“I was ashamed,” Nolan looked down at the table. “I was ashamed that I almost left you. I was ashamed that a stranger saw the part of me you were supposed to see. And the longer I kept it, the worse telling you became.”
“You don’t get to decide what would break me. You don’t get to carry that for both of us and call it kindness.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know, Nolan. You have no idea what it was like in this house thinking I had failed you, thinking you stopped loving me because I couldn’t stop crying.”
His face crumpled. “Olivia, I never stopped. Not for one second.”
“Then why didn’t you let me in?”
“Because you were already drowning,” he whispered. “And I thought if I reached for you, I would pull you under.”
I looked at him and asked, “Where’s the second bracelet?”
Nolan opened his briefcase, removed another velvet box, and placed it on the table.
Inside was the same bracelet.
I lifted it carefully, and this time I understood it had never been meant as romance. It had been meant as gratitude. As farewell. As something sacred.
My hand trembled so badly the bracelet rattled inside.
“Where does she live?”
“What?”
“Marta. Where does she live?”
“Olivia, please.”
