“Six weeks, Paul. It’s been six weeks since you let me walk out of your life. No, pushed me out of your life. I spent the first two weeks in disbelieving anger, so certain you’d call to apologize. Weeks three and four were spent in tears when I realized you weren’t calling. Last week I was mad. Mad that you chose solitude and loneliness over love.”
“And this week?” I force myself to ask.
Her voice cracks a little, and I can’t help it. I have to reach for her, but she takes a step back. The rejection burns, even though I expect it.
She lifts her chin, and although my heart sinks at the defiance on her face, I also want to applaud. This isn’t the damaged, self-loathing girl who showed up at my house almost six months ago. This is a gorgeous, proud woman who knows what she wants and, more important, knows what she deserves.
And what she deserves is not a coward like me. But I have to try.
“This week?” she asks, her voice calm once again. “This week I’m over it. I’m over you. I don’t know why you came here, Paul, but I wish you’d called first, because I could have saved you the trouble of moving into this shit hole. We are done, Paul. Done.”
No!
The panic that rips through me is somehow so much worse than anything that happened to me in Afghanistan or anything that’s happened since. And I know why. It’s because Olivia hasn’t just taught me how to love. She’s done something much bigger. She’s taught me how to live.
And I don’t want to do it without her.
I move forward, and she moves back. “I came here for you,” I tell her. “I’d go anywhere for you.”
She scoffs. “It took you this long to figure it out?”
“Yes.”
My simple answer seems to throw her off, and I press forward. “I’m not proud of myself, Olivia. Not even a little bit. Do I wish I’d never let you go? Obviously. Do I wish I’d come to my senses sooner? Of course. And maybe if it had taken me only a day or two to clear my head, then yeah, I would have called. But when you fuck up as badly as I fucked up, for that long, you don’t call. You don’t text. You don’t email. You go to your girl and beg.”
Olivia takes another step back, but I see the change in her eyes. Just a flash, but it gives me hope.
“If you walk away, I won’t blame you,” I continue softly. “But I’m not going anywhere. I will stay here, and you’ll have to see my ugly face every single day. A few of my dad’s colleagues are willing to give me a chance to get into the business world. People get high on rehabilitated vets and all that, but I don’t care if it’s a pity hire. I’ll take it, and I’ll prove that I’m worth the risk.”
She shakes her head a little, and I get even more frantic. I glance around the room, searching for something to show her that I’m changing. My eyes land on my Starbucks cup, and I point at it.
“I bought coffee. Myself. In a Starbucks near Times Square, which should tell you just how crowded it was. People looked. Some looked twice at my face, but I didn’t care.” My words are rushing together now. “I don’t care about any of that, Olivia. And I know it will take time—weeks, months, whatever—to show you that I’m not going to go back into hiding again just because someone looks at me wrong or some jackass says something insulting. But no matter what happens, I’m going to be here because you’re here.”
Tears are running down her face, and I don’t know if it’s in sympathy or despair or happiness. But she’s lost that layer of indifference, and I go for broke.
Slowly I move toward her, my heart skipping a beat when I realize she’s stopped moving backward. I reach for her hand and slowly lift it to my face, pressing her palm against the scars there. Letting her touch me. Needing her to touch me.
Olivia lets out a little sob, and with my other arm I reach gently around her, my hand settling on her back as I pull her toward me.