Page 121 of A World Without You
TWENTY-EIGHT
DREAM 11
Christmas Eve
Five years ago
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IEXPECT TO WAKE THEnext morning on a flight to Europe. I hope for sad goodbyes with Colin and hopeful hellos with Bennett on the other side of the ocean.
Instead, I wake up in my lodge room in Roslyn...five years ago, watching myself have a conversation on the phone with shorter hair and a bad attitude.
I glance at the window outside. The sun is setting over the tree line, so I know it’s before five o’clock.
“I can’t come tonight!” Colin says loud enough through the phone I hear it from my invisible corner in the room.
I look at myself. This version I once was. Her eyes are swollen, her brow is twisted, and there’s a helplessness in her expression. I know she wants to plead with him to come get her. She wants to say exactly what she wants, but she also wants him to know without her having to say. She wants him to know what to do and how to love her, and I know the next few minutes will determine that. Because if he wants to, he will. If he doesn’t, he won’t. And this girl. This version of love she’s known her entire adult life will evaporate, and she’s going to choose the next thing, even if it’s not the right thing.
I try to reconcile his tone with this moment and with what I know can happen. In one life, he comes. In another, he doesn’t...and oh, how quickly I was to walk away.
“Can’t or won’t?” this version of me asks, voice calm and low.
“What do you mean?”
“Colin, I love you. I’m always going to love you. I just need to know what you want right now. Do you want to see me?”
“Of course!”
“And will you be able to come get me?”
The pause lengthens until I can sense his hesitation and anger over the line. My eyes painfully and frantically scan her face.
“It’s just Christmas,” he says finally. “It comes every year.”
I visibly watch my past self deflate in front of me. Her chest caves in, her chin trembles, and the embarrassing tears she tries to blink away in an empty room fill her eyes.
This is love when it runs out, I whisper, realizing she can’t hear me.
I sense the fury building in her, and I know she wants to say,fuck you, there’s someone who loves me here!
She doesn’t. Instead, she says softly, “Colin.” No temper. No resentment. “It’s now or never.”
“That’s bullshit, and it’s unfair. You’re two fucking hours away.” He doesn’t let up.
“Exactly! It’s only two hours!” she screams, the veins on her neck bulging.
Colin huffs on the other end of the line but is otherwise silent.
“I’m not going to beg you to love me,” she says. “I’m not going to beg you to show up when I need you. I want you to love me even if it’s inconvenient for you.”
“Olivia, you’re being unreasonable.”
“Life is unreasonable. Not me,” she whispers back. “If you don’t come, then...then...”
“Then what?” he challenges.
