“My parents let me get away with probably too much. That was back when they liked me.” I laugh, trying to keep the mood light. “That’s probably why I connected so well with your parents. I never really had people in my life who were strong and loving parental figures.”
“My parents think of you like a son. My dad particularly loves having you around. I know he loves me, but I also know he would’ve loved to have a child who he could teach about trucks and watch sports with. Now he has that with you.” After a beat, she adds, “I’m sorry about your parents. I’m willing to share mine, but you can’t have themallto yourself.”
“I still had a pretty great childhood. I had good friends, and we had lots of adventures.”
“Tell me a story. I want to hear about some of your adventures.”
“Hmmm.” I lean back, letting the hot sun beat down on my face as I think. “My freshman year of high school, I went dirt bike riding with a couple of my friends. I’m not sure how familiar you are with riding a dirt bike, but the throttle is on the handlebars, so you have to grab it like this.” I make a fist with my hand and show her the motion of grabbing onto a handle and then pulling my knuckles toward me to throttle. She nods along in fascination. “We had been going for a little over an hour, and I was starting to feel confident when I accidentally grabbed a handful of the throttle on my way up a jump. I flew through the air, and when I landed, my front tire hit the dirt at the wrong angle. I got tossed from the bike and broke my collar bone.”
“Oh my god!”
“It didn’t hurt that bad.” She narrows her eyes at me. “Okay, it hurt like a bitch, but it was actually pretty great because the accident helped my parents stop fighting for a little bit while they focused on taking care of me.”
“They fought even after they divorced?”
I nod. “All the time, probably even more than before they got divorced. It was like the divorce allowed them to openly hate each other.”
“How long did they stop fighting?”
“Maybe a week, but it was the best week of my life. My mom made me breakfast in bed. My dad would come and watch old movies with me. Sometimes my mom even joined.”
“Do you talk to either of them much anymore?”
I shake my head, and she must recognize that I’m reaching my limits for how much I’m willing to share because instead of asking why, she asks me for another story.
“You have to tell me something about you first. It’s only fair.”
She nods in agreement, pursing her lips as she thinks. It’s funny because I’m used to asking people about themselves as a way to deflect, to move the attention away from me and keep my past hidden, but this time, I genuinely want to know more about Olivia. I want to learn every little detail about her. I want to know the basics like her favorite color and her favorite season, but I also want to know the deeper things like how she got that scar along her right shin and what makes her think she doesn’t deserve a life free of stress and full of joy.
“I don’t think I have any stories that are as funny as yours.”
“That’s okay. It doesn’t have to be funny. I just want to hear something about you from before we met. Tell me a favorite memory of yours or a least favorite. I don’t care. I just want something.”
She sits up a little straighter, turning to face me straight on. “I don’t know if I can definitively say this is my favorite memory because it’s a little bittersweet, but it’s one that sticks out to me.” I nod along encouragingly, keeping my mouth shut so as not to interrupt her. “When I was a freshman in high school, my best friend since first grade started dating some jock, and she started to fall in with the cool kid crowd. This went on for a few months. We still hung out outside of school, but she would practically ignore me during school hours and it stung. It got way worse when rumors started going around the school about me, and she didn’t do anything to stop the rumors from flying.”
She must see the pity on my face because she smiles at me, patting my knee, and says, “I promise the story gets better, but it’s going to get just a smidge worse before it comes back around. Stick with me.”
I chuckle, feeling oddly protective over her even though this was years ago, and I can see her smiling about it now.
“I came home one day absolutely bawling because I had just found out my friend, Natasha, had been the one to spread a particularly nasty rumor about me, and it just felt like the world was ending. When I got home, my mom took one look at my face, grabbed her purse, and dragged me right back out the door. She took me into town for ice cream, and we wandered around these little shops near the beach that were about half an hour away. I loved those shops. It was my perfect day, if you ignore the whole best-friend-betrayal that started it off, but it was a very special moment with my mom. We’d always been close, but I think that’s when I started to see her as my best friend, not just my mom.” She glances down at her towel, finding a loose thread. “You know how much I love Taylor Swift, right?”
“Do I? Everyone in town must know by now with the way you blast her music in your Volkswagen.”
“Well, my favorite song is actually one of her older ones. It’s called ‘The Best Day,’ and it’s sung from the daughter’s perspective to her mom, talking about how her mom is always there for her and like her best friend. It speaks to mysoul. It’s one of my all-time favorite songs, and I don’t think many people know that or the meaning of the song for me.”
She continues picking at the thread on her towel, focusing hard on it.
“I love how close you are with your mom. Things were a lot more forced when you first got here because she was desperate to connect with you, but it seems to me like you two have found a good balance. You’ve gotten back to that friendship you used to have.”
“Yeah, it’s been a little terrifying to let her in again, but I love my mom so much. I missed having that closeness.”
Silence settles over us for a beat before I ask, “Can you play the song for me? I want to hear it.”
“Sure!” She eagerly plucks her phone off the grass and presses a few buttons before a joyful tune slips through the speaker. I try to focus on the words, picturing a younger Olivia with her mom. Having this new piece of Olivia makes me fall just a little bit more for her.
The song ends, and I watch her face change as she begins chewing on her lip. She places all her focus on scratching behind Maverick’s ears, and I give her the space she needs after this moment of vulnerability.
Finally, she says, “I don’t want this day to end.”
