Page 28 of Waking Olivia

He's waiting for me, sitting behind his desk and looking grim.

"I'm not going back to the counselor if that's what this is about."

He runs a hand through his hair and almost smiles. "Yes, you've made your feelings about her known."

"So what do you want me to do? The only thing that ever works is keeping myself up, which usually fails, or running the night before the meet. Sometimes if I do six just before bed, I'm tired enough—”

“No, I want you fresh, and that'll just give me some version of the half-assed running you give me when you've had a nightmare."

I frown at him. "So what's your magic solution then?"

"You're going to stay with my mom."

"With your mom?" I scoff. "Are you crazy? I punched you! What would I do to her? And how could she possibly stop me?"

"I'll be there too.” His shoulders sag a little. "It still looks bad, but no one needs to know I was there. I'll sleep on the couch so you can't get by without me hearing."

The effort he is making causes something to tighten and twist in my chest, a small pain that radiates outward and makes me long to walk away from this whole conversation. "You shouldn't have to do all that," I mumble.

"I want to.”

When I reluctantly meet his gaze, I see how badly he wants me to succeed—not for him,but for me. The pain in my chest gets worse, and I look away. "Okay," I mumble, a single word that doesn't begin to express what I am feeling. No one has ever made an effort for me.

Until now.

He picksme up on Friday at 6 p.m.

"This is embarrassing," I mutter as I put on my seatbelt.

"What's embarrassing?"

"Your mom is going to think I'm some kind of freak."

"And she'd be wrong to think that because ...?" he asks with a grin.

I give him my most menacing look, which he seems to now be impervious to, annoyingly enough.

"She's not going to think you're a freak,” he continues. “My brother used to sleepwalk when he was little. It’s not that different.”

It’s actually really fucking different, but okay.

"Have you eaten?" he asks.

"Yes."

"What did you have?"

"Oatmeal."

"It's the night before a meet," he grumbles. "You can't possibly think that's enough food, not after what happened last time."

I shrug. "Last time was sort of an anomaly."

"Youareaware that 'anomaly' means 'an unusual occurrence,’ right?"

"That's why I said 'sort of' an anomaly," I argue.

"And that's why you're 'sort of' going to eat dinner at my mom's house."

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