Текст книги "The Absence of Olivia"
Автор книги: Anie Michaels
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Chapter Fifteen
Present Day
“Well, here we are again,” Nate said as he put his truck into park. The afternoon sun was shining through the windshield and his cheeks were just a little pinker for spending the day outdoors.
“Thank you for a great day. It was a lot of fun.” I fiddled with my camera, trying to make it seem like I was putting things in order, when really I was stalling, not ready to leave him yet. When I felt his fingers under my chin I stilled, then lifted my eyes to meet his, which were a lot closer than they just had been.
“I’d like to see you again. Soon.” His face was achingly close, his thumb and forefinger putting just enough pressure on my chin to make my insides melt.
“I’d like that too,” I breathed.
He waited only a moment before he leaned forward and pressed the softest and most patient kiss against my lips. It was a far cry from the urgent kisses we’d shared behind the waterfall. There was still need, but it was simmering instead of boiling. When he finally pulled away, I was breathless. His body moved and I opened my eyes fully, and then realized he was pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He flipped it open and produced a business card.
“This has my cell number on it. I already have your number, now you have mine. I’d like you to use it. I’ll do the same.”
“Okay,” I replied, taking the card from his fingers. I held his gaze for a moment, and then turned to reach for the door handle.
“Hey,” he said softly, making me turn in my seat. “Soon.” That one word sent shivers all through my body and made the air stall in my lungs. I nodded weakly then opened the door and climbed down from his truck. I walked to the door of my studio, noticing that my clothes were completely dry. I was glad for that because I didn’t want to have to go home just yet. I wanted to get some work done.
My mind was still back in the truck with Nate and his kiss, his hands on me, and I didn’t notice that only the bottom lock was turned. Didn’t even pick up on the fact that the deadbolt was unlocked. I did, however, notice the lights were on. I stopped only a few feet in the studio when I saw Devon sitting in my fancy chair behind my desk.
“Devon,” I said, shocked to see him. “What are you doing here? How’d you even get in?”
“You said you were working today.” His voice was calm and almost sad. He sat with his hands folded together atop my desk, but he wouldn’t look at me. “I left the kids with the neighbor girl across the street and came here to talk to you, to try and work some things out, but you weren’t here.” He paused for a moment and took a breath, then his face lifted and his eyes met mine. “I waited here because I thought, surely, you’d be back soon. You told me you were working.”
“Devon,” I said quietly. “How did you get in?”
“Liv had a key.”
Of course she did.
“I was working,” I lied. I held up my camera. “I did a nature shoot. Went for a hike.”
“With him?” His words were colder, but not any harsher. If anything, he sounded sadder with every word.
“Devon, please-”
“I don’t understand. I didn’t think it was possible to be hurt by loss again.”
His words opened up a deep and gaping hole, right in the middle of my chest. My lungs collapsed. My knees begged to give out, to bring me straight to the floor.
“I thought when Olivia died that would be the end of the loss. Do you know what I mean?” He looked at me again, pleading with me to understand what he was saying, but I knew his loss was something I’d never be able to comprehend. “I always imagined, at least in the last couple of months, that grief was like a basket or a bowl.” He held his hands up, as if he were holding an imaginary bowl in his arms. “My bucket was full of grief. I couldn’t fit anymore in there, Evie. It was filled to the brim. And it was heavy. I had to carry it everywhere.”
I wanted to go to him, to wrap my arms around him and try anything to make him feel better, to make his hurt go away. But there was a notably distinct and solid wall of emotion around him and I didn’t know how to break through or if it was even a good idea.
“But every day it got a little lighter, and the bucket got a little smaller. No less empty – the grief and sadness were still there – still just as real, it just became easier to carry. Every day when you would come to our house and make life easier, Evie, the grief became less.” He shook his head and dropped it into his hands. His next words were mumbled, his voice quiet and aching. “It didn’t occur to me that you were mine to lose, too.”
“That’s a lie,” I rasped at him, my whisper angry and insistent. “You’ve known from day one, the day you realized I was your girlfriend’s best friend, that I was yours. I’ve always been yours, even when I shouldn’t have been.” My body, which had previously been weak and empty from his presence, was now alive and filled with electricity coursing through my veins. “You chose Olivia.”
