I pause inside the back door long enough to peel off my shoes and soaked socks. I need a shower, stat, but first, coffee.
I can’t help it. I grin when I see Olivia perched at the kitchen counter with her laptop. She’s changed into long flannel pajamas with pink and white stripes. Her hair’s still a mess, but she looks adorable. Lindy’s nowhere to be seen, and Olivia’s humming tells me she has her headphones in like she usually does when she’s checking email or shopping online.
Still in a ridiculously good mood, I move up beside her, wanting to wrap my arms around her and beg her to take a chance. On me. On us.
There are things I need to tell her. Steps I need to take, admissions I need to make. Stories to tell, ghosts to expunge, and all that. I’m ready.
My smile slips as my eyes catch on her laptop. Thanks to the headphones, she doesn’t seem to realize I’m behind her. If she knew, she’d make every effort to hide what’s up on her screen.
All the euphoria running through my veins turns to ice water immediately as I register the headline of the story she’s reading. It’s old news, but achingly familiar. My heart feels lodged in my throat.
Olivia senses me then, spinning around with a gasp, even as she frantically slams the laptop shut. Her face crumples when she realizes she’s too late.
I take a step backward, unable to stop the images conjured up by the words in that painfully understated headline: “Weston-Area Soldier Lone Survivor in Afghanistan Torture Tragedy.”
“Paul.” She reaches out a hand, her expression a combination of regret and horror.
“I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you everything.” My voice is raspy.
Her face crumples. “I know. I just—”
“You just what?” I sneer. “Wanted to know exactly who you let cuddle up against you last night? Wanted to know who—no, what—you almost fucked?”
“Stop.” Her voice is firm, and her hand drops. “I just thought…You never want to talk about it, and—”
“You never asked!” I explode. “Nobody ever asks! Sure, you tiptoe around it. ‘Wanna talk about the dreams, Paul? Anything you wanna discuss?’ Everyone asks, from concerned nurse to poor victim, but nobody ever looks me in the eye over dinner and asks me, person to person, ‘What happened over there?’ You think I want to carry it around by myself? I don’t. I want to tell someone. I wanted to tell you. But not when you were looking at me like a damaged child.”
Her eyes fill with tears.
“It was mine to tell, Olivia. My story.”
“Then tell me.”
I jab my finger in the direction of the laptop. “No. You’ll have to satisfy yourself with that watered-down half-truth.”
“Paul.”
This time when she moves closer, both hands are outstretched, as though to pull me to her.
Damn it, I’m tempted to let her hold me, even after she belittled everything that I’ve gone through, all of the progress we’ve made by fucking Googling me.
My hands find her shoulders before she can touch me, and my fingers tighten briefly in the urge to pull her closer, before I very deliberately, almost roughly set her back. I don’t hurt her. I’d never hurt her, not physically, but the pain on her face tells me that my rejection hits something deeper.
Good.
“If it were up to me, you’d be on the first flight home to New York,” I say.
She gives me an incredulous look. “Oh, come on. Because I was reading a news article on you? News flash—I could have done that at any time.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t!” I hate the savage pain in my voice. “You waited until now, waited until I trusted you, to go behind my back. Waited until I wanted you.”
It’s hypocritical, of course. I read her text message. But somehow me reading one tiny text message from a guy she’s never even mentioned doesn’t feel as huge as what she’s done. We’re both guilty of snooping, true. But she knew this was something I wasn’t ready to share. She didn’t give me the chance.