The Repeat Year (32 page)

She stepped closer to him, and he didn’t back away. Instead, he stood close behind her, his chest nearly brushing her back, his arms draped loosely over her arms, swinging the golf club back and forth in a slow, exaggerated curve. Her breath caught in her throat as he gripped her hips, pushing them gently toward the lake. Even through her thick winter coat, his touch felt electric.

“Let’s try it together,” he said. “Okay? Swing on three. One. Two. Three.”

Olive gave herself over to him, letting her arms move with his arms and her torso turn with his torso. The club connected with the ball. The ball flew at least fifty yards in the air this time, rolling neatly into a large, grayish divot in the ice. A frozen-over ice fishing hole.

“A hole in one!” Phil laughed, not letting her go.

She stood very, very still, hoping he hadn’t realized he was still holding her. Or that he had realized it and wanted to. His body felt warm and substantial against hers. She closed her eyes.

“Why are you here?” he whispered into her hair.

She shivered. “I wanted to ask you the same thing.”

He paused, his arms still around her, but his grip loosened ever so slightly. “I guess I came here to escape for a little while. From my family and their chaos. From all the holiday cheer and goodwill to mankind. From you.”

“From me?” she asked, startled.

He grinned sheepishly. “It didn’t work, though.”

She stepped out of his grasp, and his arms fell away easily, like he wasn’t trying to hold on to her at all. She felt exposed. “Do you want me to go?” she asked more coldly than she’d intended.

“No, no. That’s not what I meant. You were here even before you got here.” He gestured to the lake and the snow-buried path behind them. “You’re in every single one of my memories of this place. In the trees, in the sky, in the contours of the lake. There’s no escaping you, Olive.”

Hopefulness swelled inside her chest, but a flicker of anger tempered it.
Then why must you try?
she wanted to ask.
Then why don’t you give in and come back to me?
Because he hadn’t last month, and he hadn’t last year, and even now she was the one who had come to him. If he loved her enough to see her in the “contours of the lake,” why didn’t he love her enough to give her a call and make her heart stop aching so badly?

“On my end, it feels like you’ve made a pretty clean break,” she said, looking down at the ground beneath her, where her boots and Phil’s had stamped diamonds and spades into the snow.

“There’s no such thing as a clean break.” He laced his fingers behind his neck, elbows pointed out like wings, as if surrendering. “There’s just hurt and regret. Second-guessing and trying to figure out how such a right thing could go so wrong.”

They stood facing the lake without speaking, together yet also apart. Time felt as thick and impermeable as ice, and Olive wondered if the world had finally slowed. She sought the language that would express how sorry she was and how fervent her wish for their reconciliation, but all she could think of were the three little words that would be inadequate.
I love you, but no
, he had said.

Phil punctured the silence. “This whole time, I’ve been trying to solve our relationship like it’s some equation that I couldn’t get to balance. I couldn’t figure out if your not-cheating the second time canceled out your cheating the first time, and then if lying to me all year somehow multiplied the whole mess.” He released his interlocked fingers, letting his arms swing at his sides. “And then I realized that I hadn’t even factored in my side of the equation. I know I can be rigid in my thinking sometimes, and I must have made it really hard for you to want to talk to me about all of this. And I know I shut you out and walked away from an otherwise really good thing because that’s what I tend to do. But then I didn’t know which of these was worse, which way the equation tipped.”

She craned her neck to look up at him, her thoughts fluttering around like moths trapped in a jar. Phil’s eyes flashed at her, green as ivy in the wintry light. She stared back, hoping he could read everything she was thinking and feeling in the depths of her eyes. He scrutinized each of her features, as if he’d forgotten her face, as if he’d like to kiss her.

“Laying eyes on you, Olive, makes all of those imaginary calculations fly out the window. I see you, and I suddenly forget why I was keeping score. That’s why I stayed away, I guess. It was a last-ditch effort to protect myself. Because you totally, utterly undo me.”

Her heart was straining to lift right out of her body like a helium-filled balloon. “I’m going to try to never hurt you again. You don’t need to protect yourself from me.”

