The Absence of Olivia(63)

“Evie,” he said, his voice sounding so different than I remembered. It’d only been a week, but he seemed like a new person to me. His face looked almost pained, as if I was doing injury to him by merely standing on his doorstep. “I was beginning to think I wasn’t ever going to see you again.”

I was starting to think you’d never seen me from the beginning.

“I’m sorry I disappeared. I just needed some time to think and sort things out in my mind. Can I come in?”

“Of course,” he said, stepping backward into his house and giving me more than enough room to enter without brushing past him. I noticed he didn’t smell the same. Or rather, he did, but it didn’t catch me at all. The scent didn’t grab ahold of me, as it usually had, and remind me of all the times I’d smelled him and wanted to bottle his personal scent. He just smelled like Devon.

I walked past him and sat on the couch, my eyes darting up the stairs, wanting badly to sneak into Ruby and Jaxy’s room. To kiss their heads and run my fingers through their hair. I’d missed them terribly throughout the week, but knew it had been best to take a step back.

“How are they?” I asked, still looking up the stairs. I heard him take in a deep breath and the sound was like a vice grip around my heart. I’d never wanted to hurt the children.

“They were a little confused at first, Jax especially, but by Wednesday, they were mostly back to their old selves again.”

“Did you have a hard time managing?” I didn’t want to add ‘without me’ at the end of my question, but it was implied. The idea of asking if he’d managed without me was more pain and torture than I wished to endure.

“It took a bit of shuffling, but I found a solution. In fact, Evie, I’m glad you’re here. I need to tell you something-”

“Devon, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to go first. Otherwise, I’ll lose my nerve and I really need to get this out.” He didn’t say anything, but he did nod his head and then took a seat in the club chair just opposite me.

I took a deep breath and then started the speech I’d gone through a million times in my mind.

“I met Olivia on the first day of high school. I was fourteen and she was the first person to speak to me. She went out of her way to make me feel welcome and comfortable in a notoriously uncomfortable situation. From then on, she was my very best friend. I never could have dreamed up a better friend than her, Devon. She was sweet and loyal, beautiful but not vain, outgoing and inclusive. She was friends with everyone and everyone loved her. I loved her. Even when she started dating the guy I’d fallen for at first sight my freshman year of college, I still loved her.” I took another deep breath, trying to keep calm even though speaking about Olivia always brought me tears. “I watched the two of you build a life together, Devon. I was here throughout everything. And even though I always had those feelings for you, always knew that if given the chance, I could make you so happy, I never once wanted that.”

My eyes lifted and met his gaze and I was flooded with warmth. His eyes held only sympathy and compassion. Of course, he probably already knew everything I was telling him, but he could have easily stopped me before either of us became uncomfortable. But no, he knew it was important for me to say what I had come there to say and, perhaps, he was feeling the same thing I was; as if Olivia’s death hadn’t been the end we’d all built it up to be. I had thought her death might be the end of suffering, or the end of heartache. Liv had mercifully been relieved of all her pain and struggles, but the rest of us remained to trudge through what was left behind in her absence. And I’d taken that as the perfect opportunity to lock myself in the same cage I’d been circling for years.

I looked at my, arguably, inappropriate and, definitely, unhealthy relationship with Devon, and clung to it, hoping it would keep me afloat.

All I wanted now was to be able to float on my own.

“Liv asked me to look after your family, and I’ll never regret the time I spent here with Ruby and Jax. I’ll always love them, but I have to move on, Devon.”

I’d tried so hard not to cry. I wanted to sound firm and certain during my speech, but the way my voice warbled and broke on his name, only made me sound weak and unstable. He quickly moved to sit next to me on the couch, wrapping both his arms around me, pressing my face into his neck, trying to comfort me.

“She told me to be happy,” I cried, both my hands pressing against his big shoulder blades. “She told me to be happy, and I just don’t think that’s possible with you.”

My fingers cinched the soft cotton of his t-shirt, and I burrowed my face farther into his neck, trying to inhale his scent and commit it to memory, my body trying to imprint the feeling of his against me on my skin forever. This was it. It was all we would ever have. A decade of longing and a few months of angst-ridden uncertainty.

I felt his hands move up my arms and then his neck was gone, only to be replaced by his face so painfully close to mine. We were breathing the same air, my hands still on his shoulder blades, but his gently gripping my face on both sides. Then, suddenly, he was kissing me.

I knew, as it was happening, it would be the one and only real kiss I would ever share with him, so when it didn’t stop at a polite, “Thank you for taking care of my family” kiss, and moved more toward an, “I’ve been waiting to kiss you for a decade,” kiss, I didn’t try to stop it. I let his tongue move over the seam of my lips and I opened for him, letting myself take that first – and last – glorious taste of him. He tasted exactly like he smelled: of skin and sweat and soap. He tasted magnificent.