He doesn’t say anything, just watches me spill my guts as we sit beside a field of tall grass, watching it sway in the wind.
“It wasn’t about you. Any of it. I was just freaking out because I was so scared that I was going to lose what I’ve been working so hard for, and I thought the only way to stop it was to cut out everything in my life, and that meant punishing you for something you didn’t have any control over. I thought you were the thing holding me back, but you weren’t. I was holding myself back. You were the thing pushing me forward.”
I stop talking because none of the words coming out of my mouth seem to make it any better. They’re just building up and not clarifying anything.
“I love you, Oliver,” I say because it’s the only thing that means anything. “I love you, and I want you, and I don’t want anyone else. All this time you were worried about being a fuckup, and here I am, the biggest fuckup of all.”
“You’re not a fuckup.”
But it’s a lie, and I think we both know it. “I won’t hurt you again, Oli,” I say, looking up at him. “I swear. I never meant to hurt you, and I swear on everything I am that I won’t hurt you again.”
He’s watching me, and I just want him to say something, anything. I want him to tell me he forgives me. I want him to tell me he loves me. I want him to say that he never wants to see me again and this night was just like what Brooke said, closure. Because that would be better than his mouth not moving, not saying anything.
But he still doesn’t say anything, just leans forward and kisses me. I’m too relieved to be embarrassed that I’m crying into his open mouth, that my tears are getting his face wet, too, as he pulls me across the console and onto his lap, and I hold on to him as tight as I can because I’m never letting him go again.
OLIVER
“I MISSED YOU,” I say against her mouth, the thing I’ve wanted to say since I saw her standing alone at the concert, swaying to the music, looking every bit like that girl I fell in love with in the stockroom at Spirits. Amy and I have only been friends for a few months, but in the time we’ve been apart, I’ve felt like I lost a limb, and I didn’t even know it until I was holding on to her again.
“I missed you, too,” she says, wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my neck.
I wish I could explain to her how everything feels different. But I don’t know how to put into words how I feel, like I’m jumping off a cliff and hoping to fly, and I’m taking her with me. Like the way I love her has shifted, into something quiet and solid.
I pull away from her so she’ll look at me, and even though I didn’t really plan to say any of these things on a dark road in Independence with her straddling me like this, I want to say it.
“I’ve been in love with you since almost the day we met. I’ve never felt like this before. I feel like I handed you my fresh, beating heart and maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe it’s not fair to put all your hopes into a single person and think they can be everything you need them to be. I looked at you, and I saw my future, and that was too much to push onto one person.”
She shakes her head and presses closer to me. “But I’m okay with that. I want you to see me in your future, Oli.”
I bite my lip. “It wasn’t right of me to put that pressure on you. You’re not responsible for my happiness.” I think of my parents. I think of the expectations they had for each other, the expectations they had for themselves. “It’s not going to be perfect. It’s never going to be perfect, but I’ve seen what happens when you walk away, and I think we can do better than that.”
Her eyes are wide, her chin wobbling. “I love you,” she whispers, and I feel like every inch of my skin, every cell in my body, is screaming out for her. She presses her forehead to mine and then sighs against my lips. “I have to go home. Mama has been extra worried about me, and if I’m late, she’ll panic.”
I nod at her, but everything inside me mourns her touch as she pushes off me awkwardly and climbs back into her seat. She puts her seat belt back on while I start the truck, and when I reach for the wheel to make a U-turn, she reaches out a hand, putting it on my arm, stopping me.
When I look at her in the dark, I see something brewing in her eyes. “Come to California with me.”
OLIVER
BROOKE LEANS AGAINST the front counter and smiles at me. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t my favorite employee. What’s cookin’, sweetheart? Did you come here hoping I’ll take you back?”
Hoping isn’t really the word I would use. More like, expecting. “Yep,” I say, “but you’ll have to forgive me. I can only work through the summer.”
Brooke narrows her eyes. “Is that your way of telling me that you’re going to Missouri Baptist after all, and you can’t manage a part-time sales position while you’re a full-time student? Because that is just so not like you, Oli.”
I grin at her. “No, that’s my way of telling you that I’m moving to California with Amy at the end of the summer.”
It’s hard to shock Brooke. But when I say this, her mouth falls open. “Are you … are you serious? You’re leaving?”
I shrug. “Don’t you think it’s time?”
She laughs and shakes her head. “So I guess all that romantic gesture garbage worked on you then, huh?
“You know me,” I say. “I’m quite the romantic.”
She narrows her eyes at me again. “You don’t have to tell me that, Oliver York. You’ve never been able to fool me.”
I laugh because I know she’s right. “I love her,” I say, “and maybe fairy tales are bullshit and maybe I’m making a huge mistake, but when I look at her, I feel like maybe I have something to offer.”
Brooke’s expression of suspicion melts away, and she sighs. She reaches for her phone, and then I’m just standing there, watching her scroll through something, a thoughtful expression on her face.
“What are you doing?” I finally ask.
Her eyes slide up to mine. “I have some contacts in California. I’ll make sure you have a job by the time you get there. And you better start looking at buildings for us because I wasn’t kidding about Lauren and me moving Spirits out there someday.”
I wrap my arms around her and lift her off the ground.
“Oliver,” she screams in my ear. “You know I’m not a hugger. Put me the fuck down!”
AUGUST
AMY
OLIVER AND I lie flat on our backs on the floor of Oliver’s new apartment and stare up at the spotted gray ceiling. Oliver reaches over with just the tips of his fingers and laces them through mine.
“Is it everything you imagined?” he asks me.
I’m quiet for a long time. No. This isn’t how I imagined it. When I imagined moving to California, I imagined being alone. I imagined being terrified but keeping my head held high because that’s what I’ve always done. Never did I imagine Oliver here with me.
This is so much better than I imagined.