Our Song (30 page)

“I had to see you.”

His shirt and jeans were soaked through. The way his wet hair stuck to his forehead exposed his face completely, revealing a scar above his left eyebrow. It looked pink and tender, as if it had never fully healed.

“What else is there to say?”

“There’s something…” His voice cracked as three beads
of water rolled down his cheek. Were they raindrops or tears? “Can we talk?

If I said yes, I knew I wouldn’t be inviting just Nick in, but all the painful feelings I’d pushed down and cemented over. But as I looked into his gray eyes, I knew it was already too late.

“Come inside,” I said, opening the door wider.

MY MOTHER HOVERED
nervously in the front hall. “You better finish getting ready,” she said, even though we both knew I was done. Perfectly primped and packaged.

“This won’t take long.” I led Nick upstairs to my room. It was the only place where we’d have any privacy.

I had been so completely convinced that I would never see him again, but here he was, walking into my room, just as I was about to go to prom with Derek.

“You can sit here,” I said, gesturing toward the armchair.

“I prefer to stand, if that’s okay,” he said, shuffling on his feet. It was the first time he ever seemed nervous, out of his element.

“I don’t have much time,” I said, glancing at the clock on my bedside table. Derek would be here any minute. “It’s prom.”

He probably thought the whole idea of prom was ridiculous compared to all the balls and fancy parties he was used to, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care what he thought of my room, or the goofy family pictures lining the hall, the size of our house, or even my mother. I had nothing left to hide.

A single raindrop clung to a clump of wet bangs and dangled precariously above his nose. It looked like it was suspended in midair. “I’m sorry,” he croaked.

He had the same look on his face that he’d had the day he apologized in the pond, underwater. Only this time, I could hear him clearly. This time, I knew what was wrapped up in that expression. It wasn’t love. It was guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” he repeated, bowing his head. “About what I said to you in the darkroom. It wasn’t fair. I wasn’t at the meetings looking for unstable girls. That’s not how I think of you. Far from it.”

Had he come all this way just to say that? It was a little too late. And it still didn’t change the most important thing of all. “You lied to me.”

“I know. It’s the second-worst thing I’ve ever done.”

My back stiffened. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“I came to tell you about my accident. I did have one. That part was true.” He walked over to the window and tugged on the braided rope that dangled next to the curtains.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” I clenched my hands into balled fists. I couldn’t tell what I was feeling, fear or anger or both. “I don’t want to know.”

“Please, Olive. If you never want to see me again, I promise I’ll leave you alone forever. Just hear me out.”

He was wearing the white T-shirt he had on that day at his house. Even though all his shirts were identical, I knew it was the same one because it still held the faint trace of my blood.

“Fine.” I sat on the edge of my bed. My legs felt too weak to stand. “You have five minutes.”

He cleared his throat and began. “I came back to Los Angeles last June, right after graduation. It was the first time the whole family was home together in almost two years. Me, my parents, and…” The color drained from his face. “And Theo. My older brother.”

His brother? His voice wavered and my mind flashed to the frame on his desk. “The boy in the picture,” I said. “That was Theo.”

He nodded and looked down at the floor, unable to meet my gaze. “I was supposed to go travel with friends for the summer, but I came back so I could spend the summer with him. We hardly ever saw each other anymore, not since he graduated Eton and joined the golf tour. It was his passion and it took him all over the world. But he’d just accepted a job as the pro at a country club and was going to be home for the first time in ages.”

I knew exactly which club he meant. Our eyes met as the pieces slowly started to take shape. It reminded me of the way images gradually formed out of nowhere in the photo developing trays. “You can stop,” I said, my voice softer now.

But he didn’t.

“My father had just bought a Learjet, his latest toy that sat unused in the hangar, so I decided to get my pilot’s license. But by the third lesson, I became impatient. Screw the license, I thought. Why did I need a piece of paper to fly my own plane? I was convinced I already knew how.”

