“Why haven’t you returned my calls or texts?” I ask, and I can’t help the tinge of anger in my voice.

She doesn’t answer me, and the silence is deafening. My anger surges, builds hot, and fans into fury. “For fuck’s sake, Olivia. What the hell is going on with you? Everything seemed perfect, then you just drop off the radar.”

“I know,” she says in a quavering voice.

“What is it?” I prompt her, thankful she at least is talking. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she gushes into the phone. “No, of course not. You do everything right. I just…I just…”

Her voice trails off, leaving me hanging in frustration.

“You just what?” I ask, keeping my voice level…my tone patient.

For Christ’s sake, just tell me, I scream on the inside.

Olivia takes a deep breath and lets it out on a soft whisper of sadness. “I overheard you talking to Stevie.”

My brain starts spinning…trying to remember every conversation I’ve had with Stevie and if something was said that would piss her off. I come up empty.

“Overheard what?” I prompt.

“That day we saw Dr. Yoffman…I came back from doing the deliveries and you and Stevie were talking at Fleurish.”

“Okay,” I drawl, because I don’t think we talked about anything that would make her angry.

“I heard you tell him how devastated you’d be if I died. How awful it was for you to watch Zack and what he’s going through.”

“That’s right,” I acknowledge, because again, I’m not sure why this would cause her to withdraw from me. I would be devastated, but surely that’s not national news to her.

“I can’t be responsible for that,” Olivia says, her voice sounding brittle, yet the weight of her words slams into me hard.

“Responsible?” I ask, dumbfounded. “What do you mean by that?”

Again, silence, but I know Olivia is gathering her thoughts, so I patiently wait for her. When she finally speaks, there is such finality to her tone my stomach bottoms out. “I’m a bad risk for you, Garrett. There is too much unknown, and you deserve to have someone in your life who is whole. Someone you can be assured will be by your side forever. It was selfish of me to even get involved with you, and by refusing to cut you loose…getting in deeper with you…that just made me even more selfish.”

“I don’t understand,” I croak, because fuck if any of this makes sense.

“It’s really simple,” she says. “I love you, Garrett. So much. But I figure the pain of a breakup is going to be far easier for you to overcome than the pain of potentially watching me die one day. Trust me, it’s better this way.”

Chapter 28

Olivia

My nerves are shredded and my heart is battered. I’ve been home for three days now and I don’t really know which way is up. I guess it depends on the time of day.

I want to see Garrett.

I don’t want to see Garrett.

I need him.

I don’t want to need him.

I love him.

I’m so selfish.

I’m miserable and lonely.

I wonder if Garrett is miserable and lonely.

These thoughts, and many more, keep rambling through my head. Making it impossible to sleep. Concentrate. Be happy.

It’s been almost two weeks since I last saw Garrett…at the airport when he hugged and kissed me goodbye. Telling me that he loved me, and I could only tell him I’d miss him.

Because I was breaking things off with him.

For his benefit, of course.

Keep telling yourself that, Olivia, my conscience sneers at me. Maybe one day it will make you feel better to believe that.

These past few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotion for me. My bitter plan to cut Garrett out of my life worked…sort of. I thought the phone conversation we had went as well as could be expected. Even though my heart felt like shattered glass, I held my resolve and broke things cleanly. Garrett tried vainly to get me to reconsider and he raged at me for a while, but nothing he said weakened me.

Hurt me, yes. But I didn’t falter.

I expected when the call was disconnected that Garrett was out of my life for good. The only thing left to do was try to heal our wounds and move forward with our lives…separately and unselfishly.

But he apparently had other plans.

Every day I got an email from him. He never mentioned our “breakup” and never once tried to talk me into giving us another chance. He was strangely quiet on that, but was quite chatty about everything else. His emails were long-winded, filled with newsy information and chatty gossip.

Garrett filled me in on what happened at his practices, and gave me replays of the games. He told me about hanging out with Alex and Sutton, and that on his off days whenever he was back in Raleigh, he’d taken to hanging out with Stevie, although he drew the line at going to one of Stevie’s drag shows. He told me about visiting Zack, and that he seemed to be coming out of his grief a bit and his wrist was healing nicely. Garrett told me everything about his life so I wouldn’t miss a single thing I had left behind.

Lines and lines of information, all designed to keep me firmly rooted in his life. He signed off on each email with four words…I love you, Garrett.

He never asked me to write him back. He didn’t ask me to call.

At first, the emails hurt. I tried for all of ten seconds to ignore the first one, but then my heart demanded to be soothed. So I read it, and it was like pulling a Band-Aid off a scaly scab, ripping it open and causing more blood to weep.