Page 101 of The Truth of Us

I wrapped my coat around me tighter and looked away from Oliver, still hearing Elliot, “I love when your skin turns red from where my hands have been, from watching your orgasm build. You blush so perfectly...”

I must have made a sound, because Oliver touched my arm, pulling my attention back to him; his expression changed to one of concern. "Sorry."

I blinked. "For what?"

"I think I stepped on a memory." The honesty of it nearly undid me.

I laughed, a little shakily. I could have brushed it off or lied, but I said, "You did."

He nodded. "Okay."

That was all. No questions or pressure. Just okay.

We started walking. Snow crunched beneath our boots.

"You still want coffee?" he asked.

"Desperately," I replied with a shiver.

Oliver pulled me to his side as we made our way to a cafe. A woman full-out scowled at me when she saw Oliver wrap his arm around me.

When we got to the cafe, Oliver found us a seat at the window, and the sun felt so nice on my face without the winter chill that I took off my jacket and made myself comfortable. I must have been lost in thought, my eyes closed, face tilted up to the sun shining through the window, because suddenly Oliver was beside me, his warm hand settled on a portion of bare skin on my back. He placed our coffees on the elevated table in front of me, and then his phone. As he sat down, I noticed the picture on his screen.

"What is that?"

Oliver chuckled, saying, "The lighting was perfect."

I laughed, but still felt… I don’t know. Uncomfortable? My hair was in a messy knot at the back of my neck; I was in a wrap-around yoga top and tights, no makeup, no armour. And I trusted Oliver, but I was so used to hiding that it was still my first reaction to want to protect myself.

"Delete it."

"No," he said, but didn’t take the phone away. So if I wanted to, I could have grabbed his phone and deleted the picture myself. Instead, I sipped ‌my coffee and studied it; parts of my hair that escaped my bun had curled around the edges of my face. My skin looked almost tanned in the sunshine's glow, and I looked… Happy? Relaxed, maybe, or content.

We talked for a while, and then Oliver asked, "Can I post it?"

I laughed. "Are you trying to make every single woman on the internet hate me?"

He grinned. "No." Then he looked at me, a soft look on his face. “Trust me, anyone who knows you could never hate you.” He studied my face before adding, “I know for you it’s more than just a picture, Harper, but think of it as a small step forward.”

I looked at the picture one more time, and then smiled and said, "Okay."

And that became our new routine: Oliver would meet me after Yoga, we would walk, or go for coffee, or sometimes lunch, and he continued to take candid pictures of me; he called it desensitization… but somehow it felt more like coming back to life.

24

ELLIOT

Iwas not heartbroken. That was ridiculous. Heartbroken was dramatic. It was poetry and sad playlists and men in movies standing in the rain like idiots. I was not that.

I … I was irritated, frustrated, sleep-deprived, and definitely undersexed.

But heartbroken?

No.

The problem was that people kept using that word around me, which was starting to feel real. But I was not that; you had to love someone and lose them to be heartbroken.

The first person who called me that stupid term was Theo. He looked at me over a coffee he had no business drinking in my office and said, “You look fucking heartbroken.”