Olivia (60 page)

“
Oh, I thought I’d told you. She
has a concussion, so she needs someone to be with her.”

“
Finn,” I whisper, trying to stop
him.

“
Oh, of course,” Mrs. Taylor says,
blushing. “I didn’t realize that’s what you were doing. So you’ll
accompany her to the stage, make sure she makes it back to her
seat, and you’ll come back to the stage when it’s your
turn?”

“
Yes, that’s the plan.” He winks at
me as our teacher continues down the line, checking her list. He
shrugs his shoulders, surprised she bought it. “The bandage
helps.”

“
Please don’t go with me to the
stage,” I tell him.

“
He’ll be jealous?”

“
I doubt it,” I say, “but just in
case. I don’t want to make things any worse than they already
are.”

“
Okay,” he agrees. “But I’m sitting
next to you. I have no intention of sitting next to Eager Eddie.”
Most of our class didn’t like Eddie Reynolds. He was the first to
volunteer for anything in every single class, but more often than
not, his answers were completely wrong. He wasn’t in the running
for valedictorian, to say the least. We’d joked that he might push
the rest of us out of the way so he could be the first to receive
his diploma.

“
That’s probably safest,” I say,
“unless you want one of these, too.” I point to my forehead. “You
get lots of unwanted attention.”

“
There’s no such thing,” he
says.

“
Says Mr.
Most
Popular
.” I tease him with his senior superlative
title.

“
That’s right, Miss
Most Talented
.”

I roll my eyes at my own title. The line ahead of us
starts to move toward our seats. Finn takes my arm in his, but I
pull it away, glaring at him. “I’m fine. If I feel like I’m going
to fall–which I won’t, because again, I’m fine–
I’ll
hold on to
you
. Deal?”
He nods, looking around at the families and friends that have come
to watch us graduate. He starts waving at everyone. “Attention
whore,” I say to him loudly to make sure he hears it over the
applause.

When we get to our seats, we stand and wait for the
rest of my class to filter in. Finn taps me on the shoulder,
pointing out the section where our families are. We both wave at
the camera that Matty’s pointing in our direction. “Who’s the whore
now?” he says, earning him a hard slap to the chest. I scan every
seat around Matty, smiling at all of my family members but missing
the one person I wanted to see most.

“
Finn, I don’t think he’s
here.”

“
I’m sure he’s here,” he says.
“Maybe there weren’t any seats left nearby. You’re dad’s kind of
popular, you know.”

“
Maybe.” I continue to search for
him, a part of me knowing I’d never find him in this crowd, and
another part of me thinking I’d be instantly drawn to him if he was
here. I feel like I’ve looked at everyone by the time they motion
for us to take our seats. I glance at my dad before I sit down,
involuntarily frowning at him. He looks at me sympathetically,
holding up his fingers to form the sign for ‘I love you.’ I make
the sign back to him, and we both sit down at the same
time.

As a few teachers greet our class with their own
chosen anecdotes, all I want to do is lean on Finn and cry. I can’t
believe Jon’s not here... but just in case he is, and I missed him,
I’m careful to keep my distance from my friend.

My vision blurs with tears. There’s no way I can
concentrate on what anyone’s saying. Thank God this is organized.
Thank God I’ll know what to do by just following everyone around
me.

I stand when the rest of my row does, following Finn
out of the aisle. He hangs back, returning to his seat as the rest
of us file up to the stage. I realize that my bandage is on the
side the audience will see, and decide to spend as much time as I
can looking at the back of the stage. Waiting my turn, I pull my
hair in front of my face.

“
Ella Marissa Haymon,” they
announce the girl in front of me.
Miss Most
Popular.
The applause and cheers are insanely loud as I step
up to the edge of the stage, keeping my head angled to the
back.

“
Olivia Sophia DeLuca.”

The entire auditorium goes silent. I whip my head
around to look at my principal, confused. There’s a collective gasp
when people see my head, and as much as I want to get this over
with, I don’t walk. My legs don’t move, because that’s not my name.
That’s not me. I haven’t heard that name in
years
.

