Going the Distance (25 page)

“I know.”

“Are you flying to Detroit first?”

“No. Straight to Boston.”

He pulled in a breath that was deep enough she could see his chest rise under his thin T-shirt. He was wearing board shorts and flip flops as though he planned to head to the non-existent beach after this. Whatever “this” was.

“Well,” she said, when he didn’t speak.

“I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “I’m—” He broke off and looked away, pushing an agitated hand through his hair. “I wanted to tell you I’m really fucking sorry.”

Her eyes filled with tears she refused to shed. She’d cried all freaking week. Saying good-bye to her students, the teachers, Ritchie and Honor, alone in her apartment. She couldn’t possibly have any tears left.

“Okay, Jarek.”

“No, Olivia. It’s not okay.”

“It is what it is.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I watched the play.”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I know. I just…wanted to. I wasn’t there long. Ritchie told me what time, so I came and then I left right after.”

“Huh.”

“It was really weird.”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed. “I know.”

“You looked beautiful.”

She sucked in a wounded breath. “Please don’t.”

He crossed to her suddenly, and raised a hand to tilt her head so she looked up at him, even though she didn’t want to. “You are,” he said seriously. “You’re perfect. I didn’t deserve you. I’m sorry I hurt you. It wasn’t Dale’s fault. It was all me. It doesn’t matter now, but I want you to know that I didn’t say anything until that last week. I wasn’t betraying you all along.”

She wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. Perfect meant nothing. She had been perfect her whole life, and then she’d done one thing people hadn’t liked and they’d turned on her. So had he. “Okay.”

“Tell me you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Olivia.”

“I have to go, Jarek.”

His hand fell and when she risked a look at him, his eyes were closed. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll come with you to the train station.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

But he was already picking up the suitcases and hefting them out the door. She didn’t waste her breath arguing, not sure she even wanted to. So it hurt to breathe. She’d get over it. She’d keep putting one foot in front of the other until she got where she was supposed to be, wherever that was.

Olivia collected her backpack and purse, then locked the doors and followed Jarek downstairs to flag a cab. He loaded the bags in the trunk and gestured for her to get in first, then climbed in after. She asked to go to the train station, a seven or eight minute ride, and folded her hands in her lap. She knew Jarek was watching her but she didn’t know what she was supposed to say.
I forgive you?
She would, some day, she was sure. But not right now. Not when he’d found the courage to show up and apologize three weeks too late, then failed to muster the nerve to say the thing that scared him most.

“You nervous?” he asked eventually. “About starting over?”

She shrugged. “It’ll be okay. At least I speak the language.” It was a weak joke, but he smiled anyway.

They got to the station and he paid the fare, even when she told him not to. He grabbed her bags from the trunk and carried them through the milling crowd to the boarding area. “You going to be all right with these?”

“They’re not heavy.” She looked at the large clock on the wall. Twenty minutes until her train departed. “I have to go.”

“I know.”

“Take care, Jarek.”

A muscle in his neck twitched, then suddenly he pulled her against him, his arms like steel bands around her torso, holding her tight. She could barely breathe, barely manage to lift her arms to hug him back, her fingers brushing the soft fabric of his T-shirt.

“Olivia.”

Her eyes sank shut. She was suddenly so, so tired. She didn’t know if she was coming or going, beginning or ending. “Just say it,” she said softly.

His grip tightened. “Don’t say it back.”

She didn’t answer, just watched the narrow hand on the clock tick past ten agonizing seconds.

“I love you, Olivia,” he murmured into her hair. That was all he said. Maybe all he could say. Five more seconds passed before he released her.

She stepped back and wiped her eyes. “Good-bye, Jarek.” She gathered her bags and walked away, showing her ticket to the gate attendant and following the crowd to the platform. She didn’t look over her shoulder to see if Jarek was watching, didn’t want to extend their painful good-bye to epic proportions. She loved him, she hated him, she loved him. And if he didn’t know by now, he never would.

