Chapter Nineteen
“Oh my god,” I groan, clutching my stomach and nearly doubling over on the picnic table.
“That was absolutely phenomenal. No notes.” The loco moco was a perfect mix of a starchy, salty, meaty meal to fill me up after an entire flight yesterday of Coke and candy and bags of chips, and my eyelids start to get heavy.
A post-Thanksgiving feeling in the springtime.
Unlike Jack, Tyler clearly knows how to order for me.
He smirks proudly as he scoops up the last bit of rice and runny egg on his plate and pops it into his mouth. “I told you. It’s going to be a long day of exploring if you plan on doubting everything I take you to.”
I wipe my face with a napkin and tip it up to soak in the sunshine, soaking it in and giving my stomach a chance to breathe.
“Okay, I won’t doubt everything. But you have to admit, loco moco does sound a little strange when you describe it to someone at first.” Tyler laughs at this and picks up our plates, throwing them away before joining me back at the table.
He rests his chin on his hand and looks at me curiously, his dark eyes scanning my face.
“All right, tour guide.” I swallow back a burp, cheeks reddening. “Where to next?”
To my surprise, he hesitates. “We should probably digest for a little while before we go to the next spot I had in mind. Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?”
I can feel the walls of my heart closing off with every word that comes out of his mouth. “I already told you what happened,” I mumble, chest tightening. Tyler shakes his head, looking a little exasperated at my response.
“You told me what happened, Olive. You didn’t tell me how you feel.”
How I feel is embarrassed. Heartbroken. Ashamed.
But I don’t say any of those things to Tyler, because I long since lost the right to tell him those things about me.
“Stupid. I feel stupid.” I can’t meet his eyes, so instead I trace the grooves in the wood on the picnic table, running my fingernail over a heart with a hastily scrawled J + M carved into the wood.
I briefly wonder where J and M are now. If they’re still together.
If they’re happy. I’d like to think at least someone is, if it can’t be me.
“Stupid?” Tyler’s face screws up in confusion, and he leans forward as if he didn’t hear me correctly. “Why would that asshole make you feel stupid?”
I shake my head, rushing to correct him. “Not because of what he did. I’m not taking the blame for that—I’m sad about it, sure, but that was Jack’s own asshole decision to make. But I’m feeling stupid, because…” I trail off, the words getting lodged in the base of my throat, refusing to come out.
They don’t have to, though, because like Tyler so rightfully declared earlier, he knows me. “You feel stupid because you feel like your mom.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, and I nod slowly in response, eyes burning a hole into the picnic table’s wood, into the tiny carved heart.
Tyler reaches out and dips a finger under my chin, urging me to look up at him. When I do, there’s a fire blazing in his eyes, but it doesn’t look like anger—it looks like something more.
“Olive Austin,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and nearly impossible to hear among the chatter of the customers around us. “You are anything but stupid. And, as much as I love Sherri, you are nothing like your mother.”
My heart squeezes at the sincerity in his voice, but I force myself to turn my head out of his grip, focusing on the mountains rising behind us instead.
“Are we really sure about that, though? My mom goes through a million men, each time swearing they’re the one, letting herself fall and then getting hurt.
Again and again. You’ve seen it, Ty. You know what it’s like.
” Heat rushes to my face as I feel the hot prick of tears in the corners of my eyes.
“I never had any doubts that she loved me, or that she loved every single one of the men that she swore was going to give her the fairy tale she’s always wanted.
But she ended up broken every time.” All the nights on the couch.
All the weeks where she moved through the house like a zombie.
Is that what waits for me? Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder.
“Olive.” Tyler’s voice is gentle as he reaches out and swipes an errant tear off my cheek with the pad of his thumb, making me shiver. “Not everyone gets the fairy-tale first-try romance.”
“Not even us.”
He looks sad as he smiles ruefully. “Not even us. But that doesn’t mean every heartbreak you have will be a prophecy for the rest of your life. You’re only eighteen and you’ve only had one heartbreak. I’d say that’s well below average.”
My mind snags on the one in his sentence.
“What do you mean, one heartbreak? This is my second.” Although it feels noticeably different than the first—it’s not lost on me that this time, I’m more concerned about how I feel about my future, and less about what Jack did to me.
The thought twists uncomfortably in my stomach, the same way it did when I was on the phone with Mom last night.
Tyler looks impossibly sadder but still smiles, bordering on a grimace.
“Nah, you were the one that left our relationship. It’s not the same thing as being dumped.
” Hearing him put the words out there so harshly stings, but I force myself to suck in a breath and sit up straighter, this conversation long overdue.
“Tyler Ferris.” I steel myself to push the words out, the ones that didn’t come that day in the hallway when I broke both of our hearts.
“First of all, I know I’ve said this before, but I feel like I need to reiterate it.
Our breakup was never, not ever, about something you did.
It wasn’t because I didn’t love you—it was because I loved you so much that I wanted to end things before they got too serious, so it would hurt less. ”
His face falls slightly when I say loved in the past tense, but I force myself to carry on, the words thickening painfully in my throat.
“We weren’t a good fit. It doesn’t mean you’re not a good person.
It doesn’t mean you’re not a great person.
It doesn’t even mean you’re wrong for feeling the way you do.
Not everyone has to have a ten-step life plan, and they aren’t lesser people if they don’t.
But that’s something I’ve always needed, and that’s why I walked away.
” The tears that were falling for my breakup with Jack are now falling for him.
