Page 145 of Fly with Me

Olive leaned into the embrace and inhaled the comforting, familiar scent. “It wasn’t that I didn’t trust you. I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to be happy for a few hours before I had to get into shit with my family again, and I didn’t want the entire night to be about that. I wasn’t in the best place, but I was too scared of seeming needy to be honest about what was happening.”

Stella’s mouth tensed as she shook her head. “I should have realized.”

With a little shake of the head, Olive held Stella tighter. “No, I should have told you.”

“The funeral and—”

“All over now. It was bad. But Derek came.” Olive gave a watery nod. “Even though I feel like Jake was gone a year ago, I do feel closure now.”

“That’s important.” She took Olive’s hand. “Closure.”

“It is.” Olive plucked a dried leaf off the bush and then flicked it away. “I really don’t regret going to the party, though.”

“I’m sorry I was too distracted that night to notice what was going on. And I’m sorry for putting my career above everything else. It’s always been important to me, but with what’s going on with my dad…” Stella combed her fingers through Olive’s hair. “I couldn’t do anything. I can’t make the Parkinson’s stop. No matter how many lists I make. No matter what I do, he’s going to get worse. I think I threw myself at my job because it was something I could control. I focused in on the goal of making captain, but I lost sight of everything that really matters. And then I met you. And I saw what my job was at the party. I saw who I was working for through your eyes.”

They were mirrors in a way. Both of them watching their loved ones suffer. Both unable to help in any meaningful way. Both coping—one with work and the other with someone else’s list. Both scared shitless of hurting the other one.

Olive gently cradled Stella’s face in her hands. “I’m so sorry for what’s happening with your dad. I’m sorry if I said anything to make you feel bad about your work or who you are. I didn’t mean to.”

“No, it felt freeing. Throwing that drink in Kevin’s face was one of the happiest moments of my life.” Stella’s face sobered. “Then you were gone. Which was one of the worst moments of my life.”

“I’m sorry.”

Stella shook her head. She pulled away and squared herself to Olive like she was a diver in the Olympics taking that deep breath before the plunge. Her eyes shuttered but then opened wide. “Please stop apologizing. I need to say something. At the party…” She paused as if the memory caused her pain. “You kept saying that I was honest with you from the start. B-but I wasn’t. After that day at Disney, I wanted to claw Lindsay’s eyes out when she showed up in the hotel lobby.”

Olive suppressed a smile. “You were jealous?”

“Oh my god. You have no idea. I came back home and my dad kept asking me what was wrong with me over and over again.” Stella’s large, twinkling eyes became gravely serious once more, as if she were about to reveal a secret shame. “I forgot to make coffee one morning, Olive. Coffee.”

“Holy shit. Because of…”

“You.” She shook her head. “It was utterly terrifying. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I just wanted to talk to you, and it was confusing. It was never like that with anyone. All I knew is that I wanted to be around you all the time, and that if I tried to be in a relationship I would probably wind up breaking your heart.”

“Fuck it all, Derek was right, you were Spider-Manning me too.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Will explain later, but like, don’t google it. Anyway—”

“I thought if we were doing this maybe we could be friends and then I could at least see you.” She sighed.

“Stella, I—” Olive nodded, but Stella interrupted before she could say anything else.

“So, I was afraid, and this utterly ridiculous solution occurred to me like I said before, and everything was fine. I thought if we defined the relationship or whatever it would all get screwed up, and I’d lose you.” Her laugh was mirthless. “God, I was talking about your fear of flying like it was a big deal. Olive, I don’t care if you ever get on a plane again.”

Once again, Olive was shocked. “You don’t?”

Stella folded Olive’s hands into her own and looked at her in that blazing way that made Olive feel both perfectly seen and perfectly loved.

“Stella?”

“I’ll travel with you by boat or by train. Whatever. I quit my job because it was actually killing me and my self-worth. No dream is worth that. You helped me see that just by being you and watching you fight for your brother and love him so fiercely. You helped me see that my dad doesn’t actually care if I make captain, he just wants me happy. I love being a pilot, but I realized other things were more important.”

Olive couldn’t speak as her eyes grew hazy and warm.

“You were always more important.” Stella’s throat bobbed. “Olive ‘Murphy’s Law’ Murphy, I want to put in a formal request to be your actual girlfriend. Real girlfriend. Saying that aloud alerts me to how absurd that sounds. You know, I couldn’t even post the pictures of us on my Instagram because they felt too real. Too personal. I feel like I have no right to ask you to be my girlfriend after how I treated you and led you on when I didn’t even know what I wanted, but—”

“Yes.”