“You’re probably right,” he said, “but it’s a hard habit for me to break. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been trying to protect myself. It’s like I’m trying to keep the bad away with one hand while holding on to the good with the other, and it just doesn’t work. It’s stupid. I need both hands. So I guess I just have to spread out my arms and accept the bad with the good.”

She reached for his hand, bridging the distance between them. “I hope there’s more good than bad.”

“You never answered my question,” he said softly. “Why are you here?”

“I’m here,” she started, praying for the right words to come to her, “because I couldn’t bear to let another day pass without you knowing how sorry I am for hurting you. I’m here because our relationship is such an important event in my life that the
universe
propelled me backward in time to restore our love. I’m here because it only took a few days of being with you again, loving you, and having you love me back so completely, for me to remember how happy I could be.” Teardrops streamed down her face, and she distractedly wiped them away with her free hand.

“I’m here because I could never want to be with anyone but you. I’m here because I could never find someone as compassionate and honest and fun as you, someone who sees so much beauty and good in the world and in me. I’m here because as clichéd as it sounds, I know you’re my soul mate. I’m here because I love you, Phil, and living without you is unbearable. And I really believe we’re both here, drawn to this spot, because we’re meant to be together.”

He squeezed her hand. “I thought you didn’t believe in fate.”

“I still don’t,” she said. “At least not Fate with a capital
F
.” How could she possibly believe in the Fate of the Greek tragedies, just one path, just one destiny for the hero when there were multiple fates, numerous possibilities, infinite outcomes, so many different routes? Wasn’t her repeat year really just a vehicle for her to see that? To see all the different choices she could make before realizing that Phil had been the best choice for her all along?

“But I believe in us,” she said.

He pulled her into his arms and crushed her to his chest. She could feel his rib cage and beneath it, the steady thump of his heart. The bitter wind whistled around them, but immersed in Phil’s embrace, she felt only protected and warm. Something was loosening inside her body. The burden she’d been carrying for almost two years was dissolving now. Absolution entered her pores, filled her bloodstream, and circulated to every cell in her body. Her happiness and relief were so intense that she felt weak.

Phil bent his head downward to kiss her, still cradling her. Carefully backing toward the stone bench, he pulled her onto his lap. She leaned against him, letting him support her. They clung to each other and kissed desperately as if he were going off to fight a war. Even in the oppressive cold, she could smell traces of the soap on his skin, fresh as evergreen trees and cut grass. She folded back the collar of his jacket and pressed her lips against the bare hollow of his throat. He moaned and smoothed his hands down over her hair. It felt so good, she had to stifle a sob.

“God, I’ve missed you,” she whispered into his neck.

“I’ve missed you, too, Ollie.” He raised her face and stroked her cheek. His fingers sent tiny tingles across her skin. “Your face is really cold.”

“But my lips are warm,” she murmured.

He tightened his grip on her, hugging her closer. “We probably shouldn’t stay here. I don’t want you to freeze. Where are you parked?”

“In the dorm lot,” she said.

“I’m over by the crew house. Let’s head to my car since it’s closer.”

At that moment, she didn’t care if they walked all the way home as long as they were together. They set off through the shin-deep snow, Phil with one arm around her waist, the other carrying his golf bag and club. The snowdrifts seemed like half the obstacles they’d proved earlier, and the blocky crew house was just up ahead.

“So tell me about this alternate reality,” Phil said, lifting her over a particularly deep snowdrift. “Gosh, if you’d told me sooner, can you imagine all the space-time tests we could’ve done?”

She laughed and then started to chronicle the differences between her mom’s two weddings: her opposition the first time and Christopher’s opposition the second, how Phil’s presence had made the events go more smoothly. She told him about Sherry’s battle with breast cancer and her reunion with Heath. She explained why she hadn’t wanted to live at High Pointe Hills, even venturing to mention that she and Alex had dated briefly and unsuccessfully. She divulged the real story behind her rupture with Kerrigan. She told him of all the trials she’d experienced and lessons she’d learned from repeat patients—Sarah Hutchinson, Betty Gardner, the Dodge brothers, Ryan Avery. They sat talking and then kissing in his Mercedes with the heater blowing full blast until the sky turned lavender. She felt empty yet full, spent yet bursting with energy, drowsy yet wide awake. She felt love.

