Chapter 32

32

28 years old - Nick

B y the time I arrive at Berlin Central Station, Lily is already standing in front of the main entrance with a small blue suitcase next to her. Although the rest of her is bundled up, her cheeks are rosy from the cold morning weather. Our eyes meet and she waves.

"Hi, you're here," I say, giving her a quick hug. What a stupid thing to say. Of course she's here—she's the one who invited me. "I'm so happy you invited me to come. I've never been to Frankfurt before." I grab the handle of her suitcase and wheel it as we enter the building. "So, what time does our train leave?"

She checks our tickets on her phone. "In about ten minutes. InterCity Express 596. We leave from platform six." I nod and we start pacing straight ahead until we see the number six with a set of stairs next to it. The white train is already waiting for us by the time we make it up the staircase, with people queuing near the doors.

"Thanks again for inviting me," I say to her the moment the train starts moving. "I would have asked you to meet up with me again before my flight leaves next week, but you beat me to it. I don't like how we left things last night." I wanted to tell her this since yesterday, but this is not a text conversation. I'll be leaving soon and it's going to be a while before I move here. My contract doesn't actually start until January and it's now the end of October. A lot can happen in a few months. And what the fuck even happened last night? It's like all the feelings from when we were young resurfaced. I think she's as confused as I am right now, especially now that I know what really happened.

"Don't worry about it. I dropped a bomb, I understand. Sorry for all the trauma dumping. I shouldn't have done that." No, you don't understand.

"I feel like I should explain," I mutter. "I should have reacted differently."

"Nick, do you really want to do this now?" She closes the novel that she has on her lap, and I can tell that she's scared of where this conversation is going.

"You can't run away if we do this now."

"I don't do that anymore."

I shoot her a genuine smile. She's really proving me wrong with everything she does so far. How she handles tough conversations, how she speaks. She's come a long way from being her mother's timid daughter who's going through a rebellious phase. She's back to her confident seven-year-old self, the girl who begged the teacher so we could sit next to each other in class.

"Did you ever ask anyone about me? After you left?"

With a confused frown, Lily shakes her head, her gaze now focusing on the corners of the book that she is toying around with. She folds it one by one, only to straighten them again. "I tried reaching out to Tabitha once, but she didn't want to talk to me anymore. I've never bothered contacting Taylor after that. I'm pretty sure he hates my guts as much as she does."

"I'm sorry." My jaw tightens, guilt bubbling up within me.

"It's not your fault, Nick." Her eyes look sympathetic. "But no, I didn't ask around about you. I wasn't in contact with anybody. What would they have said?"

I pause momentarily, trying to string together a good enough sentence for her. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to say what I'm about to say. My mother was right when she said I was going to regret the choices I made. She was also right when she said my story with Lily wasn't finished.

"I, uh, when you said that you've never been with anyone else after me, uh," I mumble, struggling to put the past ten years into words. Words that wouldn't sting when she hears them. "I processed the last decade a lot differently than you. I'm afraid you won't want anything to do with me once you hear what I say."

"Try me, Nick," she says, repeating what I said to her last night.

"I slept with Sienna the night of our graduation bonfire." There, I said it. The first one out. Many more confessions to go. Confessions she's not going to like. Confessions that are going to break her heart.

Lily doesn't look surprised. She simply flashes a sad smile. "I figured as much. That's not on you, though. I remember specifically telling you to do it. I'm really sorry for that text."

My mind brings me back to that night and my chest tightens remembering the string of drunk messages I sent her. Suddenly, I'm reminded of the desperation I felt waiting for the gray bubbles to turn into messages and the frustration I felt when she only sent me that one sentence, as if she was taunting me. As if she didn't care.

"After that night, ummm, I actually kind of started dating Sienna."

Her fingers move from the edges of the book to pull her left hand. She starts scratching the reddened area on her left thumb with her other one.

I run a hand through my hair and push through with my story. "It didn't last long."

"How come?" So much concealed bitterness in two short words.

Blowing out a breath, I continue my story. "She dumped me shortly after freshman year started at Radinger. She got sick of me sleeping around the whole time I was with her. Not that we were exclusive, but she didn't deserve that."

Lily looks at me, her head turning around. "What do you mean sleeping around?"

"Meaning I slept with most of her cheerleader friends before they left for college and then some. Once the semester began, I stopped being discreet and just didn't care anymore."

"You weren't like that before."

"No, I wasn't."

A figure appears in the aisle next to my seat, saving Lily from having to continue the conversation.

"Lily," he calls out to her.

Lily smiles and stands up next to me, forcing me to hunch down as they give each other a rushed hug. They talk in German, so lost in their discussion that Lily forgets that I am here, sitting in the seat in the middle of them.

"Sorry about that," he suddenly starts speaking, with a slight accent in a language I comprehend. "Lily just told me that you only speak English. I'm Paul, her colleague." I already knew I was tagging along on a work trip, but I didn't know we would have company.

Paul puts his duffle bag in the overhead compartment and claims the empty seat across from me with his messenger bag. He takes his jacket off, revealing sleeve tattoos on both of his arms, and turns my way. I give him my hand to shake. "Nick," I introduce myself. "Nice to meet you."

He flashes me a smile, his white teeth showing themselves, contrasting with his short, red beard covering half of his face. Paul's equally red hair is pulled back in a man-bun. "I was just telling Lily that I was supposed to meet her directly tomorrow at the interview location, but I decided I would already take the train to Frankfurt today to see the city. What are the chances? Lily told me you guys are doing the same!"

Lily chimes in. "Yeah, sorry, if I had known, I would've asked you to join us." Their conversation slips back to German and Lily tries to steer it back to English so I don't feel left out.

After what Bryce insinuated and hearing her pour her truth out last night, I had imagined a version of Lily that's timid and scared like a mouse, needing to be protected from the outside world. In my bed last night after she left, I let myself think I could be that person protecting this new version of Lily; maybe sometime in the future, maybe once I move here.

I couldn't be more wrong. The Lily right here talking to Paul isn't a frightened mouse. She's confident and outgoing, laughing freely to her heart's content. This Lily doesn't seem like she has a Nick-shaped hole in her heart, like I had secretly hoped for all these years. Like I still hope. Because If I'm being honest with myself, my Lily-shaped wound never healed. Even if Logan didn't fuck everything up and Lily just dumped me for shits and giggles, a part of me always knew that if I ever found her again, I would probably come crawling back to her. Maybe that's why I was so desperate to replace her. Does the new Lily even want me, though?

Paul eventually starts working on his laptop, editing a banner of some sort, and Lily sits back down in her seat. "Sorry about that. You must have felt left out. We were talking about work and I got carried away."

"All good." I hold my tongue, deciding that right now might not be the right time to finish the story of what I have been doing these past ten years. Not with Paul next to us.

Passing through towns and green landscapes that can be seen from the window next to Lily, we talk about the logistics of our trip. Lily shows me the two-bedroom apartment that she booked for us last night on Airbnb. Of course, Nick. Why would she book a one-bedroom apartment? Get it together, man . Since she and Paul are going to interview someone for their marketing campaign tomorrow, I told her I will take the day slow and visit some museums while waiting for her until she's done.

Again, Paul interrupts our conversation, closing his MacBook and making it known that he's done working. "So, how do you guys know each other?"

"We used t?—"

"Nick and I are old friends from back home," Lily cuts me off.

Huh, interesting.