Chapter 21
21
Ivy
December 26
LaGuardia Airport, New York City
Ivy is so fatigued she can hardly see straight when she lands at LaGuardia, after flying out of Lihue Airport the night before, stopping over in Denver, and continuing on to New York City. When she turns her phone from airplane mode, she notices with a pang that Oliver has not sent her any texts, and she doesn’t have any voicemails, either. She can’t imagine how he must have felt to come back from his camping trip and find her gone. She left him the drawing of the beach, of him and Larry going surfing in the early morning, and, while she waited for her airport taxi, drew a card with a sketch of them at the waterfall in Nā Pali, the two of them tiny figures, kissing in the water. She wrote him a letter, too, telling him how she felt.
Dear Oliver,
I can’t believe I have to leave, but I hope you understand. I told Holly to call if she needed me and promised her I’d be there day or night—and she needs me. I have to go.
This time with you has been some of the most memorable of my life. The first moment I saw you, I was feeling terrible—and you made it all right, just by being you. I tried to resist my feelings, but I thought of almost nothing but you from that moment on. You know that. Every time I sat down to draw, even while surrounded by the most staggeringly beautiful scenery I’ve ever witnessed—I just wanted to draw you. Get your hair just right. Your beautiful sea green eyes.
I don’t know what the future holds for us. Maybe we’ll never see each other again. I know things weren’t great when we saw each other last, and I hate that. But I swear, I won’t forget you.
Merry Christmas.
Ivy
With every mile away from Oliver, her heart has increased its ache, and she almost can’t stand it. She thinks about texting Larry, to see if he got back from his camping trip safely—but she knows she needs to wait, to give Oliver the chance to contact her when he feels ready. If he feels ready. He might not.
Maybe he won’t call. Ever.
The ache intensifies.
But what if it’s for the best? Ivy asks herself. Maybe it was a fantasy, it was just for fun, it was some of the best sex of her life, and she won’t forget it. But she and Oliver didn’t have a future—so maybe the abrupt ending is what’s best.
She glances at her phone and notices with a pang that Oliver did not send her any texts while she was in-flight, and she doesn’t have any voicemails either. A few texts come in from Holly, sent the night before, when she was on the plane. Have you already left Hawaii? Call me. But Ivy doesn’t have time to call her now. It’s the holiday season, and she knows rental cars will be at a premium. She texts back, I’m here. Just landed at LaGuardia. I’ll be in Krimbo within two hours. Then she slides her phone back in her bag and takes off, fast, toward the car-rental line.
A small SUV rental secured, Ivy leaves the airport behind and stops at a Starbucks for a venti with an extra shot of espresso—then turns her phone on “do not disturb” for the snowy drive upstate. She hasn’t slept in almost a full day, her heart is achy, and her body is still longing for a man she might never see again. She knows any sort of distraction while driving could be risky. She and Holly will have plenty of time to talk when she arrives at the cabin—and if Oliver is trying to reach her, she thinks with a pang, that will just have to wait.
Despite the extra-strong coffee, Ivy still feels bleary-eyed as she drives north. She opens the windows, blasts the music, and finally, she sees the signs leading her toward Krimbo and the tiny, snowy cabin where her poor, brokenhearted friend is waiting for her. This lightens her heart, at least, knowing that she’ll be here with Holly when she needs her, just like she promised she would. In their entire relationship, Ivy has never heard Holly cry like that. As if her heart had been cracked right in two. Ivy feels relief as she sees the North Service Road and then, finally, turns onto the driveway leading her to the little cabin. It looks just as it did in the photos she saw online: cozy, small, and very remote.
Ivy sees Holly’s car but is also surprised to see a white pickup truck parked beside her friend’s vintage baby blue BMW. She pulls up beside the BMW, takes out her bags, and carries them up the path toward the cabin. She taps at the door, and Holly answers—and she does not look at all sad. In fact, her hair is bed-mussed, her skin is glowing, and she looks downright happy.
