Waking Olivia (15 page)

A
s tired as I am
, I don’t fall asleep. Once again, there are so many things wrong here, not least of which the fact that I’m ostensibly doing this to comfort Olivia but happen to be hard as a rock while she lies a centimeter away sleeping peacefully. I took the precaution of shoving half the quilt between us after she fell asleep tonight.
Not helping.
So, in essence, I’m perving on a student and cheating on my girlfriend, at least in spirit, and I don’t know of another goddamn way to deal with any of it.

But the things that make sleep impossible and my shorts profoundly uncomfortable also make me happy that I’m here: the feel of her, the smell of her shampoo, the way her shoulders rise and fall, how at this moment all of her intensity and twitchiness are gone and she’s so completely at peace. Today had to have been one of the worst days of her life, and yet it turned out to be one of the best I’ve had in years.

It wasn’t just climbing. It was sharing it with her. I should have known she would love it, that it would strip her of every thought and emotion and let her be free of it all for a while. There are times, like today, when it strikes me that we are far more alike than different. And God knows I wish that weren’t the case.

T
he next morning
, Will is already up and dressed when I wake.

“I can be ready in five minutes,” I tell him.

“You don’t have to run today. Why don’t you just take it easy? I can come back and pick you up in time for class.”

I shake my head. “I think I need to get back to it.”

“Fine,” he sighs, “but you’re staying here tonight.”

“So bossy,” I mumble, but it’s seriously hard to pretend I’m unhappy about it.

A
fter practice in the afternoon
, he picks me up in the side parking lot so no one will see. We aren’t doing anything wrong, but I feel guilty because I know the whole thing makes
him
feel guilty. And it sure as hell would look bad if anyone saw us.

He turns to me just after he slides into the driver’s seat. “Want to climb?” His whole face brightens as he asks, and even if I didn’t want to go, I’d say yes.

“Don’t you have to work on the farm?”

He grins at me. “Yeah.”

“Am I finally seeing the naughty side of Will Langstrom?”

He arches a brow. “This doesn’t even come close to the naughty side, Olivia.”

Gulp.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Will just got 10 times hotter.

H
e teaches
me to lead climb today, which involves clipping into bolts that are already in the mountain as I go up instead of relying on a rope anchored at the top. He also teaches me to belay, which allows him to climb with me on the ground, scared shitless that I’m going to accidentally feed him too much slack from the rope and kill him.

“I trust you,” he says.

“You shouldn’t,” I remind him. “Remember? I nearly killed a teammate?”

“I still trust you.” He grins.

Watching him climb is an amazing thing, the strength and the agility and the gracefulness of it all.

“You look like Spiderman!” I shout.

His laugh echoes down through the rocks. “Hold the rope just in case,” he shouts back.

He’s lighter, happier than usual on the way home. His laughter and smiles come easily.

“I don’t understand how your father possibly thought climbing was the wrong choice for you. You’re so much happier like this.”

He sighs. “I don’t think he ever looked at work as something that should make you happy. He looked at it as a responsibility, and all he saw was that I was shirking mine.” Normally conversations about his father seem to bother him, but it’s not until the farm comes into sight—with a burgundy BMW convertible sitting in the driveway—that his mood plummets. His whole body has stiffened at the sight of it.

“What’s the matter?” I ask. “Is it Peter?”

“No,” he says, his shoulders sagging. “It’s Jessica, my girlfriend.”

I know nothing about Jessica, but there’s this spiteful little flame in my stomach caused entirely by her. So I definitely don’t want to see her, but shouldn’t
he
? “I’ll deal with the horses and give you some time to hang out.”

He nods, his mouth set in a hard line, and heads inside like he’s facing a firing squad.

I go to the stables and take my time getting the horses groomed and fed. I was hoping she’d be gone by the time I head back to the house, but even from a distance I can see her, posed like a pageant queen on the front porch with her long, perfect red hair swinging over her shoulder and her legs crossed. My first emotion isn’t mere dislike. It’s loathing.

She hops up and walks down the stairs with her arm extended. “You must be Olivia,” she says with a wide smile. “I’m Jessica, Will’s girlfriend.”

“Hi.” I don’t pretend to smile. I know this girl and I are not going to be friends.

“So what brings you out here tonight?” Her voice is too bright, too clipped. She says it as if she’s caught me trespassing and is diplomatically sending me on my way.

I raise a brow, and allow a small, mocking smile to escape. I have a feeling it bothers her that I’m here, so I plan to let it keep bothering her. “This and that.”

“Why were you in the barn?”

“I was cleaning the stables,” I reply. “You know what a disaster they’ve been since Jackson quit.” Her smile falters. She didn’t know Jackson quit, obviously, and I want to run a victory lap around her.

Will walks out the front door, freshly showered, followed by Dorothy. The identical tension in their shoulders is really the first resemblance besides eye color I’ve ever noticed between them.

“I see you two have met,” says Dorothy.