Chapter 24

T
he new year was only an hour away. Olive and Phil stood in Kristin and Brian’s crowded living room. The TV was on; New Yorkers were already celebrating the arrival of the new year in Times Square. Kristin passed out glasses of champagne while big band music filled the room. A silver-lettered banner expressed the deepest desire of Olive’s heart—
Welcome, 2012!
Phil must have caught her anxious look because he squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay,” he reassured her.

They had enjoyed days of bliss before the cruel possibility had dawned on her. What if—like Sherry in 2005—she was forced to relive the year yet again? She had struggled to evaluate the year’s failures and successes, but for some events it was difficult to decide under which column they should go. Had she been good enough to her mom, Harry, and her brother? Though she had won Phil back, she had caused him and herself an unnecessary amount of pain and sorrow by lying for so long. Also, by saving Ryan Avery’s life, she had subjected him to a life of paralysis. And what of her ruined friendship with Kerrigan? Did her successes outweigh her failures, and who was the judge of all this? She hoped whoever it was, he or she was much wiser than her.

If she
was
sent back . . . she didn’t think she could bear to wake up in 2011 again, in bed beside an unknowing Phil. It would be an innocent Phil who loved her, but not one who had forgiven her and grown with her. The insights she had gained this year were hard-won, and to do it all over again . . . The thought was suffocating, but not as suffocating as the fear that this year was all an elaborate prank of the cosmos—a cruel “this is how your life could have been” gag, before shepherding her back to 2012. The 2012 she had already started constructing for herself—one living all alone at High Pointe Hills, dedicating her every waking moment to her job. Sherry had never suggested the possibility of this to her, but Olive suspected she didn’t know all the rules of time travel. Perhaps the only pitfall of happiness is the fear that it will vanish. Every time she closed her eyes, she imagined everything she had worked so hard to gain being swept away in the blink of an eye.

“Champagne?” Kristin offered with a shrewd smile. She and Brian were ecstatic that Olive and Phil were back together. Because they had kept so much to themselves during their breakup, very few of their other friends even knew that they had been separated for the majority of November and December. But Phil had stayed with Brian and Kristin and then his mom for a couple of weeks before he’d managed to move back into his old apartment.

“Thank you,” Phil said, accepting two flutes. “It’s funny to think that the next time we’ll be toasting will be at your wedding. I guess I should get started on my speech, huh?”

Olive sipped her champagne, enjoying the fizzy bubbles on her tongue. She was trying to live in the moment and ignore the reality of tomorrow, but it was a ridiculous notion. She envied the other carefree party guests moving around them. Phil had persuaded her to come in the hopes of preventing her from watching the clock all night. After listening to her description of both years, he had such renewed faith in her goodness that he couldn’t imagine she would be condemned to repeat again. All the same, she couldn’t help noticing that he seemed particularly affectionate tonight—holding her hand, putting his arm around her shoulders, lovingly tucking strands of hair behind her ear. It was almost as if he were afraid she would be whisked away suddenly, too.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the large gilded mirror hanging across the room. Pretty in her midnight blue cocktail dress, but with the somber face of someone attending a funeral. Standing next to her, looking stylish in his suit coat and dark blue jeans, was the object of her affection. She turned away from the mirror reflection to face the real man. If these were the last few hours she had to spend with the Phil of the present, she was going to savor every second.

A new peppy song was playing. “Do you want to dance?” she asked.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. They had taken a ballroom dancing class together their last semester of college and been notorious as some of the worst dancers in the class. The concluding unit had been swing dance, and in their final exam, during one of their jumps, Olive had lost her shoe, hitting another dancer in the head with it.

“Sure.” He grinned and held out his hand.