“Ivy! You came!” Holly throws her arms around Ivy and gives her a big hug, whispers in her ear, “You’re the best friend in the world.” Then she pulls away and glances behind her. “But…”
It dawns on Ivy. The pickup truck. The bed-mussed hair. The happy, glowing expression on her best friend’s face. In fact, she’s never seen her look so happy. “You made up,” she says in a low voice. Holly nods. “You made up, and you’ve spent all of today having makeup sex.” Holly nods again, and Ivy is happy for her friend—but she also feels a tug at her heart. Oliver. She left Oliver to come be with Holly—and Holly is perfectly fine. She almost cries then and there, but forces herself to smile. She did what she had to do. She thought Holly needed her. Of course she came.
Holly pulls her into the cabin. “He’s sleeping upstairs, but I’m going to kick him out as soon as he wakes up.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay…”
“He’ll understand. We have a lot of catching up to do. Ivy, honestly, you are the absolute best person for jumping on a plane and flying back to be with me. I’m sorry I was so dramatic. I tried to call you, but I guess you were on airplane mode. I texted, but I didn’t hear back.”
“It’s fine,” Ivy says, dropping her exhausted body down on the couch. “Really. I’m so glad you’re okay. You deserve so much happiness, Holly.”
There’s a sound from the loft above, and a very handsome man pokes his head over the railing. “You must be the famous Ivy.”
Ivy grins up at him. “And you must be the famous Eco Superman. Oops, I mean, Aiden Coleman.”
He climbs down the ladder, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt—with hair just as messy as Holly’s—and shakes her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you,” he says, and Ivy notes that what Holly said was true: He smells great . And he does look a lot like Henry Cavill. When his beautiful blue eyes wander across the room to land on Holly, which happens about every three seconds, Ivy can tell he’s completely besotted. Whatever went wrong between them, it didn’t last long.
Ivy finds herself glancing at her phone, which she left beside her on the couch, but the screen is blank and it has been totally silent since she arrived. Nothing from Oliver.
“I’m going to get out of your hair,” Aiden is saying.
“Good, because we need to talk about you,” Ivy says with a laugh, trying hard to keep her happiness for her friend at the top of her emotions.
“That’s my Ivy, honest to a fault,” Holly says from across the room, where she’s boiling the kettle to make them a pot of coffee. At this, Ivy feels a pang. There’s so much she hasn’t told her best friend. But as soon as Aiden is gone, she promises herself, she’s going to tell her everything.
Ivy looks away as Holly and Aiden share a long, lingering kiss at the door. It closes behind him, and Holly lets out a happy sigh. “He’s so great,” she says, flopping down onto the couch. Ivy’s phone falls to the floor, and she picks it up and sets it on the coffee table, then sits down beside her friend, cross-legged on the end of the couch, holding a steaming mug of coffee. “Tell me everything,” she says. “I think this coffee will buy me about one hour before I fall asleep with my eyes open, so go .”
She listens as Holly explains about Christmas with Aiden’s family, and his sister finding out about her canceled wedding, their misunderstanding—and then a heroic scene with a missing cat. “When I came out of the woods with Mrs. Claws, Aiden was calling out my name,” Holly says, her expression rapt as she continues the story, eventually getting to the part where she realized she couldn’t live without Aiden.
“Am I being illogical? Should I be taking my time?”
“I think you’re being amazing, Holly. What does logic have to do with any of this? You’re literally levitating!”
“Dancing like a dervish.”
“Screwing like a horny titmouse.”
Holly laughs and brings the French press coffee carafe over to refill Ivy’s cup. “Okay, a little more coffee and you tell me about your trip. Did you spend the week making amazing art?”
“Yes,” Ivy says, taking a sip of coffee. “And…”
“And?”
Ivy puts her coffee down and looks her best friend in the eye—and feels her own eyes growing wet with tears. She blinks them away, but it’s no use. One leaks out the corner of her eye and falls down her cheek.
“Ivy, what happened?”
Ivy puts her face in her hands. She needs to tell Holly everything, but where to begin? And what will it do to that happiness to tell her about Matt and Abby?
