He takes a step back. Shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. “I need to go.”
He turns to leave, and Dana totters after him in her heels. “Thank you for coming, Walker! I’m so glad you changed your mind.”
He doesn’t acknowledge her, just keeps walking down the hall until he disappears.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to do the same thing. Especially when Matt turns to Dana, his jaw tight. “You didn’t tell me he was gonna be here too.”
“Oh,” she says, innocently. “I didn’t think he was, at first. Wouldn’t even talk to me.” She glances at me, the corner of her mouth turning up in a smile. “But something changed his mind.”
Matt looks at me like I know what she’s talking about. I raise my hands and give him a look that says I have no idea, because I really don’t.
“Let’s go,” he says. “We’re finished here.” He takes my hand, but something is different about it this time. A tension I almost want to resist.
Dana puts a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you so much for coming in, Olivia. You truly are a miracle, and I can’t wait for everyone to see this soon, probably in the next couple of days.” She smiles at me, then glances at Matt, who just nods. We turn to leave.
He walks fast down the hallway, and I have to work to keep up, even with him pulling me along. When we reach the doors, he swings them open with more force than necessary, and Walker, who’s leaning against the building, phone to his ear, looks up, watching us.
Matt is so intent on getting to his truck he doesn’t see him, and I’m glad because now Walker is looking right at me with an expression that’s hard to read. I feel that flicker of something there again, and think maybe Dana was right about what she said about there being a connection now, because of what happened.
I keep my eyes on his as we climb into the truck, as I close the door, and even as we back out of the parking space. I try to keep my eyes on him for as long as I can, this person who saved me. Who pumped blood into my heart, and breathed his own air back into my lungs, and who brought me back to life when it seemed I was long gone.
And when we round the corner and he disappears, I remember to breathe.
And I feel something besides pain, deep in my chest.
The drive home is silent. Heavy with things said and unsaid. I’m sure Matt is thinking of what Walker said to him. I am. It seemed unnecessarily harsh. And exactly what Matt didn’t need to hear. I feel terrible for him, and I don’t know what to say or how to make him feel better. I don’t know what I would’ve done before—if I would’ve reached across the seat and rested a hand on his knee, or tried to talk about something else, or brought it up and talked it over. So I don’t do anything.
I sit on my side of the cab and watch out the window as our little town goes by. Shops and restaurants that are a mix of familiar and new to me. People I know and don’t know. I wonder how many of them will watch that interview and what they’ll think. I wonder what my parents will say—how mad they’ll be. And I wonder how I’ll explain to them why I did it in the first place. I almost wish now that I hadn’t. Walker was so hostile, Matt probably does too.
It’s not until we pull into my driveway and park that he turns to me. “Liv. I’m so sorry.”
The apology surprises me, since I feel like I’m the one who should be apologizing. “For what?” I ask.
He takes a deep breath, and then his words come out in one long string. “Where do I start—for asking you to do that interview, for not being able to get you out, for that night, for—”
“Stop,” I say, reaching out to him.
He looks at me, startled.
“Please,” I say. “Stop apologizing. We’ll never get past this if you don’t.”
It’s quiet a moment, and Matt looks down at his hands in his lap.
“I don’t blame you, Matt—for any of it,” I say. “So you need to stop blaming yourself, or we’ll never move on.”
I don’t know where it comes from, but it feels true. Matt looks at me like he doesn’t know what to say, but somehow I feel like I do. I turn to face him.
“So, what if we just take it one day at a time? Make plans to see each other again?”
Matt nods, but he still looks a little unsure. “Okay. But only if you want to. I don’t want you to feel like we have to—”
“I want to,” I say. And it’s the truth.
He looks relieved. “Tomorrow, then?”
“I’m going to work with Sam tomorrow, but what about the day after? Maybe in the afternoon?”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah, that’d be good.”
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay,” he repeats.
I reach for the door handle but don’t pull it. We both sit there quiet, and I get the feeling it’s because this is the moment we’d normally kiss good-bye, but he doesn’t make any move to. So I try. I lean across the seat and kiss him lightly on the cheek.
“Bye,” I whisper close to his ear before I pull away.
He looks at me with an expression I can’t read. “Bye, Liv.”
I get out and walk up my driveway, feeling like I somehow missed something, or did or said something wrong. I look back at him, no idea what it could be.
He gives a half smile and a wave back, then looks over his shoulder to back up. Part of me wants to wave him down and tell him to come back, wants to try to figure out what I’m missing so I can fix it. Another part feels like I should apologize for being distant, or different, or whatever I must seem to him. For not being the girlfriend he knew and had. She probably would’ve known what to say to him, but I don’t. And so I don’t wave him down, and I don’t tell him to come back. I stand there on my porch trying to ignore a whole other part of me that feels relief when he puts his truck in drive and rolls slowly down the street.
NINETEEN
SAM PUTS HIS big, heavy hand on my seat and looks over his shoulder as we back up. “Okay, you gotta admit. That moment, when Darth Vader says he’s Luke’s father, is EVERYTHING. Am I right? You didn’t see that comin’, did ya?”
I yawn. “Sam. We’ve been over this. I remember Star Wars.”
“Yeah, but it has way more impact watching it the old way. We may have done it wrong the first time, but you got a second chance to see the greatest story ever told—in the right order. Tonight we can start on the new ones, but there’s a lot we need to talk about first.”
“Sam. I’ve seen them.”
“Years ago,” he scoffs. He reaches for the pack of gum in the center console, pops a piece in his mouth, and then offers me one.
I take it. “Thanks.”
“How’d your top secret mission go yesterday? Can I know about it today? Now that it’s over?”