Chapter 28
Twenty-eight
It was one of Annie’s all-time favorite paintings.
“Nope,” I said, and thankfully Gwen and Quincy left it at that. They hadn’t been the biggest fans of my decision to snip whatever we’d started, but they understood.
Or at least they’d said they did.
Connor hadn’t called or texted me since that one night, and I knew it wasn’t fair to him if I reached out. What do you want from me, Olivia? I could hear him asking.
To start over, I imagined answering. And for you to promise to stay.
But Erica said I had to trust him, and I still hadn’t fully wrapped my head around Christian Fox’s theory that, if we wanted it enough, we could manipulate timing.
So I thought a lot about Connor, and how much I missed him, and what a mistake I’d made, but I didn’t do anything. Instead, I stewed.
Several days after our museum crawl, I presented Annie with the Gustav Klimt pictorial book I’d bought at the Galerie’s gift shop. It was Wednesday, and I’d brought it to Elkins on Monday, too, but it had been an easy visit…so I’d kept it to myself, saving it for a not-so-good visit.
I didn’t usually visit during the dinnertime, but Erica, Maisie, and I’d spent the afternoon lounging at the pool and just couldn’t bring ourselves to roll up our towels.
Annie had refused to eat in the dining room, so Kai brought a tray to her.
Everything had gone to shit when my grandmother accidentally spilled chocolate milk on her sling.
“I don’t know why this is here in the first place,” she insisted.
“If you check my menu”—she brandished her light pink sheet of paper with her good arm—“I ordered iced tea, not chocolate milk!”
I grimaced as Kai left the room to get her a new drink, folding up her menu and slipping it in my pocket. A shaky circle had indeed been drawn around chocolate milk.
She calmed down a little once her tray had been cleared, but she kept asking when we could leave.
“I do not like this hotel, dearest,” she said as I felt pang after pang in my chest. “I’ve stayed in worse, but really.
They mess up my dinner and forget yours entirely.
The décor is tired, furniture uncomfortable, and the smell.
” She turned up her nose. “Doesn’t it smell like…
like…oh, shoot…” She squeezed her eyes shut, grappling for the right word. “It smells just like…”
“Here, Annie!” I said, hoping to redirect her. Forcing a smile, I gave her the coffee table book. “I went into New York to see Gwen and Quincy the other day and thought you would like this.”
I saw my grandmother’s eyes glaze over the words and she flipped approximately five pages before closing the book. “I’m very tired,” Annie said softly, and when she shifted in her chair, the book fell from her lap. I tried not to wince when it bonked on the floor. “Can we leave now?”
No, I thought. No, Annie, we can’t.
I felt like a failure, but unless Elkins Village wanted me to melt into a puddle of tears, I had no choice but to do what I did next.
My voice was thick, my chest tight. “Of course,” I said as I scooped up her discarded book and set it on her window seat.
“Let me talk to Tara quickly. I need to…” I searched for an excuse, in reality wanting the nurse to supervise our goodbye. “Check out with her.”
Annie nodded slowly, her eyes already closed.
She looked so peaceful, but also so tired…and so old. Even older than my visit seventy-two hours ago. How was that possible?
Battling back tears, I swiftly and silently gathered my stuff and slung my tote bag over my shoulder. “Good night, Annie,” I murmured before giving her the lightest kiss on the forehead. Something in the pit of my stomach told me not to wake her. “I love you, and I’ll see you soon.”
A thick haze engulfed me once I left Annie’s room.
I vaguely heard people say my name and say goodbye as I crossed the atrium, and when I signed out at the nurses’ station, I could barely wrap my fingers around the pen.
I didn’t return my visitor’s badge, and the nurse on duty didn’t ask for it.
And I couldn’t remember pressing the security doors’ button, but someone buzzed me through anyway.
I was the only soul in the elevator, its hum almost lulling me into a deeper trance.
The sunlight was bright through the windows when I stepped out onto the main floor.
It was only a quarter after seven; the sun had yet to set.