T
HE
T
HREE
W
EEKS
B
ETWEEN
breaking up and saying good-bye at the train station were the longest of his life. Jarek worked non-stop, willing time to speed up and his mind to stay empty, but neither happened. He thought about her constantly, as he had for months. Only now, instead of seeing smiling Olivia, or rather, naked, smiling Olivia, he saw her in profile. He saw her hair splayed on the pillow beneath her head, face twisted away as she uttered the only words he deserved: get out.

He’d listened. He’d gone home and gone to work and hadn’t done much more than eat, drink, and sleep when he wasn’t in the carpentry trailer. He made more furniture than he’d ever made in his life. Desks with intricate inlaid designs, chairs with backs carved to resemble the woodwork he saw on temples around town. He took precise measurements for built-in bookshelves, spending hours getting every cut just right. Everything was perfect. And it was all wrong.

No matter what he did he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About it. What he’d done. And the worst part was, he’d done far worse shit in his life—a thousand times—and he’d never felt bad. A man didn’t walk into those rooms and do the things he had done without being absolutely certain he was right. He’d never questioned his decisions or his tactics, and when he got the answers he was looking for, he didn’t question those either. He followed his instincts and they had never led him astray. Until now. Now he couldn’t stop asking the one question he had never allowed himself: what if he was wrong?

The answer wasn’t reassuring. He knew, without a doubt, that he’d been wrong. Oh, she’d been in Thailand with Chris, all right. And yes, she’d lied about it. And yes, he’d been hurt and furious and right to feel that way—but none of that mattered. He’d been wrong, and he had so little experience with apologies—hell, most of that experience was with her—that he didn’t know what to do to repair such a monumental fuck up. So he poured everything he had into the furniture, into making something good and lasting that he’d leave behind and have no opportunity to destroy. And it still wasn’t enough.

He worked through the night again, collapsing in bed shortly after five a.m., as had become his routine. As sleep claimed him he knew it was the last time he’d wake up and know he could still try to fix this, that she was just twenty minutes away. Because try as he might to forget, he couldn’t: Olivia was leaving today. And if there was any sort of merciful god looking down on him, they’d let him sleep for twelve hours, until she was out of reach and he finally had a decent excuse for not walking his ass down there and telling her what she needed to hear.

If there was anyone looking down that day, they showed him no mercy. Jarek woke up at nine a.m. and could not fall back asleep. He contemplated the bottle of scotch that still sat on the counter where he’d left it three weeks ago, but even his muddled brain knew it was too early. Or too late. He should have started drinking at midnight, when it was socially acceptable.

He lay in bed and tried to drift off, but he couldn’t. He went to the gym trailer and punched the sandbag until he couldn’t breathe. He took the longest shower of his life. He tried to read. Watch TV. Tried to sleep again. And somehow it was only eleven o’clock. He remembered that her flight was in the late afternoon, but had no idea when she’d leave for the train station, so he dressed slowly, forced down some food, and at eleven thirty started the painfully slow slog to her apartment.

Her inner door was open so he could see the bare expanse inside, suitcases packed and ready to go. Then she’d stepped out of the bathroom and everything he thought he wanted to say fled his mind and his heart stopped beating and the only thing he knew was he loved her and he was sorry and it couldn’t be the end, even when it was.

He certainly hadn’t planned on taking her to the train station, but she was already so distant that he felt the ridiculous urge to extend their technical closeness as long as he could. Then, when she told him to take care, he grabbed her without a second thought. He wanted to hold her there until the train left, until by pure osmosis she absorbed the fact that he loved her and was pathetically sorry, but she wasn’t a science experiment or a mind reader. When she ordered him to “just say it,” he didn’t pretend not to know which words she was referring to. If he thought it took everything he had to utter the three most painful words of his life, he was wrong again. Letting her go and watching her leave almost brought him to his knees. He stayed in place, people ebbing and flowing around him, garnering more strange stares than normal, until the train left. And for ten minutes beyond that, until he knew she hadn’t changed her mind and stayed on the platform as the train rolled away.

She was gone.

He turned and began the walk home, aimless. He could go to work, sure. There was still lots to do. And technically, he was supposed to be working. But that didn’t seem important. Somehow his days had become structured around Olivia—when he would see her, what they would do, what she would say—and now that she was gone, he felt…free. In the most terrible way. For the first time in his life, he didn’t want to be alone.

