Chapter 19 #2
move on after throwing his bomb.
And it was a bomb. Purely destructive. It would be utter nonsense for Jennifer Bernanke—at the time, mother of two kids, one of them a newborn—to ask someone to burn down a restaurant.
Like Jenn said, she and Will had invested in the venture.
Why would Ted say such a thing? Then again, maybe the words why and Ted didn’t belong in the same sentence.
A national finalist in Speech and Debate who turned to drug dealing for no apparent reason?
Who could be that smart and that stupid? Ted didn’t make sense. End of story.
Just minutes ago, Olivia had felt euphoric. Now, she looked around the table at them all. Dressed up. Looking kind of old.
Kind of sad. An assembly of poor choices, pretending it was all still okay, like their mistakes hadn’t defined their lives
in irreversible ways.
That’s what youth didn’t get. What young Olivia didn’t get at the first party, when they’d all been so enthusiastic about
each other, themselves, and their friendship. The irreversibility of it all. The tragedy of choice. The length of its arm,
and the sharpness of its nails.
“I’ll help you bring the dessert in, Phelps,” said Olivia, suddenly desperate to get up and do something.
“Me too,” said Bunny.
The three of them went to the kitchen. Phelps held the streamers aside for both her and Bunny to pass through.
“And someone turn on some damn music!” shouted Phelps before letting the streamers fall back into place.
“On it,” Doug shouted back. “Hellie, is your phone working here?”
Phelps took a minute leaning against the counter in the kitchen, his arms braced, his head hanging. Bunny and Olivia didn’t
move. “Tonight, Tonight” started playing from the dining room, faintly, and Olivia registered Doug’s voice saying, “Cheap
move, right? I mean, come on, Palpatine? Again?”
Olivia flashed a look at Bunny, who was looking at her, but quickly looked away. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing, so
she didn’t say anything.
“If someone set that fire, they murdered Old Eddie,” Phelps finally said without looking at them. He took off his party hat and carefully set it on the counter. “But that’s not what happened. The fire was accidental.”
Olivia swallowed. Bunny didn’t say anything either, but she shook her head quietly.
Finally, Phelps straightened up. He clapped his hands together.
“Okay. Dessert time.” He moved to the fridge and passed out the first dainty glasses filled with mousse and whipped cream,
with a red sauce drizzled over top. Bunny took them and bounced off to the dining room.
As Phelps handed Olivia a glass, he didn’t let go when she tried to pull her hand away. She laughed nervously and tugged,
but he tugged back, forcing her to take a wobbling step toward him.
“Hey. Why did you tell Bennett that we slept together?” he said quietly.
A beat of numbness, then adrenaline, filled Olivia’s body. After their conversation earlier fizzled, she’d thought that Phelps
didn’t want to talk about it. By dinner, she’d made her peace with that. It was behind them. Crisis averted. And now . . .
“No!” Bennett’s voice, loud with jocular intensity, coming from the dining room. “Kylo didn’t deserve to live! Have we all
forgotten the slaughter of the villagers?”
“I wanted him to know,” Olivia whispered back. Her legs felt weak. Her head felt fuzzy, her tongue thick. She couldn’t breathe.
“He—he deserved to know. But it’s okay. It wasn’t a surprise, actually. He already knew.”
Phelps pulled on the mousse-filled glass, tugging Olivia even closer. Their faces were inches away, concealed from whoever
might come into the kitchen by the fridge door. His voice was intense.
“I’m confused. How did he already know, exactly?”
“I . . .” She shook her head. “He forgave us. Can’t we just move on? Why does it matter how Bennett found out?”
Phelps gave her a strange look. He licked his lips, then gave his head a single quick shake. “Because we didn’t sleep together.”
The world tilted. She wanted to say, “What?” But she couldn’t speak.
How could Phelps not remember? The dark room . . . the bottle of cognac they passed back and forth . . . their clasped hands . . .
the weight of the secret she’d just told him rolling off her, giving her that same giddy lightness she’d felt just minutes
ago . . . And then, the sound of it. Panting breaths, accelerating. Phelps’s long groan. She remembered.
“Bennett . . .” she said weakly. It wasn’t just her memories. Her husband knew. Must have seen. Phelps couldn’t just flick
away the truth like this, couldn’t gaslight her—she was a gaslighting survivor; she knew the signs. Phelps was a liar and
an avoider, of course he would just try to talk his way out of this one, but he couldn’t do that this time, not when her child was involved . . .
“Bennett knew,” she repeated. “And I—I was there. I remember.”
Phelps’s eyes were intent on her. He was so close she could see the texture of dark stubble pushing through his cheeks, his
neck. His breath was warm on her face. It smelled like wine and lemon. His voice was tense. “Olivia . . . I’m just a little
confused at the moment. What exactly do you remember?”