I barely register the swollen eyes, red nose, and matted hair. I can't seem to get past the immeasurable hurt written all over her face.
I do the only thing I can think of. I wrap my arms around her.
She lets me.
I caused her heart-wrenching pain, and she's letting me hold her.
Nothing has ever felt so good.
I inch her backward into the bedroom just enough to kick the door shut before gathering her as close as possible. She buries her face in my shoulder and sobs. I don't know how she has any tears left, but she does.
I rub my hands up and down her back and over her shoulders in the most soothing motions I can think of. I turn my face into her soft hair. "I'm sorry," I whisper, my lips pressed to her head. "I'm so damned sorry."
Her sobs turn to cries, the cries to hiccups, the hiccups to shuddering breaths. And then finally, finally, she falls silent. She leans back slightly to look at me, and I tense, ready for the words I know I deserve.
But she doesn't lay into me or call me names. She doesn't let me know in explicit detail that I deserve to die a miserable death. (Although I do. I know I do).
Instead, she does the last thing I expect. She talks to me. She rests her forehead against my collarbone and just talks.
"I didn't mean to, you know," she says, her voice raspy from crying. "I've asked myself a million times if some little part of me knew what Michael was going to tell me . . . what he was going to do . . . when I went over there that day. But I've replayed it a million times, and I wouldn't have gone if I'd known. I wouldn't have willingly put myself in the situation of hurting Ethan. If you could have seen his face . . ."
Olivia lets out a shuddering breath, and I pull her even closer, rubbing a palm over her back. I want to tell her that in the big scheme of things, this is nothing. That she'll get over it, that Ethan's already over it, but I know that to her this is big. I let her continue.
"I went to Michael's house . . . up to his room, thinking he wanted to talk about this girl, Casey, who he'd kind of been seeing. Since he'd never had a serious girlfriend, I figured he was just getting cold feet, or whatever."
She's quiet for a moment.
"But he didn't want to talk about Casey," I say, helping her along.
She shakes her head. "No. He was acting weird from the second I got there. Michael and I have always been so comfortable together. Or so I thought. But he was jumpy. He would alternate between not meeting my eyes and then looking at me too long and too hard, as though he was searching for something."
God help me, I'm actually feeling sorry for the poor guy. I'm all too aware of what it's like to be helplessly drawn to this girl, even though you know you should be staying far, far away from her.
"I didn't see it coming," she continues, giving a little shake of her head. "One second I was yammering about how excited I was about the internship I'd just applied for, and the next second he's grabbing my hands, his face just inches from mine, and he's telling me that he can't do it anymore. That Ethan's his best friend, but he can't do it. That he can't see me with Ethan without me knowing . . ."
She breaks off.
"He told you he loved you?" I say.
She nods before lifting her head to look me in the eye. "Then he kissed me. And I didn't push him away. I let him kiss me."
The agony on her face is clear, and I want to tell her not to talk about it anymore, but I know she needs to get it off her chest. Very gently I put my palms on either side of her face. "Why? Did you love him back?"
Please say no.
"No," she whispers, her tongue slipping nervously to wet her lips. "But as for why, I've asked myself that a million times, and I think . . . I think I kissed him because I knew it was a way out. Ethan and I were getting more and more serious every day, and he was the only guy I'd ever been with, and everyone, myself included, acted like we were going to be engaged at any moment, and I just-"
"You didn't want that."
"No," she says with an outward breath. "I thought I did. I wanted to want it. I loved Ethan so much. But somewhere, deep inside of me, something was off. Things were really good, but I wanted more."
"And more was Michael?"
Her face contorts. "No. I knew as soon as his lips touched mine that that wasn't right either, but then I kissed him back, harder, wanting to feel something, anything. It didn't go . . . I mean, I didn't sleep with him. Not even close. But neither was it just a simple kiss in which I pushed him away and slapped his cheek. I kept trying to lose myself in the kiss, so it got kind of intense, and then Ethan walked in."
I don't have to ask what happened after that.
"I never thought I could be that girl," she continues. "The one who cheats on her boyfriend with his best friend. But now I realize nobody plans on that, you know? It's not something that anybody sets out to do, like, ‘You know, I think I'm going to be like that slutty character in the movies that everybody hates.' You always imagine that you're going to be the good girl everybody roots for. You imagine that right up until the very second when you're not the good girl."
My palms are still on her face, and now I hook my thumbs gently under her jaw, tilting her up so she has to look at me.
"You're still good, Olivia," I say quietly. "You made a mistake. A big, shitty one, definitely. Yes, you betrayed Ethan. And yeah, maybe you used Michael. But the fact that you've been killing yourself over it shows that that's not who you are. It was a one-time mistake. You'll make more mistakes in the future, but you won't make that one. You'll learn from it and move on."
She closes her eyes. "You didn't see Michael's face. Ethan has Stephanie, and I think he's forgiven me, but Michael-"
"Will get over it," I say with finality. "He's what, twenty-two? And if he was lucky enough to be your best friend all those years, he's got to be a decent guy under it, right? He just fell for the wrong girl."
She doesn't say anything, and I press my hands just a little more firmly against her cheeks.
"He will be fine. You'll be fine."
When she opens her eyes, they're shiny with tears again, but I don't think they're tears of despair. She looks hopeful.
"Thank you," she says. Her hand slowly comes up to rest against my chest. "Thank you."
I let out a harsh laugh, trying to ignore what her touch does to me. "You really shouldn't be thanking me after what I did to you."
"As far as bad-guy plans go, it was really devious. And I can't believe he came."
"He cares about you." I rub my thumbs over her cheekbones. "And I may have given the impression that your situation was dire."
"It was dire," she says, her fingers fiddling with my shirt button. "You haven't talked to me in weeks. I haven't even seen you."
"Worried that you're not earning your salary?" I ask, careful to keep my voice teasing and not accusatory.
"That's not why I wanted to see you."
My heart stops. "Then why?"
Green eyes lift to mine. "I miss you. I don't know why, because you're a total beast. And I don't understand why I can't stop thinking about you, because you're so infuriating, and you shut me out every time one little thing doesn't go your way, and you'll probably hurt me so much worse than anyone else has ever been able to hurt me, but-"
My mouth stops her rambling flow of words, a hard, desperate kiss, even as I wait for her to reject me, knowing I deserve rejection. But her arms wind around my neck and her tongue reaches sweetly for mine as she presses against me.
"I want you," she whispers, pulling back just slightly.
My self-control snaps. I spin her around, pushing her against the door as my hands slide from her face down to her hands before I lift them above her head. She moans as I pin her to the door, and I kiss her again and again, until I forget whose breath is whose. Until I can't stop myself from running my hands over her arms, her hips, and up along the sides of her torso, both of us groaning when my palms brush the sides of her breasts.
I want to lose myself in her.
Reaching for whatever tiny seed of good is still left inside me, I force myself to pull back and give her space and time to think about this. I look down at her flushed face and swollen mouth, both of us breathing hard.
"I need to know what you want from this," I say gruffly. "I need to know where the line is."
Olivia presses her lips together, and I brace myself for rejection. I almost see the wheels turning inside her head as she tries to figure out if I'm a mistake, like Michael, or if I'm worth the risk.
For the first time in so long, I want to be worth the risk.
Her fingers settle just above the waistband of my jeans, the pads of her fingers hot through the fabric of my shirt.