The Absence of Olivia(59)

“I watched Devon marry Olivia, lost my shit, and ended the engagement in a bathroom right after the ceremony,” I sobbed the words out, not even trying to maintain any kind of fa?ade of composure. Nate had given me free rein to open up to him, and for better or worse, my floodgate was officially wide open. He let me cry, let me weep quietly, and when I looked back up at him I didn’t get the look of contempt I was expecting. I didn’t wilt under his stare of disdain. Instead, he was looking at me with calm compassion. He looked as though he wanted to wrap his arms around me, but didn’t want to frighten me away.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ve never told anyone about that before. It was, uh, a little overwhelming.” I reached for my purse, grabbing a tissue, and blotted my face.

“So, you’ve spent the last nine years in love with your best friend’s husband?”

“Give or take a year, yeah.” I nodded and pushed back the tears. Hearing someone else say the words, having someone else acknowledge everything I had been dealing with was a heavy feeling. And the fact that he said the words without judgement, made it that much more difficult to hear. I wanted him to be disgusted with me, to be angry, to tell me that I deserved all the unhappiness I was feeling. I wanted him to help with the hollowing-out process. I nearly handed him a proverbial shovel and said, ‘Here, dig out every good thing I have inside of me, every happy memory, every moment of contentment, and get it out. Then, bury me under it, so all that’s left is a shell of a shitty person, buried underneath everything she ruined.’

“That sounds terrible,” he said sincerely. And it was then I was convinced that Nate couldn’t be a real person. He simply couldn’t be that perfect.

“It was terrible,” I said through a sniffle, and I caught the tiniest hint of a crooked smile pull up on one side of his mouth, but he pushed it back. “But then, the most terrible thing of all happened.”

“She died,” he said with a nod. I frowned, unable to stop them, more tears spilled. Nate got up, moved his chair so he was next to me, and then let me cry on his shoulder as I wept for my friend. I’d not had one person let me cry for her. I’d helped so many other people deal with her death, but no one had ever just wrapped their arms around me and let me mourn her, my best friend.

“Olivia died and we all just ended up in this really weird state of limbo. I stepped in to help because that was the one thing she’d asked me to do. I helped him because it’s what I thought she wanted. But the longer I was there, even before you came into the picture, the more wrong it felt.”

“I get that.” Of course he did. “It must have felt strange, maybe even wrong, to be with him, almost in a domestic way, in her absence.”

“Yes,” I cried, my voice louder than I intended. “In the years before she was married, I would have given anything to take her place, but after she died, I didn’t want to be her replacement.” I wiped the puffy skin under my eyes, realizing I must have looked like some sort of soggy raccoon, and tried to continue. “I loved her,” I whispered. “Even more than I loved him.”

“I know,” he whispered back to me.

“So now he’s upset because he knows I went out with you, even though, he and I, we’re nothing. We never were anything, except, maybe, a ruse. A sick, weird, twisted, relationship.”

“Do you love him?” Nate asked the question with gentleness and genuine curiosity, and I felt like I owed him at least the truth. Or my own personal version of it. I wanted to give him the most truthful answer I had.

I took a moment to think about his question, because I wanted to give him the most honest answer I could. “I thought I did. Nate, I really thought I did. But, I want to believe love doesn’t make someone feel this way.”

“I want to believe that too.”

We took a break from talking, letting everything I’d said sink in, and ate our meal. The quiet, which usually would have made me uneasy, was welcomed and not at all awkward. He continued to sit next to me, although he moved over a little to give me room to eat, but I liked that he was so close – that he hadn’t taken the first opportunity to move away from me, to distance himself. When our knees brushed under the table, I tried to ignore the fact that I liked it.

“I’m sorry you had to listen to all that,” I said, finally, after the waiter had taken our dinner plates away. “But, obviously, you can understand why I’m unavailable right now.”

“I can understand why you think you’re unavailable, yes.” He picked up his linen napkin and wiped his mouth, his eyes giving away that he was getting ready to say something of importance. “I think,” he said, putting his hands down and looking me straight in the eyes, “you’re confused and sad and probably dealing with a little bit of depression following the death of your best friend.”

I couldn’t argue with him, but I also couldn’t fathom where he was taking me with his words.

“The way I see it, in this moment, you’ve never been more available. At least, not since you met Devon.”

I opened my mouth to argue that point, but he continued to talk, cutting me off.

“It sounds, to me, like you’re holding all the cards, Lyn. Maybe you’re not used to the feeling, seeing as how you’ve been playing by everyone else’s rules all this time, but you’re in a position to choose now.”