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She hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t go.”
“This is new.”
“What is?”
“Are you worrying about me? I thought you didn’t give a damn about me.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You always push me away.” I pulled her closer as I said it. It was possible that just hearing the words would remind her that she didn’t always enjoy having me around. I didn’t want this strange closeness we’d found in the middle of the storm to disappear.
Olivia burst out laughing.
I was so shocked to hear her laugh that I pulled back from her; as if I might be able to get a look at her face. I couldn’t, of course. It was still too dark. But I could feel her shaking with laughter.
“What’s funny?” I asked.
“I always pushyouaway?”
“Well, you do.” I was confused. “You said you didn’t want me to be part of the film shoot anymore.”
“Okay, soone time,I tried to get rid of you. And it didn’t even work. Jake… do you realize that our entire lives have been about you trying to get rid of me?”
“No, they haven’t,” I protested.
Her laughter died down. “Is that really what you think?”
“I haven’t tried to get rid of you.”
“Of course you have. Our whole childhood, every time you, me, and Danny were somewhere—on vacation or even around the house—you’d try to get him to yourself. He’d be spending time with me, and then you would show up and tell him you had something cooler to do and that I couldn’t come along, and he’d blow me off.”
“You were just a little kid.”
“I was only two years younger than you guys. I could have come with yousomeof the time, especially when you came with us on our family vacations. I mean, do you get how much that sucked for me? My parents would be spending time together doing adult things, and Ishouldhave been spending time with my brother, but the two of you would ditch me.
Because of that, I spent so many trips sitting around on my own.”
She wasn’t wrong. Wehadditched her a lot. And when I thought about it… I’d usually been the one instigating that. Danny would have been happy to take her with us.
I felt a rush of guilt at the memory. I had treated her badly. But at the same time… we had been little kids.
“I guess I wanted my friend to myself,” I said.
“But I wanted my brother,” she whispered. “I should have been able to have him. That’s all I’m saying.”
I couldn’t deny it. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have treated you that way.”
“Well, it was a long time ago.”
“It still bothers you, though.”
“No, it doesn’t, really. I learned a long time ago that I needed to take responsibility for my own life. I was a teenager when I stopped trying to get you and Danny to hang out with me.”
I remembered that now that she had mentioned it. It was around the same time as she had gotten hot. She’d been sixteen, and I had been a few months shy of eighteen, and I remembered specifically thinking that if she had wanted to hang around me and Dannynow, I’d probably have let her do it.
I suppose this only showed that I’d been arrogant and controlling—exactly what she was accusing me of being. I’d tried to keep her from spending any time with us until it served me to let her hang around, and by then, she hadn’t been interested anymore.
And with a sinking feeling, I realized that that was the very same thing she was talking about when it came to my behavior with Michael Sanders.
