The Reunion by Kayla Olson(17)
Bre studies me for a long moment. “Were you?”
“Were we what?” I say, as if I don’t know exactly what she’s asking.
“In love with each other.”
I take a long, deep inhale, relishing the salt coming off the sea. “I was so in love with him it hurt.”
It’s the first time I’ve ever confessed those feelings out loud, and the relief of it is a tidal wave, catching me off guard.
“What about him?” Bre asks, pulling me out of my head. “You’re sure he never felt the same way?”
“I mean, if you were in love with your best friend, wouldn’t you try to keep them around instead of basically suggesting a platonic breakup?” Of all that happened, this is what I come back to when I can’t sleep at night. “Especially since the point of taking a step back was essentially so we could find blissful, romantic love with other people without them wondering if we were actually secretly in love with each other?”
Bre lets out a long exhale. “Good point. But.”
“But what?”
“What if he just never realized he was in love with you?” Bre’s on the edge of her seat now. “I saw the way he looked at you tonight, Liv. He might not have realized how into you he was back then, but he is definitely into you now. He’s missed you, I can tell.”
I’ve missed him, too. Our step back was never supposed to become this much of a chasm, but I didn’t know how to do casual with Ransom—and honestly, I didn’t want to. Knowing he didn’t want to be as close with me made it painful to try to be close at all. So we drifted, little by little, until weeks passed, and then months. Years.
Taking that step back—because I loved him and wanted him to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me—was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through aside from losing my father.
It’s been hard to get close to anyone since. It’s been hard to want to.
Moonlight winks off the waves; we watch in silence for so long Bre falls asleep, curled up on her chaise under the stars. I nudge her into semiconsciousness and she follows me inside.
* * *
It’s almost eleven when I wake up, sunlight bright and streaming through my bedroom window. Bre’s still here, and she’s definitely already up—I know because I can hear her doing some sort of workout on the other side of the wall.
I take my time making coffee downstairs, using the French press my mother sent for Christmas years ago. My head is in the clouds this morning, and I’m pretty sure it isn’t only because of the late night. My timer goes off, but when I go to pour the coffee, I realize I forgot to actually grind the beans before pouring the boiling water into the press. The second attempt, my mind wanders back to the red carpet—Ransom’s fingers at my lower back, his breath hot on my ear—and I realize far too late that I forgot to set the timer. The third attempt, finally, is a success.
I’m curled up on my couch, still in the chic floral pajama set I slept in last night, when Bre finally comes downstairs. Her hair is freshly towel-dried and smells like the jasmine shampoo I keep on hand for situations exactly like this; she’s dressed in a fresh set of athleisure wear from the guest bedroom drawers.
“Hey,” she says, flopping onto the opposite end of the couch and kicking her bare feet up onto my bohemian-style leather ottoman. “How are you this morn— Ohmygahhhhh, that coffee smells incredible, is there any left?”
“It’s probably lukewarm by now, but I can make more.” I meant to put some into a travel mug for her to keep it hot, but again: head in the clouds.
She waves me off. “That’s what the microwave is for.”
“Blasphemy!” I call after her as she disappears into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, she returns, face practically buried in her mug. “So? Doing okay?”
“Better than expected,” I admit, and it’s true: it was an impeccable night of sleep, somehow, full of the best dreams that were entirely at odds with my worst memories. “Thanks for listening last night.”
She smiles above the rim of her mug, takes a long sip of coffee. “That’s what I’m here for.” She gestures to the open book resting face-down beside me. “Is that one of the ones from Mars?” She picks it up, scans the description on the back cover.
Mars sent a stack over two weeks ago—apparently there’s a book-to-film agent who’s trying to set up a package deal with talent attached. No pressure to read them, Mars wrote on a slip of stationary I’ve been using as a bookmark. But if you see yourself as the lead in any of these, let me know and I’ll pass word over to Erica.
“It is, yeah.” This one caught my eye—a survival novel set on a futuristic, technologically advanced Antarctica. What I read of it had me on the edge of my seat when I started it, but today, I can’t seem to read more than half a sentence at a time.
“Let me know if it’s good,” she says, setting it back down exactly as it was. “Ugh, I wish I could read all day. Or, you know, binge the next season of Flower Wars. Or anything but run the thousand errands on my to-do list. You’re off today, right?”
“Technically, yes.” I’ve got a rare day off, my last before the GotV press blitz goes full whirlwind tomorrow—it’s unusual to have all of us in town at the same time, so the schedule is a bit intense. “Practically… not so much.” I’m only about thirty pages into the book, and I need to go over my lines for the scenes I don’t know by heart just yet.