My stomach tightened into knots as I listened, afraid of where he was going, unsure I wanted to know. I focused on the silk fringe of the curtain brushing up against his fingers as he continued.

“Then, on the morning of June twenty-ninth, I invited Theo out for a flight before work. It was overcast with the type of fog that normally burns off quickly, a typical June gloom morning. But when we got to the airport, the fog was even worse. Theo suggested we wait for a clearer day so we’d have better views. He said we had the whole summer ahead of us. But I insisted. We were already there and it’d be a waste to turn back. ‘We’ll fly above the clouds,’ I told him. ‘Just a quick spin.’ I was so desperate to impress him. I wanted him to be proud of me in the way that my father never was, the way he was only proud of Theo.”

Nick pulled down on the string, drawing open the curtains. It was already so dark from the rain, his reflection bounced off the wet glass. “When we were headed down the runway, I looked up at the wall of fog and hesitated for a second, thinking that maybe we should turn back. But I was too proud to admit I’d made a mistake, that Theo was right.”

Nick stopped and turned around, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his eyes fixed on some point on the carpet.

“Takeoff was smooth, and the plane soared up into the clouds. Within a few minutes we were cruising at fifteen thousand feet. It was so quiet and magical up there, like the whole world was on pause. I looked over at Theo and I remember thinking that I’d never felt so at peace before. That
this
was what life was all about. That very moment. That’s when everything changed. The wind suddenly picked up, catapulting us back
down into the clouds. I tried to regain control of the plane, but it was like an invisible force had taken over and was dragging us down. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried to pull the nose back up, nothing worked. Wisps of cloud and rain started whipping past us so fast it felt like the windows were going to crack. The next thing I knew the ground was coming at me at an unstoppable speed. Then there was the piercing crash of metal and glass and…and…”

When he tried to speak, small gasps came out instead of words.

“Nick,” I said, my own voice scratchy.

“The last thing I heard was Theo calling my name,” he said, his voice now a hollow whisper. “The doctors said it was a miracle I survived. But going through every day for the rest of my life knowing that I killed my brother, that’s not a miracle. It’s torture.”

I wanted to go over and reach out, to touch him, but something was still holding me back. “Is that why you went to the meetings?”

He nodded. “I spent the first few months after he died basically catatonic. It became so unbearable that I became obsessed with trying to find answers, something that could make sense of the mess I’d made. That’s when I found out about the Near-Death Society through a random Google search about the afterlife. I had this crazy delusion that someone who’d been to the other side could reassure me that Theo was in a better place. But the more I went, the more I was convinced there is no other side. It’s all hell.”

I swallowed hard, trying to take it all in. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“After he died, I couldn’t function or even have a normal conversation. Day and night, all I could think about was Theo. But when I met you, something shifted and I felt an old part of myself start to come out. I was racked with guilt about it because I didn’t think I deserved another minute of happiness again. I knew that even telling you would be a form of relief, so I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

My limbs pricked and felt heavy, like they were waking from a long sleep, stirring feelings that had been put to rest. Even though Nick didn’t technically die, he’d felt more dead on the inside than I ever had. “Is that why your parents are gone?”

He nodded, fiddling with the strap on his watch. That’s when I realized why it was frozen on the number nine, why he never took it off. It was the time of Theo’s death.

“They couldn’t stand being here anymore. Everything reminded them of Theo—the stables, the pond, the maze where we grew up playing hide-and-seek. And especially me. They couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. Theo was always my father’s favorite, his ‘young grasshopper.’ He never said it, but he didn’t have to. My dad did everything with Theo—ride horses, golf, hunt. All the things he never did with me.”

My heart felt like it was breaking all over again. But not because of my pain, because of Nick’s. I stepped closer so that I was standing next to him now.

“Aunt Bea came to pack up Theo’s things. That box of stuff she was carrying that day on the stairs, that was for Samantha.”
He was talking faster now, like he wanted to make sure he got it all out. “That’s something else I couldn’t explain. Samantha was never my girlfriend and never would be because she was Theo’s. He was going to propose at the end of the summer. She was there that night to pick up the box Aunt Bea put together for her. It was the first time I’d seen or spoken to Samantha in months. Since his funeral.”