“I wasn’t given a choice!” His words were punctuated by his hand slamming down on the top of my cherry-colored desk. “I was with her and then you appeared, like I’d been wishing for, but I was already with her. I couldn’t break up with her to be with you; that would have ruined your friendship.” He slammed his other hand down, only this one was fisted, making a louder thump than the other. Then he fisted both of his hands in his hair, resting his elbows on the surface of the desk. “Besides, I cared about her,” he whispered.
“I know. You loved her.” My words came out with a sob I thought I would be able to keep under control.
“I did love her, Evie. God,” he took in a stuttering breath, “I loved her.” His voice broke as he started crying, and I just couldn’t stay on the other side of the room any longer. Nothing in that moment was going to keep me from him. I rushed to him, knelt at his side, offering anything I had to make him feel better. The instant I was there, he turned and wrapped his arms around me. He buried his face in my neck and cried.
I ran my hand down the back of his head, smoothing over his hair, murmuring quiet words to him. Telling him it was okay, letting him cry. I tried to be the strong one, tried to keep my tears in, but I found myself with a few errant ones slipping down my cheek.
“She wasn’t supposed to die, Evie,” he cried. “She wasn’t supposed to leave me here wondering what in the hell it was all for.”
“I know, Devon,” I whispered, not knowing what else I could say to him.
He pulled away slightly, his mouth just barely at my cheek, breath feathering over my skin damp from both our tears. “I was so content. I was so used to loving you both. Having her with me and you just out of reach.” He sucked in a fast breath, but I couldn’t get my lungs to work at all. I felt his hand come to the side of my face, his skin warm and familiar in a completely foreign way. My whole body seized up and I recognized what I was feeling as fear. Everything was about to change, to go down a completely unpredictable path. “I’m so confused,” he whispered, his lips so close to mine I could feel the heat radiating off them, a hair’s breadth from mine.
When his soft, wet lips made contact with mine, a few things happened all at once. First, I had an instant in which I understood I was living a moment I had thought was an impossibility. I paid homage to the fact that Devon’s lips were pressed against mine, that he had consciously made the decision to kiss me. My heart swelled, the butterflies took off in droves, and my whole body sagged in the relief his kiss brought me. The next instant, all of that came to a jarring halt.
I pulled away from him, my hand coming to my lips. I didn’t know if I was trying to keep a part of him on my lips, or if I was ashamed they’d been there to begin with. All I knew was that it was wrong. It was all wrong.
“Evie…” he pleaded.
“No,” I said, shaking my head and getting to my feet. His hand reached out and grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face him again.
“Evie, please, you have to know I’ve wanted that for so long.”
“No,” I said again. We would not have that conversation. I couldn’t. I pulled on my arm, trying to free myself from his grasp, but he held strong.
“Please, don’t pull away from me. I couldn’t bear to lose you too.”
“You have to leave,” I said, my words muffled through my hand still covering my mouth.
“Talk to me,” he pleaded.
“You have to go.” I pulled my arm free with a hard tug and then walked quickly to the bathroom. I pushed the door closed behind me, locked it, and then leaned my forehead against it as I finally let the cries out.
Chapter Sixteen
Olivia and Devon’s Wedding Day
“You doing okay, Evie?” Olivia’s voice floated through the hotel room and brought me out of my daze. My mind was elsewhere. Probably because a large part of me wanted to be anywhere but there. I knew watching Olivia marry Devon would be difficult, but she was my best friend and I wanted to be there for her.
My eyes moved down to my ring finger and focused on the square-cut diamond solitaire engagement ring I was still trying to get used to wearing.
“I’m fine,” I said without any kind of feeling or conviction.
“Were you surprised?”
“By what?” I asked, still staring at the ring, trying to convince my mind that it was, in fact, my finger on which the ring was situated.
“By Elliot’s proposal. Duh,” Liv giggled. She was sitting in a chair across the room while a stylist worked on her hair.
“Oh. Right. Yeah.”
The truth was, I’d never been more confused in my life.
The night before, at Devon and Olivia’s rehearsal dinner, Elliot had stood to make his speech as best man. I hadn’t thought much of it. He was doing a great job – talking about how Devon had been smart not to let the woman he loved get away, that when you know you’re with the one you want to spend forever with, you should grab hold tight. The next thing I knew he was at my side, down on one knee, with a little black velvet box in hand, asking me to marry him.
