When she eventually slumped downstairs the next morning, she found Oliver in the kitchen trying to manoeuvre a rolling pin with only one hand. There was already a pie on the table, the dough criss-crossed in a pleasing pattern upon the top, and every other surface was littered with flour.
Ava slumped in one of the chairs, and when he looked at her she saw the twitching guilt in the thin line of his lips.
‘Listen,’ he muttered. ‘I’m sorry for last night. For what I said. For … well, for everything really.’
‘You don’t need to apologize.’
Her brother’s expression crumpled a little. ‘I do. I was drunk, and I shouldn’t have – I shouldn’t have said those things. Promise me you’ll just forget it.’
She turned to him, and fixed him with an incredulous look. ‘Because I’m famously good at that,’ she said.
‘You know what I mean,’ Oliver muttered, plucking up the rolling pin once more.
And shedidknow what he meant. Pretend to forget it. Pretend that it was fine – as though it hadn’t hurt. Just as she’d done with so much else.
‘I got muddled with Jem,’ said Ava – not looking at her brother, but down to the flour-covered table. ‘I took what hecould give me, and thought it was love. But I’m beginning to wonder if all Idois get muddled.’
Her brother’s brows furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
She kept her gaze down, though now the table was blurring somewhat. ‘I mean I thought I’d found someone who … whosaw me. I thought he felt what I could feel. But now—’ She faltered, her voice quiet. ‘Now I don’t know what it meant. Any of it.’
The rolling pin stopped moving. ‘Did itfeelas though it meant nothing?’
She looked down at her hands. ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Yes?I don’t know. I think … Iwantit to mean something, I’m just …’
‘Afraid?’ Oliver asked, his voice low as he came to sit beside her.
She nodded. ‘And the thought that scares me the most is what if—’ She stopped, the words sticking in her throat. ‘What if I’m still not enough?’
‘Listen,’ Oliver said, the chair creaking as he nudged his shoulder into hers. ‘What you did, Ava … it takes courage. It takes courage to show someone all that you are. That’s got to be worth something, doesn’t it? It makes you brave.’
She lifted her eyes to meet his, her lip twitching at the edge. ‘I don’t feel brave,’ she said. ‘I feel foolish.’
‘But you’re not.’ He reached a hand, stilling hers with his. ‘It shows that you’re strong. You’re strong enough to be honest with people – and …Christ, Ava. That’s a strength I’m not sure even I possess.’
She looked at him, and he at her, and she squeezed his hand right back. ‘You possess it,’ she said. ‘If I possess it, then so do you.’
He watched her for a long moment, his mouth opening slightly – as though he would say something. Then he stood, turning to fetch the kettle. ‘What I’m trying to say is that Idon’t think you should regret it,’ he said quietly. ‘Especially if it meant something to you. Because showing someone who you are – who youreally are –that’s something not many of us in this life ever truly do. And that’s a good thing, Ava. No matter what.’
‘Even if … it all ends up breaking apart?’
‘Especially then, Ava,’ he said quietly. ‘Look, love is … it’s a terrifying thing. Love is handing someone every sharp edge within you, every weakness – and trusting them not to hurt you with it. That’s what makes it so … so awful. So extraordinary.’
She looked down at the table, at the flour covering the scorch marks from where her mother had left one of the pans upon the wood, all the scars and nicks of time.
‘But I think you already knew that, didn’t you, Ava? And that’s what makes you brave. You knew that, and you … you still let yourself take that chance. Which is more than I’ll ever do.’
Now Ava’s brow creased. ‘You don’t want it?’ she asked. ‘Love?’
The laugh that spilled from Oliver’s lips was short, and bitter. ‘And do what with it? Hide it away? Make sure no one can see it?’ He shook his head. ‘I think I’d be happier marrying Miss Collins.’
Ava gave an affected shudder. ‘That’s not true, Oliver. And you know it. She’sawful.’
‘I know. But still – sometimes I wonder if it’d just be easier to pretend. At the very least I think it’d be less exhausting than …’ He stopped, and she watched him swallow.
‘Than what?’ she asked quietly.
‘Than the truth,’ he said.
