Waking Olivia(4)

"You need food to build muscle," she argues.

"And thus the chicken breast."

"You really ought to talk to the nutritionist. She'll tell you herself that's not healthy."

"I'm a nutrition major. I think I've got it under control."

"I still think that's not healthy."

"Do you always talk this much?"

She grins, wide-eyed. "I do. That's why we're perfect together. You  never speak and I never shut up. You're so lucky you found me."



After the ordeal of listening to Erin blabber is done, I get on my bike  and head toward the far side of campus, where the old Victorian houses  give way to fields and woods, the kind of places where there will be no  landmarks to tell me which direction might be home. I will need to learn  this town like the back of my hand.

I try to sleep with my cell phone tucked into my clothes, but it's  fairly useless. And who the fuck would I call? I don't have any friends.  Besides, when you're deep in the woods, the odds of getting a strong  enough signal to pull up the GPS are zero-to-none. Not to mention the  fact that I'm a restless sleeper and half the time I discover I've  pulled the phone out and thrown it across the room at some point.

I usually only make it a few miles before something triggers me to wake  up, but a few miles is pretty far when home is new to you and you have  no idea how to get back. I got lucky this morning, but I know from  experience that I'm not always lucky. That means the more familiar I am  with everything outside my apartment, the better.

I need to be able to stand in the woods and gauge, based on the light  from the city or the stars or the sound of running water, exactly how to  get the fuck out. It's bad enough to wake up and discover that you are  outside in the middle of the night, barefoot, defenseless, far from  home, but multiply that by 10 for the times when you wake up and have no  idea where the hell you are.

I hate this.

There's so much that could go wrong, and there was plenty that went  wrong even when I did know where I was. And it's all probably for  nothing: I came here solely to be coached by McEwan, thinking he might  turn it around for me, and instead I'm being coached by some cocky  asshole who probably didn't even run high school track.                       
       
           


///
       

I made a mistake taking a bat to Mark Bell, and I made a mistake coming  here. Maybe staying will be the next big regret. In fact, I'm almost  sure it will be.





6





Olivia



The next morning I'm ready to put Will Langstrom in his fucking place.  His words from yesterday are still pissing me off almost 24 hours later.  Asshole. I've had a full night's sleep, so let's see him try to  complain about me now.

Everyone is chattering, the combination of nerves and dread making their  noise a little more high-pitched and a lot more annoying-Erin in  particular, whose breathless discourse is directed entirely toward me.  Will eventually saunters up, and when he smiles that crooked smile they  all titter like he's the lead singer of their favorite boy band. I guess  if he weren't such a dick I'd be swooning too. Everything about him is  perfect-the ice blue of his eyes, the slight curl of his hair, the  ever-present hint of scruff, his mouth and the way his lip quirks upward  when he's trying not to smile. I see the edge of a tattoo peeking out  from his shirt sleeve and wish I could see the whole thing.

"You're running six at race pace," he announces. "I marked the route  earlier. I'm going to drive along today to assess. Everybody stop at the  turn-around point and we'll reconvene there."

You're going to have to assess my ass from a distance. I plan to run nowhere near the rest of these losers.

When the time comes, I take off so fast and so hard that I don't see the  other girls. I don't even hear them. I feel buoyant, as if I can fly,  and there isn't a soul in sight. This is my favorite way to run-the  absolute freedom of not thinking or remembering or feeling anything at  all

I notice nothing but the hash marks he's left on the road, only vaguely  aware of the miles ticking by. I get to the turn-around point and I keep  running. Yeah, I know he said to stop, but I'm in my zone, my best  place. Fuck him. He's not even a runner.

I don't even look over when I hear an engine purring beside me until I  realize it's Will shouting at me to stop. It's possible, based on how  pissed off he is, that he's been shouting for a while. And now that he's  yanked me from my happy place, I'm pissed too.

He pulls the car over to the side of the road and marches toward me. "When I tell you to stop you need to listen," he growls.

"I was running. That's what you do when you're not 'trying to lose the baby weight,'" I snap.

"Get your ass back to the turn-around point and stop showing off," he snarls, marching away.

I get back to the turn-around just as Betsy, the one who led yesterday,  comes in. She is winded, the way she should be at the end, not the half.  She leans down, hands on knees.

"You okay, Bets?" Will asks her.

"Yeah," she says, standing. Then she turns to me. "It's not a race, you know."

"He said race pace." I laugh. "So yeah, it kind of was."

"Look," she snarls. "You're not D1 anymore. You weren't D1 material, so stop pretending you are."

Here's the unfortunate thing about a hard workout, about the adrenaline,  when someone pisses you off: it's like you've got a Greek chorus behind  you, egging you on. "Only one of us is breathing heavy," I say,  stepping up so we are face-to-face, "so who's pretending?"

"That's enough," says Will. He places a hand on my shoulder and pushes  me backward just enough so that he can move between us. "You two are on  the same team. Try acting like it."

He blames me.

He didn't say it, but he obviously blames me, when she's the one who  started it. I'm only two days into the season and I've already had it.  I've had it with Betsy and her half-assed running, with the rest of them  who are actually slower than Betsy, and with Will Langstrom, who is the  single biggest asshole I've ever had to run for.

When he sends us back to campus, still scowling at me, I leave them both  in the dust. I take all my anger and adrenaline and apply it to a  single goal: leaving Betsy so far behind me that when this run is over  she will hate herself a little. At this very moment, as she makes a  futile attempt to keep up with me, she feels useless, weak. I know  because I've felt it too. I know she will come in angry at me and  angrier at herself, and that the anger will fester, linger, for days,  because this is what happens to me when I lose.

I get back to the track long before any of them. Not D1 material, my ass.

Will has parked and is stalking toward me. "You did that just to piss her off," he says.

"What do you care? You wanted fast. You got fast."

"No, what I want is a team. You can run to see yourself succeed, Olivia, but don't ever run to see someone else fail."                       
       
           


///
       

"I go by Finn," I hiss. He's just calling me Olivia to fuck with me at this point. "And she started it."

"And was it true? Are you here because you're not D1 material?"

"No," I snap.

"Then act like it," he says in disgust.

Asshole. Asshole. Asshole. I just ran sub-fives for that prick and I get  nothing but a fucking lecture? I watch Betsy coming in, gasping for air  and glaring at me.

Sadly, she's no longer the person on the track I hate most.

I go to the cafeteria with Erin nipping at my heels like the world's  most annoying dog. No matter what I do or how appallingly rude I am,  this girl can't take a hint.

"That was crazy this morning," says Erin. "I mean you're fast, you know? Like super fast."

I shrug. Am I supposed to feign modesty here? I am fast. I wouldn't be  doing this if I weren't. However, I already dislike this expectation.  She's seen me run fast once and she's already got her hopes up. I could  tell her right now that getting hopeful about me is a losing  proposition, but I just open up my paper and ignore her instead.

She's not the only one who noticed, though. At that afternoon's  practice, Erin stands beside me while we wait for Will, as does her  friend Nicole. "That was impressive this morning," says Nicole.

"We totally have a chance at placing this year with you," agrees Erin.

I feel like I'm suffocating. I don't want them counting on me. God knows  I can't even count on myself. "It was just one run," I reply.

Will is walking toward us in a fitted grey V-neck and shorts. It  irritates me that I find him so freaking attractive. Knowing what a jerk  he is should throw cold water on my hormones but it seems to do the  opposite.