I’d never felt more guilty than when my eyes fluttered over his shoulder and met with Devon’s.
But Devon didn’t stand up, and he didn’t shout to me not to do it. Not that I expected him to. But I did see him swallow hard and it kind of looked like he wanted to throw up. Me too.
“Babe?” Elliot asked, still holding my hand, waiting for me to tell him whether I’d spend the rest of my life with him or not.
I looked into Elliot’s eyes and said the only thing I could think of. “Yes.”
He pushed the ring onto my finger and stood up, hugging me, lifting me into the air and kissing my cheek. He seemed so happy.
“Evelyn,” Liv’s voice cut through my mental fog again. “Earth to Evelyn,” she giggled. “You guys must have had a lot of engagement sex last night.”
I forced a laugh, trying to seem like she’d hit the nail on the head. I wanted her to believe I was tired because I’d spent all night having passionate sex with my new fiancé. I didn’t want her to know I’d lost sleep because I was trying to come up with any feasible reason to get out of it without hurting anyone.
Elliot was a great guy. I loved him. He’d been good to me. But everything about the night before only solidified for me that it was over a long time ago. When someone asks you to marry him and the first thing you feel is overwhelming dread, that’s when you know it’s time to move on. I couldn’t marry Elliot. I couldn’t do that to him. He deserved someone much better than me, someone who would love him with as much enthusiasm as he loved them.
Two hours later, I watched my best friend exchange vows with the man I’d been in love with for years, a love I knew I’d never get the opportunity to express. Never get the opportunity to stand up in front of a group of people and hear him vow to love me until death parted us.
Because I was the maid of honor, I faced Liv’s back with my eyes locked on Devon.
He said his vows and I could see the love radiating from him. I watched as his eyes lit up with his words, how his voice grew sharp with promises and emotion. And when the tears slipped down my cheeks, I plastered on a fake smile so that people would think I was crying happy tears, not sad, devastating ones.
I watched with a painful ache in my chest as Liv kissed her new husband.
Suddenly, the years of longing and the way I’d resigned myself to simply being around him without ever feeling his hands on me was all too much. I was realizing that I would be living this way forever. Just as he’d taken the vow to love Liv until the day he died, I realized it would never end for me.
This had always been my reality, but faced with an eternity of never being with Devon was too much to handle in that moment. I walked behind the happy couple, hand in hand with Elliot, trying to keep the devastation from my face as I followed them back down the aisle. When we made it right outside the doors of the church, Devon and Liv stopped to share a kiss, his hands framing her face, and her eyes filled with actual tears of happiness.
I took a sharp right turn and headed toward a restroom I’d seen before the ceremony, ripping my hand from Elliot’s.
“Evie!” I heard him calling from behind me, but I couldn’t turn and look him in the face. I made it to the restroom, locked the door, and then put down all the barriers I’d had up for so long. I let my guard down, let the wall down around my heart, and I cried. I sat on the toilet, face in my hands, and cried loud and gut wrenching sobs. My mind was torturing me with images of Devon looking at his bride with love, holding their baby, spending a wonderful life with her, my best friend, and my soul shattered like a sheet of ice, fragments shooting in all different directions, with sharp and jagged edges.
I don’t know how long someone had been knocking on the door – I was unaware of my surroundings – but when the knocking turned into banging and shouting, my brain finally recognized the sounds of someone on the other side of the door.
“Evie, I’m worried about you. Please, open the door.” Elliot’s voice was loud and, indeed, worried. I stood, my legs shaky and weak, and walked to the sink, wetting some paper towels. I heard Elliot’s muffled voice talking to someone else and then suddenly the door burst open. I saw a man in a blue jumpsuit with a nametag that read, “Bud,” and Elliot barrel through the door past him. “Evie,” he said, my name like a prayer on his lips, rushing toward me.
“Are you all right?” he asked as his hands came to my shoulders, his eyes running up and down my body, looking for any kind of injury or clue as to why I would have locked myself in the restroom.
My first instinct was to tell him that I was fine; old habits die hard. But the words wouldn’t come. I couldn’t bring myself to lie to him, or myself, any longer. So instead, I shook my head. Immediately more tears sprung to my eyes.
