“Since when?”
“I don’t think I had a good role model for relationships …”
You don’t say!The anguish in his expression is almost convincing.
“The psych is talking me through everything. The way I was raised. I’ve never been shown how to love someone properly. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get my father’s attention. I’ve never been enough.”
This part is true. Anderson’s behavior at Oliver’s graduation was just the latest example of how hot and cold the love runs. He’s either bragging obsessively about Oliver or ignoring him altogether. As long as I’ve known him, Oliver has scrambled to impress his dad, and has always fallen short.
“Evie, I’m doing the work, I promise. I’m begging you for a second chance. You’re everything to me.”
I’ve been Oliver’s everything ever since we fell into the swimming pool. But I think I’ve been drowning every moment since. Every time I try to clamber to the surface, he finds a way to pull me back under.
“You don’t have to marry me,” he promises. “I can see that’s too much pressure. But I want to support you through your PhD. You can give up your tutoring. I’ll throw everything atgetting you through this. You can have the career you’ve always wanted.”
It’s all too late. A hopeless afterthought without enough power to win me over. I zip up my purse and grab my keys.
“I don’t think you understand,” he pleads, stepping up to block my path. “I need you.”
I glance at the time on my phone. And then at him. He looks like he hasn’t slept in days. Such a disheveled version of that perfect, confident boy I knew.
“This last week,” he says, more quietly now that he has my attention, “I’ve wanted to end everything.”
Don’t take me down this path.
“I can’t face a life without you, Evie. And I’ve realized my father has set the very worst example of what it means to be a man. It’shimI need to cut ties with.”
He’s right about his dad, at least. He takes both my wrists in his hands and clutches them, staring into my eyes with a genuine misery and need. “Please, just one more chance. We can take it slowly. Just let me prove to you that I’m learning. I’ll do anything for you.”
“Olly …”
He falls to his knees now, arms reaching for my waist. Our bodies know this choreography, intimately. This is the part where I always yield.
“If you push me away now, I’m not going to survive.” There’s a finality to his tone. A believability that forces me to fast-forward in my imagination to a time when there might have to be another phone call to the paramedics. More flashing lights. More questions. Another gurney with a white sheet on it …
And then forward again, to all the years after, where I’d always wonder if I could have stopped him.
This is impossible.
Oxygen fights to make it into my lungs as my chest seems to freeze, limbs tingling, brain aching from the desperation of this relationship. The car keys drop from my hand and clatter onto the floorboards beside Oliver, a hopeful spark reentering his eyes as he stares up into my face.
But this time, from somewhere deep in my subconscious, another vision pushes up and forces itself through all the sinews of this diabolical mess, until it takes a stranglehold and causes me to break eye contact, remove his arms from my waist, and pick up my keys again.
It’s that same gurney. Those flashing lights. A body under a sheet.
And a soul-deep knowing that, if nothing changes, the body will be mine.
62
Drew
Mum’s service was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to push myself through. Made worse because I pushed myself through it alone.
Evie didn’t show.
I’ve never felt more crushed by something in my life. More let down. Or more surprised.
I know I shouldn’t have kissed her, but when she left the other night, we were on good terms. Friends. She promised she’d come.
