Page 92 of Summer After Summer

He follows me as I edge my way to the dance floor.

“Olivia.” His tone is intimate, his breath on my neck.

“What?”

“She’s not …” He stops. “Will you look at me?”

I turn toward him slowly. Someone jostles him from behind, pushing him toward me, and he puts his hands on my shoulders to steady himself. In a second, we could be dancing.

“What is it?”

He touches my bracelet—his bracelet—our bracelet. “Why did you wear this?”

“I was feeling nostalgic.”

His thumb grazes the tiny engagement ring. The third charm he gave me. “Or to hurt me?”

What’s the point of lying? “That too.”

“We hurt each other.” His fingers touch the skin on my wrist, burning it like his touch always does.

I pull away, but our eyes remain locked. “Yes, we did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too.”

And now I break his gaze and turn back to the dance floor. Ash is there with her husband, Dave, and I want her to glance my way, for us to make eye contact so she’ll know I need to be rescued. But instead, the music transitions into something slow, and they meld into one with the other couples, and I’m left to save myself.

And oh God. It’s the Nora Jones song that was playing when we danced on my sixteenth birthday. When we kissed.

“Olivia,” Fred says behind me, so close that I can almost feel his body touching mine. “Olivia.”

I close my eyes and breathe him in. I want to lean back, to turn into his arms and spin away with him into the night.

But he doesn’t want that.

He doesn’t want me.

It’s the song and the night, and neither of us are free.

“I’ve got to go.”

“Olivia.”

“No … I … I can’t do this …”

I start to move away from him, expecting him to reach out, to hold me back, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t, and that’s okay, that’s fine, because there’s nothing to be gained here, between us.

Only pain and regret.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

August 2008

“Absolutely not,” my father says when I tell him about the engagement with Fred the next day over breakfast.

I’m hurt, but not entirely surprised. “I’m not asking for your permission.”

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