51. Riley
A couple weeks later,Olivia and I have plans for drinks on a Friday. I show up to our dive bar fashionably late by around ten minutes, but Olivia is later; I’m already sitting at a booth in the corner by the time she arrives. The lights are dim this evening, and whoever’s in control of the jukebox is playing classic rock.
Olivia slides in across from me, her cheeks flushed. “Sorry,” she says, out of breath. “I just ran all the way over from—”
“Let me guess—work?”
She rolls her eyes, exasperated. “Yeah. You got it.”
“What was it this time?”
She waves a hand, shaking her head. “Oh, it’s a whole, long… rant. I’ll tell you once I have a drink.”
A server with a small, black apron tied around her waist comes up to our table. “What can I get for you guys?”
“I,” Olivia says dramatically, leaning on the table, “will have a vodka martini. Extra dirty, please.”
“I’ll just have a tequila, neat,” I say.
The server blinks at both of us, taken aback, then says, “Uh, okay. Do you want our top shelf, or—”
“I’ll just take your well.” I’m not in the mood to shell out a bunch of money for an expensive liquor tonight. I just paid the rent on my apartment a few days ago, and all I need is a drink of some description.
Olivia nods. “And the same for me, please. Whatever you’ve got back there, I can live with it.”
The server cracks a smile. “You guys got it.”
As she leaves, I turn back to Olivia, raising an eyebrow. “So. Let’s hear the rant.”
“You sure?” she asks. “Because it’s a real doozy.”
“Yeah. C’mon, as if you can keep it to yourself now, after all that buildup!”
She laughs, then sighs. “Okay. Well, the gist of it is that I’m, like, this close to quitting my job.” She holds up a hand, her thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart.
I click my tongue. “What did your boss do now?”
“I overheard him in a phone call with one of his clients,” she says bitterly. “Apparently, the man can’t seem to decide whether or not I’m an ‘incompetent bitch.’” She frames the words in air quotes. “That’s what he said on the phone, but when I tried to quit, he wouldn’t let me.”
I stare at her, my mouth open. “He said that? What do you mean, he won’t let you?”
“He threatened me,” Olivia says miserably. “He said he would blacklist me if I leave. I want to, so bad, but if he pulls that shit… well, what the hell else would I do for money?” She shakes her head. “I was already convinced he’d give me a terrible recommendation. Now I know it’s even worse than that.”
“I’m so sorry, Olivia,” I say sympathetically. “What are you going to do?”
She shrugs, a look of exhaustion on her face. “What can I do? I’m going to keep going to work. I hate it there, and I hate him, but… my parents are finally getting stable. The money I’m sending them is really helping. I couldn’t do that to them.”
“You’ll find something else,” I assure her. I hate to see my friend, who is usually so fun-loving, this downcast. “There’s gotta be something out there for you—away from that asshole.”
“Maybe,” she says, though she doesn’t look convinced. She shakes herself, as if pushing the thoughts from her head. “Enough about my worries, though. What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing,” I say evasively.
“Uh, that’s not true. You just ordered a tequila, neat. That’s not a Riley order, even if it is Friday. What’s up?”
Before I can respond, the server returns, our drinks balanced on her tray. She sets them down in front of us, and we each pull out our wallets to pay her. This dive is cash-only—it hasn’t updated a single thing since the eighties.
As soon as the server leaves, Olivia’s eyes are glued to me. “Well? Is it job stuff? I thought you were loving the new job.”
I’ve told Olivia about the community center position, but not about the circumstances that led me to it. I haven’t had the heart to admit that it was Cole who made it all possible. It’s bad enough that I see him from time to time at the center.
“I do love the job,” I say. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I get to spend every single day helping those kids. It’s exactly what I always wanted. It’s my true purpose, you know?”
Olivia pulls the stuffed olives off of their neon-pink, sword-shaped skewer, letting them fall back into her martini. She jabs at the table with the plastic sword absent-mindedly, as if she’s doing battle with the wood.
“You’re scratching the table,” I point out.
“Oh, true.” She glances down, then, more deliberately, scratches a smiley face into the surface with the sword’s tip.
I grin; that’s more like the Olivia I know and love. Now that we’ve moved on from her work troubles, she seems to be cheering up a bit.
“So… it’s not the job, then,” Olivia says. “Whatever’s bothering you, I mean.”
Nothing’s going to get by her—she knows me too well. “No,” I admit. “It’s not the job.”
“Then—”
“It’s Cole.”
She looks up from her smiley face drawing, her eyes wide. “Cole? I thought that was old news. Ancient history.”
Heavily, I explain the full situation to Olivia, who sits up straighter as I talk. I detail Cole’s purchase of the community center, and how he spoke to me the day I found out, asking to make our relationship official—to try this, for real.
