Waking Olivia (29 page)

We follow her through the restaurant, her hips swaying so much you’d think she was in a Shakira video, and then she leans over as she seats us, letting her cleavage spill forward, to ask Will if the table is okay. He absent-mindedly tells her it’s fine, with a polite smile, but I shoot her a nasty look as she walks away.

He’s watching me. “What’s with the face?” he asks, grinning. “I know you don’t want to be here but it’s not her fault.”

“Did you seriously not notice the way she was acting with you?” I demand. “She practically shoved her rack in your face.”

He looks genuinely, adorably confused. “I didn’t notice anything.”

“I’m not sure how you failed to notice
that
.”

He laughs, but it sounds slightly disgruntled. “It’s about time you spent some time in my shoes.”

I gasp. He’s got to be kidding. How many times did I have to watch Jessica sitting in his lap or implying they’d just had sex? Showing up on the track in her fuck-me pumps and short skirt? “
Your
shoes? You’re the one who had a girlfriend all fall!”

“I’ve put up with plenty, believe me,” he says with a scowl, setting down the wine list.

I roll my eyes. “Is this about Brendan again? I already told you he was just acting like that to make you pull your head out of your ass. He’s never laid a finger on me.”

“I
saw
him lay a finger on you,
remember
?” Will asks, his face clouding. I really need to stop bringing that up. “And do you know how many fucking times I had to listen to Brofton hitting on you on the bus? Or the football team with that stupid song, sitting on the bleachers watching you come in from a run like it was a lingerie show
?
You’re so used to it you don’t even know it’s happening.”

I wave it away. “None of that meant anything.”

“Just like that girl doing whatever she theoretically did means nothing. It meant so little that I didn’t even see it.”

He’s right. The football players, Brofton—they barely registered because I only had eyes for Will. Is it so inconceivable that he might feel the same way?

“Maybe,” I say reluctantly.

“Definitely,” he replies, his mouth softening, a hint of laughter behind it.

I smile. “It’s our first date and we’re already arguing. That can’t be good.”

“I bet arguing with me made you feel right at home though, didn’t it?” he asks with a low laugh.

And the funny thing is that it
did
. Neither of us are different here, as I feared we might be. He’s the same guy who often annoys me and always thrills me, the same guy who can get me to undress with simply a look, and right now he’s watching me across a candlelit table with a smile I’ve never seen him give anyone else.

“You’re better now?” he asks.

“I am.”

“Good,” he says. “Because even if we’re arguing, this is still the best first date I’ve ever had.”

By the time our meal concludes, I feel all warm inside and relaxed from a glass of red wine and can’t even remember why I was nervous about this. I love being here with Will, hearing his stories about climbing and about how unbelievably bad he was in high school. I love that I can watch him, take in the flash of his teeth when he laughs, the slow curve of his reluctant smile. And I love that beneath the table, my legs brush against his, and every time it happens he registers it with a look that makes me shudder in the best kind of way.

So I rub my leg against his, this time very, very intentionally. His eyelids lower ever so slightly and his mouth goes slack. I think about how many times I’ve seen that look on his face without realizing what it meant, that it’s the look he has when he wants something and is doing his best to restrain himself. Except his restraint is no longer necessary. Thank God.

I kick off my shoe and lift the hem of his pants with my toes so I can run my foot along his bare skin. His eyes meet mine across the table, vivid in the dim light, and his mouth opens slightly as he exhales. He pushes his plate away and his glance falls to my mouth.

“Maybe we should get the check,” he breathes.

B
y the time
we reach the apartment, foreplay is completely unnecessary and even unwanted. He pushes my back against the wall just inside the door, his mouth landing on mine as he slides up my dress, his hands skimming my thighs.

“Oh
God
,” he groans when his fingers slip between my legs.

I reach for his belt and undo it as we move toward the table. I’m not sure which of us is leading the other. There will be time for something slow and measured later, but that’s not what either of us wants right now. He turns me so that I’m face down, and I remain there, breathless as I listen to the sound of his zipper sliding, feel him push against me and then into me with a groan of relief. He holds my hips in place, his thrusts quick and sharp, murmuring my name as he bends over to kiss the back of my neck. My back is damp, soaking through the dress and I don’t care as he moves faster, as his words grow incoherent.

