Page 117 of Waking Olivia

I give him my whole unfiltered history. He listens without betraying even a hint of surprise, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world.

“A lot has happened,” he says when I conclude. “What’s led you to seek treatment for it now?”

So I tell him about the dreams I’ve been having, about Will’s fall and how panicky it’s made me. “I always felt likeIwas the only danger in his life, and now there’s this whole universe of things that could hurt him and I can’t control any of them,” I say rapidly. I sound nuts. I know it, and it’sexactlywhy I didn’t want to be here in the first place. “It makes no sense, and Iknowit makes no sense, and I keep panicking anyway.”

“It makes perfect sense,” he counters, still completely unfazed, and I wonder if it’s his job to assure everyone who walks in his door that they are normal no matter how crazy they sound.

“How could that possibly make sense?” I challenge him.

“Imagine being a child,” he says. “A child who’s watched someone kill people, who’s been attacked by that person herself. How do you protect yourself against that?”

“You can’t.”

“Exactly.” He nods. “Unless you tell yourself that it’syou—that you’re the monster, that you’re the dangerous one, the crazy one. Because you can always feel safe from yourself. It’s not uncommon in situations like yours.”

“Situations likemine? You actually have more than one patient who watched a parent die and now dreams that she’s killed her boyfriend?”

He laughs. “No, but plenty of people have suffered horrific abuse, Olivia, and the mechanism they use to cope with that is often similar to yours. You took on your father’s persona because it made you feel safe. And it’s taken being unable to protect someone you love to reveal the fallacy in that.”

It sounds far-fetched, and yet something about it feels kind of, sort of, right.

Will waits for me outside. “How was it?” he asks.

“Okay,” I sigh. It was better than okay, but I’m not going to admit that to him since he’s been pushing me to do this for nearly ten months.

“Still want to kill me?” he teases.

“I don’twantto kill you,” I say, glaring at him. “And it’s not funny.”

He laughs. “It’s kind of funny.”

“Maybe I do want to kill you after all,” I mutter.

He wraps his arms around me from behind and kisses my neck. “That’s my girl,” he laughs, and for some bizarre reason he sounds proud.

It isn’t all solvedin a day. It’s not even solved in a month. But over time I finally believe that there is no monster under the bed, and I realize that Iwantedthere to be one. It made me feel safe, believing the evil in the world was housed somewhere inside of me. The truth—that none of us are ever completely safe, that there are no assurances—is scarier. But I’m getting used to the idea, the way everyone does.

The nightmares abate. My father gets life in prison without parole. And when Will turns to me, at Peter and Dorothy’s wedding, and tells me he wishes it was us up there at the altar, I tell him I wish it were too.

Ayearto the day after our first kiss, the one that took place while I pretended to be asleep, I collapse on the couch beside him after afternoon practice, freshly showered.

“How was work?” I ask.

“Good,” he says, lifting my legs and placing my feet on his lap. It’s something I’d never have allowed anyone to do a year ago, but my days of barefoot running are over. On the rare occasions when I have a nightmare, I’m not even out of the bed before Will’s stopped me.

“I took a family climbing at Garden of the Gods. It was their kid’s first climb and you wouldn’t believe the smile on his face once he got about 20 feet up.”

“You’re not taking any future children of ours climbing. I hope you realize that.”

“Of course I will,” he says with that sideways grin of his. “You know you’re incapable of telling me no.”

“Inbed, yes. Parenting, no. But since today’s our anniversary I’ll let you think you’re right.”

He shakes his head. “Our anniversary isn’t until December.”

“But the first time we kissed was a year ago today. I know you remember it. In your bed at the farm.”

His eyes widen and his jaw drops just a bit. “You wereawake? You did it onpurpose?”

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