“What’s wrong, babe?” His words were soft and concerned and the weight I was carrying around shifted, becoming altogether heavier with his sweetness.
“I can’t marry you.” I’d spoken the words without really thinking about them and instantly wished I could take them back, rephrase them, and soften the edges a little, instead of just blurting out the words that I knew would leave his soul entirely shattered as mine was, even if for different reasons.
He was shocked for a moment, but then he moved closer to me, bringing his body within inches of mine, bending at the knees to look into my eyes.
“Evelyn, let me take you home. You’re obviously upset about something. I don’t think you should be here. Let’s go.” His eyes were pleading with me to let him take care of me, to let him smooth over whatever I was upset about, and that would have been easy. Obviously, he was just as good as I was at pretending everything was all right, because if he weren’t we would have ended long ago. We’d both been pretending, but I knew he was only biding his time, hopeful I’d eventually return his feelings with the same depth and investment he had shown me. But it had to end.
“I can’t go with you, and I can’t marry you. It wouldn’t be right. We both know it.”
He was quiet for another moment, and then he took a step backward, his hands dropping from me. I’d never felt as cold or empty as I did the moment the warmth of his hands faded from my bare skin. That warmth might have been the last time I felt a man’s hands on me, and even though I wasn’t in love with him, his touch had never been anything but wonderful.
“This is about Devon,” he accused. I shook my head.
“No, this is about me. About us. It’s got nothing to do with him.”
“Bullshit.” His voice was laced with an anger I’d never heard from him before. Gone was the Elliot who wanted to care for me and he was replaced with someone filled with fury. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe it’s a coincidence you’re having a breakdown at Devon’s wedding. For Christ’s sake, Evelyn, don’t insult me by playing dumb.” He took in a deep breath and seemed to calm down a bit. “I thought you were coming around, thought you’d realized what we had was a good thing.” He moved closer to me again, but I took a step back, which only made him inhale a sharp breath. I’d never pulled away from him before.
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Elliot. And I do think that what we had was a good thing. But, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t keep hoping that one day I’ll move from loving you – and I do love you – to being in love with you.”
“You mean you were hoping you’d fall out of love with Devon.”
I opened my mouth, but I had no words to argue with him. He was right, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit it. My hands dropped to my sides, and more tears sprung from my eyes.
“He’s in love with Olivia. He just married her.”
“I know,” I whispered, still not looking him in the eye.
“She’s your best friend,” he said, the accusation implied – I was in love with my best friend’s husband; it was the ultimate betrayal.
“This doesn’t have to do with either of them,” I cried. “Yes, I’m in love with Devon, but it doesn’t matter. The only part that matters right now is that I’m not in love with you.” The words came out harsher than I would have liked. I would have loved to make it through this exchange without hurting him at all, but in that moment I felt careless and horrible. “Devon isn’t what’s important here,” I said as a way of trying to redirect the confrontation. “I care about you, Elliot, but it would be wrong of me to marry you when I’m not in love with you. I’m sorry. That’s the truth. I am sorry. I wanted to be happy with you. You don’t know how many times I’ve prayed that I would find my way to the place you seemed to get to so easily, a place where I could fall in love with you, but it never happened.”
“So that’s it?” he asked, pain and anger prevalent in his words, his fists clenched at his sides.
“Yeah,” I said through more tears, “I guess it is.”
“Two and a half years together and you’re going to end it because you had a breakdown?”
“This isn’t just a breakdown. This has been eating away at me for months. I can’t do it anymore.”
“I knew you had some weird thing going on with him, Evie. I could tell by the way you two would look at each other, or go to great lengths to never be alone together; it wasn’t a particularly well-kept secret. But I never thought you’d be stupid enough to risk everything for him. On his wedding day, even.” He shook his head and backed away from me.
“Elliot, please, if nothing else you have to understand that this has nothing to do with him. I’ve always been faithful to you. Nothing has ever happened between Devon and I. I promise. Please, just understand that I can’t marry someone I’m not in love with.” I took in a deep breath, trying to push past the sobs that were threatening again. “You’re a fantastic man. You need to find someone who will love you better than I can, someone who gives you every part of them.”
“I gave you everything,” he whispered sadly.
“And I don’t deserve it.”
