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Oliver squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“Of course you can. Let me.”
I grabbed the backpack he had just thrown on the ground and opened it slowly while he walked a few feet away, trying to calm down. I took out the two urns and placed them on the damp grass, trying to keep my hands from shaking. Oliver came back, looking at the ground. I stepped forward, hugged him, and clapped him on the back.
“You ready?” I asked.
He handed me Douglas’s urn and grabbed Rose’s. I had expected he would do it alone, so I stood there a moment before I could react. I walked to the cliff’s edge beside him. We looked at each other. Oliver took a deep breath. And we let them go without another word. We stood there, in front of the sea, together. Saying goodbye.
November
* * *
(SPRING)
106
_________
Leah
I buried my face in my pillow when I heard Oliver, who spoke to me from the door of my room. Hard. Angry. Disappointed. Unwilling to understand.
He talked about college, about how he would move back soon, how he would just go to Sydney to arrange everything and then he would come back for good. Then we would make plans. We’d find a dorm in Brisbane, I’d take my final exams, he’d help me move, and we’d spend a few days together in the city so I could get to know it.
All I wanted to do was shout. But what I offered him was silence. A silence that exasperated him and that helped me keep whole.
When he couldn’t take it anymore that day, he came to my bed and made me turn around to look at him. He sat there on the edge of it, furious. I wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“Do you realize all I’ve done for you, Leah?” His voice was quaking. My nose started tingling, and I wanted to cry. “You’re going to spend the next few days with Justin and Emily, and you’re not going to give them any trouble, all right? Hey, look at me.” He pulled my hair out of my face. “You already know this is for your own good. All this was my fault. I should never have left you here, not in the state you were in.”
“You’re not listening to me. I told you. I’ve always loved him; this is real…”
“You don’t know Axel. You don’t know what he’s like when he gets into a relationship, how he just shoves away all the things that stop interesting him. Has he ever told you how he stopped painting? Has he ever told you how when something gets complicated, he refuses to fight for it? He’s got his black holes too.”
A tear––just one––escaped me.
“You’re the one who doesn’t know him,” I whispered.
He looked at me with sorrow and I wanted to erase that expression. It infuriated me to see him judging Axel and not bothering to understand a single word of all I had told him those past few days, how he didn’t respect me, how he thought he could come between us, acting like all this was a mistake.
* * *
I sent one last message to Blair before getting off of Justin and Emily’s sofa and walking on tiptoe to the door. I hadn’t heard from Axel in a week. A week of silence, of uncertainty, of going to bed every night in tears because I didn’t understand what was happening. I needed to see him and be sure he was okay, that this was just a pothole we would forget, leaving it behind with the passing of time. Oliver would eventually understand.
So I asked my best friend for a favor, and all I had to do was go out the door without making noise and come back a little later, at midnight. But I screwed up and hit my knee against a table in the living room, bringing my hand to my mouth to keep from shouting. The lights turned on.
Justin was looking at me. He was wearing blue pajamas. “Leah. What are you doing?”
“I have to see him. Please.”
He rubbed his face and looked at the clock on the shelf. “This is a terrible idea.”
“I won’t be long, I promise.”
“Two hours. If you’re not back in two hours, I’m going to look for you.”
I thanked him with my eyes, because he was the only person who seemed to understand us. I left, walking past the fence, and saw the red car parked beside it. Kevin was in front behind the wheel, sitting next to Blair. I got into the back seat, hugged her as best I could, and he took off toward the house where I had lived for the past eight months, a place suddenly alien to me, as though I hadn’t set foot inside it in years.
