Waking Olivia(2)

"Hi, Landon," I reply, but I keep walking because men love to chase. And  he chases. Of course he does. They are all so fucking predictable.

"You didn't tell me your name," he says, catching up.

"You didn't ask."

"Okay, what's your name?"

"Finn."

He stops in his tracks and I keep walking. "That's a boy's name!" he shouts.

"I know." I laugh.

"I want you to be my girlfriend, Finn!"

Yeah. I know that, too.                       
       
           


///
       





2





Will



I don't want that girl on my team.

From the moment she walked through Peter's door, I knew it. The music  from "Jaws" could have been playing and it wouldn't have felt more  ominous.

It's mind-boggling that Peter brought her onto the team at all. She took  a bat to another member of her own team, for Christ's sake. Even if her  talent could make up for that, she's hit-or-miss at best. Moments of  brilliance followed by months and months of mediocrity.

"She's nothing but trouble," I tell him after she's gone. I try to make  my voice neutral, try to disguise my vehemence because even I realize  that it exceeds anything close to reasonable.

"You need a frontrunner," Peter says. "Someone who's going to make your  girls think they've got a shot. Someone they're going to work for."

Peter is the one who's been doing my job for 25 years, who's made a  national-hell, an international name for himself. He could have left us  for a Division 1 school decades ago. Peter is the expert.

But Jesus, this time he's just wrong.

"We've got Betsy," I say. His snort of derision says it all: Everyone  hates Betsy. She's arrogant, a bully, and only marginally faster than  the other girls but acting like she's the star. Everyone's just too  scared of her to say otherwise.

"Okay, but Finnegan? You think she's going to inspire loyalty? She makes Betsy sound like Mother Teresa."

"Have you ever seen her run?" he asks.

I shake my head. I'd graduated from college two years before she  entered. I heard her name a few years ago when she was a freshman and  people thought she was the next big thing. And then the whispers faded  and everyone forgot, including me. I wish I could have continued  forgetting.

"She's unbelievable." He sounds slightly awestruck. "When she wants to  be, she makes the rest of the field look like they're in slow motion."

"Well, she hasn't been unbelievable in a long time," I counter, "and she  sure as hell doesn't seem like the type who pulls people together."

Peter smiles. "Who better to teach her how to do it than you?"

It was not a job I wanted, and now that I've seen her it's really not a  job I want. That girl isn't just trouble of the not-a-team-player,  not-a-reliable-runner variety. She's trouble of the devious,  manipulative, too-fucking-hot-for-her-own good variety. Sashaying into  Peter's office like a runway model, all long-legged and tan with big  green eyes and a knowing smile. She's the kind of girl who causes  trouble merely by existing, and then makes sure to cause more.

And the last thing I need right now is more trouble.





3





Olivia



I'm in a car, and we're going too fast. The street is narrow, and with  the cars parked on either side of the road there are points where we  barely squeeze through. There's a four-way stop at the end of every  block, but we only slow at some of them. I watch my mother's shoulders  stiffen, her body pushing backward into her seat. My brother takes my  hand and squeezes it once, hard, preparing me for pain.

I see the woman in the intersection. A navy blue dress and swollen  ankles. I see her before she sees me, and when she does, we both know  what happens next. Her eyes meet mine and we both know.

Her body flies up over the hood. The blood is there, on the windshield, a  splatter of it like modern art, with such immediacy it almost seems  like she must have been bleeding before we hit her. We slam on the  brakes and she goes flying forward. And then the car lurches over the  top of her like an oversized speed bump.

My mother turns to me then, her eyes wide with fear, sick with it. Suddenly we are in her room.

"Run," she whispers. "Hide in the woods."

So I run.

I run as hard as I possibly can, desperate and hopeless at once.

The woods, the woods, the woods. It's a single phrase burned into my brain.

Get to the woods.

I'm nothing but my desire to do what she's told me to do as if it can  fix everything. I run and run, knowing he's behind me, knowing that the  blood pouring down my back is only the start, knowing that I've done  something very, very wrong, and when I stop it will all catch up with  me.



I wake.

Except I don't wake in my new apartment. I'm on a street I've never seen  before, wearing the shorts and tank I fell asleep in. I'm barefoot now  because I never, ever manage to keep shoes on my feet when I sleep. I  have no idea where I am. The sun's not out yet but the sky has the  promise of it, its black softened with expectation. My heart's still  beating hard from the run, from the terror.

"Son of a bitch," I mutter. Now I've got to find my way home.                       
       
           


///
       



It takes me over an hour to find my apartment because I'm not familiar  with the area yet. I figure I only ran about three miles before I woke  up, but I probably ran another four backtracking to find my  neighborhood.

I arrive at the track a short time later, undoubtedly the only girl here  who's already run seven miles. I stare off in the distance, trying to  pretend I don't see the girls around me whispering, shooting sly glances  my way. They all know who I am. Most of them wish I weren't here.  There's one girl in particular, taller than the rest, who makes no  secret of her disdain. Fuck. I haven't even met my teammates yet and I  already want to throw a punch.

Will Langstrom, my new coach and dickhead extraordinaire, walks toward  us and every head snaps up. Now that I am watching from a distance, I'll  admit that he's ridiculously hot. Just his stride is sexy. His tousled  brown hair, the hollows under his cheekbones, the upper lip. He's cocky  and it only makes him more appealing. I sort of hate us both for that  fact.

He grins. "Morning, ladies."

"Morning, Coach," they sing in unison. I remain silent. They're all  looking at him like he's Prince Charming and Christian Grey rolled into  one. He could pull down his pants right now and half of them would drop  to their knees. No wonder he's such a dick.

"I assume you've all met your new teammates," he says, with a glance at  me, but his voice holds no true expectation. Now it's their turn to be  conspicuously silent. He introduces the two freshmen first, and then he  turns to me. "And this is our only transfer. Olivia Finnegan comes to us  from UT."

They look at me with some combination of expectation and delight in the  comeuppance I've clearly received, the D1 girl sent back to the minors,  but one who might just win them a title. They want to look down on me,  but they can't do it for too long because they want to look up to me as  well. He makes them all introduce themselves. Betsy, the one giving me  nasty looks, is the only name I remember. It's nice to put a name to the  face I'm probably going to rub in the dirt.

"We're running the 10-mile loop this morning, and it's your lucky day because I'm running with you."

There are collective groans, so I guess that's a bad thing. "Hit the road and let's see how many of you slacked this summer."

I haven't slacked. I spent the whole summer giving riding lessons during  the day and running morning and night. But that won't be reflected  today.



Betsy takes off and we follow. She sets a decent pace. Nothing to write  home about, but given that I barely had time to shower after my run this  morning, I'm okay with that.

Sometimes I don't feel it as much but today I do, that heaviness in my  thighs as if I'm asking them to lift a weight with each step, something  tepid running through me. It's not that I can't run 17 miles in a day. I  can. It's just that I can't run them fast. I can't sprint them. And I  must have sprinted this morning because my body has nothing left to push  me forward. I manage, though. I have to. I can't fuck up here too.

I wasn't surprised that I'd had a nightmare last night and woke up  nowhere near home. It's been happening since I was a kid, usually when  I'm under stress but sometimes for no discernible reason. There are  other people out there like me. They have a forum online where they  exchange stories, but I've never told mine. Their stories involve  running down a flight of stairs or maybe a block or two. Mine involve  running miles, running through the woods, waking up bleeding and  drenched in sweat.