Page 102 of The Last Thing You Said

Now is the time.

“Simon, I know that you’re really hurting right now, but there’s something I need to tell you.” I’m going to do this, right here at the counter at the Full Loon where Ben and Guthrie sat Monday night. “I shouldn’t have let you believe that there could ever be anything between us. And I’m sorry for that.”

“What do you mean, you let me believe there could be something between us? Isn’t there something between us, Lucy? I love you.”

How many times have I let him say I love you?

“I don’t love you,” I tell him. “And I know that’s not fair to you. And—I’m sorry, Simon.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I shake my head.

“Oh my God,” he says. “This is about Ben, isn’t it?”

When I don’t say anything, when I don’t deny it, he runs his hands through his hair. “I’ve been so stupid. It was right in front of me the whole time. You’re in love with him.”

“Yes,” I say. “I love Ben. I’ve loved him for a long time.”

“I have to go,” he says.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” I say, and my voice breaks.

He pushes away his plate, the pie untouched, and stands up. He doesn’t say a word when I stand up to follow him.

When I turn, my heart leaps into my throat.

Ben and Guthrie are standing in front of me.

Guthrie looks amused, the corners of his mouth twisted up in a smirk. Ben isn’t smiling, but his eyes—his eyes are filled with a light I haven’t seen in a long time.

And it fills me.

Simon doesn’t say anything as we walk out the door, into the parking lot. When we reach his car, I take his hand. He flinches but doesn’t let go. It makes no sense to wonder if things could have been different between us. I know the answer. I’ve hurt us both.

“I’m sorry,” I say again in a whisper.

He drops my hand without a word, gets in the Volvo, and drives away.

Good-bye, Simon the Renter.

I need to catch my breath before I go back inside and face Ben, but a tour bus pulls into the lot, and Ben will have to wait.

55 · Ben

Lucy told Simon that she loves me.

Still, after I’ve treated her like shit for a year, she loves me.

“Well,” Guthrie says, “are you going to just stand there or are you going to go after her?”

I’ve been such an asshole. I lost Trixie but I can’t lose Lucy anymore. I love her, I’ve always loved her, since that first day Trixie brought her home to play. I loved her even then.

I wonder if she saw what I wrote in her notebook. She must have. But I need to tell her in person.

I take a deep breath. It’s time to tell her what I was going to say that day on the swim raft at Sullivan Street Park.

It’s time to tell her I’m sorry for what I said to her after Trixie’s funeral. All the shitty things I’ve said to her since.