Two Years Later

Yet, the moment couldn't last forever. We separated eventually as we came back to ourselves. Olivia was once again dead weight on my chest, only this time she gently began snoring. She'd either passed out or instantly fallen asleep, call it whatever you wanted. I wasn't far behind her.

**********

I woke up to find Olivia sleeping next to me. She was still snoring gently and her mass of strawberry blond hair was tangled. She looked adorable. I smiled down at her as I sat up, convinced that this was what Heaven would feel like. Of course, the feeling didn't last. Reality ruined it.

I remembered that Olivia had made it clear upon visiting that she was going to marry her doctor. I wanted to think that what we shared the night before had changed all that, but I was done hoping for the crazy and impossible.

I was just a guy who graduated college a few days ago. I didn't even have a job yet. She was a woman six years older than me who had a fiancé and a career in medicine. Sure, we had chemistry, but there was more to a life together than that. Wasn't there?

Okay, so we had a lot in common despite our differences. We'd talked enough in the past to know that. Our family lives were surprisingly similar and we wanted many of the same things out of life, or at least we did back then. Could she have changed that much since?

"Well, she is here asleep in your bed," I sighed to myself as I shook my head and stood. "That's different." Frankly, the more I thought about it the more it shook me. I couldn't picture the Olivia I remembered planning to marry one guy and sleeping with another. It just didn't fit the picture of her I had in my head, which meant the picture wasn't real. Damn.

I grabbed my knapsack, went to the bathroom and took another quick shower. The hot water felt good, but it didn't help with the thoughts bouncing around in my head. I pulled out my toothbrush and my last set of clean clothes when I was done. I use the former and put on the latter before stuffing the toothbrush back in my knapsack along with my dirty clothes. I left the bathroom just as confused as I was when I went in.

That's when I saw it. Olivia had placed her engagement ring on the small end table next to the phone the night before. Seeing it somehow helped clear my head. I turned toward the bed and smiled sadly at the sight of Olivia still sleeping there. It was a sight I would remember forever.

I didn't want to ruin the memory of what we shared the night before by waking her, but I couldn't just disappear either. I walked to the desk avoiding looking at the engagement ring on the end table only a few feet away. I found a pen and pad and sat. I had no idea what I was going to write, but the moment I put pen to the pad the words came.

The note was brief, but said what it needed to say...what I needed to say. I told her I loved her and always would, but that I understood she didn't feel the same. I wished her the best and said goodbye. What more could I say?

I stood and left the note on the end table on the opposite side from the ring. The piece of paper looked sad in comparison. So be it.

I couldn't stop myself from taking one last look at Olivia before I went. I paused by the door and fought back the emotions that suddenly sprung to the forefront. A part of me wanted to rush to the bed, wake Olivia up and announce my undying love for her, but that would never do. Hell, for all intents and purposed I'd already done that the night before.

I opened the door as quietly as I could. It was still pretty noisy, but Olivia was a deep sleeper. I went to the lobby and paid for the room with the bulk of the cash I had remaining and told them not to bother the person inside until normal checkout time. I had just enough left to pay for the cab to the depot and the bus trip home.

I checked the bus schedule on my cell phone during the cab ride and frowned. It was a still pretty early, but I had a long way to go before I was home. The next bus was scheduled to leave in a half an hour and I was relieved to see that it would get me home in time for the family dinner I promised my parents I wouldn't miss, not that I was looking forward to it. Frankly, I was well on my way to a deep depression and I knew it, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.

The trip home was a couple of hours longer than the trip there since my college was closer than home. I tried not to dwell on Olivia, but failed for most of the trip. At one point I was able to sleep for a few hours, but it didn't last.

I had to switch buses and when we stopped I used the facilities, but didn't buy any food. I was too broke at the moment. I had my bank card on me, but I'd pretty much tapped the account dry before coming here. That would quickly be resolved once I got home. I had plenty of money in my savings account. It just wasn't in the same bank. Thankfully, pop did well enough and insisted on paying for my college so I had most of what I earned over the years. My siblings like to tease me about it.

