There was about thirty minutes of footage total, and by thetime it was over, Merritt’s head ached from crying. At the same time, she felt calmer than she had in weeks.
“He would’ve been so proud of you,” Olivia said softly, once Merritt shut her laptop screen. “It’s hard to believe that he never got to see any of it.”
Merritt pressed her lips together, her eyes filling with tears again. “Sometimes I’m glad he didn’t. He never had to see me struggling, either. He wasn’t around for me to hurt.”
“That’s what I mean,” said Olivia, still sniffling. “I think he would’ve been prouder of who you are now than of any of that other stuff. You’ve worked so hard to get here.”
Merritt gave up on trying to hold in her tears, which were coming faster than she could wipe them away. “Stop it. We’re going to need IV hydration soon.”
“No, seriously,” said Olivia, although she was smiling through fresh tears, too. “I shouldn’t have said any of that to you the other day. Youhavegrown up. The fact that you’ve been going through all this and still pulled off that baby shower…it means so much to me. And Mom told me what you did to get her here. I don’t think many of the past versions of you could’ve kept it together like that.” She paused, dabbing her eyes. “Plus, there was a time when you definitely would’ve set my hair on fire for saying half of those things.”
Merritt let out a choked half laugh, half sob. “Not while you’re pregnant. Give me a little credit.”
“Youdodeserve way more credit than I’ve been giving you. I’m sorry…I’m sorry that it’s hard for me to see it sometimes.”
Merritt swallowed, her throat raw and dry. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I get it. It’s hard for me to see it sometimes, too.”
“Is that why you let things go with Niko?”
Merritt cast a sidelong glance at her sister. “I let things go with him because he wanted to leave.”
Olivia scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure Mr. Crested Peak was just dying to start a new life in Arizona. Did you ever talk about him staying?”
“Sort of.”
“What did he say?”
She closed her eyes. “He said…he said he was looking for something real to build his life around.”
When she opened them, she saw Olivia looking at her earnestly, her face still red and puffy. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Tell him what?” Merritt sniffled. “ ‘I was pregnant with your baby for five minutes but now I’m not, how’s Tucson?’ ”
“You could ask how Tucson is first,” Olivia offered.
Something about that struck Merritt as so funny that she immediately burst out laughing, giddy and hysterical and contagious, Olivia joining in, tears finally streaming down their faces for a different reason.
Once Merritt was able to breathe again, she took a long drink from her seltzer, then glanced at her sister. “You spent the last six months trying to keep us apart, and now that we’re broken up, you’re trying to get us back together?”
Olivia grimaced. “I know, I know, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I knew it as soon as I saw what you were like with him.”
Another lump formed in Merritt’s throat. “How was I?”
Olivia raised a shoulder, then lowered it. “You just seemed really…alive, I guess. In a way I don’t think I’ve ever seen you. And happy. Really, really happy.”
“I was,” Merritt confirmed, her voice raspy. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath. When she dropped them to her lap, she met Olivia’s gaze. “He’d be proud of you, too. Dad, I mean. It takes a lot of strength to be the stable one. The one keeping us all together.”
Olivia didn’t say anything, just reached over and squeezed Merritt’s hand, her eyes going misty yet again. “Thank you.” After a long silence, punctuated only by their sniffles, she pointed at the remote. “Now please, for the love of god, can we finally watch theBottoms Upfinale?”
When Merritt returned to her room at the end of the night, her head was still spinning.
Every cell in her body ached to pick up the phone and call him. But her ever-present voice of doubt persisted: how was this any different from the countless other relationships she’d impulsively and intensely thrown herself into?
As familiar as the voice was, she was startled to hear another one—newer, louder—rejecting it. Just because it was telling her the thing she feared most didn’t mean it was telling the truth.
Thiswasdifferent.
It was different becauseshewas different.
