Waking Olivia(7)

"Looking good, Finn," Brofton says. Olivia rolls her eyes and keeps  walking, but another kid, Piersal, stops staring at her chest just long  enough to look at where the back of her singlet is gaping open.

"Jesus," he says. "What happened there?" He trails a finger over her skin and she jumps as if he's burned her.

"Nothing," she snaps.

Anyone who's even spent a modest amount of time around Olivia would know  that tone means leave me the fuck alone, but Piersal is either clueless  or has a death wish. "It doesn't look like nothing," he says. "How'd it  happen?"

There's an expression on Olivia's face, a combination of panic and rage  as everyone turns to watch. "I don't know," she says through gritted  teeth. She barks at the freshman to move and they scuttle.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He laughs. "You look like you got knifed! You have to know."

Before I can even process what the hell is happening, she's spun around  and flung herself toward him, grabbing his shirt at the neck like she's  going to kick his ass across the track though he's at least six inches  taller than she is.

"I told you I don't know," she snarls, pulling tighter at his shirt,  starting to choke him. "Now ask me one more question so I can feed you  your own balls."

I finally snap out of my shock and grab her, wrenching her away from  him, and yelling at everyone to go on about their business. Once they've  left, I round on her. "What the hell was that?"

"He was fucking with me."

"He just asked you a question."

"He laughed," she hisses. Her voice sounds strangled, anger and grief  warring in her throat. "Did you not hear that part? A kid gets stabbed  and it's just a big fucking joke to you people, isn't it?"

I'm slow to cover my surprise. Is she seriously saying someone stabbed  her? "I'm sure he had no idea it was something that serious," I finally  say.

She rolls her eyes. "Of course he didn't. Bad shit never happens to any  of you. You all just stand around with your fucking care packages,  salivating for a gory detail or two, and I get to be the bad guy for  wanting some privacy."

"You know, if you'd just answered the question that would have been the end of it."

"I did answer the question," she growls. "How much do you remember from  when you were little? And even if I did, it's no one's business but  mine."



Someone fucking stabbed her.

I can't get past that fact. I want to forget it entirely because it  causes this unfortunate pit of sympathy in my stomach and she's the kind  of girl for whom feeling sympathy is dangerous. Feel bad and you start  forgiving, making exceptions. The truth is that the odds of her getting  through the next week without kicking Betsy's ass are slim. The odds of  her making it through the season? Impossible. So getting attached to her  in any way is futile at best. I want to not think about it and I want  to not think about her. It's got to be the first time I'm actually  grateful that I can go to the farm and throw myself into work.

I've been out in the fields for at least two hours when my mom takes the  golf cart out to find me. "Did something happen at work?" she asks.  Sometimes my mother sees through me so easily that it's almost scary.

"Nothing I couldn't have predicted."

"What's the problem?"

I shake my head. "There's no problem." It's a lie, of course, but the  truth is that I don't know what the problem is. I don't know why Olivia  Finnegan seems to have taken over a small portion of my brain and, the  moment my attention isn't diverted, it seems to land right back on her.

I keep working, keep trying to focus my mind elsewhere. It doesn't seem  to work. It's not until I feel my phone vibrating that I realize the sun  is setting.

Crap.

"Hey, Jess," I say, already preparing my apology. I really am the world's shittiest boyfriend. She puts up with a lot.                       
       
           


///
       

"I haven't heard from you all day," she says. "What time are you coming over? We're supposed to be at Cat's house by seven."

Shit. It's after six now, I'm drenched in sweat, and my mom's place is  at least 20 minutes from Jessica's. "I'm gonna be a little late. I'm  sorry. I was helping my mom and-"

"It's okay," she says immediately. "I know your mom comes first right  now." In the year we've dated, Jessica's never once made me feel guilty  about the farm, but I can picture her right now, twisting an auburn curl  around her finger, her full mouth pouting slightly, and I feel bad. She  deserves better than a boyfriend who forgot her all day long.

I'm going to try harder, I swear.





12





Olivia



That scar on my back is one small clue to a past I barely remember.

I had a brother once, I had parents once, but they all left me in quick  succession, and now my memories of them are blurred and untrustworthy. I  still think about them, though, no matter how badly I wish I didn't.  Some days more than others.

Sunday is one of those days. Somewhere in the world, my brother is  celebrating his 24th birthday. He ran away when he was eight, only three  years older than me although, at the time, the difference seemed  monumental. A year later, my parents ditched me and took off. I remember  worrying that my brother might still try to return, like a lost dog,  and discover we'd gone.

I wonder if he's alone like I am. Maybe leaving young like that gave him  a head start. Maybe someone took him in. By now he's probably out of  college. He liked to build things, elaborate towers out of cans and  sticks, a delicate suspension that would collapse at the first hint of a  breeze, so maybe he's an engineer now, or an architect. Maybe he's  married, or thinking about it.

I get a cupcake at dinner, which I won't eat, but I close my eyes and  make a wish as if there's a candle, as if it's my wish to make, and my  wish is that he wound up happier than me.



I wake sometime before dawn, standing in the middle of an unfamiliar road.

My brother's birthday always triggers a nightmare, so I'm not all that  surprised. I don't think I'm too far from my apartment, which is good.  What's less good is that there's a pretty big piece of glass in my foot.  Barefoot again, naturally.

"Why? Why can't you ever keep the fucking shoes on?" I groan to myself, wincing as I dig out the glass.

It's hardly the first time it's happened, but the cut is deep and it  hurts like a bitch to return to my apartment in bare feet. I should just  be grateful, I suppose, that it stopped me. Sometimes the injury  becomes part of the dream, and a series of things underfoot just means  fighting harder to get away from the thing behind me.

I get home in time to clean it and slap some gauze over the top, hoping that's enough to get me through practice.

"You're running like a six-year-old on Field Day," says Will a few hours later.

"There's that voice of support I missed all weekend," I reply snidely.  "And just for the record, I'm still faster than anyone out here."

"I'm not coaching 'anyone out here' at the moment," he says. "I'm  coaching you, and I want to know why your gait is off." His eyes are  narrowed, his stare hard. He is sure I ran and I'm not about to tell him  he's right.

"I broke a jar this morning and cut my foot," I tell him.

"Let me see."

I roll my eyes as I walk to a bench, not sure if this is actual concern  on his part or suspicion. I take off my shoe and my sock and wiggle the  ball of my foot at him. "Happy?"

He scowls at me and then comes forward, grabbing my ankle to hold my  foot aloft. "You need to go to the health center, Olivia. That needs to  be stitched."

I shrug. "It'll be fine. It just needs a day."

He looks more carefully at it. "Why is your foot so cut up?"

"It's not," I say, jerking my ankle out of his grasp.

"Do you have to argue about everything? I have eyes and I know what scars look like. Do you walk over broken glass daily?"

I look at him flatly. "Do you really expect me to answer that?"

"No, but I really expect you to go to the health center."

"Despite your years of medical training, I'm gonna have to refuse."

For just a moment, fleeting sadness flickers over his face. It makes me  wish I hadn't spoken. He sighs. "Go shower and wait in my office."

I'm either about to get bitched out for not following his directions, or  I'm about to get kicked off the team. Either possibility seems fair. I  refused to do what he asked. I ran when he told me not to. I was told no  more temper and I nearly crushed a teammate's windpipe. I figured I'd  lose my scholarship eventually, I just thought I'd get to go out with a  bang.