Thoughts of my family made me smile despite everything. I didn't have a job yet, but that was more by choice than anything else. My father wanted me to go out and find work in some big company for the experience and I planned on doing that eventually, but I talked to my brother frequently enough to know that the family business could use me. It was growing too fast for pop and Lenny to handle by themselves. They needed someone to step in and handle the office and the finances. That meshed well with my skillset.

The trick was going to be to get dad to hire me. He could be stubborn at times. That's why I hadn't bothered looking for a job. I figured he'd have to hire me if I was unemployed, or at least I hoped. You never knew with pop.

Thoughts of Olivia continued to pop into my head and I knew I'd have to try and deal with them eventually, but it was too soon. The wound was too raw. The hard part was going to be hiding how upset I was from my family. I was pretty sure I'd fail, but I had to try.

I got off the bus tired, depressed and in desperate need of a shower and some food, not necessarily in that order. My oldest sister Maggie was waiting for me in response to a message I left on her cell. She grinned when she saw my state.

"Don't you just love traveling by bus?" she grinned.

"It's really not worth it," I sighed, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Hey, it was your choice," she laughed. "You could have taken a plane. It's not like you don't have the money saved up. I think you still have the first dollar pop paid you when you were twelve and started working for him."

"I couldn't pass up the student discount that the bus line offered," I said, laughing in embarrassment. "This is the first and last time I'll ever get to use it." That's when I noticed that I was rubbing the bump on my nose once again and felt a sharp pain as I remembered. I stopped laughing instantly.

"What's wrong?" Maggie asked as we moved toward her car. Maggie was medium sized with long dark hair. She had two adorable boys and an ex-husband who disappeared one day with some bullshit reason about getting married too young. She worked at the family business so thankfully, money wasn't an issue. Frankly, her joining the company was at least half of the reason for its growth. The girl was a natural born sales and marketing guru.

"Nothing," I replied, moving my hand to my side. "I'm just exhausted. It was a long trip."

"Speaking of which," she said she got in her car. I opened the back door and dumped my knapsack before getting in the passenger side. "Are you finally going to tell us where you went?"

"Probably not," I admitted. "At least not right now." Maggie looked ready to argue, but she didn't say anything at first. Instead, she just looked at me carefully and then sighed.

"Obviously, it had to do with a girl," she said as she pulled away from the curb. "And whatever it was, it didn't go well."

"Drop it," I half insisted and half begged. Maggie was too damn good at reading people. It was one of the reasons why she was so good at her job.

"For now," she finally agreed. "But you need to talk to someone and I'm here."

"There's not much to say," I replied evasively.

"If you say so," my sister replied, clearly not believing me.

The bus depot was about twenty minutes from home. Maggie tried to start a conversation once or twice in the first few minutes, but I was too distracted with thoughts of Olivia to hold up my end. We fell silent for about ten minutes, my sister occasionally glancing my way in concern.

"You're right, there was a girl and it didn't go well," I finally admitted into the silence. That's all I planned on saying, but when Maggie didn't comment I found myself slowly beginning to tell her what happened.

I told her about how Olivia and met back in college. I told her of our conversations and what happened when I finally asked her out. I explained how I decided to look her up now over two years later. I described our conversations at the hospital and in the hotel room later in detail. It wasn't hard as I'd been replaying both in my head over and over again all day. I even told my sister what happened in the hotel room and how I left in the morning. I guess she was right. I really did need to talk to someone.

"The sex was that good?" my sister asked in my family's blunt way when I was done. I hadn't gotten into specifics, but I guess she could tell from the way I was talking.

"You have no idea," I sighed. "She made a joke when I first told her I cared for her. She said that she should have slept with me back in college so that I would have moved on."

"Really?" my sister asked in surprise. "How did you react?"

"I denied it. What else was I supposed to do?" I asked in frustration.

"So, is that why she slept with you last night?"

"I actually asked her that in the middle of it all," I answered, looking down at my hands. "She started to deny it, but then joked about it instead. Frankly, I'm not sure."

