Waking Olivia (25 page)

I
told
Evan I was sick.

It was easy enough to be convincing. I’ve never felt more ill in my life. I thought when Will came to me that things had changed. Sleeping with him was beyond anything I’d ever imagined and when it ended, I expected to see my own surprise reflected on his face.

Instead, I saw regret.
Instead
, I heard him telling me to return to my date. Telling me he needed to think. And that was the difference between us.

I did not need to think.

I
knew
.

And he should have, too.

I don’t sleep. I sit with my back pressed against the headboard. How can I possibly stay here now? I can’t imagine three more seasons of wanting him, of seeing him daily and remembering that look on his face as I left.

There’s a knock on the door. Despite everything, I open it assuming it’s Will. Hoping that maybe he’s made a different decision than the one he seemed to have made earlier tonight.

But it isn’t him at all.

Jessica walks in uninvited, still wearing her dress from the party.

“I’d invite you in, but it looks like you already took care of that on your own,” I scowl.

She glares at me. “Cut the shit, Olivia. I know about you and Will.”

“There’s nothing to know.”

“I followed you!” she cries, her voice on the brink of tears. “I saw him take off after you at the banquet and I followed him. And believe me,
neither
of you was quiet.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I lie. “I went to the bathroom. I have no idea where he went.”

“You lying little bitch,” she says, shoving me.

I feel that rage in the pit of my stomach, my father’s legacy, and I refuse to succumb to it. “I don’t know how much you know about me,” I warn, “but I can guarantee that if you lay another finger on me, you’ll regret it.”

She clenches her fists. “I don’t need to hit you because I can do something much worse. Let’s see how much he wants you when you’re the reason he gets fired next week.”

I have a lifetime’s experience with acting calm when I’m scared shitless. Right now, I need it. “You’re insane,” I reply. “He’s my coach and nothing more. Unless you have some proof to the contrary, you should probably get the fuck out of my apartment.”

“I don’t need proof that you slept with him. I have enough to fry you both without it. I have proof of the two of you sleeping under the same roof repeatedly. I have photos of him dropping you off at your apartment at seven in the morning. You were drinking with him when you were under-age. I witnessed that myself.”

“If you cared about him at all, you wouldn’t think of threatening his job. You know they need that money.”

Jessica rolls her eyes. “Maybe love is knowing what’s best for someone. And I think we both know that you are not what’s best. Do you really think you’re going to make him happy? Look at all the
problems
you have. Can you honestly say you’re the kind of girl he should end up with? Raise kids with? Sinking your claws in him because you want him isn’t love either. It’ll ruin his life. Even the way you’ve risked his career with all this bullshit. Is
that
love, Olivia?”

I want to lash out at her, but I can’t deny the basic truth of what she’s saying. Nothing about my arrival at this school has benefitted him. I can’t possibly make him happy the way someone else can, someone pulled together and from a good family and, well, not crazy.

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.

P
eter 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.

T
he 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.

M
y 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?”

T
he 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.

I should be happier about the endorsement than I am. I mean, this is all I wanted, right? But the truth is that what I want even more is to be able to call Will right now and share the good news. Without that, it feels a little hollow.

A
ll the details
of Olivia’s story checked out.

There were animal bones in her brother’s grave, which rested just beneath a large oak tree. The police went to bring in Olivia’s father for questioning and found that he’d skipped town. From all appearances, he was in a hurry.

“We think someone tipped him off that she’s talking,” the cop says. “Maybe he just ran. But it’s also possible he’s going after the only eyewitness we have.”

Olivia.

I’ve got to find her before he does.

It’s only in absolute desperation that I ask Erin again. I insist on meeting her in person this time, because Erin has one of those faces you can read before she’s ever said a word. If she’s lying, I’ll be able to tell.

She denies all knowledge again, but there’s something fearful in her eyes.

“Look, Erin, if you know anything, you’ve got to tell me.”

“I think you need to just let her go.”

My head lifts. “What did you say?”

“It’s best for everyone if you just let her leave. Don’t look for her.”

“How can you say that? She’s got no family, no money, nothing. She’s going to lose her scholarship if we don’t get her back here.”

“Look, she’s safe, and she’s doing this for you. That’s all I can say.”

“For
me
?” I demand. “How the hell could this be for me? I’m going crazy, Erin. Her father may be after her. I have no idea if she’s checking her email or voicemail, so I don’t know if she realizes she’s in danger. If you know something, you’ve got to tell me.”

T
en minutes
later I’m in my car, making the hour-long drive to Denver. There’s a direct flight to LA that leaves in two hours. No, I can’t afford this plane ticket, but I’ll worry about that later. There’s not a chance I’m wasting a day or more driving to LA when I have no idea if she’s safe.

Erin told me everything, and I still can’t get my head around it. I’d begun to suspect that Jessica was a little crazy, but for her to blackmail Olivia? It’s a level of insanity I’d never even guessed at. I feel sick imagining Olivia leaving, and immeasurably grateful at the same time: she thought I’d used her and rejected her, but she was still willing to give up everything for me.

I messed up. And once I find her, I’m going to spend the rest of my life making it up to her.