Page 87 of The Best Worst Mistake
“No,” I tell him, firmly.
He takes a gulp, puffing his cheeks out before swallowing, closing his eyes as it likely burns down his throat.
I shake my head, realizing I do want some. “Shit, I mean, yes.”
He throws me a faint smile, then pours another splash into the same glass and holds it out to me.
I try to take the glass from him but my hand envelops his instead. Our fingers overlap, draped over the tumbler, and I pause, waiting for him to give up the glass, but he doesn’t let it go.
I study him, his eyes, which at this moment are saying far more than either of us are willing to say out loud.
He takes a step closer, his lips twitching at the sides in that familiar way they always do, like he knows something I don’t. A secret he isn’t willing to share, but one he loves to keep for himself. Then he blinks and a thousand memories flood in. Memories of us that never belonged to just the two of us, and I realize we’re both haunted by a ghost that’ll never stand here between us again.
Not anymore.
Not ever.
And it doesn’t seem fair to pretend we’re all here when there will only be two of us from now on.
He turns. “I’ll head to bed for the night,” he says, suddenly relinquishing the glass to me. Sliding his fingers out from mine. “Give you time to read that alone.”
He taps the letter in my hand, then kisses me lightly on the cheek before walking toward one of the two bedroom doors.
“No.”
Between the two of us, I’m probably more startled to hear my own voice come out before any of my thoughts are fully formed. But I won’t stop. Not now. If I live the rest of my life in a space stemming from pure logic, formed only from my past, then I’m going to get to the end with a drawer full of regret.
He turns to face me.
“I don’t want to read it tonight, Si. I don’t want—” My voice cracks as I drop the letter onto the coffee table, taking a stepaway from it before shifting my eyes up to meet his. “I was feeling so happy after tonight. Hopeful, really, for the first time in forever. I don’t want to risk that going away if I read it right now.”
I swallow hard and Silas takes one small step away from his room.
“Jules, I don’t want you to do something you might regret in the morning. This is too important.Youare too important to get caught up in something we might not be ready for.”
I step away from the letter, still sealed, knowing that I’m more sure now than ever.
“I know why Grant sent us on this trip. I know why he pushed us back into each other’s lives. He knew that I’d need you, as much as you needed me. I guarantee that, as crazy as it sounds, he saw all this unfolding exactly like this.” I shake my head, knowing in my heart that I’m right. “You should see his letters, Si. They’re all aboutyou. They aren’t just love letters to me. They’re love letters tous. The us frombefore. It’s all about your friendship with him, and mine with you. If you’d read them, you’d understand why there’s no doubt in my mind that this was always the way it was meant to be. He wanted me to know that you’d be there for me. That you were always going to be there for me.”
I close the gap between us and he grabs me the second I get to him, holding my face between his hands, kissing me more desperately than he had out on the sidewalk and all the way here. I shove his jacket off and it falls to the floor, then kick my shoes onto the carpet without breaking the connection between us.
“Jules,” he pants, pulling me back by the elbows. Concern and hunger fill his eyes. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes,” I tell him. My face morphs into a grin. Then I pull him toward me. “Less talking,” I whisper.
I don’t want to talk.
I don’t want to think.
I just want to get completely lost in this exact moment with this exact man. The one that feels more like home than anything else in the whole world. The man that somehow brought me back to myself.
It isn’t just the familiarity I’ve felt with him since the first second I sat in his car outside my house in Boston. Free to be angry and tired and moody and finally — after every other emotion fizzled out — free to bealive.
It’s the way he’s made me feel every step of this crazy journey we’ve been on. Like something in his eyes helps me remember that I’m beautiful, and adventurous, and always enough. I love how his eyes always make their way back to mine, whether we’re in the middle of the Spanish sea, or standing across the flour-covered counter at Nonna Lisi’s, or during each takeoff and landing across the aisle between us while Andy pretends not to see the way he watches me. I love the look he gave me in the seconds before I rolled from the plane at thirteen thousand feet, screaming above the turquoise lakes of Interlaken.
We’ve been all over the map, but we’ve always found each other’s eyes in everything from chaos to joy to arguments to gut-wrenching moments, and everything in between. Silas is my home away from home, and the friend I’ve missed so, so much.
He’s not who he was. Now, different from the man I loved as my friend back then, before everything that happened. But somehow, he’s better. Better now than he ever was before.
