Chapter Eleven
Sarah
I'm a mess when I make it to work, half an hour late, with Jasper's words replaying on a loop in my head.
I want to drive right back there and tell him that I feel the same way, and that I'm so damn scared that I'm going to end up losing him and Olive both.
But I feel frozen with panic, like the walls are closing in on me.
I don't know what to do. He's been my dream for so long.
I think, at some point, I convinced myself that's all it would ever be—a dream.
Now, it feels like it could be real. But the thing no one tells you about dreams becoming reality is that, once they do, you suddenly have something to lose, something that means more than anything ever has.
How do you give your whole heart to something, knowing how badly it can end? I don't mean a breakup. There are far worse things than that. I know because I've already lived those things.
I was saved from the fire that killed my family. But not soon enough to ever forget the sounds of the roaring flames, my grandmother and cousin's desperate cries, or my dad and uncle's weak coughs. Or what came next—their silence.
I was the poor little orphan girl all the way until I graduated high school, teased and pitied for something I was glad my classmates didn't understand.
Even the worst of them didn't deserve to understand the kind of terror I felt, staring down a wall of flame with my family trapped on the other side.
And then I met Olive. She was my first friend, the first person I ever really let into my heart. I didn't have a choice. No one does with Olive. If you know her, you love her. It's inevitable.
Losing her would devastate me.
Losing her brother would be worse. I can survive in a world where he isn't mine. I've already done that. But surviving in one where he doesn't exist? Where I've given every piece of myself to him, just to lose him? I'm not sure I'm strong enough for that.
He knows me in ways no one else ever has. He sees me in ways I don't think anyone ever will again. He isn't just the man I'm wild about, he's my daddy—the one who makes me feel safe when nothing else ever has.
I found my voice in his arms. I found myself there, too.
The thought of losing him like I lost my family is tearing me apart. But…that's what I risk if we keep going. If I give him any more of myself, there won't be enough to put back together if that day ever comes.
How am I supposed to face that?
I'm prepping the coffee station when Olive bursts into the store, breathing like she just ran a race.
"I fucked up!" she cries, hurrying toward me.
I almost tell her that I did too, that her brother told me that he loves me and I didn't say it back, but I bite my tongue. I still haven't even told her that we've been dating for the past week.
Every time I open my mouth to do it, I envision her telling me that she never wants to see me again. I picture Jasper caught between the sister he helped raise and me, and I feel like the worst person in the world.
Is there a reality where I get to keep them both? Where I'm brave enough to love him in reality as fiercely as I always have in secret? I want to be that person so damn badly I can taste it.
And then I taste the memory of smoke, and it chokes me. I'm paralyzed by fear that I don't want to carry anymore. I want to put it down. I want to put it down so fucking badly.
"What did you do?" I ask, not entirely sure I want to know. When she left here last night, she was determined to stake out her hot neighbor. I told her it was a bad idea, but Olive never listens to anyone except the devil on her shoulder.
"I heard someone screaming for help from Mason's," she says, grabbing filters to start brewing coffee. "Like, legitimately screaming for help, Sarah."
"Oh, my god." My eyes widen with shock.
"I know, right? I mean, you all laughed at me when I said he could be a serial killer, but there I was, listening to some poor woman screaming. I wanted to run over there and beat him with a shoe. You know, the fancy ones with the pointy heel that I bought a few weeks ago?"
"Please tell me that you didn't," I groan.
"Hell no. I called the cops." Her shoulders slump. "It was a parrot."
"What?"
"The screaming was his damn bird!" she cries, flinging water from the pot everywhere. "I called the cops on a parrot."
"You didn't!" I groan, staring at her in horror. "Please tell me that you're kidding."
"I wish I were," she croaks, dumping grounds into the filter. "It was like a trainwreck, Sarah. I know he knows I'm the one who called. The police came to my house as soon as they left his. Like, as soon as."
"So much for discretion," I mutter.
"Right?" she cries, gaping at me like she's offended. "It's a good thing he isn't a serial killer!"
"At least you're finally ready to admit it." I grin, relieved we've at least established that much. Maybe now she'll admit that she's crazy about him. "I thought you'd do something drastic first."
"I hate you," she groans, making me giggle. "I'm never living this down. I fucking ninja-rolled to my car just to get out of there without him seeing me this morning. If anyone saw me, they probably think I've lost it!"
"You have," I tease softly. "You called 9-1-1 on a bird."
"You aren't helping! If you'd heard what I did, you would have called too."
"How did you mistake a bird for a woman?" I ask and then crack up. I can't help it. This would only happen to her.
She dirty-glares at me.
"I'm sorry!" I wipe tears from my eyes. God, I needed to laugh like this today.
"It's just…this is so classically you. Remember that time you mistook Jasper for a burglar when he flew home from overseas to surprise you?
