Page 58 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
She knew he’d broken his nose defending her after her second-grade show-and-tell.
That he’d shouted at all the kids who made fun of her clothes and thought she was weird.
That he’d kissed her once, long, long ago.
“Oliver,” she whispered.
His breath caught and he didn’t say a word.
“We ran into each other three times before this… Why didn’t you say anything?”
He looked away, the skyline suddenly more interesting than she was.
“I couldn’t…” He closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. “I didn’t want you to remember me the way I left. A lot of bad things happened, and I hurt you. I wanted… I don’t know. But I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was.”
“So you knew it was me?”
He exhaled, then nodded.
“But can we… Can we not do this tonight?” he asked. “It’s so beautiful here on the rooftop.You’rebeautiful. Let’s not waste it.”
She bit her lip, thinking. She could leave. Chloe had every right to be upset with him, and her mind was a whirlpool, her conflicted thoughts eddying too fast for her to hold on to any individual idea.
He was her oldest friend—lost and now found—and she didn’t want to ruin that.
He was her first love, evaporated before they’d had enough time to discover where it could have led.
He was also a closed box of secrets. He had hidden who he was, and it was clear he didn’t want to talk about the past. But Chloe would not be able to know Oliver completely if they didn’t unearth what had been buried in the sixteen years between then and now.
The truth was, she wanted to talk about the past. She wanted to know what had happened, why he’d been able to leave her behind, to vanish like a ghost as if she’d never mattered. There had been rumors at school about his family and why they’d left, but the gossip was ridiculous and Chloe had never believed it.
She just wanted to knowwhatto believe when it came to Oliver and her.
Chloe saw his face now in a different light, the worry lines around his eyes, the burden he carried in their depths. “Oliver? What happened?”
He was studying her face, too. She wondered which of her victories and wounds he saw.
“Why did your family really leave Kansas? What happened back then?”
He tightened his jaw. Crossed his arms over his chest. Everything about him closed, even his ability to make eye contact. “The past is the past,” Oliver said. “There’s nothing we can do to change it.”
Why wouldn’t he tell her? What could possibly be so bad that she would care, sixteen years later? Yes, Oliver had hurt her by leaving and letting their love die from neglect. But now that they were reunited, she might be willing to forgive that, to move on, if only he would tell her what it was they were moving on from.
Oliver started to walk away. Not too fast—he was clearly giving Chloe permission to follow if she wanted to—but he was drawing a line in the sand. If she wanted him in her life, she’d have to take him as he was, baggage locked away behind a complicated numerical lock.
Chloe followed him to the other side of the roof, the only part thatoverlooked the vast, shadowed patch of Central Park where no lights shone. The clouds had rolled in even thicker, blotting out the moon and the stars completely, and Oliver leaned against the railing almost in the complete dark.
“I’m sorry for being pushy,” she said as she scooted up next to him.
“You’re allowed to ask,” Oliver said quietly. “But I’m also allowed to not want to talk about it.”
“That’s fair.”
“Is it? I don’t know. But I suppose it is what it is,” he said.
They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring out at the park where they couldn’t actually see a thing.
Above them, the clouds opened, and it began to rain.
