She used to murmur all her crazy ideas to him when they got too worked up. They’d kiss until they were mindless, and then he’d slow them down with Tell me where you’d go next, Livvy. She’d lean into him and close her eyes, rattle off exotic locations and the photos she imagined taking, weave the fantasies until they were both presentable enough to get back to class or home or wherever they were supposed to be without revealing what they’d been doing. He used to tell her that nothing killed his hard-on quicker than hearing about her leaving.
The memory tightened her throat, and she set down her drink. “What about you? Are you okay?”
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, weariness there. “Depends on your definition of okay, I guess.”
She cocked her head, the world tilting a bit and revealing that maybe she was a little tipsier than she’d thought. “Meaning?”
He broke eye contact and glanced out at the line of trees on the other side of the creek. He was quiet for a while, pensive, and she found herself focusing on his forearms, on the way the hair dusted over his tanned skin, on the obvious tension in the muscles beneath. He wasn’t nearly as relaxed as he was trying to appear.
She wasn’t sure he was going to answer, but after a few seconds, he bowed his head. “Meaning I’m back in the town
that thinks I’m a hero when I wasn’t, talking to some reporter about stuff I wish I could forget, and standing here with the girl I almost got killed—and I still don’t know what to say to her.”
The words fell like stones between them. Heavy words that would sink in the creek and pull them both under.
She swallowed hard, her everything’s cool bravado faltering. “Finn…”
“No.” He set his drink on the railing and turned fully to her, apparently ready to dive into the murky waters of their past. “I don’t know what to say because nothing will undo it. I know nothing can fix it. But how about I start here?” He met her gaze, anguish there. “I’m sorry, Liv. I’m so. Fucking. Sorry. There hasn’t been a goddamned day that I haven’t thought about what I did to you.”
She closed her eyes. Breathed.
“I know those are just words, but they’re the truth. I was no hero that night. You know it, and I know it. It’s time everyone else did, too. And if you give me the go-ahead, I will call Daniel tomorrow and tell him everything. He can put the truth out in the documentary.”
Liv’s lungs compressed, too many things rolling through her to pinpoint one emotion. She’d imagined this conversation many times before. She’d been so angry and devastated those months following and had thrown all this blame at him in her mind.
No, she hadn’t been killed, but she’d blamed her PTSD squarely on Finn. If he hadn’t left, she’d never have had that gun pointed at her face. That image wouldn’t have haunted her for so many years. That feeling of aloneness, of knowing she was going to die, would’ve never imprinted on her psyche. But the words that spilled out of her weren’t the ones from that script. “You can’t tell.”
His brows bunched. “What?”
“That’s not what I want. You were a hero.” She reached out and touched the spot in his left shoulder where he’d been shot. “You took a bullet for Rebecca. You earned that title.”
He put his hand over hers, flattening her palm against him. His heart pounded beneath her fingers, hard and strong. “And I led Joseph right to you.”
“And it is what it is,” she said, moving her hand away and looking down. “You think some sort of public declaration or apology is going to make anything better?”
“I—”
“That’s not what I want at all.” She took a deep breath, trying to rein in her emotions and focus through the fuzz of alcohol. “You know what that would set off in the press? It’s going to be bad enough when the documentary comes out and stirs up interest again. If new information comes to light, they’ll be all over us again. How do you feel, Ms. Arias? What were you two doing in the closet? What do you think of him choosing to save his date instead of you? Did you two have some sort of sexual relationship? I can’t deal with that.” She shook her head, haunted at the thought. “It won’t change what happened. Nothing changes what happened. It’s like a rerun we’re forced to live over and over again.”
“Liv—”
“I’m serious.” She pressed her lips together, searching for the right words. “I’m tired of being Olivia Arias, the Long Acre survivor, the girl in the closet, the goth Latina, or whatever gem they’d choose to call me this time around—which would probably be something horrible like the slutty chick who was making out with someone else’s date.” Anger flashed through her, remembering all the crap that had made it through the media, all the misinformation. “I’m done. Everyone else gets to decide who we are. They get to name us, label the boxes. The Girl in the Closet. The Jock Hero. The Wounded Valedictorian. It’s why no one in my life outside of my family knows who I really am. I got so tired of all the bullshit. I’m not a character in some bad thriller novel or inspirational story.”
“Of course not.”
“And neither are you. You were a hero for Rebecca. You also left me behind that night, which hurt. But you were a seventeen-year-old kid who was scared shitless and reacted. And before that, we were totally different things, but we’re stuck with how they branded us. Everything that we were before that night got erased.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Gone. Just like that.”
“Not everything, Liv,” he said softly, lifting his hand like he was going to reach for her but then lowering it to his side again. “They can’t take everything.”
“You know, I’m not so sure.” She pointed toward the door to the restaurant. “Tonight, I had to sit at that table and listen to what my teenage self wanted. That girl you remember? She knew who she wanted to be. And all it did was remind me that those sick assholes stole not just my friends’ lives but the could be’s from us. We’ll never get to find out who we would’ve been otherwise. Before we were aftermath.”
“Aftermath.” He rubbed the spot between his eyes, shadows crossing his face. “That’s exactly what it feels like sometimes.”
She tipped her head back and sighed, her frustration on a roll now. She always got ranty or reckless when she was drunk. Those margaritas had been a bad idea. But she couldn’t staunch the words now that they were flowing. “And I hate that I’m out here with you and have to dredge this stuff up again. Other people have reunions where they drink punch and play retro music, do stupid line dances, and talk about when they were two sizes skinnier.” She looked at him. “We have ones where we have to discuss our friends dying, how we let each other down, and our failed dreams.
“And if we did drink punch and play music for some get-together, people would look at us like How could they?” She was talking too loud now but didn’t care. “If I’d rather just sit down with you and remember the good times, who we were before, there must be something wrong with me. We’re supposed to move on, but not too much. Be happy but not too happy. I’m tired, Finn. I’m so sick of it being like this. I thought I was past it, but then I come here and…I don’t know. It’s like it’s all just sitting there, waiting to remind me how we can never really escape it. How the ones who got away never really get away. Those sick bastards changed us—have their fingerprints all over our lives—and it pisses me the hell off. I don’t… I can’t… I don’t know.”
All her words fell into a jumble and her fist balled, ready to punch something that wasn’t there. But she didn’t have anything left.