"Well, that's quite a story," Maggie said with a thoughtful expression. We drove in silence briefly as she absorbed what I said. I waited. I knew she'd have an opinion and not be shy about voicing it. That pretty much described everyone in my immediate family.

The quiet lasted only two lights. At that point, my oldest sister, whose opinion I valued highly, let me know what she was thinking. It was quite a shock. "I want to be mad at this Olivia and I guess I am because she hurt you, but you were a complete ass for dropping all that on her out of the blue. What the hell were you thinking?"

"What?" I nearly stuttered.

"Let's look at it from her viewpoint," my sister continued. "She's chief resident at a major hospital. Her life is doubtlessly just starting to settle down after years of school and stressing over grades and probably money. She found someone with the same career who cares enough for her to ask her to marry him. She cares enough for him to say yes. In short, her life is moving along nicely when suddenly a guy she hasn't seen in over two years shows up out of the blue and tells her he loves her. Are you serious?"

"If she loved me it wouldn't have matter," I shrugged.

"Little brother, you're one of the brightest guys I know, but sometimes you can be a complete dunce." Maggie wasn't the type to pull punches and I typically liked that about her, but this time she was being unfair. I tried to tell her that, but she cut me off. "If she didn't have feelings for you then it wouldn't have mattered. She would have blown you off and that would have been the end of it."

"But not only didn't she blow you off, but instead she actually spent the time and effort to track you down at the hotel," my sister continued. "That means she cares."

"Or maybe she just wanted one last fling," I threw out. My sister actually looked at me in disgust.

"I don't even know this girl, but frankly, right at this moment you don't deserve her," she retorted, making a turn a little too sharply.

"You're right, you don't know her!" I snapped. "How do you know I'm not right?"

"The answer to that question is easy," Maggie said offhandedly as her eyes scanned the road. "Because I know you. There's no way you would fall for a girl like that as hard as you've clearly fallen for this Olivia."

"The whole thing is crazy," I sighed, my anger disappearing. "People change."

"Not usually that much," my sister argued.

"Maggie, she walked into my hotel room and wearing an impressive rock on her finger. The first thing she made sure I understood was that she was going to marry the doctor," I explained. "She said it more than once."

"As if maybe she was trying to convince herself?" my sister asked pointedly.

"I don't think so," I said, but the possibility was there. In fact, I remembered thinking exactly that for a moment when she first made her intentions clear.

"Wait, are you saying she slept with you while wearing an engagement ring from another man?" my sister asked as if it mattered. She was frowning.

"No, she took it off before that." My answer smoothed the creases on my sister's forehead for some reason. She thought for a moment before asking her next question.

"Did you do or say anything that might have changed her mind about marrying the doctor between when she arrived and when you two slept together?" We were in mom and dad's neighborhood now. We'd been home in a few more minutes.

"No," I said confidently.

"Nothing at all?" my sister prompted. I thought for a moment and then shrugged.

"Well, that was when I told her that I loved her," I admitted. "But it didn't mean anything to her." Maggie jammed on the breaks so hard that the car jerked to a stop in the middle of the street. She looked at me like I was from a different planet. She hadn't been going that fast and the car behind her had plenty of room to stop, but he beeped his horn at my sister's antics and whipped around us on the wrong side of the street. My sister ignored his crude gesture and remained focused on me.

"Let me get this straight," she finally said. "You told a girl you loved her and she proceeded to take off her engagement ring and sleep with you, and then fall asleep next to you for the entire night and you think what you said had nothing to do with it?"

"It wasn't like that," I said, but Maggie didn't bother replying. She just took her foot off the brake and let the car move forward again.

The last few minutes of the trip went in a blur. I sat there replaying everything that happened with Olivia through my head over and over again. Could Maggie be right? I still wasn't sure by the time we reached our parents' house, but the one thing I did know was that if my sister was right, then I'd made a terrible mistake by leaving that hotel room without talking to Olivia.

My parents' street was extremely busy which was odd. I almost didn't notice, but as my sister pulled into the driveway I recognized one of the cars in front of a neighbor's house.