“Take care, Olivia!” I heard the front desk attendant call, and I managed a half wave before exiting the building.
The parking lot was crowded tonight; I wasn’t surprised.
The weather was beautiful, most visitors probably taking an evening walk along Elkins’ trails with their friends or family members.
Annie wasn’t allowed to do that anymore, not even with me or my dad.
After she had tried to escape Elkins last spring, it was too risky.
Muscle memory took my feet where I needed to go while I wiped my watery eyes. I usually parked near the big magnolia tree, but I second-guessed myself when I spotted a familiar blue-gray Jeep under the dusk-to-dawn light.
Like mine, it had no top, but I squinted to see an HH bumper sticker and license plate for the Keystone State.
It hit me like a truck that today was Wednesday.
Connor brought his grandfather sushi every Wednesday.
Connor is here, I thought, my heart unsure whether to swoop or soar. Connor is here, Connor is here…
And just like that, I knew what to do.
I knew how to wrangle time.
Hands balling into fists, I speed-walked over to his car and whispered a wish before reaching for the driver door’s handle.
Please be unlocked.
With no roof, it would’ve been easy to climb in through the trunk, but if the door opened, it was a sign. “There’s no parking lot safer than Elkins Village,” Connor had once said.
My breath caught when the door unlatched, and in one inelegant motion, I swung myself up into the suspended Jeep and slammed the door shut behind me.
Then I waited.
I waited and waited for Connor.
A strain of pure anxiety and excitement raced through my veins, and I tried to rehearse what I was going to say while gripping the Jeep’s steering wheel. I willed it to ground me.
Eventually, the dusk-to-dawn light flickered on above me.
The sun was now noticeably slipping in the sky, and I checked my phone to see that it was now 8:15.
I’d been waiting an hour. Finlay House would’ve asked me to leave long ago, but since Connor’s grandfather still lived independently, the rules were different.
I texted Erica that I wouldn’t be home for a while.
Okay, just keep me posted, she wrote back. Anything interesting?
A grand gesture, I typed and saw her heart my message. Her extremely accurate Bitmoji—created by Bryce, polished by Maisie—also wished me good luck.
I couldn’t help but smile, but before I felt a boost of confidence, I heard footsteps and someone say, “Miss, I think you have the wrong car.”
At the sound of Connor’s voice, I whipped around to see him framed in the passenger door’s nonexistent window.
He ran a hand through his hair, his summer tan making it seem more blond than red, and no one looked better in a white T-shirt than him.
I’d never seen the silver watch on his wrist, but I instantly loved it.
A lump rose in my throat. “No,” I told him. “I definitely have the right car.”
“Alright.” He nodded once, his blue eyes stirring the butterflies in my stomach. “As long as you’re sure.”
And with that, he opened the door and hopped into the passenger seat. I laced my fingers together when he didn’t say anything else, both of us knowing the floor was mine.
Here goes nothing.
Or everything.
“If I wasn’t so attuned to my suspension and seat orientation,” I started, “I might not have realized I’d climbed into the wrong Jeep that night.
Instead, I might’ve checked my texts and scrolled through Instagram for a while before cuing up a playlist and trying to start the car with the wrong keys.
I might’ve spent so long dawdling that you might’ve discovered me.
” I swallowed hard. “Which means we would’ve met then. ”
Connor’s neutral expression betrayed nothing, but I swear something glinted in his eyes. It was enough to keep going.
“I wish we’d met just like that, but right here and now,” I told him.
“It kills me to admit this, but we met at such a terrible time, Connor. We were pushed together right away, and you were right. I wasn’t my best self.
There was so much going on; I didn’t know how to be.
” I took a deep breath. “I thought Annie’s encouragement would make everything better.
I thought I would be able to let go and push my problems aside for a summer fling, but I should’ve been as honest with you as you were with me. ”
“Yes,” Connor murmured. “Although maybe not that honest.”
I felt a twinge in my ribs, hoping he didn’t regret laying his feelings about me on the line.
