Page 85 of The Heartbreakers
“Yes, okay,” she said, nodding her head.
There were still tears running down her cheeks, but these were different. Maybe not tears of joy, but they were happy nonetheless.
• • •
Everything was black. It surrounded me like a blanket of cement, and the weight was too heavy for me to move. Before panic could sink in, a dot of red appeared in front of my eyes. As it grew, the weight lifted from my chest and my arms and legs began to tingle. Moving was like trying to swim through syrup, but I kept my gaze focused on the dot and pushed myself forward.
Then I opened my eyes.
I was in a hospital room. It was a replica of the one Cara always stayed in, only this time I was the patient. My surgery had taken place early in the afternoon, and judging by the dimness outside my window, it was almost nighttime. The room’s only source of light was a small lamp on my bedside table. Its glow struggled to reach the entire room, casting long shadows that disappeared into the gloomy corners.
At first, I thought I was alone, but then I spottedhimin the armchair next to my bed. His long legs were sprawled out in front of him, and his head lolled to the side as he slept. He looked uncomfortable, and the circles under his eyes suggested that this was the only sleep he’d received in quite some time.
Whattheheckishedoinghere?
“Oliver?” I called out softly. He stirred in the chair momentarily, but then continued to snore. “Oliver!” I said again, this time louder.
He woke with a start. “Huh—wha?” he mumbled, his voice still filled with sleep. When he saw me awake in bed, the effect was immediate. He scrambled out of the chair. “Stella! You’re awake!”
I nodded as I pushed myself up. “What are you doing here?” I said and winced. My hips and entire backside ached like I’d fallen down a flight of stairs and landed on my tailbone. “Where’s my family?”
“They’re down in the cafeteria eating dinner.”
“Okay?” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for him to answer my first question.
Oliver moved into the light, and that’s when I noticed his wrinkled clothes and limp hair. “I know I’m probably the last person you want to see right now,” he said and shuffled a bit closer, “but I had to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” I said, holding up a hand to ward him off. I didn’t want him to get any closer, because even in his unkempt state, Oliver was achingly handsome. Just looking at him made me want to reach out and touch him, to feel him and have him hold me. But seeing him also reminded me of what he’d done, and my heart and stomach both became painfully tight.
Oliver pressed a fist to his lips and took a step back. He stood there momentarily, his chest heaving, but then he dropped his hand and sighed. “I came to explain, you know, why I did what I did.” I opened my mouth to argue—he already wasted his chance to explain—but he cut me off. “You don’t have to say anything. Please, I just need you to listen.”
I pinched my bottom lip, not sure what to say. Stuck in my hospital bed, I felt unable to escape what Oliver was going to say, whether I wanted to hear him out or not. At the same time, if he’d flown all this way to see me, would it really hurt to listen? Maybe it was best if he said his piece and left, because then we could both get on with our lives. After a few more moments of silent debate, I gave him a hesitant nod.
“Okay,” he said, swallowing and nodding. “I don’t really know where to begin, so I guess I’ll start with my family.”
My head snapped up as I sucked in a sharp breath. Iknewthere was something going on with his family. I watched him intently, waiting to hear what he would say, and it took Oliver a few minutes to work up the courage to continue.
“I never knew my parents,” he said eventually, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from gasping. “My mom died giving birth to me, and she never told my grandparents who my father was. They were the ones who raised me, so it never occurred to me that they weren’t my parents until my grandpa died when I was six. I mean, I called them Gramps and Nanny, but I never paid attention to the fact that they were older than all the other kids’ parents. It was just the way things had always been.
“After his funeral, Nanny sat me down and explained what had happened to my real mom. To be completely honest, I was more upset about losing my grandpa than someone I never knew, so my grandma gave me this to remember him by.” Oliver fingered the chain around his neck and lifted the dog tag out from underneath his shirt. “He was a veteran from the Vietnam War.”
“Oh, Oliver.” I was going to tell him how sorry I was, but then I remembered the silver music note he’d given me, and something occurred to me. “Your mom’s charm bracelet?”
“Besides a few pictures,” he said, barely meeting my gaze, “that’s all I have of her.”
I was quiet as I processed this, but then another horrible thought came to mind. “What about your grandma?”
My question made Oliver go quiet, and he stood unmoving for an unbearably long time. “She passed away when I was twelve,” he said eventually, his tone bleak. “Some kind of heart complication.”
From his initial reaction, I’d had a bad feeling about what he would say, but I was still unable to contain my gasp. “Oliver, I’m so sorry.”
He shrugged. “That’s life. She lived a good one,” he said. “After she died, I was sent to live with her brother, my great-uncle Steven.”
I could tell by the way he said the name that Oliver didn’t have the same fondness for his uncle as he did for his grandparents. “The one who taught you about constellations?”
“Yeah, that was about the only cool thing we ever did together. My uncle’s a historian, so he spends more time reading books than anything else. Didn’t really have time for a kid.”
“That’s horrible.” I never imagined Oliver’s story would be so…tragic.
