Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“So he hasn’t brought me up at all?” I’m aware of how needy and clingy I sound as soon as it leaves my mouth. Delia sobers and levels me with a stare, stabbing her fork into her salad.
“Not that you have earned any right to know this information yet,” she says. “But no.”
I cling to the yet in her sentence as I pick up my fork and move a few pieces of lettuce around my salad plate.
“Maybe he’s still processing it. It’s been a lot for me to wrap my head around, too.
” And it’s the truth. After everything that’s happened, it feels like the trip dropped a bomb on my life as I knew it, in more ways than one.
“So now what?” Delia’s voice cuts through the noise in my head, and when I look up from my plate, she’s peering at me curiously. “Are you guys getting back together?”
“Absolutely not.” I shake my head vigorously to emphasize the point. “We may have had a good time together on the trip, but vacation always has a way of making you see everything in a more special light—”
“Yeah, yeah, rose-tinted glasses, I know.” Annoyance creeps into Delia’s voice.
“But you’re forgetting that this isn’t some sort of random vacation fling.
This is a boy you dated for a long time, whose heart you broke, and who—as you admitted to me yourself a second ago—you never stopped loving.
And, just pointing out, he’s here—he doesn’t live on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
” She pauses. “Well, I mean, he’s not here right this second, but he’ll be back soon, and he lives here.
The circumstances have never been more right for you two. ”
But he might leave, my spiteful brain reminds me. He might end up living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean because before you left, you tried to convince him that it wasn’t the worst idea.
I shove down the doubt creeping up in the back of my mind, saying that maybe Delia’s onto something.
But I have to stay practical. It’s the only way I won’t end up like my mother, on another date this afternoon with a man she swears is her everything and will probably shatter her heart in two weeks’ time.
“I get what you’re saying, Delia, I really do.
But it doesn’t mean that the facts have changed.
I need stability in my life—someone with more of a life plan.
Tyler is a great guy, but his lifestyle and the way he approaches things just don’t match up with mine.
And if it’s already a problem now, I can only imagine how big of a problem it’s going to be down the line. ”
Delia groans and stands up from her chair, frustration on her face. “I love you both, I really do, but I swear to god, sometimes you’re both so stupid.”
Her insult hits me like a slap, fresh and stinging, coupled with the confusing lift of my spirits that knowing after everything that went down, she still loves me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She fishes around in her bag for her wallet, throwing a couple of bills down on the table before fixing me with a You are so oblivious look. “Haven’t you two ever heard of compromising?”
“Of course I have,” I respond, my face starting to heat up. “But there are some things in life you can’t compromise on.”
This earns me an undignified snort. “Yeah, like someone’s stance on gay rights or whether they think murder is an acceptable pastime. But none of the shit you two are working through is unfixable.”
My vision starts to get blurry, frustrated tears pricking at the corners of my eyes. “That’s not true, Delia. You know nothing about it.”
But she isn’t hearing it, shaking her head.
“Yeah, Tyler needs to get his shit together a little more and learn how to be a functioning adult person and learn that life is not an endless backpacking let’s see where this takes me trip around the world.
But you”—her gaze turns icy—“well, it wouldn’t hurt you to learn to loosen up a little bit, either.
You’re so hell-bent on plans, but it looks like every single one you’ve made has failed on you so far.
“And you’ve still got your head in your ass—we haven’t talked about what’s going on with me once during this entire exchange except for the first obligatory two minutes.
Or how my parents have been handling—or more like not handling—me coming out.
Or about how hellish my life has been at home lately.
” She takes a shaky breath, visibly trying to compose herself.
“Maybe it would do you some good to get a breath of fresh air and notice the people that are standing right in front of you from time to time, Olive. Maybe then you’d finally realize that the boy who’s loved you forever is still waiting hopelessly for you out there, and everyone just wants to see you both happy.
And that there are other people in this world with struggles who aren’t you.
You’re just stuck in this weird headspace of trying to force yourself to grow up so fast, like you can bypass all of the stupid mistakes we’re supposed to make and try to fix as we become adults.
” Like you can bypass all of the stupid mistakes your mom made, is what she doesn’t say, but it floats in the air between us all the same.
“But newsflash for you, Olive. You can’t.
You’re going to make those mistakes whether you want to or not.
You don’t even realize that you’re so intent on building this ‘structured’ life that you cling to it so hard, and everyone notices. ”
With those parting daggers disguised as words, she storms out of the café, leaving me sitting there with a pile of crumpled bills and emotional whiplash.
But she’s not wrong. I know she isn’t. Every single life plan I’ve made for myself so far has failed.
Both the thought of that and the fact that other patrons are staring at me quizzically after our scene has my cheeks reddening in mortification and shame.
But it’s not as scary as reevaluating my whole strategy.
I want nothing more right now than to pick up the phone and call Tyler, but after the weirdness of the past few days, it’s best I leave him alone, at least for now.
Maybe he’s still struggling with the thought of staying friends, like he talked to Lucas about.
Maybe he’s focusing on spending time with his family before he has to fly back home.
Or maybe he realizes that I’m better off not being a part of his life.
For once, I don’t really want to know what he’s thinking. It feels like whatever the answer is, it’s going to hurt.