someone. I wanted to keep that feeling. To feel my skin quiver like a plucked string when he touched me. To almost feel sick when he was in the room because the love was too potent.

On this night, we had released something powerful. Something dangerous. And once freed, we could not put it back.

He sat up and kissed my shoulder. I turned to see the saddest look I'd ever seen in his eyes. “We can't do that to Rory.”

I knew he was right, but I pretended to be brave. How could we step out tomorrow in front of hundreds of family and friends and tell them that not only was I canceling this wedding, but was doing so because we were in love? My parents would lose their minds over this. The Lightlys would be so disappointed in their son. We were raised better than this. We came from reputable, proud families. Families with expectations. That level of scandal made me sick to my stomach just thinking of it.