"That isn't Uncle Freddy's car is it?" I groaned, turning to my sister and adding, "Please tell me mom and dad aren't throwing me a surprise graduation party."

"Well, you are the first college graduate in the family," Maggie shrugged. "I got knocked up before I finished my first year of school and Lenny went to work with dad right out of high school. Arlene joined a band and moved to Seattle to try and make it big. Mom and Dad are just excited one of us finally graduated."

"Jesus Christ," I sighed. "I am so not in the mood for this." I reached for the door handle, but Maggie stopped me.

"Neil, you really screwed things up with this Olivia girl," she said, looking at me in a way that let me know she was serious. "The only thing worse than blind siding her with your visit after all that time was chickening out and bailing on her before she woke up. It's your life, but my opinion is that you need to find that girl and talk to her. You need to find out one way or the other what she feels."

"She told me how she felt," I replied, unable to forget how I hurt I was when she made it clear she was marrying the doctor.

"Men!" my sister snapped and then took a deep breath and let it out before adding, "Look, you have to listen with more than your ears. It not what she said, it's what she did. Besides, it sounds like the only talking she did was before you told her you loved her. That was before she gave herself to you last night. I'm telling you, what happened was more than just sex for her."

"You think?" I asked, still not quite believing.

"I know," Maggie said confidently.

"If you're right," I said slowly. "Then I may have completely blown it be leaving. She may never forgive me. What should I do?"

"That's easy," my sister said with a smile. "You're going to go into the house and do you best to make mom and dad feel good about throwing the party for you. After that you're going to sleep for twelve hours at least."

"And then?" I asked.

"Well, at that point you're either going to work ridiculously hard at trying to forget this Olivia and most likely fail based on what I'm seeing, or you're going to bite the bullet and buy a plane ticket back to wherever she is and go see her. I wouldn't suggest the former. There are worse things than being turned down, like not knowing."

"I'm not so sure. Let me think about it," I sighed. Maggie frowned at me again, but then shrugged to herself.

"Like I said, it's your life, but I want you to be happy little brother. Don't be afraid to go after what you want."

"It worked out so well the first time," I said sarcastically. I tried to smile, but I'm sure it was far too sad to pass muster. It probably looked more like a grimace.

"I don't know," my older sister grinned. "It got you laid, and from what you're saying it was the best sex of your life."

"It also got me a broken heart," I retorted.

"I think the jury's still out on that," she said calmly. "Unless of course you wimp out again and don't go to see her."

"Enough!" I snapped, but I wasn't really angry. I was just frustrated.

**********

I'd like to say the party was fun and people did seem to have a good time, but honestly I would rather have been anywhere else. I tried to hide it, but my immediately family wasn't buying it. It was obvious that mom knew something was up. Dad might have been too busy dealing with our guests to catch on, but I doubt it. Lenny and Arlene on the other hand kept asking me what was wrong, but I kept denying that there was anything bothering me.

Toward the end of the party I noticed that all three of my sibling had suddenly disappeared. I frowned, having a bad feeling. I made my way to the kitchen and found them there. Clearly, Lenny and Arlene had cornered my older sister there. They all looked startled when I walked in, but it was Maggie's guilty expression that hit home the hardest.

"Great," I sighed. "So the big secret of where I've been for the last day or so is out."

"Did you really chase down a girl you hadn't seen in three years?" Lenny asked.

"Two, but yes," I answered. "In fact, I found her, made a fool of myself and then slunk away in shame." Maggie clearly wanted to disagree, but she remained silent for the moment.

"That sucks," my brother said, shaking his head and going to the refrigerator. He pulled out four beers and handed each of us one.

"Are you okay?" Arlene asked.

"No, but I will be," I answered honestly. This time Maggie started to say something, but she stopped when we were interrupted. Two of my aunts walked into the kitchen with some empty platters. The party wasn't quite over yet, but I guess my aunts thought they'd help clean up a little before it ended.

"Let's go outside," Maggie said, opening the sliding door. I sighed to myself and followed the others outside.