When the phone in his pocket rang, he fumbled for it frantically, almost falling off the curb. He yanked the phone loose, praying it was Olivia calling to say he was forgiven. That she’d come back. But it wasn’t her name on the display, it was Jonah’s. And even before he answered he knew what his brother would say. Olivia wasn’t the only person he had lost today.

The ensuing conversation was even more predictable: No, Jarek wouldn’t come home early. No, he wouldn’t be there for the funeral. Yes, he would chip in for the costs. Yes, he was a terrible son and brother and human being. No, he didn’t care. Yes, he did.

He wiled away the next two weeks with slightly less fervor. Jonah told Brant about Aidan’s passing and the three friends he hadn’t really wanted kept him company when he wasn’t working or sleeping. They didn’t ask about Olivia, though Dale had no doubt relayed the whole miserable saga. Ritchie tentatively revealed that he planned to stay in Lazhou past the project deadline, just to see where things with Honor might go, and Jarek tried not to be jealous, another emotion he had never really known before coming to this godforsaken place. He was feeling a lot of things now, when he’d rather feel nothing, but that no longer seemed like an option.

They’d been back in Virginia for a week. Reverse culture shock and jet lag had worn off, and yet, for some reason, Dale lingered. Jarek, Brant, Jonah, and Dale sat in a booth in the corner of a local pub, eating a late lunch that consisted entirely of deep fried food and alcohol. Jarek thought he had given up the habit of asking questions that were none of his business, but the longer Dale’s story about his daughter’s piano recital wore on, the less he could take it. “Dude,” he interrupted. “Why are you still here?”

Dale broke off and stared at him blankly. “I’m waiting on my refill.”

“In
Virginia
. Why aren’t you in South Carolina with your family?” The atmosphere at the table shifted, turning at once from relaxed and carefree to vaguely uncomfortable. It was one of the few occasions where Jarek was the one without answers, but even before Dale spoke, he knew.

“She kicked me out, man.” His beefy, crude friend used a French fry to draw a circle in the ketchup on his plate. “Last year.”

Jarek sighed. “Fuck. Sorry.”

“You didn’t know.”

No, he hadn’t known. If he’d spent a single second thinking about it, he might have come to the same conclusion. The way Dale spoke so reverently about his kids, the picture of his family that had prime placement in his wallet. The lewd stories about the mysterious women he banged in China, none of whom Jarek had ever actually seen, all just overcompensation for his own broken heart. The old Jarek would have kicked himself for not recognizing it sooner, but now he just felt…bad. He felt bad for his friend. And then he felt even worse when he realized he’d just admitted that Dale, of all people, was his friend. How had this happened?

“Is that why you’re always prying into my life?”

Dale shrugged. “Maybe.”

He eyeballed Brant. “What’s your excuse?”

“Dale made me?”

“Ass.” Dale jammed an elbow into his friend’s gut, and though Brant was a big guy, he winced. Jarek was grateful he’d taken the seat next to his brother.

“Is this topic on the table then?” Jonah asked, sensing a moment of weakness. “Olivia?”

“No,” Jarek interrupted, at the same moment Brant and Dale said, “Yes,” much louder. “No,” he repeated.

“Are you going to call her?” Dale inquired, ignoring his refusal.

Jarek gritted his teeth. “I don’t have her number.”

Brant scratched his jaw. “I do.”

“What? Why would you have it?”

“She gave it to Ritchie, and he gave it to me. Just in case.”

“In case what?”

“In case I decided to call her,” Brant drawled, rolling his eyes. “In case you ever pulled your head out of your ass, idiot.”

Jarek tried to take an extremely long time finishing his beer, but the other men just waited. They may be the only friends he had, but he didn’t like them. “She hates me,” he said finally.

“Yeah,” Dale said.

Brant nodded.

“You should call her,” Jonah suggested.

Jarek twisted in the booth to look at him. “Did you not hear what I just said?”

His brother couldn’t have cared less. “No one said it was easy, man.”

“What would you know? You’ve been married your whole life.”

