Write Me A Letter

52 | tenth

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO | T E N T H

        THERE WAS NO EASY WAY to describe how Brie felt the moment she saw him. She pictured it a hundred times in her head, played the varied scenes again and again until the images began to fade, but the reality was far from it. It was easier to imagine that she told Paula to shut the door in Ollie's face and tell him to never go back, but what happened was entirely different. She forgot to factor the most important thing in her imagination: How she felt for Ollie. And the unfair truth? It was hard not to long for someone you cared deeply about. She couldn't close the door on him.

Paula stood awkwardly by the doorway, gone was the confidence and anger that was radiating off her just seconds ago. She must've noticed the shift. "Should I let him in, Brie?"

The million-dollar question that she had the answer to, but didn't have the courage to say out loud. Brie faced the long look Paula had given her. Paula stared at her long enough until she could decide herself, and pulled the door wider.

Paula ushered Ollie in. "Come in, man," she said it so casually, with a kind of familiarity that made Brie's heart ache more. It just made her realize that she didn't just lose someone who held her heart, but also a friend. She gripped the bowl of popcorn tighter.

Ollie smiled, but it wasn't the same bright smile he usually wore. He looked tired. His hair unkempt as if he ran there against the blow of the wind. His white shirt was rumpled and he looked like he wasn't getting enough sleep.

"Thanks, Paula. Sorry for coming in late. I just needed to talk to Brie and her mom said she'd be here."

He went to her place?

Paula waved him off with a snort. "It's fine by me as long as it's okay with Brie." She turned to where she sat on the couch, her eyes asking permission but also giving Brie a sense of security and assurance. "I'm gonna be in my room. Text me if you need me."

Then, there was two.

Ollie didn't take any step closer to her. He just stood there, his hands kept shifting around him like he didn't know what to do with them as his eyes flickered everywhere but on her. "I heard about what happened today at school with Izzy and about Yuki from Troy. Before you get mad at him, I forced the answer out of him and I wasn't planning on coming here this late but I just want to make sure that you're okay."

She looked down and toyed with a piece of popcorn. "I'm fine."

Ollie was silent for a while as if stunned by her short answer, then he cleared his throat. "Brie, about Yuki... I'm sorry. There's no excuse for what I did. But I want you to know that when we started to like each other, I ended whatever was going on between us. I know that the timing wasn't ideal, and I wasn't sure for some time but when I told you that you mean a lot to me, I mean it."

She shut her eyes, hugging the bowl of popcorn closer to her body. She didn't want to know, she didn't want to hear it, because the more she listened to him speak, the more real it felt. The lies, the pain—everything.

"I said I'm fine, Ollie. You don't have to check up on me."

"Can we please just talk?"

It was like the final nail to the coffin. Five words that were uttered softly with a hint of fear and begging, but it pushed her over the edge. Fuming, she abruptly stood and placed down the bowl on the glass coffee table, the sound of glass hitting against each other reverberated in her ears like bouncing and sharp echoes. Ollie flinched but remained where he was as she took quick strides toward him. Her heart was pounding and her feet felt like lead, but she braved right through it, took every single step toward the man who made her feel like she was only made to be shattered again and again and again.

"What's there to talk about?" Brie sternly asked. Her hands were shaking but she kept them at her sides. She looked at him straight in the eyes, not once melting from the way he looked at her. "What's there to fucking discuss when this turned out to be a lie huh, Ollie? How dare you kiss me and make me feel like you're the right choice when you've been fucking someone else behind my back."

His jaw hardened. "That's not what happened. Yuki and I were testing things out, but everything was casual between us. She knows how I feel about you and she agreed when I said that we should stop seeing each other. Yes, that was a dick move, but I was honest with her about it. She didn't disagree with me, she was okay with it. That's what I thought; what I believed in because that was what she claimed."

"Do you think it'll make me feel better that you dropped her so you're free to be with me?" The laugh that escaped her lips was bitter and laced sharply with resentment. "Do you fucking believe that it'll magically erase the fact that I was an option to you?"

That was all she was, right? An option, an impasse before someone chooses the right person for them. She was nothing but this naive, impulsive girl who makes a mess out of everything she touches. Her intention was to keep everybody warm but little did she know, she was a fire that consumed herself and burned the people around her.

"You weren't an option to me, Brie. That's not even what I'm saying—"

She cut him off. "What else? Did you sleep with her after that? Did you?"

Ollie kept his mouth shut, and just like that Brie knew. She knew that in the stillness of that night with the lights dim around them as she looked up at him with disbelief in her tear-stained eyes that she was right. She was fucking right, and only she knew how much she wanted to be wrong then.

"Why?" She was barely able to let out the word, her heart aching too much for her to function. "Why? Wasn't I good enough? Won't I be ever good enough?"

He reached out for her straight away, jaw hard but eyes wet with unshed tears. "No no no, Brie. You're more than enough for me. Please just listen. I was just mad when we fought and saw that you were still doing the letters with Xander. I didn't understand it. We weren't talking for so long and I was so angry at the fact that you just let me go like that, and Yuki..." He shook his head. "It's all my fault, Brie. Please. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone back to her, but it only made me cement my belief that you're the one I really love."

The rest of his words were drowned out by the tsunami of thoughts that engulfed her. I'm sorry. It was said repeatedly to her like a prayer, but that wasn't what she wanted. She was sick of hearing it, disgusted by the fact that it had to come from Ollie's lips. She pushed him off her.

"Leave."

"No! Wait, please. I wrote you a letter. Please just read it." He frantically pulled out a crumpled and folded sheet from his pocket, offering it to her with trembling fingers. He wasn't looking at her, his blue eyes that she always thought were lovely were facing the ground, tears falling from them and ending up as wasted droplets on the floor.

It angered her to see him like this. This guy had hurt her, but the first thing she wanted to do was to reach out to him and say that it would be alright, that she could never hate him. But she had to be braver than that. She flicked the letter off his hand, letting it fly across the room.

Startled, Ollie's eyes finally flickered up to her. "Brie..."

"No. You don't get to use letters too to make me feel guilty for choosing myself. You can't use letters as a way to win me back when you've never been sure of me. I am not a fucking option, Ollie."

He blinked at her then shook his head with a laugh, another tear rolled down his cheek but he angrily swiped it away with a thumb. He was heaving and the pain was clear in his eyes, but so was frustration. "You say this as if I wasn't the real option here, like, you haven't been confused and so unsure. But let's admit it, Brie, between the two of us, I'm the real number two."

How could he say that?

"That's not true."

"It is," he said, stressing out the word with accusation and ache. "Because there were many times when you could've dismissed Xander as you're doing to me right now, but you didn't. Because you ran after him even when he was with someone else. But all I had to do is one fucking mistake, all I had to do was get mad that you still care about him enough for you to drop me like I'm nothing because you finally have the chance. Now tell me, Brie, did you really choose yourself, or him again?"