“Things are different now,” I added, pulse pounding. “I’m different now.”
“How?” He raised a slow, exaggerated eyebrow. I wondered if he knew it made the backs of my knees weak. “Do you have less on your plate?”
I started to laugh. “No, I still have a heap.”
“Then…”
“My full plate is my shield,” I told him. “I can shift the mashed potatoes to make room for stuffing. I would move them in a heartbeat, Connor, but I’ve been so afraid.”
“Of what?” he asked gently, though I suspected he knew.
“Loss,” I answered, because it had finally clicked into place. “First my mom, most recently my grandfather, and in between, my dad when he married Erica.”
I was ashamed to admit it, but in the deepest depths of my subconscious, I knew it was true. Ever since my walk with Erica, I’d been trying to see that so-called loss as a gain.
Because new family members were a gift.
“And I know I am going to lose Annie relatively soon,” I told him.
“She is going to stop knowing me, and then one day she is going to leave us for a place with pearly white gates and a glass of perfectly chilled pinot grigio.” I blinked away tears.
“The prospect of losing someone I love so much and so hard… I dread the idea of letting you in and losing you too, even if it’s in a different way. ”
“Try a drastically different way,” Connor said.
“And I hope that wouldn’t be the case, if we gave things another—a real—go.
” He reached for my hand. “I understand how you feel, Olivia. I really do.” He sighed.
“And everything on the Vineyard was too much too fast. I said I wasn’t an arm-twister, but I’m sorry if I twisted your arm. ”
I shook my head. “You didn’t. You offered me your heart.”
We sat there in silence for a few seconds.
“I think about it all the time,” he murmured, in this voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. “I know we had fun together, but I would do most of it over if I could.”
I exhaled. “Christian Fox has this theory about time,” I said. “Timing good or bad, he thinks that if you want a happy ending enough, you can sweet-talk time to be on your side.”
“Mmm,” Connor hummed, then shifted in his seat. “You really wish we were meeting right here, right now?”
“Yeah.” I smiled bittersweetly. “I do.”
My pulse sparked when I heard his door unlatch, and I swallowed as he slid back onto the pavement. My throat was dry. He walked back toward Elkins with no goodbye.
I didn’t call after him. I didn’t ask if he’d be back.
Instead, I watched him in the rearview mirror until he’d disappeared into the building.
And then I unlocked my phone to check my texts before tapping over to Instagram.
Maisie loved watching Reels, so my algorithm was truly unhinged.
In what world did AI singing cat videos and deep clean bathroom footage mix with stand-up comedy clips and spring style in the South of France?
I went to my Spotify after a couple one-pot-meal tutorials. Slowly, I scrolled through some of my recent playlists. Nothing seemed quite right, but as soon as I lost myself in starting something from scratch, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
His touch electrocuted every inch of my body.
“Hi there,” Connor said, only inches away from me. The driver door was the only barrier between us. “I don’t mean to scare you, but you’re in my car.”
“Wait, what?” I knitted my eyebrows together. “I could’ve sworn this was mine…”
“Unless you live in Pennsylvania and visit your floral wallpaper–obsessed aunt in Hilton Head when you’re not playing in lacrosse tournaments, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry.” I winced, and even felt myself blush. “How embarrassing.”
“No, no, don’t worry about it.” The corners of his mouth quirked up in amusement. “I’ve seen another blue Wrangler in this lot.”
I gave him a look. “You come here often?”
“At least twice a week. You?”
“Double that.”
“Yeah, I was wondering,” he said. “You look really familiar.” He took a breath that made my pulse skip one, two, three. “I’m Connor McCallister.”
“Olivia Lupo,” I heard myself say, and while my mind flashed ahead to him leaning into the car to kiss me, his voice brought me back to the moment.
“Ice cream?” he asked, seemingly for a second time. “Are you in the mood for ice cream?”
“Yes!” I grinned as my heart ignited. “I’m always in the mood for ice cream.”
“Great, so am I.” He grinned back, then tossed me his keys and winked. “Let’s go.”