Chapter Eleven
It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care about you, past Delia’s voice reminds me now as I stare down the empty aisle of the plane. It just means that he needs a second to process things.
The vinyl seat next to me rustles, Cranky Lady leaning over into my line of sight. “I don’t mean to pry, dear, but it sounds like you’ve found yourself in quite the pickle.” Oh, now she suddenly wants to play nice.
“Isn’t that the truth.” I jealously eye her plastic cup of champagne, wishing it was legal for me to chug a glass and succumb to the warm, bubbly feeling of not being on this freaking plane right now.
“To me,” she sniffs in a voice that makes it clear she is offering her opinion whether I want it or not, “it sounds like that boy really cares about you.”
“He does—did.” Talking about my and Tyler’s relationship in the past tense should be second nature by now, but some part of it still gets lodged in my throat.
“Sometimes two people are too different and aren’t a good match…
right?” I look at my seatmate for validation, the irony of searching for it from a total stranger not lost on me.
She shrugs. “If that’s what you think, sure.”
I’m not convinced by her nonanswer, but I’m willing to take it anyway, until she flips open another magazine and continues speaking.
“But if two people are really meant to be together, no matter how different they may think they are, the relationship always finds a way. You see it all the time.”
I chew this over, thinking back to the nights of Mom curled up on the couch with a glass of wine, crying like her heart was run over by a semitruck.
“But sometimes it fails, too. Sometimes you’re perfect for each other, until you realize there are parts that you can’t compromise on. And that’s where it ends.”
We both glance over and watch Tyler emerge from the bathroom and head back down the aisle, cautious and sad-looking.
Before he returns to his seat, she throws in one last remark.
“The right relationships never fail, honey. Only the wrong ones.” She tucks her head back into her edition of Woman’s World, lost to the pages full of fad diets and book recommendations, but I’m still mulling over what she said.
Wait. Does that mean she thinks Tyler and I were the wrong relationship? Or that it’s possible we aren’t done yet?
Jack, my brain hisses at me, doling a mental slap upside the head. You’re sitting on this plane, next to Tyler, because you’re on your way to see Jack.
Tyler slides into his seat and turns to me, seeming less agitated than he was a few minutes ago.
His skin looks a little shiny and the tips of his hair are all damp—he must’ve splashed some water on his face when he went in there to cool down.
Still, even though he no longer looks hurt and angry, he does look a little bit bashful.
“Listen, Olive—I’m sorry about all of that, okay?
All of what’s been going on during the flight.
Frankly, it’s been a little…weird.” He laughs nervously when I nod.
“I want to start off on a better foot, okay? I haven’t seen you in a while, and the past is the past, but that doesn’t mean you weren’t one of my best friends for the longest time.
And we’ve still got a bunch of time left stuck next to each other, so we might as well make it a little better for the both of us. ”
“I’d like that.” I turn so I’m facing him fully, on board with the idea. “How?”
His eyes sparkle with mischief. “How about a truce?”
I narrow my eyes and shift in my seat, the buckle sliding against my hip uncomfortably as I continue to scrutinize him. “What kind of truce are you talking?”
“One that will help us survive the remaining eight hours of this flight without killing each other.” He leans in conspiratorially.
“I have an idea of how we can level the playing field and then go back to being cordial seat neighbors who talk about nothing of substance. In-flight entertainment critiques and snack bag commentary all the way.”
“I’m listening.”
He grins wickedly. “Tell me a secret, one that you’ve never told me before. Preferably anyone, but just me is fine.”
It’s been a long time since I’ve shared any secrets with Tyler, but one comes to mind easily and spills out without warning. “The reason Jack is going to the University of Hawai?i is because he couldn’t get into the Ivies.”
Tyler’s jaw drops. “No way—you’ve got to be kidding. Jack freaking Cameron didn’t get into an Ivy League school? We all thought he was a shoo-in.”
“So did he.” I shake my head ruefully, my stomach starting to sour at the thought of revealing such a personal secret about someone else.
Still, Tyler’s magnetic pull, the one that charmed me all those years ago, keeps me talking.
“But he still wanted to go somewhere that made people jealous, so that’s how he ended up at UH.
He told his friends that he rejected other offers. ”
“Didn’t his dad go to Yale?”