No one else was dancing, but a large enough space was open in front of the sliding glass doors leading out to the balcony. He spun her out onto the empty floor and then guided her into an underarm turn. They rock-stepped and sidestepped, snapped their fingers, and did the occasional spin. Olive smiled to catch Phil mumbling the steps aloud. A short while later, Alistair and Maggie, who proved to be much better dancers, joined them. Maggie rolled across Alistair’s back; he leapfrogged over her body and then pulled her through his legs. Somehow they managed to make these maneuvers look effortless and graceful.

“Do you think we should warn them of the possibility of flying shoes?” Phil teased.

“I think they’ll be safe as long as we don’t try to keep up with them.”

Kristin and Brian joined them next, and then another couple Olive didn’t know. By the time the next song started, almost everyone in the apartment was swing dancing or attempting to swing dance. Olive was having so much fun that she had glanced at her watch only once (it was eleven twenty). Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing” trumpeted from the speakers. Then suddenly, as Phil pulled her into a tuck turn, she caught a glimpse of a familiar blond head twirling past them. Kerrigan. They hadn’t seen each other or spoken since Olive’s birthday party. Kerrigan had never returned any of her calls. Olive completed her turn and their eyes met in an obstinate stare.

Her feelings about Kerrigan had fluctuated since she and Phil had gotten back together. Her anger had lessened in a way that wouldn’t have been possible if her relationship had been permanently over, but she was still disturbed by Kerrigan’s conduct. She didn’t understand how Kerrigan could’ve been so malicious and spiteful. What other possible motive for telling Phil could she have had?

“Let’s take a break,” she suggested to Phil, and they left the bustling dance floor.

He snagged a spot for them on the recently vacated couch. The couch and armchairs had been pushed together in a corner to make room for the dancing. The jumbled-up furniture felt surprisingly intimate.

“Don’t look now,” he said, “but Kerrigan’s over there with her doctor friend.” He had told Olive about Kerrigan’s e-mail in more detail. And while he faulted Kerrigan for misleading him into thinking that Olive was having an affair, he still felt gratitude for her attempt at honesty and believed her intentions had been honorable.

Olive casually scanned the dance floor for a glimpse of Dr. Morgan. She wouldn’t have recognized Kerrigan’s date if Phil hadn’t identified him first. He wore a faded black T-shirt, and his wire-rimmed glasses were conspicuously absent. Kerrigan had his wrist in a tight grip as she wiggled her hips and tugged him from side to side.

“Remind me again what Kerrigan said in the e-mail,” she said.

Phil sighed. “I don’t remember her exact words, but she wrote that she didn’t think it was fair for me to be in the dark anymore, that I needed to know the truth, just as much as you needed me to know the truth.”

“What was that last part? You didn’t say that last time.”

“Olive, I just told you I can’t remember her exact words.”

“Do you still have the e-mail?”

“It wasn’t exactly something I wanted to keep for posterity.”

She chewed on her thumbnail and fidgeted with her watch. It was eleven thirty-five. There were twenty-five minutes of 2011 left, and while the thought of missing out on precious minutes spent with Phil dismayed her, there was someone else she loved almost as much as Phil and had known even longer with whom she needed to reconcile. Ending the year estranged from her best friend felt all wrong.

“I need to talk to Kerrigan.”

It wasn’t difficult to persuade Kerrigan and Fritz to quit the dance floor; Fritz didn’t even seem to know the dance steps well enough to count them under his breath. Relieved, he joined Phil on the couch, and Kerrigan, with an impassive face, followed Olive to the tiny kitchen. It was the type of kitchen where the fridge door and a cabinet couldn’t be opened at the same time. Kerrigan leaned against the counter with her arms crossed; Olive stood in front of the refrigerator. They were only a few feet away from each other. Olive didn’t know what to say; this was as far as she had planned.

“So you and Dr. Morgan are still dating,” she said.

“We are,” Kerrigan said defiantly, and uncrossed her arms. “And I see you and Phil are back together.”