“Ivy, come on. Why are you crying? What happened? I’m your best friend. Tell me.”
So Ivy begins. “I didn’t stay at the hotel,” she says. “I met someone.” She starts to tell her about Oliver, but knows she is still leaving out important details, leaving Matt totally out of it. She just can’t do it. Not yet. She needs to talk about Oliver first. “And I’m so scared, Hol. I’ve never felt this way. I’ve never made myself so vulnerable with a man. Only you. And now that he’s five thousand miles away, I realize how completely unrealistic the whole thing is. But it still hurts so damn bad. And he hasn’t called or texted, probably because I was awful to him.” The tears start falling again, and Holly looks agonized.
“I had no idea,” she says. “I’m so sorry I called you. I’m so sorry I made you come here. I messed up everything for you.”
“No! Please don’t feel bad. You needed me in that moment, and of course you’re supposed to call me when you need me! Always. I’d do the same with you. I’m glad you two made up. I’m happy for you. I’m just…” She sniffles. “A little sad for myself, I guess.”
“Why don’t you call him?”
Ivy checks her phone again. No missed calls, no texts. “I wrote him a letter,” she says. “And I left him a drawing. I know I left—but I also left the ball in his court. I can’t call him. Not yet.”
“He’s going to call you, Ivy. I know it. There’s no way you fell for someone this hard who didn’t fall for you twenty times harder in return.”
“I guess I could text Larry and see if he’s okay, but I don’t really want to do that. She’s his friend, not mine.”
“She? Larry isn’t a guy?”
“No, Larry is a beautiful woman, actually. His bestie—and she’s engaged to a woman named Shira.”
Holly considers this. “Wow, it’s like you’ve led this whole existence I know nothing about. Can I see photos? Of Oliver, of Larry? Of some of the places you went to?”
“Of course.” Ivy unlocks her phone and scrolls through the photos with Holly at her side, feeling sharp pangs of nostalgia as she looks at images of the tree by the bar where she first met Oliver, the view from the villa right after he showed her around, the tree-lighting ceremony in Hanalei, Larry’s bar, their camping trip, the waterfall, and, finally, the Christmas Eve beach lū‘au. “Aw, look at you two, slow dancing,” Holly sighs, taking Ivy’s phone and peering closer. “That’s adorable.”
“Yeah. Larry took that one.”
“The way he’s looking at you,” Holly says, zooming in on the photo. “He’s smitten, Ivy. He’s going to call. He’s probably just trying to figure out what to say.” But then, abruptly, her expression changes. She zooms in on another segment of the photo—just as Ivy realizes with a plummeting heart what she has seen in the background.
Matt. And Abby. Dancing right behind Ivy and Oliver.
“What the…”
Ivy puts her hand on her friend’s wrist. “Holly. I’m so sorry. I was going to tell you.”
Holly is peering at the phone. “Matt went on our honeymoon?”
Ivy nods and finds she can’t speak. It’s just too awful.
“Who is he dancing with?”
Ivy swallows hard and manages to get the name out. “That’s Abby,” she says.
“He went on our honeymoon with Abby.” Holly puts down the phone and looks up at Ivy. “And you kept it from me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I was so afraid it would crush you. And then, when you started to sound so happy, I didn’t want to bring you down.”
“So, that’s why you didn’t stay at the hotel,” Holly says. “It isn’t because it didn’t feel right to you—it’s because Matt was already there. You lied to me. You’ve never lied to me.”
“I know. I did. I’m so sorry. It felt horrible. But I thought I was doing what I had to do. I’m sorry.”
Holly picks up the phone again to look at the photo. “I don’t know,” she says. “This is hard to wrap my head around. You didn’t tell me about Matt and Abby—but you also didn’t tell me you were falling for someone. You didn’t tell me anything about Oliver, any time we spoke. We tell each other everything, Ivy. Always. I don’t understand.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ivy says again, because she doesn’t know what else to say. But she can tell from Holly’s expression that it isn’t good enough. She’s messed things up with her best friend—and combined with the pain she feels over Oliver, she’s certain she has never felt worse in all her life.