Page 90

WOULD THAT I

Oliver

The drive to the restaurant is dead silent except for my fingers drumming on the wheel the whole time.

Nothing but someone to pass the time with.

That she could think that after all we shared.

Beside me, Charlee keeps her attention on the road too, dodging every glance I occasionally throw her way. I shouldn’t have snapped at her at the house, but that comment? Was she trying to hurt me, or does she really think that? Whatever the case, her daring to reduce our relationship to that gets my blood boiling. She has no right to do that. She can be angry, disappointed, or sad all she wants, and she can take it out on me, but not on what we had. I won’t let her do that.

I park my truck across from the restaurant and turn off the engine.

“What are we doing here?”

“This,” I point to the newly renovated building with the For Sale sign, “used to be Jerry’s.”

Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean ‘used to be’?”

You can do this, Oli. What’s one more time reliving it when you’ve already done it a hundred times?

I look up at the brand-new building. “A few years ago, Pine Falls endured one of the worst fires in its history. A tourist camped nearby and started a fire, despite warnings of extreme heat and a ban on campfires given the drought. It caught in a blaze and spread all the way to town. It took the fire fighters several weeks to extinguish it completely. There was a lot of damage, and many people lost their homes and businesses. Including my grandparents.” The lump in my throat grows tighter, so I pause for a moment before continuing, “Because Jerry’s was a staple of Pine Falls tourism, the building was rebuilt exactly as it was.”

It’s just not mine anymore. My greatest shame. So close. I’d been so close.

“When did Jerry’s burn down, Oliver?” She looks at me, horror in her eyes. She knows when. She understands. So why does she need me to say it out loud? What difference does it make?

Charlee grabs my arm and squeezes hard. “When?”

“June twentieth,” I say as I look at her, soft and full of regret, and rest my hand on top of hers.

“Twenty eighteen,” she whispers, like she didn’t want to believe it, tears rolling freely down her cheeks.

I nod, not a sound breaching the knot in my throat, and bring my thumb to her face to brush away her tears, until my finger becomes as damp as her face. “Jerry and Carol were sleeping when the building caught on fire.” I fight to get the words out, still stroking her cheek. “I wasn’t home that night. I’d been with James, Lola, and Matt. I was seeing you the next day and needed to be with my friends because I was so nervous. I’d never been that nervous in my whole life.”

“Oh, Oli . . .”

“I wasn’t there, Charlee. I wasn’t there. If I’d been home, maybe I would have been able to smell the fire and wake them up. But I wasn’t there.”

Years of therapy taught me that “what if” and “if I had done this or that” were futile and only served to torture me further. They don’t change the outcome and only add weight to the excruciating guilt I still carry.

Twin tears spill from my own eyes, so I rest my head against hers, my hand still cupping her face, as she drags her hand across the back of my neck and clings to me.

“It’s okay, Oli, I’m here.”

I nod, breathing her soothing scent into the deepest parts of my soul. “They woke up to thick, dense smoke,” I say, unable to control the tremors in my voice. “They made it to the hospital, where they called me. Matt drove me there and stayed with me the whole night while my grandparents got tests done. The tests showed that their lungs were destroyed because of how much smoke there had been in the house. They . . .” Five fucking years later, and I still struggle to say it. “They passed away the same night from smoke inhalation.”

I bite down a sob at the memories of that night. Everything I had, everything I loved, went up in literal flames.

I drop my hands to my lap, but before I can fall apart, Charlee slips her hand from my neck to my jaw and tilts my head up to meet her green eyes, shining with tears. “None of it is your fault. You hear me? None of it.”

The gentleness in her voice could bring me to my knees if I wasn’t already sitting down. I’ve never heard her use that tone, yet I feel like I’ve always known it.

“It’s hard for me to remember that sometimes,” I whisper.

My grandparents, the restaurant, Charlee.

Loss after loss after loss.