Page 105 of Waking Olivia

“I did everything wrong,” I reply. “And I swear I’m going to fix all of it.”

Once she's sitting up, I reluctantly let go of her to call 911 and bind her father's wrists, though I doubt he's going to be conscious anytime soon. That punch I threw was aimed right at the corner of his jaw and would have killed him, as I intended, if he hadn't turned his head. And when I'm done I go to Olivia again, cradling her in my lap. We are silent, shocked by what’s occurred. I can't believe she's really okay, and how close she came tonotbeing okay. I can’t believe I ever let her go in the first place.

The police arrive, shouting and with guns drawn though I told the dispatcher her father was unconscious. They point their guns at me instead, and it’s not until Olivia screams at them that they realize I’m not the culprit.

She is taken by ambulance to the hospital despite her protests. She’s on a stretcher, then moved to a hospital bed, and not for a single moment of that time do I let go of her hand. She seems fine, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over seeing her the way she looked when I ran into Sean’s apartment.

The police take statements from us both and the process feels endless, interrupted by nurses and doctors and a trip to get x-rays. Olivia is attached to monitors tracking her heart rate and oxygen levels, every unusual noise they make drawing her ire and bringing back a small taste of the panic I felt when she was lying in my arms, still and pale.

Olivia’s father is also in the hospital somewhere. He was just gaining consciousness when they took him away. He’s under police guard, but I’m not going to feel secure until she’s far away from him and he’s in jail.

It’s not until the police are done and the doctor has left to get the discharge paperwork ready that we are finally alone.

“I guess Erin told you,” she sighs. “I knew you’d feel guilted into coming after me if you found out what Jessica did.”

I look at her in astonishment. “I’m not here because I feelguilty. And I don’t know how the hell you thought I’d choose my job over you.”

“Youdidchoose your job over me,” she replies. “You chose it when you sent me off the night of the banquet to pretend like everything was normal. I understood why you did it but …”

“I quit, Olivia.”

“Youwhat?” she demands, springing forward, twisting the blood pressure cuff in the process. “You can’t do that! Jessica got what she wanted. I left. She’s not going to tell.”

“It had nothing to do with Jessica,” I reply, lowering the railing on the side of her bed so I can sit closer to her. “I knew the night of the banquet that I was going to quit. I just had to do it in a way that wouldn’t jeopardize your scholarship or get Peter in trouble.”

“Youcan’t,” she insists. “What about the farm? What about Brendan?”

“Olivia, I made my choice when I followed you at the banquet. I put you first then. Everything else will have to work out somehow.”

“You don’t have to do that,” she argues. “It was sex, not a promise ring. You never once suggested it was anything more than that, so stop trying to do the honorable thing and go get your job back.”

“I’ve been far from honorable for a long time,” I tell her. “I’m here because I love you. Because I’m so in love with you, I can’t see straight.”

She turns away from me. I don’t know how I thought she’d react, but it certainly isn’t like this.

“I don’t see how that can possibly be true, Will,” she finally says, avoiding my eye. “We both know how fucked up I am. How could you want to be with me knowing what you know?”

I rest my palm against the curve of her cheek, gently forcing her to look back toward me. I wish I were more eloquent. I wish I had some way of explaining it to her, but right now what I feel seems so deep, so vast, that I could sit here all night and never manage to describe it all. My thumb brushes her lower lip, lingers there as I struggle to find the right words. “Olivia, I’d give anything to change your past,” I finally tell her, “but at the same time it’s made you who are. The things you think are so terrible? Ilovethose things. That fragile part of you, the way you freeze when someone tries to hug you or compliment you or acts like they care. I can’t separate that from everything else now, so I love all of it. I don’t want some other version of you. I want the one in front of me, and I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life.”

She doesn’t reply, just looks at me wide-eyed as if everything I’ve said to her is a surprise when it shouldn’t be. Everyone but the two of us saw it months ago.

I run my hands through her hair and lean in. “In case you haven’t done this before, this is the part where you tell me you love me too.”

“Haveyoudone this part before?” she asks.

“Yeah, about five seconds ago. And she didn’t say it back.”

She takes a deep breath, looking terrified, as if she’s about to dive into a stormy sea. “I love you too.”

I lean down, brushing her lips with mine. “That was pretty good for a first time,” I whisper against her mouth.

She smiles and I lean back in. I mean only to seal our words — a quick kiss, a promise of things to come. But her lips are so damn full, and soft, and it’s been too long, so I don’t pull back like I should. Instead I deepen the kiss, tease her mouth open, and find myself sinking into that place I always go to her with her, the one where there is no thought, only impulse and action. Where nothing exists but the soft skin just beneath her jaw, her mouth, the sounds she makes, my hands tracing her curves as I follow her gasp with my tongue, her body arching toward mine …

An alarm goes off and we both startle, opening our eyes to discover I’m alongside her, the blankets thrown off entirely, my knee wedged between her thighs and my hand on the verge of sliding under her gown.

Jesus Christ. She’s in ahospital bedand I’m on practically on top of her. I’d be ashamed of myself if I wasn’t so damn turned on.

“Don’t stop,” she says.

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