Page 21 of Waking Olivia

She turns to me with a single brow raised, her eyes bleak and unapologetic. Nothing’s more important to her than this. It’s an answer I understand all too well. That’s exactly how I felt about climbing.

The next fewdays are uneventful. She's on time without a single scowl or acid-laced barb. She gives me exactly what I ask for, bearing my adjustments to her form in silence, but she also avoids my gaze entirely. She puts on a good act, but I'm beginning to suspect that tough shell of hers is there for a reason. That perhaps it's hiding something so fragile she's not sure it could survive out in the open.

It's not until Friday that she's done it again. That she can't keep up, and ends up hanging back with the slowest girls on the team. I almost tell her to stop. When they come back to the track, I see her hands and legs jerking, the muscles spasming, and she clasps her arms around her waist to hide it as best she can. Still not meeting my gaze.

"Good practice, ladies," I call. "Head in and I'll see you Monday. Enjoy your last free Friday for a while." She starts in and I stop her. "Hang on, Olivia."

She nods but stares at the ground, her legs knocking together. It's hard to watch. How much must this girl drive herself in order to keep up on the days when there's nothing left?

I tell her to sit and hand her a drink. "What are we going to do about this, Olivia?"

Her glance at me is both panicked and angry, shooting quickly toward me and then away. "I don't know. If I knew, I'd do it."

"What makes it better? What makes it worse?"

“Exhaustion. Exhaustion makes it better. Stress makes it worse."

I look out over the track as I let this sink in. What this tells me is that races create the perfect storm for her. Not enough of a workout to tire her the day before and tons of stress on top of it. And me there, acting like she's going to lose her scholarship the minute she messes up. Coaching a runner isn't rocket science, and yet I'm at a loss as to how I can help her.

"Your parents must have had a way to stop you, though," I say. "They couldn't have allowed a kid to just run out in the middle of the night."

She looks at me again, that small wounded thing inside her making only the briefest appearance before it goes away. She shakes her head. "Nothing stopped me."

God, the idea of her out running like that unnerves me. She thinks she's tough, but the truth is that she's 5'7 and about 110 pounds. A large child could probably take her down. The idea of her hitchhiking to get home ...

It sits in my stomach like a stone.

"You know if you get too far from campus you can call me, right?" I finally ask. "Or if you just need a ride when you wake up? For Christ's sake, don't hitchhike, anyway."

She almost smiles, but not quite. "How am I going to do that, Will? I don't stop to grab my phone on the way out the door."

Jesus.She's right. She's absolutely right. I can't stand the idea of her taking the risks she must take when it happens. "You need to go to counseling."

"It won't do any good," she says flatly.

"I said that wrong. What I meant is youaregoing to counseling. This is not a negotiation.” She glares at me and I laugh. "You're giving me that look like you wish I were dead again, so at least things are back to normal."

Her mouth twitches. All of the trouble she's caused me so far feels worth it the moment I see her almost-smile.

17

Olivia

This is goingto go so poorly.

Will, I'm sure, thinks I'm going to go in to see this counselor, and by the end of the session I'll be crying about how I never felt loved or how my mom skipped my ballet recital when I was five or whatever it is normal people cry about. And then I'm going to pop out of my chair, healed and ready to move on. Except I'm not normal. I'm so far from normal that I doubt even the psychologists have seen one of me before. I have experience with this. I have so much experience with this that I swear to God I could switch chairs and counsel myself.

It doesn't work.

The therapist’s name is Ms. Daniels. She’s small and chunky and has a big, fake smile on her face. I hate her on sight, which seems like a bad omen. I'd love to ask, since she's apparently the picture of psychological health, why she can't get her weight under control. I manage to hold back.

She has a whispery little baby voice and sings her words to me like I'm a toddler. "Olivia?" she hums. I don't bother correcting the name because I already know I'm not coming back. "I'm so happy to meet you," she coos as we sit in her office. She still has that eager smile on her face as if I'm here to plan a trip to Bali and she's on commission. "Why don't you tell me what brings you in today?"

This is bullshit. She knows exactly why I'm here. Why should school funds pay for her to sit there and listen to me recount something she can read for herself? "Isn't it already in my file?" I ask.

"I saw a few things," she sings, "but I want to know whyyouwant to be here." She continues to smile. It's freaky. I didn't come in here because I just won the lottery, so why the fuck is she smiling?

I tell her I’m only here because my coach forced me to be. “If you'd read my file you'd know that," I add. That gets her. I watch her lips twitch, her eyes blink a little extra. She's growing nervous.

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