Chapter 11 Olivia
CHAPTER ELEVEN
OLIVIA
The morning moves slowly, as if time itself is dragging its feet, not just me.
I stay in bed longer than I should, but hey, I’ll take any extra sleep I can.
I need it. My body is exhausted, and it looks like my mind is competing with it.
I can barely keep my eyes open right now.
Last night still lingers in my head. His hands, his mouth, the way he said my name, like it still belonged to him.
I sigh and grab my phone. Two messages. Not from David, not from work. From him.
Ethan: Sorry about last night, you were right. We crossed a line, well, I crossed a line, and we shouldn’t have. This isn’t fair, to you, to me, or them.
Ethan: I let myself go. I got caught in the moment. It can’t happen again, it shouldn’t. We shouldn’t… fuck
Ethan: Coffee as a peace offering? Joe’s 10:00 a.m.?
I look at the time, it is 9:27 a.m. I don’t know what the hell to reply.
What can I say? I’m aware of what happened, and while he is blaming himself, I can only think that I’m equally guilty.
Yes, we did cross a line, and no, we shouldn’t be doing that.
But this isn’t his fault. I didn’t stop him.
And if I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know if I’ll stop him if he tries something again.
By the time I pull into Joe’s parking lot, it’s 9:53 a.m. And of course, he is already there.
I’m never late to anything, but today, I didn’t want to be the first one here.
He is on the same table we used to sit back in the day.
The one that has “the best” view. It just looks out onto the street, but it is the only window where you can see the old church and the mountains in the background, so it offers a nice view.
Being here, it feels like no time has passed.
That we are still those kids who once fell in love.
And I hate to admit it, but it feels nice.
I sit on the seat in front of him, my heart is pounding, and I can’t even look him in the eye. Why am I so nervous? He is the one who wanted to talk. We are adults; we can have a nice conversation, admit we were wrong, apologize, and promise never to do it again. Right?
He starts to speak, but I lift a finger to shush him.
The first sip of coffee is sacred, and I haven’t had one yet, so he needs to wait.
After that first sip warms my body, I take a deep breath.
“Okay,” I say. “Friends?” This is good, this isn’t too much.
We don’t need to talk about what we did, right?
What for? We got this. He starts to apologize, but I cut him off.
“It was a mistake, we had a moment, alcohol was involved, there were too many memories triggered, we cave, we are aware of it. That’s all.”
“But,” He looks so confused right now. “Ah,” I stop him again, “We are adults, we can move on without having to talk about it.” He tilts his head, trying to understand why I am being so calm. And truth is, I would kill to know too. “Just like that?”
“Yep, just like that.” I extend my hand to shake his; we do, and then we actually move on.
Or so I thought, because then he messes it up.
“I always thought about calling you again,” He thought about it.
Why didn’t he? “But I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hear from me after the way we ended things.
” Ah, I see. “Well, I felt horrible, thanks for asking sixteen years later.” We laugh, which at this point isn’t uncommon in our conversations.
I don’t know if we laugh because this is strange, awkward even, or if maybe it’s just the pain trying to play cool.
Then his voice drops. “When I left, I thought I was doing you a favor.”
“How did you think dumping your girlfriend, who you planned your entire life with, over the phone, was a favor?” I’m honestly baffled.
“Not that”, he looks nervous, and I’m enjoying this now. I got over the fact that he dumped me over the phone. I moved on from that. But I didn’t move on from him, per se. “I wasn’t in the right state of mind, Liv. I didn’t have my life figured out like I told everyone.”
“Ethan, you were 19 years old. Of course, you didn’t have your life figured out.
That was the point of leaving this place.
” Now, I can see it. He felt lost and didn’t want to drag me with him.
“I’m not trying to complicate things or anything, and I know we said we’ll be friends moving forward, but I just…
I need you to know that Tacoon wasn’t home, California wasn’t home. It was you. It always has been you.”
“Ethan—” I grip my mug a little tighter.
He needs to stop. We can’t go back to this rabbit hole.
Not again. We already did this when he moved out of Tacoon for college, we did it again when I started planning to move away after high school, and then again when he dumped me.
“I just wanted to tell you, that’s all.”
I nod, and then I don’t know what happened; I just spilled the worst, most truthful thought. “I moved to the city to forget you.” Fuck Olivia, why can’t you just shut up? He tilts his head, but his eyes don’t drop mine. “Did it work?”
“What do you think?” He laughs, I laugh, we treat it as a joke, and honestly, it was for the best. After that, the conversation just kept coming like time hadn’t passed. We start talking about our kids, work, and our cities. We talk about everything except about him and her. And that’s okay by me.
I don’t need to talk about his perfect wife, and there’s nothing about David that he needs to know. The thing that most shocked me was that we talked about everything, just like when we were best friends again. That sucks, because he isn’t that anymore.
We said our goodbyes and carried on with our days.
This was nice, we needed this. To talk without any complications, to act like we were friends again.
‘Act’, the keyword here. We’ll never be friends again.
As much as we try to convince ourselves of it, we can’t.
There’s so much history between us, so much love, so much loss. But, we sure can pretend.