Page 96 of Tilly in Technicolor
My smile is nothing but sadness. “This summer was perfect. And we’ll leave it just like that. Preserve that perfect little world and not set ourselves up for hurting in the real one.”
Oliver’s face falls slowly—so slowly—and I watch every line form.
“Are we… Are we breaking up?” he whispers. I watch his throat move as he swallows.
Two more tears slip out from the corners of my eyes. I brush them away. “I think so.”
Oliver’s silence is, once again, devastating.
Eventually, he nods. “Oh,” he says, eyes fixed on my shoulder.
We stand there, neither willing to move, neither willing to step out of this last moment of us being together. Pop our happy bubble forever.
Oliver reaches toward me like he’s going to brush his hand against my cheek—across my freckles. But I never get to feel the warmth of his skin. Not even this one last time. He leaves his touch hovering between us.
Then he turns.
And walks away.
Chapter 41Shouldn’t It Be Enough?
OLIVER
Numbness is an odd sensation. I know, technically, it means to be devoid of feeling, but—while I’m not exactly an expert on the subject—I think emotional numbness is different. It’s heavy. It’s hollow. It’s a dull ache. A delicate pain.
It’s something that fills you so thoroughly, it’s not that you don’t feel anything, it’s just that you don’t feel anything good.
I walk out of the cottage and down the beach, my limbs stiff and clumsy as I move. I don’t know how long I walk, but, eventually, the sun sets, and I turn, stumbling across the sand in the dark until I’m at the back door of the cottage, contemplating how to sneak in so no one sees me. So no one talks to me. I don’t have the capacity for words right now.
I’m lucky—I guess—that, when I quietly let myself in, no one seems to be home. I climb the stairs, aimlessly searching for somewhere to land. Somewhere I can actually think.
There’s light coming out through the crack under the door of the room Tilly and I share. I don’t dare go in there. Everyone else is already filling up the other two small rooms on thesecond floor, and the only place I’ll find peace, find solitude, is the small bed in the converted attic.
I pull down the ladder from the ceiling and climb the stairs as quietly as possible, trying not to recoil at the musty, hot air up here. There’s a bed and sheets and pillows. That’s all I really need.
I’m okay,I tell myself, burrowing under the duvet and rubbing a fist against my shattered chest, waiting for the pain to go away. I have my family. I have my friends. I have school starting soon and colors and my camera.
That’s more than enough.
But all I really want is Tilly.
“Oh my God,thereyou are.”
I’m jolted awake, yet again, by Cubby.
I would love—trulylove—for my sister to stop interrupting my sleep. Next family counseling meeting, I’m bringing it up with Dr. Shakil.
I turn, squinting one eye open to see Cubby, Marcus, and Micah circled around my bed. I groan.
“Go away, please,” I say, dragging a pillow over my head.
Cubby snatches it from me, then hits me in the face with it. “You gave us all a heart attack, Ollie. You and Tilly both. You’ve been missing for hours!”
I glance at my watch.
“Cubby, it’s three in the morning,” I say, staring at her incredulously. “The most I was missing was a few hours at dinner. Also, why are you all even up?”
The three of them blink at me, eyes a bit glassy.
