Chapter 25
25
OLIVIA
I click on the Instagram notification alerting me to a new DM.
At first, when I read it, I don’t feel anything. What I’m looking at doesn’t register.
For a while, time ticks by as I sit at my computer, looking dumbly at the message. Then, the emotions start.
First is surprise.
Then disbelief. Is this some kind of cat-fishing deal? A prank? But that doesn’t make any sense.
Then annoyance. I’m annoyed that he’s reached his grubby hand back into my life, which he was supposed to be out of for good.
Then anger—anger that he thought he had the right to do so. Anger that he thought I would even consider agreeing to what he’s proposing.
My piece of shit ex-boyfriend Ryan messaged me a couple hours ago, telling me that he and his college hockey team are coming to Cedar Shade to play the Black Bears in a couple weeks, and suggesting that we hang out while he’s here.
Hang out .
I grind my teeth. My eyes narrow on his profile picture, as if staring daggers at an arrangement of pixels could do anything.
In a flash of anger, I delete the message and block his profile. The latter I should’ve done a long time ago. I guess I never expected him to contact me again. The last time we talked, he sure as hell didn’t make it seem like reaching out to me would ever be on his to-do list.
Be serious, Olivia , he said, casually, like it was the smallest deal in the world, you’re just one girl and you’re two hundred miles away. You couldn’t think that would be enough for me.
I’d driven from Cedar Shade to his college in Massachusetts, to surprise him. This was the first semester of freshman year. We’d decided to stay together after leaving high school and going off to different colleges, though I was soon to learn just how different a definition of together we’d both had.
I was walking towards his dorm room, when I passed the common area on his floor. And there he was, with a girl sitting on his lap, making out with her.
It’s been like this since we’ve been together, he said, gaslighting me to high heaven, acting like it was absurd I didn’t already know this. Come on, you see how many girls throw themselves at me. Sure, we’re dating, but this relationship was always a little bit open.
A little bit open …
The anger burning inside me dissolves into a weak sadness.
I’ve worked hard to never again be the girl I was when I was with him. A girl who actually felt gratitude that some handsome, popular guy would pick her . A girl who put so much more into a relationship than she got out of it, hoping that maybe if she put in twenty times the effort he did rather than just ten times the effort he did, he’d show her he loved her as much as she wished he would.
A girl who had no defenses around her heart, so it hurt that much more when he stuck a knife in and twisted.
I heave myself up from the chair at my desk. I stand in front of my window and look out to the street in front of our house. It’s a grey, cloudy day.
I’m sad now, and that fact alone makes me feel angry. Angry at myself.
Ryan shouldn’t still have the power to make me feel like this. It shouldn’t matter to me anymore. I know I’m better off without him.
Better off without the guy who never texted or called me, who always sat back and expected me to be the one who ever made any effort. The only thing he’d ever be the one to initiate was sex.
But I know it’s not the loss of Ryan I feel sad about. It’s the loss of something I had in myself that I don’t have anymore. An optimism about love that’s been shattered. An eagerness to gather up my hopes and dreams and intertwine them with another person.
I look back, and I’m disgusted by how dependent I was, how easy it was for a man to take advantage of me.
But I’m also envious of how hopeful I was. How unafraid.
As I gaze out on the distinctly uninteresting scene in front of my house, my eyes snag on my car. And then Tuck comes to mind.
Thinking about Ryan and Tuck in such quick succession brings a hot, corrosive feeling to my chest.
I know they’re not the same person. Not by a long shot.
Tuck, for all his cocky swagger and playboy bravado, is actually nice. Caring. Even though he’s sometimes insensitive to the fact that his privileged background makes him look at things differently than other people do, he’s not inconsiderate.
The bottom line is, he’s a good guy.
He’s funny. He has an actual personality beyond hot, rich hockey player who people fawn over just because he’s a hot, rich hockey player.
But when I think about letting my guard down, about opening a door in the walls around my heart for Tuck to step through, every instinct screams at me to pull back.
It’s the same feeling I get standing near the edge of a cliff, or near the railing of a balcony high in the air, so close to the sheer drop down—the overwhelming urge to step back, to safety.
We haven’t really talked since we slept together at the hotel in New Hampshire.
Mostly because I’ve been avoiding him.
Okay, entirely because I’ve been avoiding him.
When we left to go to our cars, I told him that I wanted to keep what happened just between us. That we’d talk when we got back to Cedar Shade.
But instead of that happening, I’ve been studiously avoiding being anywhere I’m likely to run into him. I’ve been taking my time responding to his texts, and telling him that I’m busy each time I do.
I’m still not totally sure what he wants between us, anyway. Honestly, I’m kind of scared to find out.
If all he wants is to keep having no-strings-attached hookups, keeping himself open to do the same with any other girl who catches his fancy … the thought makes me feel like my heart’s in a vise.
