Not even Oliver.
I will never forget the morning Oliver first got out of the book—when we realized that we were together but not two-dimensional or trapped in a fairy tale. We sat on Jessamyn Jacobs’s porch steps in Wellfleet, and Oliver held on to my hand like a child grabs the string of a balloon, afraid that letting go meant I might just float away. We truly believed that we had been through the worst—that the struggle of getting Oliver out of the book was no match for any obstacle we would face in the future. It didn’t matter that Jessamyn lived in Wellfleet and I lived two hundred miles away in New Hampshire. It didn’t matter that Oliver had to pretend that he had been Edgar Jacobs for his entire life. It didn’t matter that my mother wasgoing to ground me for eternity, because I ran away. None of it mattered, as long as we could sit on that porch step and hold tight to each other.
He felt the same way, back then.
One of the first snafus we discovered when Oliver moved here was realizing that Edgar had his driver’s license and Oliver didn’t even know what a carwas.We couldn’t very well stick Oliver behind a wheel without it ending catastrophically—but we also couldn’t have Jessamyn ask him to drive to the grocery store and wonder why he refused. So we decided he would tell Jessamyn that he was now a tree-hugger out to single-handedly save the planet, intent on reducing his own personal carbon emissions. It was left to me to teach him how to ride a bike.
First I lowered the seat so that Oliver’s feet could brush the ground. “Sit,” I told him. “Don’t put your feet on the pedals. Just push around a little bit.”
Oliver wouldn’t take his eyes off the pavement. “You know, horses are easier,” he muttered. “They balance themselves.”
“I would have started with a tricycle, but unfortunately they don’t make them in your size.” I waited until he met my gaze. “Just trust me, okay?”
Eventually Oliver began to push off the ground a little harder, gliding for moments in between. I ran alongside him, but he wouldn’t let me step away, and we couldn’t go more than ten feet before he tipped off the bicycle, falling into my arms.
“I don’t get it,” I said, laughing, after this happened fifteen times in a row. “You climbed towers. You leaped through pages. Why can’t youdothis?”
He shook his head, his eyes sliding away from mine. “I don’t know. . . .”
“Try again,” I urged. “But this time, I’m going to let go.”
He climbed on the bike, took a few wobbly pedals forward, and, seemingly defying gravity, tumbled off the bike. Oliver knocked me flat on the ground, landing heavily on top of me. His shoulders were shaking, his face buried in my neck.
I pushed him off me, trying to see if he was hurt. “Are you all right?”
But when Oliver rolled over, he was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. I figured it out the first time. But you’re so cute when you’re frustrated.”
Back then, it seemed like I could never be mad at him. When did we fall out of the honeymoon phase?
I lie on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, with Humphrey snuggled against my side. My mom says that even though the dog was a gift for her, he might as well belong to me. He stays on my bed most of the day when I’m at school, loving me unconditionally.
At leastsomeonedoes.
Only days ago I was lying right here, wrapped in Oliver’s arms, when a message appeared. When he took the book from my shelf and opened it, my blood froze in my veins. What if all it took to suck him out of this world was one reminder of who he used to be? What if just opening the pages meant saying goodbye?
But none of the characters admitted to writing that desperate plea.
The thing is, someonedid.
Oliver knows that. But he chose to ignore the fact that there’s someone in the book who really needs him.
Is it because he’s afraid he might have to trade his freedom and go back to the story? And if heisafraid, is it because he doesn’t want to leave me . . . or because he doesn’t want to leavehere?
It just seems strange that after we saw that message, he didn’t dwell on it. After all, it wasn’t all that long ago that he sent a similar, desperate message to me.
I can’t shake the feeling that maybe he was just using me; that I was a hand to pull him up, a means to an end. What if he only acted like I was important to him because I was his way out of the book, and now that he’s here, I’m expendable?
There’s that word,acted,again.
My throat tightens. Am I really so desperate to be loved that I can be played that easily?
I wish I’d never met Oliver. Because then I wouldn’t know how much I’m missing now.
There’s a chime from the laptop on my desk, and the screen glows to life. A graphic of a ringing phone appears, and a name beneath it:PRINCE CHARMING.
I’m the one who gave him that Skype name.
Rolling onto my side, I reach for the keyboard and decline the call. I doubt there’s anything Oliver can say that will make me feel better. And I don’t know what I would say to him right now. It seems like the more miserable I get, the more I lash out at him, and that certainly isn’t going to make him want to stay with me any longer.