“
Come on, Livvy,” Principal Foster
says, trying to wave me forward. I can hear individual people
sniffling, whispering. I can hear
everything
.

“
It’s
Holland
,” I call to him, shaking my head. “Olivia
Sophia
Holland
.”

He looks down at the framed diploma, confused. I can
tell by his reaction that it clearly says DeLuca on the paper. “Of
course it’s Holland. It says that right below your name.”
But that’s not my name!
I feel like
yelling to him. “I am so sorry,” he continues, his face turning
bright red as he motions to me again. “Olivia Sophia DeLuca
Holland
.”

“
There’s no ‘DeLuca’ in my name!” I
explain when I reach him.

I start to cry as I shake his hand, feeling weak in
the knees when he finally releases the diploma to me. I stare at
the foreign name. “We’ll get it corrected, Livvy,” he whispers as I
start to leave. Instead of returning to my seat, I make a beeline
to the doors we’d entered through. Finn meets me in the hallway,
but so do quite a few other curious people. Some, I recognize as
students from the other grades. Others, I don’t recognize at all,
but they’re all staring at me. I just want some privacy, and start
to walk quickly toward a set of doors ahead. I put the diploma in a
trashcan on the way.

“
Can you all back off?” Finn asks
them as I keep going. The sun is blinding when I get outside, the
doors leading to a back lot with three large dumpsters. There’s a
foul stench, so I keep walking around the corner. I hope the
footsteps behind me are Finn’s. I finally turn around to look. He’s
carrying the diploma.

“
Get that away from me,” I tell
him. “What the hell?”

“
Even if
you
don’t want it, you don’t want someone selling it
on eBay either,” he says. We both look around to make sure no one
else has followed us.

“
I can’t even fathom how that
happened. Who would even know that name?” I ask him. Instinctively,
I start to run my hands though my hair, and not only do I knock my
graduation cap off, but I hit my bruised forehead, too. “Finn, this
is the worst day of my life.”

He leans the diploma against the wall and comes over
to me to give me a hug. “Shit, Finn! You have to go back to walk
the stage!”

“
I don’t care about that, Livvy. It
may not be my name they call anyway,” he jokes.

“
That’s not funny,” I tell him as I
push him away.

“
I know,” he says softly. “I’m
sorry. God, Liv, I am so sorry.” I put my head in my hands and cry,
eventually peeling off the bandage in frustration. “That looks much
worse,” he says as he puts his hands on my cheeks so he can angle
my face for a better look in the sunlight.

“
It hurts,” I choke out.

“
I’m sure it does,” he says with a
smile, faintly touching the sore spot with the pad of his
thumb.

“
Not just that, Finn,” I cry.
“Everything.”

I search his eyes for sympathy or answers or
something
. It all happens so quickly; I
have no time to protest. I try to form his name with my lips as he
pulls me close and kisses me hard. My initial response is to try to
back away, but I don’t fight him for long, kissing him back fully
as his hands tug at my hair and mine grip his graduation gown.

“
Oh, Livvy,” he says, in obvious
need of a breath. He pants as he stares at me. I try to wipe the
lines of confusion from his forehead as he kisses me again. Feeling
a sense of comfort, I close my eyes, allowing more tears to fall
from them. This time, when he pulls away, I hold his bottom lip
gently between my teeth, sucking on it lightly before letting
go.

We both hear a click, and I’m fairly certain I saw a
flash of light through my eyelids. I bury my head into him, hitting
it hard against his lean chest. “Ow,” I say. “Finn, what was that?”
I whisper. I hear a few more clicks as I pull my long hair down,
obscuring my face.

“
Livvy, we’re not alone.” Shielding
my face with my hand, I glance up quickly, looking directly into
five different camera lenses. I look away as fast as I can, but not
before a few more flashes go off and I identify a pair of eyes that
look familiar–only they’re full of more anguish than I’ve ever seen
before.

Jon
. I think I might throw
up. He turns and begins to jog the other way, his footing unsure at
first, but quickly finding rhythm. “Jon!”