“That’s exactly why I know, moron. You think I let Katrine walk away every time she gets mad? Or that she lets me?”

“You two don’t fight.”

“Everybody fights.”

Jarek stared between the men at the table. They all nodded sagely. He wasn’t overreacting to this. He wasn’t. He’d done a terrible thing. She’d left him. Sure, she’d always been scheduled to leave on that day, but the timing wasn’t a coincidence. Except, now that he thought about it…She hadn’t looked at him with hate at the train station. There’d been something else in her eyes, too. Not love. Not sadness. But maybe…pity. Something he could work toward fixing.

He ran a hand through his too-long hair and blew out a breath. “What do I do?”

Brant slid a scrap of paper across the table, ten digits written in remarkably neat handwriting. “Call her,” he said.

It wasn’t easy to overcome a lifetime of avoidance. Though he had her number safely stowed in his wallet, it took Jarek four weeks to pick up the phone.

The week after the conversation in the bar, Jonah had convinced him to go to the cemetery where Aidan’s ashes were buried, and Jarek had reluctantly agreed, if only to appease his brother. He stood looking down at the tiny, flat plaque in the grass, the predictable names and dates carved in block letters. He wasn’t entirely sure what Jonah had wanted him to feel, but he was pretty sure he was supposed to feel
something
. Instead he felt nothing. None of the anger that had consumed him when he thought of his father. None of the resentment. Somehow that angry void in his life had filled itself up with friends he hadn’t wanted, and a girlfriend he wasn’t looking for. A hobby that had turned into genuine passion, and a brother who didn’t give up on him, no matter how tempting he made it. He wasn’t his father. He wasn’t the result of an aptitude test. His faults were his own, but so were whatever positive qualities he happened to possess. The ones Olivia had seen.

Now he sat on the edge of his bed in the room above Jonah’s garage. The bed was draped in a unicorn-patterned comforter, a hand-me-down from his nieces, and the small window was covered with pink blinds. Katrine’s collection of mystery novels—including every Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys book ever written—gathered dust on a shelf lined with paper flowers. He had never stayed in Virginia long enough to warrant getting his own place, but he knew he couldn’t stay here much longer. Jonah had failed to mention he’d joined a band and kept his drum kit in the garage, practicing daily. Katrine was lovely and gracious, but it was hard to look at her without feeling envious. Oh, there had been plenty of times in his life when he’d wished there was a woman around, but he’d never imagined them staying long term. And now he thought about nothing else.

There was a pounding on the door and he jumped. “Did you call yet?” Dale shouted through the wood.

Jarek took a deep breath. The three of them were on the other side, ears undoubtedly pressed to the door, trying to eavesdrop. They’d pleaded with him to let them be in the room while he made the call, but he’d flatly refused. He’d even lied and told them he’d already done it, but they hadn’t believed him. Then he said he was going to do it tomorrow, and they’d looked him over doubtfully and declared him a liar, which he was. He was sick with nerves and had to get this over with. He felt like a fourteen-year-old boy calling the most popular girl in school and asking her on a date. Which, with the exception of their ages, summed things up pretty accurately.

His fingers were cold as he punched in the numbers, praying they were wrong. Or that the phone would ring and ring and she’d never pick up. And she didn’t have voice mail.

“Hello?”

The phone slipped from his hand and bounced on the mattress, landing on a mane of rainbow-colored hair. He cursed under his breath and snatched it up.

“Hello?” she said again. The sound of her voice coursed through him, making his heart pound. The last time he heard it she had been saying good-bye.

“Olivia?” he managed. Now that she’d answered, he didn’t want her to hang up. He also didn’t want to be one of those creepy mouth breathers that called single women when they were home alone. At least he hoped she was alone.

The pause extended so long he thought she might have hung up. Or fainted. But then came a startled, “Jarek?”

“Yeah. Hi.”

A shorter pause. “Hi.”

His muscles turned to liquid and he lay down on the bed. He’d been in some truly terrifying situations over the course of his life. He could count on both hands the number of times he thought he wouldn’t make it out of some scenario alive. But he couldn’t remember ever being this scared. “How are you?” he forced himself to inquire.