You tried to jump on his back with a pillowcase to try to smother him to death, but you missed and landed on the coffee table. "
"It was screaming for help," she mutters defensively, glossing over that particular memory like it never happened, even though she still has the scars from the stitches she needed afterward.
"And it's not like I was in the same room with the bird.
It was screaming from next door. The sound was muffled and distant. It sounded like a woman!"
My lips twitch again before I manage to compose myself. "What are you going to do now?"
"There are only two options," she says, sighing heavily. "Either I move to Europe and change my name, or I apologize."
"You are not moving to Europe, Olive."
"I could. I even picked out a new name."
"Oh, this will be good," I mutter, propping a hip on the counter. "Let's hear it."
"Alyvia Sandoval."
"You know the most frightening part?" I stare at her for a long moment before grabbing a coffee mug to pour a cup. "You're actually serious."
"I called the cops on a bird. The entire police department now knows my name. My hot neighbor thinks I'm a lunatic. Half the town will know about this by the end of the week. Come next week, I'm going to be the girl who called bird!"
"It's not that serious."
"They could have shot him." Her bottom lip quivers, and my heart sinks. So, that's what she's so upset about, not that everyone will laugh at her, but that she could have lost him.
God. We're two peas in a freaking pod, aren't we?
"Hey." I wrap my arm around my waist, resting my head against hers.
"You did the right thing, Olive. It's funny in retrospect because it was just a bird, but if I'd heard someone screaming for help, I would have made the call, too.
Any reasonable person would have. That's not something you just ignore, even if you do like the guy. "
"I feel like a jerk," she mutters.
"You feel like a jerk because you like him," I say. "You've been spiraling and connecting all these dots to paint your own picture because it's easier than admitting the truth. That's kind of what you do, you know."
"Is not," she mutters.
"Yeah, it is. You panic-spiral and come up with reasons not to do the thing you want to do, even when the reasons aren't logical. That's precisely why you haven't gone on a single date in two years. You're scared to put yourself out there again."
"Fine, maybe I do that a little bit. But I'm not the only one with issues here," she says, giving me a pointed look.
"I don't have issues." It's not really a lie. What I have is deep-rooted trauma and a fear of abandonment.
"Oh, really? So we're just going to keep pretending that you didn't go out with my brother?"
I jerk in shock, sloshing coffee across my hand.
"Shit!" I cry, flinging it off before turning wide, panicked eyes on her. I feel like I can't breathe. The walls are back, closing in faster than ever. "I…I…"
"I know," Olive says quietly, no judgment in her tone.
Maybe that's what finally makes me snap—the fact that she knows and she isn't judging me. She's just sitting here right now, patiently waiting for me to admit what I think she may already know.
Except…she doesn't know. She doesn't have a clue that I'm so in love with him that I'm literally fucking frozen with fear.
"You don't," I whisper.
"I do."
"You really, really don't. I…we…" I huff, turning pink.
I don't even know where to start or how to explain.
She's always told me all her secrets, but I've always been too afraid of her pity to tell her the worst of mine.
Those, I've carried in silence, hoping she never had to know.
But…I guess life doesn't work that way, does it?
"My date was a jerk, Olive," I start. "Jasper rescued me, and then things just…happened."
"What?" Her brows furrow like she didn't hear me.
"My date was a jerk."
"What are you talking about? Jasper was your date."
"What?" I gape at her, confused as hell.
"You were supposed to be meeting him."
"I was?"
"Yeah. I knew you would never make a move, so I made a fake profile and lied to you to get you to meet up with him, and I'm not even sorry about it," she says defiantly. "You like each other, and he's not overseas any longer. It was beyond time for this to happen."
Oh, my god.
He wasn't there by accident that night. He was supposed to be there. This entire time, it was supposed to be him.
"It was him?"
"Yep."
I didn't end up in his bed by chance. I ended up there because… because … because it's where I was supposed to be.
It's where I was always supposed to be.
He knew it, even if I didn't. He was brave enough to reach for it, even when I wasn't. And he was brave enough to tell me how he feels about me, when all I could do was panic.
He loves me enough to risk his own heart. Enough to give me every piece of it, even knowing that I could walk away to protect my own. He loves me.
"Oh, no," I whisper, the enormity of the situation crashing down on me. "I think…I messed up."
"What? How?"
In so many ways that I don't even think I can count them right now. I definitely can't explain, but…it's not her that needs an explanation. It's Jasper. He's the one who asked for all my secrets. It's him who deserves to hear them.
"I need to go!" I cry, plunking my mug down on the island. "I need to go right now."
"What? Why?"
"I'll explain later! Watch the store until Lilah gets here!" I cry, already rushing out. I have to see him right now. I have to tell him…everything.
I have to tell him everything.