Finn leans past me and grabs the diploma, passing it
off to me hurriedly. We both look for an exit, but the only options
are back through the building, or toward the crowd. If I want to
get to Jon, we have to go through the onlookers. “Run,” he
instructs me as his lips pass my ear, taking off in a sprint.

“
Finn! Finn, you have to stop him!”
I can’t keep up with him, but I run as fast as I can.

“
I’m trying, Liv!”

It’s a miracle I make it safely through the
paparazzi and the traffic with my eyes attuned to Finn and Jon
ahead of me. I see my friend run into my boyfriend’s body, his
posture poised and ready for the impact. Finn falls at Jon’s
feet.

“
Jon!”

“
What?” he asks, still walking in
the other direction. Jon almost hits Finn as he tries to stop him
from going further. They start to push each other, and I scream to
try to stop them. This gets their attention. “We have an audience,”
Jon says. “Again.”

“
I don’t care!”

“
I do,” he mumbles, the anguish now
turned to anger, hatred. “I don’t want any pictorial evidence of
what I’d like to do to him.” They start to fight.

“
Stop it!” I yell.

“
Why, Liv?” my boyfriend seethes.
“Who’s your dog in this fight, huh? Or don’t you even know?” I
can’t believe he thinks I don’t know. It was a kiss. A very stupid,
confused kiss that came at a time that I needed
Jon
. He wasn’t there.

“
You, Jon,” I barely manage to say.
He pushes my friend into me and walks away, never turning
back.

“
Want me to go after him?” Finn
asks. I shake my head, staring until I can’t see him anymore. When
my head starts to clear, I realize there are still people snapping
pictures.

“
Get me out of here.” Within
seconds, we make it to the edge of the street where a vacant cab is
waiting. We slide in the backseat, slamming the door behind
us.

“
Drive,” Finn says as I duck to
avoid being captured in any more pictures. “East 82nd and Madison.”
He’s taking us back to his dad’s apartment.

“
We are so screwed, Finn,” I tell
him, gasping for air.

“
Yeah, we are,” he says. “I don’t–”
he struggles to find words. “What was that?”

“
I don’t know,” I admit. “I feel...
lost
without him.”

“
That shouldn’t have happened, Liv.
I didn’t mean for–”

“
Don’t you think I know that?!” I
yell at him.

“
Oh, shit,” he says. “Your dad.
What’s your dad gonna think?”

“
Concussion,” I say quickly. “I’ll
blame it on the concussion.”

“
The concussion skewed your
judgment, allowing you to kiss me back, but then you were able to
keep up with me for five blocks to confront your
boyfriend.”

“
What else could it be? I don’t
feel that way about you.”

“
You’ve made that clear, Liv,” he
says with a laugh. He jumps as his phone starts to vibrate in his
pocket. “It’s my dad.”

“
Yeah? I’m with Livvy. I know, Dad,
I know... I can’t, we’re in a cab. We’re headed to the apartment.
Dad, it’s a stupid piece of paper, okay? I’m sure they’ll give it
to you. I’m sorry!” he says, and I’m sure his parents are
thoroughly disappointed that they didn’t get to see him walk the
stage. “I don’t know what to say. It’s too late now. She needed
someone.” He’s quiet for a minute, straining to hear people
conversing on the other end of the line. “Jacks wants to talk to
you.” I shake my head, ignoring the pounding pain the movement
causes. “Take it,” he urges me.

“
What if they know?” I ask him,
panicked.

“
They can’t know yet,” he says.
“But, I mean, Liv. They will.” I grab the phone from
him.

“
Daddy, can you come to Finn’s
apartment? That’s where we’re going.”

“
Tessa, are you okay?”

“
No, I’m not,” I tell him, crying.
“My head hurts, and my heart hurts...” I say, confused.

“
If this is about the diploma,
Liv,” he sighs heavily, “they’ll fix it. It’s not worth being that
upset over. You’re my daughter. Since the day you were born, you
were destined to be my daughter.”