Even though an emotional connection with Tuck is exactly what I’ve wanted to avoid. It’s a paradoxical, hypocritical reaction—but that doesn’t make it any less real.
And if he does want more than that … a warm feeling pulses through me at the thought.
But as soon as I feel that, fear comes hot on its heels. I go through the carousel of self-doubting questions. How long until he gets bored of me? How long until he remembers he’s not a one-woman man? How long until my heart gets broken again?
At least when Ryan broke my heart, I could retreat back here and forget about him. We didn’t share a campus. But if Tuck breaks my heart? Not only do we share a campus, but our best friends are dating. He’ll always be around.
That last fact reverberates in my mind.
I do want to be able to open up my heart again, eventually. I don’t want to give up on relationships.
But if I’m going to dip my toes back into that pool, is there anyone more high-risk than Tuck to do it with?
Summer and I sit down with our laptops and the books we’ve just bought. We’re at Last Word bookshop. It’s an incredible three-story bookstore in downtown Cedar Shade. The second and third floor are stocked with books, while the first floor is a café.
We both picked up a copy of Jane Austen’s Emma . After reading a couple of Summer’s romance books together, she proposed that I choose a book for us to read together. I thought Emma would be a good pick—it’s an all-time classic of English literature, while still being a love story.
With a cup of coffee and a croissant each, we open our laptops and take advantage of being here to catch up on some schoolwork, our copies of Emma face-up next to our computers.
“Oh!” A delighted exclamation pulls our attention from our computer screens. “You girls are reading Emma together?”
“Hey, Cindy!” Summer beams, turning around in her chair to greet the owner of Last Word.
“Yep,” I answer, smiling. “My pick for what book we read together next after Summer pulled me to the dark side and got me into those smutty romance books of hers.”
Summer flicks her wrist at me. “You love being on the smutty romance dark side.”
I don’t protest, because she’s not wrong.
Cindy lets out a big laugh. She’s such a ball of life and energy, which makes it so funny how Summer is convinced she and the ramen shop owner Kazu have a thing for each other.
She’s as social and boisterous as can be while he might as well be the definition of terse . Even their appearances contrast, both matching their own personality—Cindy on the curvy side with a soft and inviting face, Kazu thin and wiry with sharp, hard features.
“Going from modern love stories to a classic love story,” Cindy nods. “I guess love really is in the air today.”
I arch an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Well, I do have a date tonight …”
Summer’s squeal is practically a scream. “Really!?”
Cindy nods. “He’s a lawyer who moved here a couple months ago.”
Summer’s utterly delighted expression freezes, then melts off her face. Her brows drop, the excited smile on her lips fading. Clearly, the guy Cindy’s going on a date with isn’t the brusque ramen shop owner she was expecting.
“Oh,” Summer says, before gathering her energy back up and forcing herself to sound more enthusiastic. “That sounds great! I hope you have a great time!”
If I’m not mistaken, Cindy doesn’t look terribly excited about the date either. “I’m sure I will,” she answers, though it sounds oddly like she’s trying to convince herself.
When Cindy excuses herself to get back to work and walks out of earshot, Summer looks crestfallen.
“What is going on between those two?” she demands, clearly meaning Cindy and Kazu.
I shrug. “Maybe they’re not into each other. Maybe you and Hudson are reading into something that isn’t there.”
She shakes her head. “ No way. They’re so smitten with each other. It’s just …” she sighs. “They’re probably just so different they don’t know how to express themselves to each other. Am I a bad person if I hope Cindy has a bad date tonight?”
I laugh. “Probably.”
Summer scrunches up her face thoughtfully. Then she shrugs. “Oh, well. I’m a bad person, then. I do hope she has a bad date tonight. Her and this … lawyer ,” she says the word like it brings a bad taste to her mouth, “are not meant for each other.”
We settle into our schoolwork for a while, until Summer breaks the silence by saying, “Oh, by the way! I was over at Hudson’s place and overheard a conversation among the guys. Apparently, Tuck was also up at that gala in New Hampshire you went to.”
A knot tightens in my stomach. Both at feeling caught out, and at memories of how sinfully hot That Morning was.
“Oh? That’s interesting,” I say, doing my best to keep my gaze tethered to my laptop screen, my fingers typing, acting like I’m totally unaffected by what Summer just said.
To my considerable relief, Summer doesn’t have anything more to say on the topic.
I feel guilty about not telling her what happened between me and Tuck. We’re best friends. We tell each other everything. She even kept me in the loop when she and Hudson started fake dating last semester—I was the only one other than them who knew, because of course Summer wouldn’t think of trying to fool her best friend.
But it’s for the best that I pretend That Morning never happened—because I think I’ve made up my mind where Tuck McCoy is concerned.