She felt like laughing at the reminder that she was not, in fact, the center of the universe, and at least one other torrid summer romance had been going on right under her nose.
Then she felt like crying, because the first person she wanted to tell was Olivia.
They spent his last night at her house, since his was empty—their first time sleeping there. Merritt tried not to think of the sick symmetry of these milestones as they took off their shoes at the door. They’d barely talked all night, and they still didn’t as they undressed each other, then tangled in her crisp new sheets.
Last one. This is the last one.She’d thought that the first time she’d kissed him, back when she’d still been in denial that she could stay away from him. As the two of them went through the now-familiar motions, the words felt real enough to bruise.
One of her favorite things about sleeping with him was howfunit was, vocal and verbal and adventurous and totally uninhibited. It wasn’t like that tonight, though. There was a heaviness, a quietness, a different kind of intensity than normal. He was clearly deep in his own head—which, fine, so was she.
It still felt good, but as one last orgasm rolled through her, followed shortly by his, she’d never felt less connected to him during sex.
Things had shifted between them after Sadie’s party. As desperate as she was to know how he felt about what had happened that night, it almost felt counterproductive to get into it at this point.
Maybe feeling just a little bit weird about each other was the right way to end this. No dramatics on either end of the spectrum—neither the agony of a connection severed too early nor the irritation of one dragged out too long.
“Niko?” she said softly as they lay next to each other, eyes closed but nowhere close to sleep.
“Yeah?”
“Tomorrow…I think you should leave before I wake up. So we don’t have to…it’ll just make it easier. Right?” Hervoice broke a little on the last word, her stomach clenched in a fist.
She counted three long exhales before he responded. “Okay,” he said, then rolled over, his back to her.
It felt like only a minute later that she opened her eyes and he was gone—the world’s worst magic trick.
She rolled over to his side and took a deep inhale of the sheets, clutching his pillow to her chest. When she was ready to get up, she wandered slowly through the house barefoot, taking it all in, every detail she and Niko had selected together.
She had been so fucking stupid thinking it would be easy to get over him here, when everything from the kitchen drawer knobs to the bathroom tile carried his touch.
She was able to keep it together until she made it downstairs, stopping in her tracks when she saw Niko’s completed mural for the first time.
He’d painted a giant, impressionistic map of the town—the candy-colored façades of the shops on the main street, the hodgepodge architecture of the neighborhoods, embellished with local trees and plants and wildflowers. Each corner was a different season, dusted with snow or sunshine or multicolored leaves.
She spotted his house, and Olivia and Dev’s, every last landmark she’d grown to know and cherish from seeing them through his eyes. All she could do was stare, the love he’d poured into it so palpable it took her breath away.
His love for this town. For the act of creation.
For her.
Mountains stretched over the top of the wall, lit with moody late-afternoon light. When she leaned closer, she noticed something midway up the peak, in the part of the mural frozen in eternal summer—a tiny blue pickup truck parked on the overlook, two figures cuddled together in the back.
He’d even gotten the flower in her hair.
All at once, the fog cleared, everything snapping into sharp relief, like she’d finally found her glasses after wandering around without them for the last week.
She doubled over, head in her hands, sobs shaking her whole body, every messy, scary, out-of-control feeling she’d been pushing down spilling violently, inevitably out.
33
If Merritt hadn’t had thebranch of the upcoming baby shower to cling on to, she would’ve been fully swallowed by the emotional quicksand of the days that followed. Even though planning wasn’t her strong suit, somehow everything seemed to come together. She flew in Olivia’s out-of-town friends the night before, putting them up in an Airbnb within walking distance of Olivia and Dev’s, and negotiated with her mother to arrive just before it started, so she wouldn’t miss the last part of her conference. All in all, it looked like there would be at least thirty people there.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to spend another night at her house since Niko left. On the bright side, though, spending more time at Olivia’s had thawed their relationship considerably. They’d even had breakfast together that morning, Merritt making them oatmeal exactly the way Olivia liked it—banana walnut with extra cinnamon.
An hour later, she was strolling through the local grocery store, grabbing the last few things she needed before the shower that afternoon. At the bakery counter, she picked up the custom cupcakes she’d ordered and paid the expedited fee to make sure they were finished on time; the letters spelled outEnjoy Your Babies.
She cut through the small pharmacy section on the way to the checkout, but as she passed by the tampons, she stopped short.
When was the last time she’d had her period?
