“No. My dark places, they run too deep. I’ve held onto them too long.”
I tilt my head, considering him. “You’re right that it’s different for you.”
He goes still, his shoulders taut, radiating tension.
I continue, hoping he won’t bite my head off. “I know what it’s like to lose people. My mother walked out on us when I was young. I lost my little sister when she was only fourteen and then my father shortly after that. I thought I found love, but I never had it to begin with. And still, it’s not the same. I know it’s not.”
I still have family. Dysfunctional as they are, they’re mine, and I know they love me. I don’t know all the details of Oliver’s childhood, but I know enough.
“No, it’s not,” he says.
He’s lost everyone he’s ever been close to. There is no one left, and now he can’t be close to anyone.
“You love Emma,” I say.
“That’s different.”
It’s interesting that he doesn’t deny it.
“Why?” I ask.
“She’s easy to love. She loves unconditionally.”
And others don’t. Others can’t be trusted with his heart. Emma would never hurt him other than to smack him around a little.
“But what kind of life is that?” I ask.
Even if I made terrible decisions, even if I acted like an even bigger fool, even if I could never create again, I know I have people I love who will care about me and love me back regardless of my abilities or mistakes. I would take that over my creativity any day.
“What’s the point of living?” I continue.
He glances at me. “Money. Success. Power.”
Right. He hoards it all like a squirrel preparing for winter.
“The things that help us climb to the top are the same things that keep us from enjoying it when we’re there,” I say.
He stares ahead, his jaw clenching.
I won’t let this go. I have to make him see. “You’re missing what’s most important when you’ve been shit on by life—the thing that really matters. Hope.”
He faces me, his mouth twisting with skepticism. “Hope? Hope is for children who still believe in the tooth fairy.”
Anger spikes into me, not necessarily at Oliver but at the people who treated him so poorly that he’s lost all faith in everyone. I shake my head.
“You’re wrong. You wouldn’t have all that money, success, and power without it. Hope isn’t some delicate, weak thing. Hope is the only thing you have left when you’ve been torn into nothing.” My voice rises as the words spill out. “Hope is the thing that gets you out of bed and moving when you’re exhausted and everything is at its darkest. Hope is what keeps you from giving up. It’s being bruised and battered and torn and going on anyway. That’s hope.”
I’m basically yelling at him. He glares at me, his eyes burning, his hands clenched in his lap. I slump back in the seat.
“The gingko tree.” His voice is gentle, subdued, a contrast to my passionate monologue.
“What?” Will I ever stop embarrassing myself in his presence?
“It was seen as a symbol of hope because it survived the bombing of Hiroshima.”
I stare at him in confusion.
“I’m saying you’re right,” he says. “Hope isn’t innocent or naive. Hope survives a nuclear bomb.”
My pulse pounds. Ideas flicker to life inside the part of my mind that’s been cold and dormant for months. My brain feels full, like something is about to be unleashed. The pressure builds, my fingers itching to create. This is it.
I snap back into reality. We’re still driving toward Mindy’s. “Wait. Can we reroute? I don’t want to be dropped off at home. I need to work.”
He nods without missing a beat and rolls down the window to the driver’s seat, telling Brienne to take us back to his building.