I send them out on a six-mile run and try not to think about it. I will fix this somehow. Next weekend, when she's staying at my mom's, I'll … I don't know what I'll do. I have five days to figure it out, but I can't be alone with her again.
I'm just about to head out after the team when two police officers walk on the track.
I know who they are here for.
36
Olivia
I take off for my run on Monday with Will treating me like a communicable disease, as if the shit in his office was entirely my doing, and I return with him thinking I'm a criminal.
The police are waiting to see me in Peter's office. "Do you have any idea what this is about?" he asks as we walk inside.
"No," I say stonily.
"I don't want to be blindsided, Olivia. If you've done something please tell me now."
///
"Maybe it's that counterfeiting operation I run out of my bedroom," I say, rolling my eyes. "I'm not on parole, Will. I don't routinely go around committing crimes."
I go shower and head to the office with my stomach in knots. Yes, I've had more than my fair share of "incidents" but it's not like I have some secret urge to go knock over a bank or something. It seems unlikely I'd have done it in my sleep, but I'd also have sworn I never cried in my sleep and look how wrong I was there.
In Peter's office, the faces could not be more grim, and my stomach sinks a little lower. "Have a seat, Olivia," says Peter. He introduces me to the detectives, whose names I immediately forget. One is very tall and the other short. A couple of jokes come to mind, but given that I may be on the verge of arrest, this probably isn't the time.
What unnerves me most is not the presence of the police. It's the look on Will's face. There's something raw and shocked there that doesn't bode well. I begin to shiver, and I'm not sure if it's caused by my wet hair or something else.
"Olivia, these men are here to talk to you about your brother," he says gently.
Immediately my heart rate accelerates and I begin to sweat. I'm tempted to bolt, which Will seems to sense. He moves to the chair beside me, placing a warning hand on my arm.
"As you know, your brother was presumed dead-" the tall one begins, but I cut him off.
"No. Just because you guys never found him doesn't mean he's dead. When I can't find my house key or my phone, it doesn't mean they're dead."
"There's been a new development in the case," the other one says.
Whatever he's about to say, I don't want to know. I want to plug my ears and sing to block him. I want to flee.
"Last month," he says, "a child's remains were found buried in the woods about a half mile from your old home."
My ears begin to ring and it feels as if I can't breathe. I jump to my feet, but Will blocks me, gripping my arms and holding me in place.
"Olivia," he says. "You need to hear them out."
"No, I don't," I insist, trying to wrestle free. "I don't know who they found, but it isn't my brother."
"Miss Finnegan," the officer says gently, "we ran a DNA test. It's been confirmed."
The sweat turns to ice. I'm leaving. I'm not listening to another word of this. I will my feet to move, toward the door, out of this office, but they don't respond.
"An autopsy was performed," one of them says.
"Stop," I whisper. "Stop talking." Why can't I move? Oh my God, I need to get out of here as badly as I've ever needed anything. "Please make them stop," I beg Will, but I know by the resigned look on his face that he will not.
"Miss Finnegan, we could really use your cooperation here. Someone snapped his neck."
I need to go.
I need to go.
I need to go.
I need to go.
I take one step toward the door and then there is nothing but black. A long dark tunnel and I'm falling into it …
The first thing I see is Will's face. It's October, but he's still tan. He has beautiful eyes. So pale against his skin that they seem to glow.
"I called 911," says Peter's secretary. Where'd she come from?
"No," I whisper. "I don't want help."
"I think we should-"
"No," says Will, still looking at me. It feels as if I'm drowning and his eyes are the only thing keeping me from going under. "She's okay. She doesn't want help."
He raises his head and looks to the police officers. "I think you should go now. Everyone out. She just needs a minute."
There's the click of the door and then there is silence. I sit up and he moves back, just enough.
I wish I could cry. There's a sadness in me, so infinite and boundless that it seems as if I shouldn't be able to do anything else.
"Can you make them leave? The police? I don't want to see them."
"Yeah, but you'll have to talk to them eventually. You know that, right?"
I nod and squeeze my eyes shut. My brother … I can't think about it. But I'm picturing him in spite of it, how little he was, how fragile. "I'm gonna be sick," I whisper, and I lean over and throw up in Peter's trashcan. Will holds my hair back while I empty the contents of my stomach.
I finally pull back and put my head between my knees.
///
"Is there anywhere you have to be?" he asks.
"I have astronomy," I tell him, "at two."
"Are you going?"
I close my eyes. Am I? "No."
"Then come on," he says gently, pulling me up by my hand.
"Where am I going?"
"To the farm," he says. "I'm not letting you sit in that apartment alone all afternoon thinking about this, and there's no way I'm letting you sleep there."
This tight ball in my chest, this vacuum in my stomach … they are never going away, whether I'm alone or not. "You don't have to do that. I'll be fine."
"You aren't fine and you won't be fine."
Normally that bossy tone of his makes me want to fight. Right now I'm just glad one of us knows what we're doing.
"Let's go home."
37
Will
There's something frighteningly vacant in Olivia's face.
For the first time during her waking hours she seems fragile, the way she does in her sleep. We leave straight for my car and she follows me blindly. I'm not sure she's even aware that we're moving and that I'm here.
"Are you okay?" I ask as we drive.
"Uh huh," she replies, but she's shaking.
I reach out and grab her hand. "It's going to be okay." She looks at me and nods but doesn't release my hand the entire drive to the farm.
Peter has forewarned my mother about our visit, and she's waiting on the porch for us. She's at Olivia's door the minute we pull into the driveway, enfolding her in her arms. "Oh, honey," she says, tears streaking down her face. "I'm so sorry."
Olivia shakes her head. "It's fine," she murmurs. "I'm fine." She's still shaking. I'm not even sure she realizes it.
"I think she should lay down," I say, directing Olivia toward my room with a hand on her back. I bundle her in the quilt that lies at the foot of the bed, but there's panic in her eyes when I stand to go. "Do you want me to stay?" I ask.
She nods, so I sit in my old desk chair beside the bed, frustrated by my inability to do anything for her. She stares blankly somewhere over my shoulder, still shivering.
"Scoot over," I finally tell her, and when she does I climb in beside her, sliding my arm under her neck and her back to my chest. We've laid like this before, more than once, but she has no idea. I'd feel a lot less guilty about it if there wasn't a part of me that wants to do this.
When she falls asleep, I carefully extract myself and leave the room.
"How is she?" my mother asks.
"Asleep," I sigh. "Aside from that, I have no clue."
"That poor, poor girl. Do they have any idea who did it?" she asks.
"We didn't get far enough into the conversation. Olivia passed out and then wanted them to leave."
"Do you think that's what the nightmares are about?"
"I don't know." It would make sense, except the timing doesn't quite work out. Her brother ran away-or whatever actually happened-when she was five. She didn't start having the nightmares until after she moved in with her grandmother, which would have been a year later. Is it even possible that things somehow got worse after he disappeared?
I go back to campus to run the afternoon practice and call Jessica. I explain that Olivia had a death in the family and is staying with my mom tonight, so I can't come by.
"Okay, I can just meet you there," she says brightly. "I'll bring us dinner." She seems to be under the impression that our night can still be saved, that she can somehow make Olivia's tragedy some romantic moment just for us. I gently dissuade her, but there's a distinctly displeased note in her voice as she finally agrees. It surprises me given how understanding she's been all year long about me helping my mom.