“Grab the table,” he grunts, and then he pushes so hard that it feels as if my clinging hands are all that separate me from a long, hard fall. One more push, the table sliding across the floor, and I come.

He lets go with a hoarse cry, and when he’s finally spent he lies over me, his front pressed against my back, his mouth buried in my neck. “I love you,” he whispers. “God I love you so much.”

I know that he does. And I know I love him so fiercely that words are inadequate. So fiercely that it will destroy me if he ever changes his mind.

O
ver break
, Will begins taking groups out, mostly tourists in town for the holidays, skiers looking for a diversion though I can’t imagine wanting to climb when it’s so cold. But he comes home with a light in his eyes he never had when we first met. I attempt to cook, because it shouldn’t fall entirely on him, and it’s awful but he digs in anyway, asking for seconds. We go running, and when he tries to correct my turnover rate I bark, “
You’re not my coach anymore
!”. After a fair amount of bickering we decide that I will do what he asks if he promises to make it worth my while when we get home—an agreement that works out satisfactorily for us both.

He’s happy.

I’m happy.

And then I talk to the police.

I
t didn’t take
them long to figure out how my father got Sean’s address. There was no endorsement offer from a Japanese shoe company. It was my father, using a fake email address, and I was an idiot to fall for it. They tell me he’s being extradited to Kansas to stand trial for the murders of my brother and my mom. They also tell me that my years of not remembering probably saved my life because he’d have shown up a lot sooner otherwise.

And then they mention something in passing that leaves my stomach sinking like a heavy weight: my father’s nickname was Finn.

It’s the part of the conversation I don’t want to tell Will later, but I do, and he sees in my face all the things I’m thinking. “It doesn’t mean anything, Liv,” he says immediately. “Lots of people have that nickname.”

Except I’ve had time, too much time, to think this through. To look for and find all the staggering similarities between my father and myself.

“That nickname’s not the only thing we have in common,” I reply, staring at my hands, wondering what more they might be capable of.

Will’s gaze pins me, and his voice is angry. “There’s a world of difference between what you’ve done and what he’s done. Don’t you dare make that comparison.”

I want to believe him.

But then I think of the look on Matthew’s face when I agreed to dig that hole.

S
econd semester begins
. Will climbs. Dorothy plans a wedding. I begin working with ECU’s new female coach. She’s good, but not as good as Will, who I run with on weekends now and actually listen to without demanding an incentive.

And we are happy, very happy, but all the while there is something festering—something I don’t share with Will. The similarities between my father and me are sort of like a monster under the bed: I’m so scared of what I might find that I can’t bring myself to look.

Will comes to my first meet that winter. He makes no secret of the fact that he’s there for me, and it becomes pretty obvious to everyone who hadn’t already figured it out why Will left his job. But people love Will, and inexplicably seem to like me, so it’s not a big deal to most of the team. There are a few assholes, naturally, and I really don’t care. Betsy and her peers can be snide about it all they want: I’m the only one of us who’s taking first place consistently, and I’m the only one of us going home with Will. That last bit makes it easy not to care what
anyone
thinks.

It’s almost perfect, aside from this: I’m having nightmares again. And in these, my father is longer the villain. I am.

I dream that I’m arriving somewhere—the farm, our apartment, the track—like it’s any other day. And then I suddenly
remember
, as if it’s something I could ever forget, that Will is dead. The realization tears through my chest, cracking it wide open, and when the pain hits I remember something else: I’m the one who did it. In some moment of blindness, like the one that happened with Mark Bell, I attacked him and I can never bring him back.

I wake sobbing, with Will beside me, trying to calm me down. When he asks, I lie and say it was about my father. I can’t imagine telling him the truth: the awful thing is no longer something outside of me.

It’s inside me, waiting to strike.

B
y March
, Colorado’s year-round sunlight grows warm instead of merely bright, and the snow begins to melt. Will is always doing small things, things I suspect he doesn’t think anything of—he stuffs newspaper in my wet running shoes to help them dry faster. He makes coffee even on mornings he doesn’t have time to drink it. Every time he passes Starbucks he stops to get me a pumpkin scone. These are small things, meaningless things, but what they tell me is not: I matter to him, always, and even if I’m being evil or cool or dismissive, he’s not going anywhere.