“Yes,” replies Jessica. “Olivia was just telling me she was helping with the horses. If you needed help, you should have asked me, Dorothy.”

What utter bullshit
. I don’t know how this girl affords a BMW or those designer heels she’s wearing by working for the university, but there’s not a chance that
she’s
cleaning stables.

“Olivia grew up working with horses,” Dorothy explains.

Jessica walks around Dorothy and goes to Will’s other side, grabbing his hand. “You should teach me what to do, so next time I can be the one to help. I’ll need to learn eventually anyway, right?”

Whoa
. What in the actual
fuck
did that mean? Is he
marrying
this girl?

Will acts as if she hasn’t spoken as he turns to her. “You ready to head out?”

“Head out?” she asks. “But your mom made dinner. We don’t spend enough time out here anyway. You know I love the farm.”

“I thought we were eating out,” Will argues, sounding a bit like a surly adolescent.

“We can eat out any time,” she exclaims. “But how often can we eat with your mom and your star athlete?”

Pretty much anytime
, I think with a smirk.

I
t’s uncomfortable
, sitting down at the table with her there, especially when I don’t know my role or what Will has told her. Dorothy asks me how our climb was over dinner, though, so that’s one cat out of the bag. I tell her Will taught me to belay.

“So you climbed?” Dorothy asks him excitedly.

“Yeah,” he says with a half smile. “I haven’t lost it entirely.”

“He hasn’t lost it at all,” I tell her. “He looked like Spiderman. Which was good because I wasn’t entirely sure I was doing it right and didn’t want to find out by watching him plummet to the ground.”

“You don’t need to worry about Will,” says Dorothy. “He’s a natural born climber.”

“I wasn’t worried about him,” I reply with a grin at Will. “I just didn’t know how to get home on my own.”

Jessica’s jaw drops but Will laughs.
His
reaction is the only one I care about.

“We should go climbing sometime,” interjects Jessica, looking at Will. He blinks as if she’s speaking in some foreign language he needs to translate. Or maybe he just forgot she was there, though that’s hard to imagine given the way she’s clinging to him.

“Sure,” he says hesitantly. “I didn’t think you were into it.”

“Well, I’ll never know until I try,” she says with another bright smile. She turns to me. “So, Olivia, what are your plans for Thanksgiving?”

I shrug. “I don’t know yet.”

“You have to come here,” says Dorothy, “if you’re not going home, that is.”

“Oh, I disagree,” says Jessica decisively. “You should go home. It’s important to keep those ties strong when you go away to school.”

I smile tightly, managing to not roll my eyes. “I’ll figure it out.”

“Stay with us,” Dorothy pleads. “It won’t be the same without you.”

I feel as if I’ve been put on stage and was never provided the lines. I don’t want Dorothy to always feel like she has to take me in, but her last words have clearly made Jessica so very unhappy that I find myself agreeing just to see Jessica’s face fall a little more.

After dinner, I start clearing the table and Jessica inserts herself there too, reaching for the dishes in my hands. “Here,” she says. “Will and I can get this. You’re the guest. You should sit.”

For some reason, this completely reasonable statement makes me want to punch her in the face.
I’m
the guest, but she’s not?
She’s
the one they want around, and I’m the one they’re forced to host?

“I’m good,” I say, brushing past her to walk to the kitchen. I start rinsing the dishes and putting them in the dishwasher. She takes the bowls I’ve just placed there and moves them for no evident reason. “Isn’t Will’s family great?” she asks. “I’m surprised Dorothy doesn’t have a houseful of pets. She just can’t resist a stray, you know?”

And with that, she gives me that sunny pageant smile and walks back into the family room.

W
ill leaves with Jessica
, and although I wish he were staying, it’s a relief to escape his girlfriend’s noxious presence. I sit on the couch with Dorothy.

"So that was Jessica, huh?" I say. "What a
lovely
girl."

"I think she was a little unsettled to find you here,” replies Dorothy. “She's not normally quite so ... controlling."

"Will could do a lot better than that," I grumble. “I don’t know what he sees in her.” Okay, that’s a lie. Anyone with two eyes knows what he sees in her. I guess I just expected more of him.

"Jessica is a nice girl,” Dorothy sighs. “And Will’s known her forever. Back in high school, Will’s father hoped they’d get together, but Will was never interested.”

“I see why he wouldn’t be interested. What could they possibly have in common? She wore stiletto heels to a
farm
for God’s sake.”

“Maybe she isn't what I'd have chosen for my son, but it's not my choice to make. And she may be my daughter-in-law someday, so I need to make the best of it."

"You think he's going to
marry
her?" I ask incredulously. "
Her
? She's not good enough for him in a million years!"

Dorothy’s face falls a little. "I think Jessica wants to get married," she replies carefully. "And she’s pretty good at getting her way.”

