The play on Jack’s name isn’t lost on me. “You’re right. I’m sorry again, D. I wish I could take it all back.”
“Well, you can’t.” Delia sighs. “Like I told my dad, all you can do is be better. And I hope you do, Olive. Maybe…maybe I’m okay with giving you another chance to try.” And in her typicalfashion, she ends the call before we can veer into sappy territory. But her words stick me right in the heart, and an overwhelming flood of everything I’ve done wrong this past year bombards me all at once. I burrow into the covers and squeeze my eyes shut, begging for some kind of emotional release, but I just feel stretched to the seams.
“I can’t even cry right,” I mutter in the darkness, my entire body trembling with the urge to let out the tears that won’t come. “I really did screw everything up.” I might have bumpily patched things over with Delia, but things with Tyler are looking as dismal as ever, text messages still going unanswered, pain still lashing at the walls of my heart.I can’t even let out the tears. Something is seriously wrong with me.
That’s my last thought as I drift off to sleep—an endless loop ofI failed, I failed, I failed.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Pea?” Mom’s gentle voice pulls me from my dreamless—and pretty terrible—sleep, and I squint in the bright light of the morning as I peek one eye out from underneath my comforter. She’s standing in the doorway, already dressed in crisp linen pants and a soft-looking sweater, her face freshly washed and glowing—all indicators that I’ve slept in way later than I planned. I swear I dreamed hearing our doorbell as I crawled out of my murky dreamland, too, but that was probably just a UPS delivery.
“Olive?” she prompts again when I don’t answer, eliciting a weak mumble from me as a response. And then what she says next stops my blood cold: “There’s someone at the door for you. Delia—”
Okay, so that wasnota UPS delivery.
“What?”Delia’shere,which means maybe I’ve been given my chance to apologize in person, and my second thought is that the clock on my nightstand says it’s almost noon and my room smells sweaty and stale, my hair is undoubtedly sticking up all over the place, and I most certainly have morning breath. Mom’s face gives nothing away, though.
“Tell her I’ll be right down,” I blurt, launching out of bed and hurriedly trying to comb down my hair and tug on a pair of sweatpants. “I just…Give me a second.”
A bemused look crosses Mom’s face as I flail around my room, but she nods with a small smile and closes the door. As soon as she does, I finish yanking the sweatpants up over my hips, throw on my favorite worn-in hoodie, and scramble to the bathroom to brush my teeth. I’m in such a rush to get downstairs that I leave my mane of hair in a jumbled tangle on my head, hoping a few mere finger-brushes will do the trick but inherently knowing that the effort is futile.
“Where’s Delia?” I call out as I head toward the door, surprised that she isn’t standing in the foyer. Mom isn’t typically one to leave guests standing outside, and even though it’s been a while since Delia’s been around, she’s always treated this place like a second home. Probably an even more accepting one than where she resides with her parents, if we’re being honest.
“About that.” Mom’s in the kitchen, puttering around, and when she sees me reach for the door, I hear her stop the running water at the sink and take a deep breath. “Wait a second. Olive, you should know—”
But I’m not listening, already pulling the door open, revealing the face of the last person I thought I’d ever see again.
Tyler’s eyes scan my hoodie, widening in surprise. “Sothat’swhere my Grateful Dead hoodie went.”
I hear Mom sigh behind us and go back to washing the dishes.
I don’t know what to do first—I want to hug Tyler, shake him, question why he went silent. I want to beg for his forgiveness and throw my arms around his neck and breathe in his scent and press my lips to his over and over and over again.
So, naturally, I do none of those things.
Instead, I zero in on the sweatshirt comment. “I can’t help that it’s been washed to perfection and is now the perfect amount of soft.” I cross my arms over my chest self-consciously, tilting my chin up to at least hide my embarrassment and the heat rushing to my face. But I also can’t ignore the happy flare of excitement sparkling in my blood, followed closely by a warmth blooming in my chest.He is your home,my heart and my brain both whisper to me, in sync for once in my life.Your “home” is home.
Tyler nods mock-seriously, clearly trying to bite back a smile. “And what did Mr.Two First Names have to say about it?”
“Nothing.”Because I kept this tucked in the back of my closet whenever he was around.Which is probably something I should investigate later. But right now, I turn and flash my mother an accusing glare over my shoulder, where she’s resting against the sink with one eyebrow raised. “What are you doing here? My mom told me that Delia was here.”
“No, I didn’t,” she chimes in unhelpfully from the kitchen. “I was trying to tell you that Deliatextedme and said that Tyler was dropping by, but you took off like a bullet before I had a chance to stop you.” She winks at Tyler over my shoulder. “Nice to see you again, sweetheart. Been a while.”
He waves sheepishly at Mom. “It’s nice to see you, too, Sherri.”
“Anyway.” I clear my throat, stepping out onto the front steps and shutting the door behind us to cut off Mom, willing my pulse to calm back down to a normal rate. “Why…why are you here?” But even though I ask, we both know, those words I first texted on a whim hanging in the air between us.If I did the math rightand you’re coming back tonight, can you stop over on your way home?
Tyler takes a slow, shaky breath, and it dawns on me that I’m not the only one spiraling out from nerves right now. “I’ve been thinking since you left. And I have something to show you.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls through his camera roll until he lands on what he’s searching for, flipping the screen so I can see better. It’s a close-up photo of what looks like wood, a tiny heart scratched into the surface. Instantly, I recognize it.
“You went back to take a picture of the picnic table where we got lunch?” I try not to sound confused, but I’m sure he senses it, anyway. This is Tyler we’re talking about. “Why?”
“Because”—he zooms in even further, presenting me the heart—“I went back there.”
I squint at the screen, searching for the J + M initials that I’d traced my finger over that day. But to my surprise, that’s not what’s there. Carved inside the little heart is the wordTo.
“To?” I glance up at Tyler, brows furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean? To who?”
Tyler shakes his head, exasperated, and jabs his finger at the phone. “Look closer.” And there, nestled in between the two letters, is a tiny plus sign.
