‘But you can’t stay here.’ His voice was quiet. ‘It’s killing you, slowly, every day. I see it when you’re with him.’
He didn’t say Ethan’s name. I hadn’t asked him not to, but somehow, it had become the unspoken rule.
The loose end. The one thing still keeping me from Oliver.
‘He loves me.’ I said it matter of fact. I didn’t have to pretend to be guilty or shameful, not with Oliver. ‘He tells me all the time.’
‘Of course he does.’ Oliver pulled back, angling his head to look at me. ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to him,’ he said, almost amused. ‘But he’s just another mediocre thing that’s keeping you down.’
‘Don’t,’ I said, but he sat up.
‘You really don’t see it, do you?’ His eyes were hard on mine. ‘Your potential, what you could be if you just let them all go. Your mom, Ethan, everyone holding you back, making you pretend to be less than you are.’ Oliver gazed at me and I could see the promise there, the glimpse of something brighter.
I ached for it, that other life. At first, it had been wistful, a soft and melancholy kind of longing that drifted over me, late at night; but every day that passed now, it grew sharper, taking on a life of its own. It was demanding. It refused to be silenced.
Why should you be stuck here, playing nursemaid for the rest of your life? it asked me, every time I fixed her dinner. Why do you have to worry about pleasing everyone else? Whycan’t you get what you want, just once?
‘We should get going,’ I said. ‘I have to go to work.’
‘Not yet.’ Oliver’s hands stopped me, closing around my body. He wrapped his arms around me from behind, his lips resting against the curve of my neck.
‘You could come with me,’ his voice whispered.
I froze.
His hands roamed lower, possessive.
‘Where?’ I said softly.
‘Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. New York. LA. London. Europe. I know people all over.’
I closed my eyes, letting myself sink against him, into the sensation of his hands, and the vision he was promising. Gone from here, from Haverford, and with him . . .
No guilt. No hiding. Free.
‘One day,’ I promised myself.
His hands left me, and suddenly I was alone in the cold.
I turned. He was already at the door. ‘Don’t wait too long, darling.’ Oliver gave me a look. ‘I’m not like baby brother. I won’t hang around here for long.’
After that, I knew, I couldn’t stay. I was drowning there. This town had made a liar of me; an adulterer, a caged animal chasing my own tail.
A murderer.
More and more these days, I felt like a bundle of broken edges bound together with razor wire, swallowing down the sharpness, painting on a smile. I would find a way out, a way to be with Oliver, before he left me here for good. Before the cage burst open and the person I was hiding broke free.
So, I sat down at the table where I’d made that first, desperate plan, all those months ago. I dragged out Mom’s old address book and flipped through the pages, looking for answers. She was an only child, fallen out of touch with her college friends, drifted apart from the couples she and Dad had known as newlyweds.
It was useless. She had nobody who really cared but me.
But maybe I was looking at it all wrong, I realized hopefully, looking at the dog-eared pages. I didn’t need someone to agree to take her on; after all, I never had. I just needed the door to open, for someone to invite her in.
I called Mom’s cousin Carol in Atlanta, anxiously drumming my fingertips on the table as we exchanged pleasantries and fake laughter. She was in her forties, still unmarried. They’d had some kind of rift, years ago, and now, the only contact was the Christmas card that arrived every year, showing Carol with her arms raised on the finish line of her latest charity fundraising marathon; sinewy and determined.
‘We’re planning a trip,’ I told her brightly, tracing the beaming face on the front of her latest card. ‘Just a little getaway, Mom’s been down since the divorce, so I thought this would cheer her up. We’d love to come visit.’
‘Oh. Sure.’ Carol’s instinct for hospitality took over. You didn’t turn away family, it wasn’t polite. ‘I’d love to see you both. I mean, you wouldn’t be staying long?’
‘No, just a night or two,’ I reassured her. ‘We’ve got tons to see!’
I hung up with a promise to send our flight details so she could meet us at the airport. But I knew, only my mom would step off the flight.
Everything was falling in place, but still, I felt that treacherous pang of guilt. The pages of my plan were spread around me. I had last month’s paycheck coming and money set aside for household expenses. I would get by just fine, but what about her? Could I really send her off to be somebody else’s problem, wash my hands for good?
I walked silently to her bedroom and cracked the door. She was sleeping, tucked under the covers, motionless in the dark.
My mother. My anchor.
I felt a sob rise up in my chest. Despite everything, I didn’t want to leave her, but I knew, I couldn’t do this any more. I could feel my love for her being choked away with every passing day, stifled under the sheer weight of her helpless need. I was snapping at her more often now; every tiny little irritation a spark to my endless reserves of anger.
I didn’t like the person I was becoming around her, so impatient and brusque. I didn’t want my last well of affection to be smothered clean away. It would be better this way, I told myself, silently closing the door. It wouldn’t have to be forever. Maybe Carol could succeed where I had failed: sell the house, get Mom into a treatment centre. She was a grown-up, after all. She would know what to do.
All I knew was sending Mom away was my only chance of escape, to get away from this town. My heart ached for everything we’d become, but I knew, I’d spent too long trying to fix her, to hold what was left of this family together.
I called Oliver from down the hall, lowering my voice to a hush. ‘Next week,’ I said, hearing the finality in my voice. ‘The eighteenth. I’m leaving. Are you in?’
‘I already have plans for New York.’ Oliver sounded amused. ‘I’m going to stay with friends.’
New York. I felt a shiver of pure desire at the words. Busy streets and endless sidewalks. Bookstores and bars, and a whole world on one tiny island.