"Mark deserved it. He deserved worse." Owen's hands are clenched on the table. "But what I remember most is after. After Mark left and the teachers broke it up. You and Levi sat on the curb outside the festival, and you were crying. Not because youwere scared, because you felt guilty that Levi got in trouble for you."
"I did feel guilty."
"I know. I watched him put his arm around you and tell you it wasn't your fault. That guys like Mark were assholes and he'd punch him again if he had to." Owen's voice goes softer. "And I remember standing there, seventeen years old, realizing three things all at once."
I'm frozen, barely breathing.
"One: that I wanted to be the one sitting next to you. Two: that my brother was a better man than I'd ever given him credit for. And three: that I was completely, terrifyingly in love with you."
The world stops.
Owen Harper just said he was in love with me.
In love.
With me.
"That's not—" I start, but I don't know how to finish. That's not possible? That's not real? That's not something that happens to people like me?
"I know," he says quickly. "I know it sounds insane. We barely talked. We were kids. But that's what it felt like, and I didn't know what to do with it. I was already planning to leave—pre-med, scholarships, the whole thing mapped out. And you were Levi's best friend. Off limits. Practically family."
"Owen—"
"I tried to convince myself it was just a crush. That it would go away once I left for college. But then we had that day on the porch, and you loaned me Jane Eyre, and I knew I was screwed." He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in alldirections. "So, I left. I went to college and then med school and I built this whole life, and I dated other people, and I told myself I was over it. Over you."
"Were you?" My voice is barely audible.
"No." He laughs, but it sounds pained. "Not even close. Every relationship I had, I was comparing her to you. To the idea of you. Which is insane because I didn't even really know you. But I couldn't help it."
I'm gripping my wine glass so hard I'm surprised it doesn't shatter. "You can't just… You can't say things like this."
"Why not?"
"Because it's not real! Owen, you didn't love me. You didn't even know me. You loved some idea of me, some fantasy version that doesn't exist."
"That's what I told myself too," he says. "For fifteen years, that's exactly what I told myself. But then I saw you tonight, standing next to your broken-down car, and it all came back. Except it wasn't a fantasy version. It was just you. Real, actual you. And I realized I've been an idiot."
"You're being an idiot right now," I say, but there's no heat in it. I'm too overwhelmed to be angry. "You don't know anything about me. About my life. I'm not… I'm not some romantic heroine. I'm boring and quiet and I spend my Friday nights reading the same books over and over. I haven't been on a date in three years. I've never—"
I cut myself off, but not fast enough.
"Never what?" he asks gently.
I shake my head, mortified. There's no way I'm telling Owen Harper I'm a thirty-three-year-old virgin. Absolutely not. I'd rather die.
"Ivy, whatever you're thinking, it doesn't change anything."
"It would if you knew."
"Try me."
We stare at each other across the table. The fire crackles. Someone at the bar orders another round. And I'm sitting here with Owen Harper, who apparently spent fifteen years thinking about me, and I have no idea what to do with that information.
Part of me wants to run. To call a cab, go home, pretend this never happened. It would be safer. Easier. I'm good at safe and easy.
But another part of me, the part that used to draw little hearts in the margins of books, the part that dreamed about someone looking at me the way Owen is looking at me right now, that part wants to be brave.
"One question," I finally say.