“That doesn’t mean that it didn’t hurt like hell.
That doesn’t mean that it didn’t break me.
I regret hurting you every single day. I never stopped feeling that way.
” I’m full-on crying now, getting concerned glances from patrons walking by with plates stacked high with loco mocos.
“I can never truly tell you how sorry I am for how it went down, but the one thing I can say for certain is that it never had anything to do with how much I loved you.”
Tyler is silent, processing. His jaw tightens and he looks away from me for a second, taking a slow, steady breath through his nose and releasing it with his eyes closed.
When he turns to me, he’s a boy who’s breaking inside.
“Just tell me one thing, Olive.” He seems so shattered that all I can do is nod, wiping away my tears.
His voice breaks when he continues. “If I had gotten it together a little bit more for you, would we still be together?”
I chew on his question. Would we still be together?
Would we be on this trip to Hawai?i to visit his brother together, a couple on a lunch date exploring the island?
Would we be getting ready to walk across the stage at graduation as a couple, ready for what’s ahead?
“No.” My answer surprises us both. “Because you’d only be doing it for me.
I think eventually, we would’ve realized that we’re two totally different people and that it wouldn’t work in the long-term.
It has to be a choice you make for yourself, not for me or for anyone else. ”
Several agonizing seconds pass while Tyler processes this, before he clears his throat and stands up, his eyes glassy.
It’s hard to get a read on him right now, but he doesn’t look angry.
He looks impossibly sad as he speaks woodenly.
“I…I need a second. I’m going to head to the bathroom, and then I’ll meet you in the car? ”
I nod wordlessly, and he places the car keys on the table next to the little carved heart as he walks away, nervously running his fingers through his hair.
All I can do is stare at the little heart until my vision swims, whether from tears or not blinking or both, I’m not really sure.
All I know is that on top of the shitty day I had yesterday, now there’s another emotion swirling through my stomach and making me feel sick.
I can’t help but question why I called Tyler in the first place—because somewhere deep in my gut, I knew the road would lead us back to the blockage we never got over.
I don’t want to acknowledge it; it’s been so long since I’ve really sat with this feeling.
But I know the feeling of regret knocking against my rib cage, and it’s not something that I can easily shake.
Even if I’m confident in my answer—Tyler changing himself for me isn’t really changing himself at all. And would I really want him to change?
I sit baking in the sun for a few minutes, thinking about moving into the shade but staying put to punish myself for everything that just went down.
All the while, my thoughts swirl around Tyler and the conversation we had—but nothing about Jack.
Life is funny that way: When I broke up with Tyler, it was all I could focus on for weeks, until the sting finally subsided.
But Jack broke up with me less than twenty-four hours ago, and here I am thinking about something totally different.
After a few minutes, the heat starts to make me feel dizzy, so I grab the car keys, wish J + M’s scribbled heart good luck, and head to the car, sliding into the passenger seat and starting the air-conditioning. I fiddle with the controls and the radio for a few seconds until Tyler approaches.
He’s looking significantly less hurt but still a little withdrawn as he opens the driver’s-side door and slides in, cooling his cheeks against the blowing AC, even with the sunroof open above us.
“Sorry about that.” He clears his throat and looks away from me, staring at the snaking line of customers ready for lunch as his fingers flex against the steering wheel.
“It’s…it’s a lot to think about sometimes. Even though it was so long ago.”
I force myself to be nonchalant, if for nothing else than to salvage the rest of the day. I shrug as I buckle my seat belt. “A year and a half is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes it still feels like yesterday to me, too.”
He startles at this admission, looking over at me in surprise.
His mouth opens like he’s about to say something, but then he clamps it shut and turns his eyes back to the road, heading toward our next adventure spot of the day.
I let him think in silence for a few seconds until he’s ready to speak again.
“Any guesses on where our next destination is?”
I study the highway we’ve pulled back onto, the same tall green mountains and palm trees and cornflower-blue skies, thinking—or at least trying to, but continuously getting distracted by the gorgeous view.
O?ahu already seems to be a fascinating blend of tropical and modern—lush green mountains and leafy palm trees, bracketed by the concrete and steel of downtown Honolulu and the highway full of cars whizzing past. “Um…maybe the beach? A volcano?”
Tyler shakes his head. “No, but I hadn’t thought of Diamond Head. That’s a good one to add to the list.” He studies the road signs as we drive, explaining that he’s taking me somewhere that Lucas showed him last time he visited.
“That’s not a hint!” I protest, fully twisting in my seat to make sure he sees my look of betrayal. “I have no idea where you went when you visited your brother last year. I didn’t even know you came to Hawai?i. How can that be a hint?”
He sweeps his arm out, indicating the open road and the ocean to the side of us, frothy waves churning as if anticipating our gaze. “Think, Olive. What’s something I’d be interested in doing in Hawai?i? Knowing everything you know about me?”
“Surfing?” I guess. Even as I say it, I know it’s not quite right. Tyler likes adventure, but like most everyone else, he has a healthy fear of sharks after watching Soul Surfer. What else would Tyler want to do out here that isn’t hiking the volcano, going to the beach, or surfing? Maybe it’s—
I can feel the color draining from my face as I put two and two together. Please, please, tell me I’m wrong. “Oh no.” We can’t be going where I think we’re going.
Despite all our time apart, I guess I do still know Tyler as well as I used to, because I watch his profile as his lips curl up into a satisfied smirk, reading my mind the way he always used to, like no time has ever passed between us. “Oh yes.”