T
he moment
I saw Jessica’s car in my mother’s driveway, my stomach sank. I prefer to keep the various parts of my life—the farm, coaching, Jessica—separate. Her presence felt like an intrusion, but what could I possibly say? Jessica is a separate part of my life, but somehow Olivia is not. Olivia
belongs
at the farm. When I go and she isn’t there something feels lacking. But since it’s something I can’t even explain to myself, how could I possibly defend it to Jess?

She was inside, sitting on the couch talking to my mom, who had her polite face on — the one she uses with strangers, except I couldn’t remember her ever looking like that with Olivia.

“I thought I told you I couldn’t meet tonight?” I asked. It was a struggle to keep the edge from my voice.

“I thought I could finally meet Olivia,” she replied. “She seems to be spending a lot of time with your family.”

Jessica is insecure about many things, and it became clear in that moment that Olivia was one of them. I should have expected it, I suppose. My interest in this job and the amount of time I put into it have increased exponentially since she joined the team.

I exhaled my frustration, knowing that if Jessica was already feeling insecure, actually
seeing
Olivia was not going to help. I went to shower, and my mother met me before I went out to the porch, where Jess was waiting.

“How much does Jessica know?” she asked.

“She knows Olivia has slept here before some of the meets,” I said defensively.

“And does she know you stay here too?”

“It was implied.”

My mother clicked her tongue in disapproval. “In other words, you never specifically addressed it and hoped she’d
assume
you were at your apartment. And she’s about to see Olivia, who even the most secure woman would be jealous of, and discover you’ve been sleeping here with her.”

“I haven’t been sleeping anywhere with her,” I snapped. “Jessica has nothing to worry about. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

She shook her head and walked ahead of me to the front door. “For all the girls you’ve run through in your short life, Will, you still don’t know much about women.”

And when I followed her outside and saw the looks on both their faces, I knew she was right.

J
ess’s silence
tells me everything I need to know when we get to her apartment.

“Are you okay?” I ask. I want her to smile and move on, but I know she won’t, which means we remain in this ugly sort of limbo until we’ve
talked
. And talks with Jessica don’t necessarily go well. The only way you seem to achieve resolution is by promising something more than you are really willing to promise.

She sighs. “That’s the girl who’s been sleeping at your mom’s house?”

“Yeah, I told you about her.”

She sucks in her cheeks and her jaw shifts beneath them. “She’s pretty.”

Her words are a trap. If I agree, I open a whole new universe of insecurity. But denying it is pointless. You’d have to be blind not to notice Olivia. Increasingly, of late, it seems I’m incapable of noticing anything else.

“I guess.”

“So you were hanging out with her last night?”

“Jess,” I groan. “Don’t make this weird. She’s just one of my athletes.”

“
She
doesn’t seem to know that.”

“Believe me, Olivia is well aware of the fact that she’s one of my athletes. I’ve never been fought so hard by someone in my life.”

“That’s not what I mean, Will. She acts like...” she trails off, her frustration mounting.

“Like what?”

“Never mind. I just don’t see why she has to stay with your mom.”

“She just found out her brother was
murdered
, Jessica,” I say, hearing an edge slip into my voice. “Do you really want to begrudge her having people around while she deals with it?”

“No, but the people don’t have to be you and your mom.”

“She’s only been here for two months. She doesn’t know anyone else.”

“Well, I don’t think she should be staying with your mother anymore.”

I feel my temper inching up, and I do my best to keep my tone stable. “And why is that?”

“Because it looks bad. I work in public relations, and I’m telling you right now that
no one
is going to believe you’re hanging out with a girl who looks like
that
out of the kindness of your heart.”

“I don’t give a shit what anyone believes,” I snap. “She has the ability to be a world-class runner, and she’s leading our women’s track team to its first winning season in a decade. If staying with my mom makes the difference, she’s staying with my mom.”

“As long as that’s all she is to you.”

I agree because it should be true. Because it needs to be true. There’s no other option.

I
get back
to my mother’s around 11. Jessica was clearly unhappy that I wasn’t staying, but her lack of sympathy for Olivia left me not really giving a shit.

I’m just dozing off when I hear a noise from Olivia’s room. She’s flailing in the sheets, saying something over and over. I approach quietly as she grows more agitated.

“Stop crying,” she pleads in a whisper.

I sit on the bed. “Olivia,” I tell her, running my hand over her back as if she were a child, “it’s okay. You’re okay.”

She grabs my arm and her eyes fly open. “Stop crying,” she begs. “You’ve got to stop.”

“Olivia, you’re dreaming. It’s okay.”

“Please stop crying,” she says and then she begins to weep, a small, childlike noise that is hard to listen to.

I pull her to my chest. “It’s okay, Olivia. I promise. It’s okay.”

“Don’t cry,” she says, over and over. “Don’t cry.”

When she finally falls back asleep and I emerge from her room, my mother is waiting with her head in her hands.

“You heard that?” I ask, and she nods.

“What on earth happened to that girl and her brother?” she asks.

I wish I knew. And I’m equally scared that someday soon, I’m going to find out.