Page 116 of Waking Olivia

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 Willturns—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 notfine.”

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 frommeby leaving, but how can I possibly keep him safe from everythingelse? 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 thoughtImight 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 toleave?”

“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 soundspissed.

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. “Notbotherme? It would fuckingdestroyme. 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 meleavingthat 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 isstay.”

“That’s not theonlything 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 todo.

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

Things I’d preferto counseling: a 20-mile run. An entire afternoon spent hearing about Nicole’s sex life. Letting Betsy beat me in a race. But when you tell someone you’ve dreamed about killing him and he doesn’t run for the hills, going to counseling seems like the least you can do.

The psychologist is in Denver; someone Peter found many months before. He specializes in post-traumatic stress disorder, which is my apparent diagnosis. Really it’s just a fancy way of saying that I’m a mess because something fucked-up once happened to me.

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