It's One of Us(46)

She gets in her Jeep and turns over the engine. Park stands by the car, looking like she just stole his puppy. Despite her anger, her instinct is to comfort him, but they’re past that. They can fall apart later, once they know the whole story and have a plan to handle what’s going to be a huge mess. My God, to think about trying to set herself up for another failure in the midst of this chaos? He’s out of his mind.

“Later,” she says through the window, and he nods, turning away to his own car.

The way he looks at her, it’s like he’s finally realizing the schism between them is irreparable.

Why does that spark the tiniest bit of relief inside her?

Because Perry is coming and you want to see him. You traitorous bitch.



22


THE BROTHER

They say you can never come home again, and walking through the Nashville airport, Perry Bender agrees with the sentiment. It’s changed more than he could have imagined. This place used to be tiny, two halls and only a few regional flights, local musicians playing the BBQ joint, and now it’s full of duty-free brands, multiple terminals, and direct flights to and from the UK and Europe, including the one he’s just disembarked from, Heathrow to Nashville. Not a bad flight at all, though he couldn’t sleep so he half dozed, half watched four movies, but look at this place. All grown up, just like him. He can only imagine what the rest of the city looks like.

You’re an idiot for coming here, his mind helpfully chastises him for the hundredth time. What do you think’s going to happen? Nothing good, aside from a few days with Lindsey, who he’s missed. It’s not like Park will want to see him. He hasn’t spoken to his twin in years. Perry stopped trying after it became just too damn hard to be rebuffed, again.

Olivia.

Her name is a stake to his heart, still. She will always be his first love. Maybe his only true love.

He has never understood what happened between them, how it went so south. Yes, he’d stolen her from Park, but Park had done that to himself. Cheating on her, and not even being subtle about it, the little shit. Perry thought he and Olivia had something solid, something real. Yes, they were young, yes, she’d just gotten her heart broken. But they’d had several weeks together between prom and his trip to Oxford, several glorious weeks when they truly connected, and he’d opened himself to her in ways he never thought he could. She blossomed, seemed so happy. Park was off with that girl...what was her name? Oh, it didn’t matter. Park abandoned them both, and Perry knew the fissure between them was permanent.

And Olivia hated Park then. No one can pretend that convincingly. They’d been having problems anyway, she suspected him of cheating, and Perry was so relieved to have it out in the open, not having to cover for his jerk-off brother anymore. What an idiot he was to throw Olivia away.

Perry thought he was enough for her.

She promised to be his, always.

She’d begged him not to leave, to defer the Oxford scholarship, but he’d spent everything he had to get there, and though he considered her pleas, there was no way. He had to take this chance. He had to get out of Nashville. It’s what his mother wanted for him; it was what she’d put into play for him before she died.

He’d written Olivia every day—every bloody day—and she’d written him back faithfully, for quite a while. They talked when he could afford to call, but it was the letters where they pledged themselves. Young love is a ridiculous thing, full of such highs and lows that no one should ever take it seriously, because it can never maintain such a high temperature, burns away eventually, but theirs seemed destined for success. He believed in her. He believed in them.

He came home for Christmas and things were different. She couldn’t look him in the eye. She dropped his hand when he took hers. When he kissed her, the passion was gone. She broke it off an hour before his flight in the parking lot of the bloody airport, and he cried on the plane like a scared child. By the time he boarded his connection in New York, he swore he was never coming back.

He’d only broken that promise to himself once. Until now.

It was Lindsey who told him Olivia had gotten back together with Park. Seven years had passed since their fight in the parking lot. Perry was already making a name for himself in the photography world. He’d taken a position with the BBC doing documentary work and found some peace, at last. It didn’t matter the assignment, he’d take it, which made him very popular with his bosses. He’d been to the Arctic, to the deserts. He’d climbed Kilimanjaro and dived the Blue Hole. He’d seen the world, in all her glory, from above and below. Been to places only a handful of people had ever traveled. Been in danger, been in peace, been in wars and labyrinths, been chased by cheetahs and stung by jellyfish and nearly shot by an Al-Qaeda operative in the mountains above Kandahar. He’d even been in love a few times, though the minute things started looking too serious, he got the hell out.

He’d lived. It’s what he’d vowed to do the day Olivia broke his heart, and it’s what he’d done every day since.

He hadn’t had contact since that screwup Park had gotten himself into with the girl at his college, and the media went wild for a time. Perry had given his statements to the police, ignored the media, and sure enough, the story went away.

Then Lindsey gave him the news that Olivia and Park were engaged, and the wedding was in June.

He wrote his true love a letter. Just once.