Page 68 of Not Made to Last

Not yet.

“Everything, Olivia.”

I empty my lungs, struggle to fill them again. A sob clogs my airways, making it almost impossible to ask, “Does he know who I am?”

“Yes, but?—”

I hang up, not needing to know the rest, and immediately call Rhys. I can barely make out the sound of the phone ringing through my pulse pounding in my ears, through the blood pumping in my veins, through my harsh breaths clawing at my throat with every inhale, every exhale. The call goes to voicemail, so I hang up, throw my phone on the bed. The drawer of my side table falls out completely with my urgency to open it. I grab the phone that was given to me almost three years ago and open the only contact in there—Not Fridge Guy—and for the first time ever, I hitcall. It’s the same number I’d just dialed, and I get the same outcome: voicemail.

Thick, heated tears well in my eyes, overflow to my cheeks and soak into my flesh.

I can barely see.

Barely breathe.

Barely steady my hands long enough to type out a text.

Please talk to me, Rhys. At least give me a chance to explain.

I drop that phone on my pillow and grab my other one.

My real one.

MyRhysone.

And I type out another text. Same meaning. Different words. Words he used on me less than twenty-four hours ago.

I need you.

37

Olivia

Three years earlier

“I need you to be good for me, okay?” I tell Max, helping him out of his rain-soaked jacket just inside the doors of Cup of Cake. I ignore the way my body aches from carrying him for the past thirty minutes and drop to his level. Eye to eye, I explain, “I’m just going to talk to a lady about getting a job here, and as soon as we’re done, we can go back home, get you nice and warm again.”

He nods but doesn’t speak. Not that I can blame him. I’m practically a stranger to the kid.

My grandparents had gotten the call about him two weeks into summer break. A week from moving their entire lives so Dom could play basketball at a school that guaranteed him a scholarship to a Division I college. They changed whatever plans they needed to fit Max into their new lives, and I stayed in Wilmington, preparing for the rest of mine.

I don’tknowMax. Not really. While he and Dom had the entire summer to create a bond, I was thrown into the deep end without a single clue on how to float. I wasn’t even given a life jacket. And now, I’m supposed to be responsible for him?

I’ve just turned sixteen. Dom’s fourteen. Max is three.

We’re babies raising babies, and it doesn’t matter how much that thought terrifies me, there isn’t a choice. At least, I was never given one.

There’s a puddle on the tiled floor beneath us now, created by us alone, and I grimace, look around the small cake shop. Besides the one girl behind the counter, restocking the tubs of smashed-up cakes, there’s a lone woman in a corner booth, sipping a coffee. Neither of them is watching us, and I’m grateful for that.

I stand, patting down my wet hair, attempting to look somewhat put together. A delusional desire considering I’ve literally just waded through a storm without an umbrella.

With a muted sigh, I take Max’s hand and step up to the counter. I wait for the girl in the light pink apron to look up at me, smile. I smile back. Or at least I try to. “I have a job interview…” I tell her, my voice as weak as the organ beating beneath my chest. “I’m a little late, so…”

The girl, who can’t be over twenty, points behind me to the woman sitting in the booth, waving me over. I guess I was so flustered when I first noticed her that I didn’t really take her in. Middle-aged, sandy-blond hair cut just above her shoulders and styled in a way that screamscomposed. In other words: the complete opposite of me. I almost slip on my wet shoes as I lead Max over to her, holding his dripping wet coat to my chest. I help him into the booth first, then slide in after him. And then I just stare at the table, picking at a worn spot, while my stomach turns, my heart so heavy I can’t even tell if it’s still beating—if theweight of my grief and the pressure to do the right thing hasn’t already crushed it to death.

“It’s Olivia, right?” the woman says, and I give her the courtesy of meeting her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.”

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