Page 44 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Chloe

Had he felt it, too? The crackle in the air between them when they danced, the prickle of yearning on every inch of skin?

Chloe didn’t say much as she followed Tolly up to the roof. But she knew this feeling exactly. She’d felt it once before, right before the first time she’d ever been kissed.

It was him, wasn’t it?

But if so, why had he lied?

As the elevator doors opened to the rooftop, the muggy air startled her.

It had been air-conditioned in the ballroom, and Chloe had forgotten that it was humid outside, the clouds heavy above them in the night sky.

All around them, New York twinkled. A handful of other gala guests were admiring the views, but not many; it was much more comfortable in the temperature-controlled ballroom.

Chloe walked to the railing to take in the skyline. A moment later, Tolly stepped up beside her. She had so many questions, but she had to come at them gingerly or risk him pulling away yet again.

“I’ll never get over this view,” she said. “Maybe it would be boring if you were born here originally, but I love it, because I wasn’t.”

He hesitated—only for a split second, but she caught it—then he said, “I know what you mean.”

“You’re not a native New Yorker then?” she asked.

“No.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed. You’ve got the brusque conversation part down,” Chloe teased.

Tolly let out a small laugh.

Even so, she didn’t let herself look at him; instead, she kept focusing on the skyline. She wanted to give him the illusion of space while she got to what she really wanted to know.

The skyscrapers went on and on, block after block, and below them, the lights of thousands of cars and streetlamps glowed.

“So did you ever think you would end up here?” Chloe asked.

“No,” he said softly. “I thought I would stay close to home. I didn’t need anything more than that.”

“Me neither,” Chloe said.

They were silent then. She could feel him looking at her.

Chloe’s heart pounded in her ears as she turned to him.

The moonlight filtered through the clouds, shadowing his face and tracing every angle—the clean-shaven line of his jaw, the tired hollows beneath his eyes that sketched a story of parts of his life that she didn’t know, the slight crook where he’d broken his nose… and suddenly, she gasped.

Because now when she looked at his eyes—deep, impossibly mossy green—and that fiery hair that used to be covered in emo black dye, together with the crook of his nose… she knew for certain.

She knew he’d broken his nose defending her after her second-grade show-and-tell.

That he’d shouted at all the kids who made fun of her clothes and thought she was weird.

That he’d kissed her once, long, long ago.

“Oliver,” she whispered.

His breath caught and he didn’t say a word.

“We ran into each other three times before this… Why didn’t you say anything?”

He looked away, the skyline suddenly more interesting than she was.

“I couldn’t…” He closed his eyes, then opened them slowly. “I didn’t want you to remember me the way I left. A lot of bad things happened, and I hurt you. I wanted… I don’t know. But I’m sorry I didn’t tell you who I was.”

“So you knew it was me?”

He exhaled, then nodded.

“But can we… Can we not do this tonight?” he asked. “It’s so beautiful here on the rooftop. You’re beautiful. Let’s not waste it.”

She bit her lip, thinking. She could leave. Chloe had every right to be upset with him, and her mind was a whirlpool, her conflicted thoughts eddying too fast for her to hold on to any individual idea.

He was her oldest friend—lost and now found—and she didn’t want to ruin that.

He was her first love, evaporated before they’d had enough time to discover where it could have led.

He was also a closed box of secrets. He had hidden who he was, and it was clear he didn’t want to talk about the past. But Chloe would not be able to know Oliver completely if they didn’t unearth what had been buried in the sixteen years between then and now.

The truth was, she wanted to talk about the past. She wanted to know what had happened, why he’d been able to leave her behind, to vanish like a ghost as if she’d never mattered.

There had been rumors at school about his family and why they’d left, but the gossip was ridiculous and Chloe had never believed it.

She just wanted to know what to believe when it came to Oliver and her.

Chloe saw his face now in a different light, the worry lines around his eyes, the burden he carried in their depths. “Oliver? What happened?”

He was studying her face, too. She wondered which of her victories and wounds he saw.

“Why did your family really leave Kansas? What happened back then?”

He tightened his jaw. Crossed his arms over his chest. Everything about him closed, even his ability to make eye contact. “The past is the past,” Oliver said. “There’s nothing we can do to change it.”