The final pieces were starting to emerge and connect. Only I was still standing too close to see the completed puzzle. “What changed?” I kept my eyes trained on the ground, on the space between his feet. His red Converse looked black from all the mud and rain. “Why now?”

“It was much more painful without you in my life. Even though the pain is what I deserved, you didn’t. So when I realized that depriving myself was also hurting you, I couldn’t bear it, and I had to try to make things right.”

There was a knock at the door and my mother poked her head in.

“Derek’s here.” Her voice was pointed and firm. Our time was up. She opened the door wider, shedding light from the hall into my darkened room.

I kept my gaze fixed on the same point on the carpet between Nick’s feet, completely paralyzed. Pressure started to build up behind my eyes, like a storm brewing in my head.

“Thank you for listening,” Nick said. “That’s all I wanted. I’ll see myself out.”

After he left, the vague outline of his stance remained indented in the rug where he’d been standing. His confession
swirled around me, the words impenetrable as if they were spoken in a foreign language I didn’t speak.

“Is everything all right?” My mother came up and tucked a loose hair behind my ear. “You know you don’t have to go tonight. You can always stay home with us.”

“I can’t,” I said, smoothing out the wrinkles on my dress. This was my second chance, and it had nothing to do with Nick. “Derek’s waiting for me.”

When I got to the foyer, Nick was just making his way out. Derek looked on, his fist balled around the pink carnations that made up my corsage. In his rented black tux with the matching carnation boutonniere, he looked much younger than Nick, like he was playing the part of a grown-up for the night.

Nick paused before he closed the door, letting in a gust of rain. With his hand still gripping the doorknob, he turned back to face me.

“There’s one last thing you should know. When we were on the dock that day, right before I pulled you into the pond, you were right. I was going to say something. I was going to tell you how beautiful you are.”

Something fluttered beneath my scar, like a small goldfish was trapped behind it, wriggling madly to be free. It felt like my whole head was spinning out of control.

“You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met. I just thought you should know that,” he said, before shutting the door behind him.

“WHAT THE HELL
was he doing here?” Derek demanded once we were in the limo. It was decorated like a disco inside, with multi-colored flashing bulbs lining the sides and ceiling.

I had managed to avoid the topic while my mother took pictures and my father handed out the champagne, like we were headed to our wedding, not our Atlantis-themed prom.

“I didn’t know he was coming.” I felt a headache creeping in with every blink of the lights. I cracked open the window to let in some air. “I haven’t spoken to him in weeks.”

“What was all that bullshit about you being beautiful?” His nostrils flared as he spoke, like an angry bull’s. “Did you sleep with that guy?”

“No!” The words stung, like it was hardly believable that someone would find me beautiful without getting something in exchange. Derek had never complimented me before. Not even tonight, when it was basically an obligation. “I’m here,” I said, more to convince myself than him. “I chose you.”

“I don’t want you to even talk to that guy,” he barked.
“You don’t see me hanging around with Betsy anymore, do you?”

In all the time I’d fantasized about being Derek’s girlfriend again, I’d forgotten about this, how he sometimes spoke to me like I was his bratty little sister. I sank deeper into my seat, digging my hands into the sticky leather cushion, while Derek poured himself a glass of vodka from the mirrored mini bar.

“No thanks,” I said as he started to pour a second one.

“Great,” he scoffed. “You’re not going to be any fun tonight, are you?”

He downed his drink and my half-filled glass before refilling them both immediately. He was already well on his way to being drunk. I had only seen him wasted once before, when the debate team went to drown their sorrows after losing a match and I had to pick him up. He didn’t even thank me for getting dressed at midnight and driving all the way to get him. He just made fun of the minivan and my pink slippers with the pig face on the toes, like the team’s failure had been my fault. Why were all these bad memories suddenly coming back to me now?