If I really am just a pawn.
Margot hands me a tissue. “What happened?” she asks softly.
The whole story comes tumbling out.
Me going to tell him to leave her alone. Waking up in his back seat as he drove into Pennsylvania. Realizing he was running away and that he needed more help than he could’ve possibly understood or anticipated. His first attempt at pumping gas. The way he looked so old and stressed and tired. Him sleeping through the first two days. Us fighting, where he fought back.
Realizing he wasn’t who I always thought he was. That he’s changed.
His donut apology.
Angelina Juliana Priestly, who’s in the car back in Colorado.
Giving away as much cash as we could.
Drinking the Chateau Cheval Blanc with hot dogs and s’mores over a campfire.
Bea’s heads-up that we were drawing attention by giving away so much money.
Lying low. Heading to Colorado so he could see the sun rise and set over the mountains, which we won’t get to do now. And finally, the saloon.
“I love him,” I whisper to Margot as I finish up. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. But he’s—he’s not who I remember. He’s fun and he’s a little lost and he’s a lot like me—he doesn’t fit where we always thought we were supposed to fit, but he wants to do good in the world and he recognizes his privilege and it’s so irresistibly attractive. And I—please don’t hate me.”
She doesn’t flinch.
She’s smiled at times, cringed a little at other times as I’ve poured it all out, but me telling her that I love her ex-fiancé?
All that gets is another soft smile. “Good,” she whispers.
“Good? Seriously?”
“Daph, do you have any idea why you’re my favorite person in the universe?”
“Because you’re a saint?”
“Because you have the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. You have always—always—lived your life with kindness and compassion right beside the chaos and the fun. When you had access to family money, you used it to make other people happy. Remember when you bought a car for the cafeteria lady in your dorm at Vanderbilt? And when you sent a hundred pizzas to that school whose principal had died? And when you funded every pet shelter in the city for two years? While people like Archie Westmore were buying themselves yachts and vacations all over the world?”
I don’t mention to her that Oliver and Archie are apparently besties.
I’m too busy trying to see through the waterfall in my eyes.
“And then you put your entire life on hold to help someone you actively disliked when you realized he was in crisis,” Margot says. “I have never understood how our parents couldn’t adore you the same way I do. You are the easiest person in the world to love, and I’m so, so glad that someone who also has a ridiculously huge heart can see that.”
“You—you think Oliver has a big heart?”
“He used to bring extra food on picnics to feed the ants, Daph. The signs were always there. You two fit in a way that he and I never would’ve. Not long-term.”
“But you said you wanted him back.”
“Guess I’ll have to find another way to help the Aurora Gardens empire branch out beyond hotels. Maybe there’s anairline heir who owns fifty-one percent of his family’s company somewhere.”
I gasp.
She cocks a sardonic grin that tells me she’s mostly not serious.
And I dissolve into tears again.
She passes me another tissue.