He isn’t going anywhere, but I might be. Because the nightmares are more frequent now, and each time I wake from one I tell myself I should leave. That I should go somewhere Will could never find me in order to keep him safe. Sometimes the only way I can ease my anxiety and go back to sleep is by
swearing
to myself I will go. Once I even begin to pack, but then daylight comes and I look at Will sleeping there and can’t bring myself to do it.

It changes things between us. Will begins to discuss the time after I graduate, though it’s over a year away. He talks about us moving to Seattle, where I can train for long distance and he can lead bigger climbs, and I dismiss it. He references marriage, and kids, and I say nothing, hating the small glint of hurt in his eyes each time I fail to respond. But how can I possibly discuss the future, discuss marriage or—God forbid—kids, when I have no idea what this is inside me and what harm it’s capable of?

It’s created a wedge between us, one he feels but can’t identify and one I understand but won’t explain.

Summer comes and Will gets me a job working the desk at the tour company. It should be ideal. We drive to work together, and I love when he comes into the office between climbs, the way his whole face lights up when he sees me. We ride home together. Sometimes we stop on the way to hike or to climb. Sometimes we make dinner, and sometimes we rush straight to our messy bed and remain there for hours, only leaving once hunger pangs set in. But the wedge between us is growing, and because of that we argue, and the arguments are less playful than they once were.

It’s July. He pushes an article toward me about a group of ultramarathoners in Seattle, and I push it back without reading it.

“I thought that’s what you wanted,” he says, the words clipped and precise.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I reply flippantly, pushing away from the table.

That muscle in his jaw pops. “What exactly does that mean?”

“Who knows where we’ll be in a year?” I reply, busying myself scrubbing a counter that’s already clean. “We can’t know, so there’s no point in discussing it.”

“
I
know, Olivia,” he hisses. “I know that wherever you are in a year, I want to be there too.”

I say nothing. I don’t meet his eye, knowing what I’ll see there.

“You don’t even know that much?” he demands. “You’re so uncertain about us that you don’t know if you want to be with me in a year?”

I glance at him and he looks so wounded I have to look away. “It’s not that simple,” I reply.

“Yeah,” he says, heading for the door. “It actually is.”

The door slams and the glass-framed pictures vibrate in protest. I grip the counter so hard that my hands ache.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell him the truth. I can’t trust that he’s safe with me. I also can’t keep him in this permanent limbo, never sure whether I’m planning to stay, assuming I just don’t love him enough to commit.

I need to let him go, yet even the hours I spend waiting for him to come home are torture. I need to let him go, and it’s going to kill me when I do.

He comes in late, far after we’ve normally gone to bed. “I thought you’d be asleep,” he sighs. It’s the first time he’s looked
unhappy
to see me and it makes my chest ache.

I stand, blocking his path, resting my hands on his arms. “I love you,” I tell him. “You know that. I love you more than anything in the world. I just…” And here I trail off because I don’t know the rest of that sentence myself.

He pulls away from me. “It’s late. I’m going to bed.”

“Will,” I plead. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not doing anything, Olivia,” he says without inflection. “You are.”

He goes to bed and I remain on the couch. I have the nightmare again and wake to find him scooping me up and bringing me to bed, but in the morning he doesn’t say a word to me.

He drops me off at the office, with a kiss on the forehead that feels more obligatory than willing.

I spend the day watching my phone for a text from him, scanning the parking lot for his car. By mid-afternoon, that sickness in my stomach has grown. I’ve always heard from him by now.

If he’s mad, if he’s done with me, that’s good, right? It means I can leave and maybe he won’t care, or he’ll at least care less than he would have. I pick up my phone to text him and put it back down. Why try to fix this when it has to end? Why console him or console myself when we’ll just have to go through it all again?

There’s this restless, painful energy inside me as if I’ve had way too much caffeine on absolutely no sleep. I can’t stop pacing, moving, my hand reaching for my phone and jerking away.

I’ve just picked up the phone and begun to type when Mike, our boss, emerges from his office. I put the phone down guiltily, but he doesn’t even seem to notice.

“Jim just called,” he says, in a voice of forced calm. Jim is another guide who often works with Will. “There was an accident.”

M
y body shakes
as I sit in the passenger seat of Mike’s car, on the way to the hospital. Mike knows nothing except that a bolt came out and Will fell.