“Ho-ly shit,” Olivia breathes when I’m done. “Are you kidding me?”
I shake my head. “Nope. It’s crazy, right?”
“That’s a lot of money to throw around for a gesture.”
“It is,” I say. The ache in my heart swells again at the reminder.
“So… what did you say?”
“I told him I couldn’t.” I take a sip of my tequila, my nose wrinkling in disgust at the sharp, acidic taste. That’s what I get, for ordering a cheap liquor neat. “I don’t want to be the scandalous nanny he’s sleeping with, and I don’t think we could move past that. I don’t think it’s possible.”
Olivia nods, her expression sympathetic. “Definitely. I think you made the right choice.”
“I see him around sometimes,” I admit. “At the community center. We both have a connection to it now, so he’ll be in and out, and I see him in passing. It sucks, every time. It hurts.”
Olivia reaches across the table, laying a hand on my forearm. “Don’t let that take away from your happiness,” she says. “You have your dream job.”
“I know.” I lean my head on my hand, staring down at the glass of golden tequila. “And it’s worth holding out for someone else. Someone who’s going to love me like I deserve to be loved.”
“Exactly,” Olivia agrees, giving my arm a firm squeeze. “You just need to move on. You’ve got this. There’s someone better out there for you.”
I nod, trying to put an optimistic expression on my face. But it’s hard.
Because the truth is, I’m not sure there is.
* * *
Cole
The air iswet in the aftermath of rain, and there’s condensation beading on the surface of the polished gravestones at Woodlawn cemetery. I kneel into the dewey grass regardless, ignoring the dampness, and lay a bouquet of fresh daffodils in front of Rebecca’s grave.
They were her favorite. Every springtime, as kids, we had a competition to see which of us could find the first daffodil shoots of the season.
I take a deep breath, looking up at the gray sky, fading quickly into blue. I haven’t been here enough; not since the funeral. It’s a pleasant place, if you can ignore the grief that hangs in the air. There are trees here, and it’s an open stretch of green, with more of a rural feeling than most places in New York City.
“I should’ve come to visit you sooner,” I say quietly, returning my gaze to Rebecca’s gravestone. Her name is etched into the granite, above the epitaph, Loving mother and sister. “I’m sorry. I feel like I let you down.”
In more ways than one, I realize. I feel like I can’t stop letting her down.
“I should’ve protected you better. I wish things had been different. I wish I would’ve… I don’t know, seen the signs. If I had done something—if I had been there—you could’ve asked me for help. I would have done anything for you.”
The idea of talking to my sister’s grave, as if she can hear me, is a relatively new one, suggested by Declan and Reed the last time I saw them. It should have occurred to me a long time ago. I’ve been chasing this closure for so long.
“You should see Archer,” I say, a sense of pride swelling within me at the thought of the little boy’s bright smile. “He’s amazing. He’s the best kid in the whole world.”
My sister didn’t get much time to know Archie, but she loved him with all of her heart, just like I do. I hope that, somehow, she can see what a wonderful person he’s growing into.
“I want to do right by him so badly,” I whisper, as if afraid someone else will overhear. These words are only for Rebecca. “I owe it to you, and to him. But I’m afraid that I’ve been holding on too tight.”
The breeze picks up a little, and the damp grass sways around me. The trees rustle, shedding droplets of water as if the rain has returned.
“I’m so, so scared to fuck this up. And I’ve already let that fear ruin everything.” I take a shaky breath; there are tears pricking at the corners of my eyes, an unfamiliar sting. “I let go of someone I care about. I pushed her away, because I was trying to control everything. Because I thought it was the only thing I could do.”
As I finish speaking, my throat constricts. Everything I’m telling my sister, all of these lessons I’m starting to learn, were all things that Riley already knew. I miss her so much that it hurts. Doing all of this with her was so much easier.
I break down, the tears finally falling, and hunch over my sister’s grave.
“Please, forgive me,” I whisper desperately.
Another gust of wind blows past, stirring the daffodils at the foot of the grave. The air carries a sweet scent, like flowers, and the promise of more rain to come.
I get ahold of myself slowly, taking deep breaths and letting myself sit with the emotions.
Maybe I don’t need Rebecca to forgive me, I realize. Not only am I certain she would, I also know I will never be able to hear it from her, the absolution I’m looking for.
No. It has to come from myself.
After all, I’ve been the one blaming myself for her death this entire time. I’ve been blaming myself for a million things, for all of the failures throughout the past few years.
But in truth, if I think that I’m doing something wrong… if I think that I’ve fucked up… then there’s really only one thing to do. There’s no sense in dwelling on the past. I need to make changes.
As I rise to my feet, my face dry, I feel a bit lighter than I was when I arrived. Full of resolve.