Page 133 of The One
A question I couldn’t answer because sayingthe love of my lifeandmy ex-boyfriendin the same sentence was far too much for me to bear.
“I love him, Pen. Every day. He’s all I think about.” I turned the initial around. “My heart wasn’t broken the day you died. It was taken from me. And when I saw Rhett in Bangkok, I heard it beat again for the first time in a long while. And when I saw him at the track of our high school, I watched him hold my heart out to me as if he was returning it.”
My chin tilted up, my neck reclining. “Pen, what am I doing? Why am I holding back?”
Love wasn’t stopping me.
There was more than enough of that.
It was always him—there was no question.
“Have you seen the way he looks at you? Because I have, and I can tell you right now, he’s obsessed with you.”I could hear Pen whispering those words even though she’d said them fifteen years ago.
I could see her in my bedroom at our parents’ house, telling me to put on the dress to impress Rhett at the party.
“You’re forgetting, as your twin, I have the ability to feel everything you’re feeling. When you’re nervous, I know. When you’re happy, I know. When you’re doubting yourself, I’m doubting myself.”
“What am I feeling now, Pen? Like an emotional train wreck?” I let out a small laugh. “That would be an accurate description.”
I watched the way the sunlight hit the diamonds in the letter.
“Do you blame him for what happened?” I clasped my fingers around the necklace while I stared at the ceiling. “Now that I know everything, I don’t. I’m not sure I even did then …” My eyes closed.
My mind returned to the dream, to when she’d said, “Why does it need to be the end?”
God, that had felt real.
“Let’s say I’m rooting for the guy.”
A statement that had surprised me even though she’d adored Rhett. I couldn’t yet process the way she’d acted with him—the flirting, the touching. One day, I would, but right now, I was at capacity.
“Love is what’s missing from your life.”
But that was where she was wrong.
Love wasn’t missing. Love was there. Love had been there. Love had never lightened for even a second.
“You wouldn’t blame him, Pen. I know you wouldn’t.”
So, if she doesn’t blame him and neither do I, why am I not with him?
My eyes opened, and a single tear from each side fell down to the center of my cheeks. I took a deep breath, holding in the air, waiting to see if it made me feel different. If a second pause would change my mind.
But it didn’t.
I reached into my back pocket and took out my phone, pulling up the Camera app. With my other hand, I put the necklace back in the box, and I positioned the phone over it, snapping a picture, the light capturing the diamonds even though it was surrounded by wood.
I tapped my Instagram app and loaded the photo. I didn’t add a filter—the picture didn’t need one—and under the caption, I typed,Unpacking memories.
As I filled my lungs, there was a thumping in my chest.
A feeling.
A realization.
I was getting back what I’d lost, and for the first time in a very long time, the smile wasn’t there because it should be. It was there for him.
I hit Share and posted the photo.