“Yep, and that usually helps your chances, but it doesn’t mean it’s definite.
” I think back to the look of deflation on Jack’s face, crushed and full of hurt, when his rejection letter came in the mail.
I sympathized with him then, knowing what it feels like when something you’ve planned for yourself for so long ends up not working out.
A good example is sitting right next to me, right now.
It’s clear that my secret is satisfying enough for the truce, because Tyler looks dumbfounded.
“I…Wow. I never thought I’d see the day that I’d have dirt on Jack Cameron, directly from a confidant.
” Something about the way he says it ignites a spark of panic in me, and I instinctively reach out and clasp his wrist in my shaking fingers.
“Don’t,” I hiss, “tell anybody. Other than his family, I’m the only one who knows.
He’d know it was me.” But my words seem to be falling on deaf ears, because Tyler’s eyes are trained on my fingers, wrapped around his arm.
There’s a dull pulse between us, a once-bright spark that lost its magnetism, but only an idiot would deny that it’s still there. Almost like it’s lying in wait.
“Tyler.” I squeeze his wrist for emphasis. “I’m serious. Please.”
As soon as the please leaves my lips, his eyes snap up toward me, refocusing. He nods to himself, but I notice that he doesn’t make any move to slide his arm out from under my grip. “Of course.” His voice is a little bit hoarse. “You know I won’t tell anyone.”
With tension sizzling in the airplane’s recycled air, I’m eager to pivot the conversation. I slowly pry my fingers from Tyler’s arm and shake out my hand. “All right, enough about me and my supposedly groundbreaking secret. What about yours?”
“Are you sure you want to hear it?” There’s an unmistakable challenge in his voice. “I’m not sure you want me to show you up with the World’s Juiciest Secret Award right now.”
This earns him a playful punch on the shoulder. “Just tell me, and then I’ll be the judge of whether your secret is actually better.”
“It definitely is.”
“Then why are you not telling me?”
Tyler scrubs a hand over his face, cringing and clearly regretting his choice of truce activities already.
“That fall”—again, he doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t have to—“before Lucas and Ella moved out to Hawai?i, they were living in his bedroom in the basement. You know, somewhere to stay while they were selling their old place and getting ready for the move out there. But I wasn’t used to having a girl other than my mom living around the house, so I was a little…
careless. With the closed doors situation. ”
“Oh no.” The secondhand embarrassment is so bad that I find myself cringing, and Tyler hasn’t even gotten to the end of the story yet. “You walked in on her changing?” I’m not sure what having a sister-in-law is like, but that definitely sounds like one way to ruin the whole family bonding thing.
He shakes his head solemnly. “I wish that was all it was. Would’ve been way less mortifying.”
“Showering?”
“Also no. But you’re getting close.” He gives me a pointed look, akin to an English teacher trying to lead the class to the answer that’s just out of reach. “I went into Lucas’s room one night to find his spare game controller, but they were a little…occupied.”
“No!” I cover my mouth with my sleeve to muffle my shriek of surprise. “They were, like, busy?”
Tyler’s expression is grim, and if Cranky Lady didn’t have her headphones in, snoring next to us while watching Knives Out, I’m sure she’d be contributing her two cents as well. “Very busy. And not under the sheets.”
I shudder, horrified. Tyler looks like he’s seriously considering picking up the barf bag wedged into the seat pouch in front of him.
“Oh my god.” It takes a second to stop wheezing with laugher, trying my best not to cough so I don’t wake up the sleeping toddlers in front of me. “Is that a secret only for me? Or does anyone else know?”
“I only told Delia, right after it happened.” He looks positively mortified, and I bury the sting I feel at the mention of our formerly shared best friend.
“I think I needed to get it off my chest so I didn’t have to sit and stew in it anymore.
I couldn’t look Lucas or Ella in the eye for a solid month.
And to make it worse, Mom thought we were avoiding each other because we had some sort of fight, so she ambushed us both one night at dinner and made us have this whole heart-to-heart about how we’re brothers and will always need to be there for each other, blah blah blah.
She thought we were in an argument over something stupid. ”
Keeping the laughter in is a full-time job now, and I’m dangerously close to letting out a snort that wakes up the whole plane. “Did you tell her the real reason you weren’t talking?”