"Everyone on the bus," Will says. "We'll discuss this when we get back."
It's a silent, painful ride home. Betsy sitting there with a smug smile I plan to beat off her face as soon as there is no staff around, Erin looking wan and worried. I'm going to lose my scholarship. It's not like I don't have a backup plan. I do, even if it's a shitty one. I can sell enough of my stuff to get a bus ticket to Seattle, and I'll train there. The idea once even appealed to me, but now it seems empty.
///
By the time we get back to campus, I'm as broken and weary as I've ever felt, while Betsy is jubilant and not even trying to hide it. The two of us follow Will to his office, and he takes Betsy in first. She leaves a minute later looking chastened but then shoots me a nastily triumphant look. No matter what they did to her, she knows I'll get worse.
I go in and Will's got his head in his hands. He looks as beaten as I feel. And for one of the first times in my life, I feel guilty.
"You're a smart girl," he says. "Don't you see through her?"
"See through what?"
"She's trying to get you kicked out. She's been pissed off and jealous since you arrived. You took her spot on the team. She was the star, and now it's you by a mile, and she's pissed. You've got to be smarter."
"Wait. Does that mean you're not kicking me out?"
"No," he sighs wearily. "I'm not kicking you out."
"Why?" I breathe. "What happened to the 'one more violent outburst' thing?"
"Why the hell are you arguing with me about this?" he demands. "Did you want to be kicked out?"
"No, of course not. I just ... I just don't get it."
"But it can't happen again. You can't let her bait you."
"She wasn't trying to bait me," I argue. "She was just being a bitch to Erin."
"Yes, because she knew she'd get a response from you by going after Erin. I can justify this one as self-defense, but it's a stretch. Next time something happens, even if she hits you, you've got to hold back."
I exhale. "I don't think I can promise you that."
"Why the hell not?" he demands. "How many chances do I have to give you?"
"Because I black out or something," I tell him reluctantly. "Yes, I'm even weirder than you already thought."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know what I did today. I don't remember anything from the moment she pushed me until the moment you were pulling me off of her. None of it. I don't even know how I got her on the ground. I saw her bleeding and didn't even realize I was the one who'd done it until you yelled at me."
"Jesus, Liv," he breathes. "So has this happened before?"
I nod. It's happened plenty. It's a wonder I haven't killed anyone.
"Is that what happened with Mark Bell?" he asks.
I sigh. "Sort of."
"‘Sort of'?"
"I mean I remember fighting him and I remember seeing the bat. I don't remember the rest."
"Wait. What do you mean by ‘fighting him'? I thought you just attacked him unprovoked."
"Why would I attack him without a reason? Even I'm not that psychotic."
Will's face grows still, wary. "Did he do something to you?"
I bite down on the inside of my cheek. What happened with Mark Bell isn't something I need to share. It's not like anyone would believe me anyway. "Nothing I couldn't handle."
"That's not what I asked you," he says between clenched teeth. "I want to know exactly what he did."
I roll my eyes as if it doesn't matter. But the truth is that it does matter, to me, and he'll be the only person alive to whom I've told the truth. "He found out about the nightmares. He offered to stay with me the night before a meet to keep me from running."
Will's face has fallen just a little. Anyone can see where this story is going. Anyone could have seen it then too, aside from me. It was so fucking stupid to trust Mark, and I'm not sure why I did. Maybe because I just wanted, so badly, to think there was a solution. "I'm sure you can figure out the rest," I sigh.
His mouth opens and it takes a second for any words to emerge. "He raped you?"
"He tried," I reply. "That's where the bat came in."
"Olivia," he groans, putting his head in his hands. "Did you tell the school that?"
I laugh. "Right. I was sleeping in his apartment and I had the worst reputation in the history of the school's track team. Who the hell would believe it was rape?"
"Even if you'd been dating him you'd still have been allowed to say no."
"I could have had the whole thing on film and no one would've sided with me, Will. I had a bad reputation and was about to lose my scholarship anyway. Mark is the star of the team. It was pretty obvious how it would all go down."
Mark even had the gall to press charges against me, which he only dropped when I told him I'd gone to the hospital that night and had everything documented. I didn't really go, of course. A few bruises and some torn clothes weren't proof of anything, but he didn't know that.
///
He sits back in his seat, looking helpless and stunned. "This is insane. All of it. You should still be there, and that asshole should be in prison."
"I wasn't going to be there in any case. No way was I getting another year out of that scholarship."
"But that's not the point!" he cries. "You left there letting hundreds of people think you're some sociopath who goes around swinging a bat!"
"I am a sociopath who goes around swinging a bat, Will," I retort. "I don't remember anything after I saw that bat in the corner, so why shouldn't they think it?"
"That's what this is really about then," he says, looking grim. "You hate that you did it. You feel guilty it went as far as it did and this is how you're trying to pay for it."
There's something in his words that stings, and I don't like it. "If you're done with the analysis, Dr. Langstrom, I think I'm gonna take off."
"How's your cheek?" he asks.
I shrug. "Fine, I guess."
"You need to go get it checked out."
I shrug again. "I think it's okay."
"Right," he smirks. "I forgot about that medical degree of yours." He gets up and kneels in front of me. "This might hurt a little," he warns. "Let me just make sure it's not broken."
I close my eyes because he's too near. His warm mouth and the curves of his face and his ungiving jaw make me feel slightly unhinged, when he's this close by. The pad of his thumb presses to my skin. He stops when I wince in pain, holding his hand there, waiting for me. He continues, and just the brush of his skin against mine awakens other things. Things I'm not supposed to feel. My eyes open of their own accord and lock with his. His hand holds my face, his mouth slightly ajar as he looks at mine, both of us breathing quickly. I want him to kiss me. I want him to kiss me so badly that my blood starts to sing, and all logic goes rushing from my brain. It sits between us, quicksand that drags us under so fast that fighting it seems impossible. He leans toward me, for just a second, before his hand falls away suddenly and he practically jumps backward.
"Nothing is broken," he says roughly. "Just ice it over the weekend, okay?"
I practically run from the office. The idea of losing my scholarship was scary, but whatever just transpired between Will and me is a thousand times worse.
35
Will
I refuse to think about what just happened.
Nothing happened, nothing at all.
We had a talk, I checked out her cheekbone, she left to spend her weekend however she sees fit and I am doing the same.
Nothing happened.
Yeah, the nothing that happened maybe leads me to work a little extra at the farm, leads me to be late getting to Jessica's again, makes me so distracted that I can barely carry on a conversation all weekend … but that doesn't change the fact that nothing happened.
I've been with plenty of pretty girls. Jessica was hands-down the best-looking girl at my high school. But all of them felt … replaceable. Olivia, in my office, wasn't replaceable. The need for her was sharp, urgent, painful, unlike anything I'd ever felt. At that moment, there was nothing in the entire damn world I wanted more than her. And it felt like there was nothing else I would ever want. It was insane and I'm taking it for the warning it was.
I need to stay away from her.
I ignore her on Monday. It's the best thing for everyone. I'll ignore her, and she'll get pissed off and things will feel totally normal again. I just hope it happens sooner rather than later because all I can think about is her mouth inches from mine and the surprise of discovering there were a thousand things I wanted to take and do, and I only wanted those things from her.