Why wouldn’t he tell her? What could possibly be so bad that she would care, sixteen years later?

Yes, Oliver had hurt her by leaving and letting their love die from neglect.

But now that they were reunited, she might be willing to forgive that, to move on, if only he would tell her what it was they were moving on from.

Oliver started to walk away. Not too fast—he was clearly giving Chloe permission to follow if she wanted to—but he was drawing a line in the sand. If she wanted him in her life, she’d have to take him as he was, baggage locked away behind a complicated numerical lock.

Chloe followed him to the other side of the roof, the only part that overlooked the vast, shadowed patch of Central Park where no lights shone. The clouds had rolled in even thicker, blotting out the moon and the stars completely, and Oliver leaned against the railing almost in the complete dark.

“I’m sorry for being pushy,” she said as she scooted up next to him.

“You’re allowed to ask,” Oliver said quietly. “But I’m also allowed to not want to talk about it.”

“That’s fair.”

“Is it? I don’t know. But I suppose it is what it is,” he said.

They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring out at the park where they couldn’t actually see a thing.

Above them, the clouds opened, and it began to rain.

A woman on the other side of the roof let out a giggling shriek, and the handful of people who’d been taking in the views hurried for the elevator.

But since Oliver stayed, Chloe did, too. The rain shifted from a sprinkle to a drizzle.

“We used to love the rain when we were kids,” he said.

“Especially on the sliver of roof outside my window, above the porch,” Chloe said.

Oliver shook his head, and the mischievous corner of his mouth lifted. “Remember how livid your dad was when he found us out there in the middle of a storm?”

“Do you two think you’re lightning rods?” Chloe said in a faux baritone.

They started laughing, and finally, Oliver turned to look at her again. But as soon as he was facing her, her laughter caught in her throat, and all she could do was gape.

His tuxedo shirt had gone translucent in the rain, the cotton now drenched and stretched taut across his broad chest. Chloe had seen Oliver in a jiu jitsu T-shirt in Little Tokyo, but she hadn’t seen him like this, the physicality of his strength on full display.

And he was staring at her, too, because the rain had plastered the thin blue silk of her gown against her skin.

She wasn’t wearing a bra, and Chloe saw him notice, then immediately avert his eyes.

Was it for propriety’s sake, out of respect for her as a friend?

Or was it possible that first loves burned so bright, even sixteen years couldn’t snuff out the flame?

Here in the near dark with no one else around, the past and the present seemed to fold together.

Chloe could still remember the first—the only—time they kissed, in her bedroom over candy grams. She remembered that soft parting of Oliver’s mouth all too well, too.

How gentle he was. How even though neither of them had known what they were doing back then, it had still been perfect, because it was them.

And it felt the same again now, that crackle between them like an electric charge about to strike. Maybe they were lightning rods.

She reached up and threaded her fingers through the dark red of his hair, stood on her tiptoes, and leaned in.

Oliver took in a sharp breath of air.

“Chloe…” His voice was rough and low.

She didn’t know if there was a warning in his tone, or if the ragged edge she heard was wanting.

“Yes?” she whispered.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“No… He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Oliver came closer. Chloe shivered, not because of the rain, but because every millimeter of her skin was aware of his nearness.

He brushed away the bangs that always fell across her face and he pinned them to her temple with his thumb.

He was so close that she could smell the sweetness of Campari and orange on his breath.

His fingers grazed her cheek—which he used to say was a confetti of freckles—then moved slowly…

so slowly… along her jaw and down her neck.

Not a kiss. Not yet…

Behind them, the elevator dinged. The doors opened.

“I saw someone matching her description come up here,” a woman said.

“Chloe?” Zac called into the rain.

Shit! Chloe and Oliver jumped apart. It was dark on this side of the rooftop, but not entirely, and Zac would see them any second.

She hadn’t done anything wrong. Not really. She hadn’t kissed Oliver, even though she’d wanted to. And she and Zac weren’t even exclusive.

Still, she was supposed to be here at the gala with Zac. And she and Oliver, the only ones out here in the drizzle, were standing too close to be able to convincingly lie that they’d been enjoying the nighttime views separately.