Which means he could be paralyzed. He could be in a coma. He might already be dead.

The terror I feel is worse than any nightmare, a fear so acute that I refuse to believe it’s happened. A small, irrational voice in the back of my head suggests I find a way to end this—throw myself out of the car,
anything
—so I won’t have to endure the piece that comes next.

Mike leads me by my elbow into the hospital, steering me blindly as we go to the front desk and the elevator and the nurse’s station. I feel both desperate and numb at once, suffering one interminable wait after another with my stomach clenched so tight that it nearly bends me over with pain.

And then we arrive in his room, and Will
turns
—he’s in a bed but he’s alive, he’s moving—and with an anguished sob I run across the room, where he pulls me to him, burying my face in his neck. I cry endlessly, uncontrollably, the way I have only once before in my entire life. He runs his hand over my hair, soothing me, promising me he’s fine.

“You’re in a hospital bed,” I whisper, broken and almost unintelligible. “You’re not
fine
.”

He gives a low laugh. “Two broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. That’s it.”

It doesn’t help. I should be overjoyed and instead it feels as if someone’s wrapped a cord around my heart and is pulling it so tight I can’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry we fought. All I could think as I fell was of how I’d left things. That me being shitty to you was going to be your last memory of me.”

I press my face to my hands. I’m still crying. I can’t seem to stop. It’s partially the relief of discovering he’s fine, but it’s also the terror of discovering that he is vulnerable. I can keep him safe from
me
by leaving, but how can I possibly keep him safe from everything
els
e? From climbing accidents and car crashes and muggings and illness? There are thousands of ways he could be hurt, and I can’t prevent any of them. He lowers the bedrail and pulls me next to him on his uninjured side.

“I love you,” I tell him, still crying. “I want to be with you next year. I’ve always wanted that.”

“Liv,” he says into my ear, part laughter and part desperation. “That’s a good thing, right? Why are you so upset?”

“I can’t keep you safe,” I whisper, hearing how ridiculous and childlike the words are even as they fall from my lips.

“You can’t keep anyone completely safe,” he replies. “Not even yourself.”

This is common sense, I know, but it’s hitting me right now as if it’s a new revelation. “I thought
I
might hurt you,” I admit quietly, “but I never thought something else could hurt you instead.”

“Hurt me how?” he asks carefully. There’s a barely concealed note of dread in his voice, and there should be. I wish I hadn’t said it. He’s never going to trust me again, feel safe with me again, once he knows the truth.

“Those nightmares I’ve been having for the last few months? I told you they were about my dad but they weren’t. They were about you, that you were dead and I was the one who’d done it. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know if it’s some kind of warning. I kept telling myself I would go somewhere, where you couldn’t find me, but I just couldn’t.”

He freezes. How is it possible for someone to lie completely still and yet recoil at the same time? He is doing both. The room is silent but I still hear doors slamming shut, the sound of us coming to an end.

“Jesus, Olivia,” he finally says. “Is that what this has been? You were going to
leave
?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“
When
?” he hisses, and it takes me a second to realize that he no longer sounds horrified—he sounds
pissed
.

Reluctantly I lift my head, forcing myself to meet his eye. “Soon, I guess. After this morning I thought … I thought maybe it wouldn’t bother you so much.”

His jaw drops. “Not
bother
me? It would fucking
destroy
me. No matter how unhappy I am you need to know that I still love you more than anything on this earth.”

“I just told you that I have dreams about killing you,” I reply, “and it’s me
leaving
that bothers you?”

“You would never hurt me, Olivia. Not physically anyway. I don’t even understand how you thought that was possible. But the fact that you seriously considered just taking off without a word … You’ve got to swear to me that you’ll never just leave. That you’ll tell me when this stuff is going on.”

“But what if I—”

“No,” he says. “No, I don’t care what your excuse is. I don’t care what you think is wrong or what you think you might do, you tell me. Okay?”

“Okay,” I sigh, shaking my head. “But I can’t believe I just told you that and all you want me to do is
stay
.”

“That’s not the
only
thing I want you to do,” he says with the start of a smile.

I raise a brow. I generally have a pretty good feel for things Will wants me to
do
.

He sees my face and laughs. “And it’s not what you think.”