Olive gritted her teeth. So she had known that they had broken up. Of course, it wasn’t too surprising an outcome after what Kerrigan had told Phil. Her hands trembled as all her pent-up anger struggled to be released. She longed to shake Kerrigan by the shoulders and shout at her,
How can you just stand there like that? You do realize that Phil and I spent two months apart? That we almost didn’t get back together? You’re my best friend. How could you betray me like that?
Instead, she bit her lip and tried to believe in Phil’s conviction that Kerrigan had had a noble motive. She tried to remember all the good times she and Kerrigan had had together.

“You didn’t return my calls,” she said.

Kerrigan shrugged. “Sorry. I figured you were calling to yell at me.”

Olive had to admit to herself that this wasn’t too far from the truth, but Kerrigan’s flippancy and lack of remorse still stung. She was starting to regret this conversation; it seemed nothing productive could come of it. “Why would you think I’d want to yell at you?”

“Because you blame me for your breakup.”

This was also partially true. Though she knew it was her own lies and infidelity that had caused the cracks in the foundation of their relationship, it seemed that Kerrigan had been the dynamite that blew the whole thing wide open. She couldn’t help thinking that if Kerrigan hadn’t broken the news to Phil first, she would’ve somehow found a gentler way to tell him everything, and he would’ve understood, and weeks of hardship and agony could’ve been prevented. But if Kerrigan hadn’t told him, would Olive have ever really done it?

“Why did you tell him?” Olive asked. She tried to sound merely curious, but she knew her question was infused with vehemence.

Kerrigan exhaled heavily. “There are a lot of reasons, actually. Some of them I’m not proud of. At first, I was just really hurt and mad. Hurt that you were moving out on me after you said you wouldn’t. Mad that you had the nerve to be so judgmental about my relationship with Fritz. And maybe I was also a tiny bit jealous.”

“Jealous? Of what? My repeat year?”

“Yes, but also your relationship with Phil. I’ve been looking for something like that for almost four years now.” She absentmindedly twisted a clump of her hair. “But I was
never
vengeful, I promise you that.”

“What do you mean? That you didn’t want to hurt me?”

Kerrigan seemed to ignore the question. “At the party, I was pissed off at you, so I threatened to tell Phil. But I actually had no intention of telling him—not at first; I just wanted to scare you. And boy, were you scared. White as a ghost and shaking like a leaf. The more I thought about your reaction, the more I realized how destructive keeping that secret from Phil was. It was killing you. There you were, at a surprise party thrown by your adoring boyfriend in your beautiful new home together, and you couldn’t enjoy it one bit. And then I remembered when you first told me about Alex, how you looked at me with these scared eyes, like I was going to condemn you, but you know that’s not my style. You confided in me, Olive, because you didn’t know what else to do. I realized you could never be truly happy with Phil if you had this lie on your shoulders, but I also knew you were too chicken to ever tell him. So I had to be the friend you needed and do it for you.”

Olive was incredibly touched by her friend’s speech, but there were still some things that didn’t add up. “But why did you tell him the way you did? Sending him an e-mail proclaiming that I was cheating on him?”

“That wasn’t how I wanted to do it,” Kerrigan said. “But I couldn’t think of a better way. And I wanted to tell him about the repeat year, but I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want him to think I was a nut job. But it sounds like he really latched onto the whole affair thing.”

“Well, how did you expect him to react?” Olive snapped.

Kerrigan’s eyes widened. “I knew he would be upset. But I also knew that if you guys were strong enough as a couple, like I thought you were, that you would get back together and would be the better for it.” She paused for a beat. “And I was right. But I’m sorry I caused so much collateral damage in the process.”

Olive felt a little unsteady on her feet. She leaned against the cool door of the fridge. Kerrigan’s explanation had comforted her, but it had also illuminated her own weakness and indecision this year. Kerrigan had known her better than she had known herself. She had been stronger and more principled than Olive. Oddly enough, without Kerrigan’s interference—and Sherry’s and Christopher’s—Olive didn’t think she and Phil could’ve pulled off a happy ending this year.