Page 88 of Summer After Summer

Fred looks grim. “Sure, sure.”

They rise and then Ann, Charlotte, Colin, and Sophie do the same. Colin stops and shakes Wes’s hand and says it’s nice to see him. I can hear Sophie chastising him as they walk away.

All this time I haven’t moved. I’m trying to adjust to being near him again. I can smell his cologne and feel his too familiar presence. How can I be so turned off by someone I once clung to?

Wes picks up a fork from his place setting. “Should I not have come?”

“What do you think?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“I told you I needed time.”

Wes puts the fork down carefully. “But you didn’t say anything more than that. Not how much time and if we could talk or if you wanted a divorce. And Olivia”—he reaches for my hand—“I’ve missed you. I miss you.”

It’s weird to feel him touching me. Something I used to crave, but now it makes me feel sick. I pull my hand away. “You should’ve thought of that before.”

“This again?”

“Again? Give me a break.”

Wes leans forward, his face open and earnest. “I made a mistake. It was a moment of weakness. It meant nothing. And I get that you’re mad and disappointed. I wish I could take it back. I never meant for you to know … I need you to forgive me.”

“You need that?”

“Yes. Please, Olivia. Can you forgive me?”

“And then what?” I look away from him, out over the sea of partygoers. Everyone laughing and drinking and swaying to the music, waiting for the moment when the waiters will appear with their trays of lobsters held high over their heads.

“We go back to our life.”

“Just like that?”

“No, not just like that. We can go to therapy if you want. We can do whatever you need to change things. Have a baby—whatever.”

“A baby, whatever?”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

I turn back to him. I feel weary, that same feeling that weighed me down this last year when Wes was behaving so strangely. How I felt like I was going mad, thinking that things were breaking while he was telling me that everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine—I’d been right all along.

“I don’t know anything, Wes. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You said.”

“What now?”

“I don’t know.”

Wes looks down at his hands. He’s still wearing his wedding ring, a thick platinum band that he’d picked out himself. Forever is engraved inside, and if I’m being honest, even I thought that was a bit over the top when he showed it to me a couple of days before our wedding.

“Is this because of Fred?” he asks.

“What?”

“What’s he doing here?”

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