“Olivia,” Nick said, careful to use this name, passing it out as another anchor for me to grab. “There’s no version of you I don’t want to know.”

He wanted this to mean everything to me, but he forgot the five years he didn’t know me. The me before him was pasted together from all the mistakes I made in the time between, and the haphazard glue job was falling apart. The skin I’d shed when he showed up was the only layer of protection I had.

“Here’s what I know,” he said. “You’re the person I always want to talk to. Whenever anything happens, I’m always wishing I could tell you. I can’t count how many times I’ve wanted to walk over to your house and start a conversation. I used to imagine myself doing it. I’d talk to the you in my mind until I fell asleep. It was never enough. But I was too scared to do anything else. Then you were right in front of me at the memorial, and I started walking over to you. I was trying to psyche myself up by imagining a million greetings. Literally trying to imagine the moment into existence. I couldn’t do it. I got too scared of all that would go wrong. I was gonna walk by you and hold on to the split second of time we shared. I figured it would have to be enough. I didn’t deserve anything more. Then you said hi to me.”

He wanted me to really hear this part, so he moved his hands down to my forearms, hoping the different touch further pulled me out. Or in. Wherever it was I was, he wanted me to be saved from it.

“You’ve always been the brave one, Olivia. You were the one who said we shouldn’t play with the gun in the first place. You were the one who went and got help. At the memorial, you gave me that single word. Hi. You didn’t owe me that and you gave it anyway. There’s nothing you can do now that’ll erase that. I will make the choice to stand beside you, over and over, for as long as you let me.”

When he let himself, there was a way Nick Cline smiled at casual acquaintances. He did it like they were family. He smiled at family like they were the world. That night, he smiled at me like the world wasn’t big enough.

All I could do was say his name.

Why was it that my sister thought I shouldn’t have him around?

Yes, this was the Nick that left me. This was the Nick that pointed a gun at Marley and fired. I knew these things. I lived them.

I also knew forgiveness. And I knew change. He had hurt me. I had hurt him. We were hurt. We were fractures and splinters and gaps of time so long they rotted and replanted, over and over. And still, I hoped we had a chance. Hope worked like that. If it was odds I needed to beat, then I would beat them, betting my hope against the house, always.