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But I can’t. I can’t calm down. I’m hurt and I’m pissed.
I guess I’ve been breathing too hard to hear Liv approach, but I do hear her say my name again from beside me. Her tone is worried.
“I’m freaking out,” I confess.
“About what?” Her hand squeezes my arm—my bicep—where I know the words‘BE BRAVE’are tattooed.
I hate myself for not being able to be brave through this shit.
Would Pop be brave if he were still here?
Of course he would. He was the bravest man I knew.
“What are you freaking out about?” Liv asks again in a murmur.
“Lolly.” I push the heels of both hands into my eyes and draw a shuddering breath. “I can’t stand this. I can’t—I can’t stand her not knowing me, Liv. I can’t. And I keep hearing from you and Bill that that’s okay, but I don’tfeelokay about it. I feel like part of me is being eaten up by acid: it hurts and I can’t stop it and I know that part of me is never going to be the same again.What’sokay about that? What’s okay about not being able to go five minutes with Lolly without thinking about—” my voice cracks, “—about how it wouldn’t matter if I left and never came back because I’m just a fucking stranger to her?”
She drags me into a hard hug, whispering, “Oh, Landon.”
It’sallshe whispers.
Because she knows I’m right.
Nothing about this is okay.
I get my arms around her, too, even as I ask miserably, “How can you stand this close to me when I’m such a bastard? Pop would be ashamed of me for acting like this.”
“If he was as great as you’ve told me, he wouldn’t fault you for how you feel. He’d feel the same way or worse.” One of her hands glides tenderly through my hair, and her voice lowers. “And you know I’ve never thought you were a bastard. Besides, you kept standing close to me, too, after I told you I was…you know.”
“I guess you’re right about Pop,” I mumble, “but the other part—this isnotthe same thing as that. You couldn’t help that.”
“And you think you can help how traumatizingthisis?” She pulls back and looks at me earnestly. “No, it’s not the same kind of trauma, but it’s still something terrible that you didn’t ask for.”
I close my eyes as that washes over me.
She goes quiet again for a few seconds, moves her hands to my shoulders and rubs them in a way that feels absent, like she’s deep in thought. I focus on her touch as I wait for her to speak again.
When she does, it’s to say, “Maybe it would help you to say these things toher.”
Frowning, I reopen my eyes. “What?”
She wets her lips, gentle confidence growing in her expression. “Yeah, I wonder—I wonder if you should tell her how you feel.”
“Why? What good would come of that?”
“From her end? I have no idea. But it might makeyoufeel better just to get the truth out to her. Maybe it’s not helping your struggle much to talk about it with me and Bill because neither of us is the source of your pain.”
That…is a good way to look at it, actually.
But I shake my head. “I’m not supposed to intentionally say things that might upset her.”
She puts her hands on my face and says softly, “I think you can do itoncefor your own sake. Just once.”
I study her for a long few moments.
I’m tempted.
“What if it goes badly?” I ask.
