I feel like I'm standing at the cliff's edge and jumping is the only option left, so I exhale and prepare to jump.
67
Will
Peter is just pulling up when I get to his house.
Under normal circumstances, I'd find it odd that he was out and about so early, but right now I'm a little focused on my own shit.
He takes one look at my face. "This can't be good."
"I suppose it's not."
"Does this have anything to do with your long disappearance last night?"
I raise a brow. "You seem to already know exactly why I'm here."
"Will, only an idiot could have looked at the two of you last night and not seen the truth."
"I didn't know it was that obvious," I sigh.
"I don't want you to tell me what's happened. I imagine there's something, but if you tell me, then it changes the way I have to respond. You understand what I'm saying?"
I do. If I tell him we've slept together, then the university launches an investigation. My name will be everywhere. Her name will be everywhere. Her scholarship could get called into question.
"I'm here to resign. I don't know how the hell I'm going to support my mom, but I'm no longer able to perform my duties as a coach."
He nods. "I accept your resignation. And speaking as your friend, not your boss, we will come up with another solution, okay? I can cover Brendan's spring tuition, and we'll find you something that pays nearly as well."
"We can't accept that. You've done too much for us as it is."
"We'll talk about that later. In the meantime, maybe you should go tell your mom the good news."
"My mom? I'm hard-pressed to see how she'll think me losing my job is good news, Peter."
"No, but you winding up with Olivia is. Poor woman is the only person alive who's wanted to see that happen more than the two of you."
I grin reluctantly. "I think there's someone else I need to go see first."
I text her, but she doesn't reply.
I call, but she doesn't answer.
I knock on her door, but I get silence in response.
Now that the decision is made, now that I'm no longer her coach, waiting feels like an impossible burden. I want to begin. I want to tell her everything and promise that somehow I'll find a way to make it work. Maybe once the farm is up and running, I can fly out to see her on weekends. Hell, maybe one day it will be successful enough that we can sell it entirely. If she's even a fraction as willing as I am to make this happen, we'll succeed.
I go to my office and pack my stuff, waiting for her to respond. Better to do it now, over the weekend, without witnesses. I'm not sure how my resignation is going to get played out, but no one resigns this suddenly without reason, usually a bad one. People will be looking for the worst possible cause, and unfortunately, in this case, they'll be right.
I call her again, text her again, and I get no answer. Where the hell is she? As the day goes on without a word from her, my dread grows. I know she was upset last night but was she upset enough to give up on me entirely?
I go back to her apartment. When she doesn't answer, I grab the key under the pot and go in. When I do, it seems like all the air has left my body.
Because the furniture remains, but every other sign of her is gone.
68
Olivia
The buses run pretty regularly to Denver. Before daylight, I was already past the perimeter of the city, moving away from the mountains I'd grown to love.
Because this is what Jessica wanted-me disappearing quietly, without a word of explanation. She promised she wouldn't turn Will in if I left. She's assuming my absence is all she needs to get him back, and who knows? Maybe it is. She took my cell phone just to be sure he couldn't somehow convince me to come home.
///
In Denver, I call Erin from a pay phone. I gloss over the whole I-just-slept-with-our-coach part but tell her everything else-what Jessica has proof of and what she is threatening. I ask if her brother will let me stay with him in LA just long enough for me to find a job and save a little money. No, LA isn't where I want to end up, but right now I just need to get on my feet and I'd prefer not to do it in a women's shelter. I've stayed in women's shelters before, and you either wind up getting hit or robbed there eventually.
But the whole thing worries Erin. "What do I tell Will? I mean, you know he's going to ask."
He's not going to ask. He's going to flip. I can see it unfold and it makes me sick. The way he'll worry. The way he'll blame himself, and he'll call, and he'll go see his mom and probably go to my apartment and find it stripped. "Tell him I got sick of living in a small town and that my chances were better somewhere else."
"Why would he believe that?"
That one's easy. Because he said it himself.
69
Will
My mother takes one look at my face when I enter the house and she knows. "Oh God," she whispers. "What happened? Is she okay?"
I tell her. I know she wants to cry, but she doesn't because one of us has to be sane here and it sure as shit isn't me.
"It's okay," she says. "We can find her. We can fix this."
"No," I rasp, sinking into the couch. "We can't. I can't. I did this. Something happened last night, something that shouldn't have happened, and I told her I needed to think. I mean, I thought she understood. I was just trying to make sure I could do this without impacting her scholarship, but … " I bury my head in my hands, so fucking frustrated by my own stupidity, by the way everything in my life has seemed beyond my control and now Olivia, the most important part of it, is too.
And I did it to myself.
"No, she wouldn't just take off like that. She's a strong girl. She's dealt with so much and things were turning around for her. They were. She wouldn't just leave."
"She did. There's nothing left in that apartment but the furniture I took over there. Nothing."
"Maybe she's coming here."
"How would she get here? She doesn't have a car."
"Did you talk to her friends?"
I shrug. "She kind of kept to herself, aside from Erin, and maybe Evan."
"And you spoke to them?"
"I asked Erin and she didn't know anything."
"So call Evan."
I like that idea less. It's unfair, how angry the idea makes me, how jealous I feel, but if she went to Evan I'm gonna lose my shit. I guess it's a good thing I'm already out of a job because if she's there I'd beat his ass and get fired anyway.
How did I ever think I'd be able to stand being near her but not with her for the rest of her time at ECU?
I finally call him but he knows nothing. "Are you sure?" he asks. "She wouldn't do that. She wouldn't just take off."
It's a struggle not to sound miserable when I reply. To sound like a worried coach and not a guy who's just realized he can't live without someone. I'm pretty sure I didn't pull it off.
I contact her landlord, who hasn't heard from her. No one in the administration has either. She won't answer her phone. I call Erin again, who continues to swear she knows nothing. Things are as dire as they've ever been.
And then they get worse.
The detective who interviewed Olivia calls on Monday. He says he left her a message yesterday and she hasn't returned his call.
"She's taken off," I tell him. "No one knows where she's gone."
His quick intake of breath unsettles me. "Are you sure she left?" he asks.
"Her stuff is gone, she didn't show up for class today and no one's seen her, so yeah."
"Yes," he says, "but are you sure she left willingly?"
70
Olivia
The bus ride from Denver to LA is exactly 22 hours long.
I pretend I'm just going on a short trip because it's easier than thinking about the fact that I've left him behind for good. Does it matter anyway? Better to leave now than to spend the next year falling more deeply in love with someone I am not going to end up with.
During one of the stops I call his work line, knowing it's late enough there's no chance he'll answer. My voice is breezy and careless as I tell him that it was never going to work and that ECU is a waste of my time. I want to apologize, to ask him to tell his mother goodbye, but I don't because I'm about 90% sure I'll cry and ruin the whole charade.
///
And when I end the call, I do cry. I might never hear his voice again, and he and Dorothy will always remember me as an ingrate who took everything they offered and threw it in their faces without a backward glance.
I check my emails at the Las Vegas bus terminal, pushing the ones from Will into a folder. I'll read them someday, when it's easier, but I can't right now. I only read and reply to one thing in my inbox - a letter from a representative for Fumito, some fledgling Japanese shoe company, who says he wants to Fed Ex me a proposal. I write back and give him Sean's address in LA. I just hope Sean lets me stay long enough to receive it.