Page 39 of Waking Olivia

I still don’t believe him.

The second meetis in many ways a repeat of the first, but my fears are different. This is a more difficult course than last week’s. I’m positive I haven’t trained for it properly. Once again, Will is there, talking me through it, convincing me to ignore my fears and just run.

“All of this you’re feeling,” he says, “it’s like a person running beside you, shouting shit in your ear to tear you down. But it can only change the way you run if you choose to believe it.”

I’m not sure why but, this time, I listen. Maybe it’s because he was right last time, or maybe it’s something that goes deeper than that. If Will told me I could jump off a skyscraper and survive, I might even believe that too.

The gun goes off, and I let his words drown out my own. I outrun her, the nasty person who tells me I will fail, who is convinced that disaster lies around every corner. And when the finish line approaches, I realize that in outrunning her, I’ve managed to outrun the competition too.

Peter reaches me first, swooping me up in a hug. “You’re gonna put our track program back on the map, young lady,” he crows.

Will comes up a moment behind him, smiling with quiet pleasure, but there is worry on his face too. I suspect that whatever occurred last night (the event he claims never happened at all) is what’s making him keep his distance.

Everyone on the bus is jubilant. Erin asks me to go to lunch, but I tell her I have other plans and head straight to Will’s office. He’s gathering his stuff when I arrive and looks surprised—and not entirely pleased—to see me.

“I want to know what happened last night,” I tell him. “You’re being super weird about it, so please just tell me the truth. Did I hit on you or something?”

He laughs. “That’swhat you’re worried about?”

“Part of it.”

“You didn’t hit on me.”

“So what did I do?”

His shoulders sag. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Oh, Jesus.Now I know it’s bad. “Then just tell me.”

He exhales and runs a hand over his head. If he’s trying to distract me with his biceps, this is a good way to do it. “You … cried.”

Bullshit. Of everything he could have told me, this is the hardest to believe. “I don’tcry,” I retort. I can’t remember crying once, not in my entire life. I’munableto cry. There have been plenty of times when I’ve wanted to and I just couldn’t do it.

“You cried so hard I could barely understand you.”

I sink into the chair behind me, gripping its handles with a force that could splinter lesser materials. In a way, I want to leave this room and forget the conversation ever occurred, but I can’t stand having him know something about me that I don’t.

“What did I say?”

He hesitates. “It was kind of like last time. You repeated ‘I shouldn’t have left’ again and again.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper.

“Olivia, whenever I catch you, you’re terrified. You’re running from someone. But you also seem to feel guilty about it. And I’ve heard you telling people your parents are traveling for the last two months, but your grandmother is the only contact we have on file for you. Did something happen? Did you run away from home?”

My heart begins to hammer in my throat and it feels as if it’s constricting me, making it impossible to take deep breaths. Somehow he knows too much, as if all the parts of me are escaping and I’m helpless to stop them.

I’m torn between a desire to flee from this conversation and a desire to fight.

Naturally, I choose option two.

“I’m allowed to keep some shit to myself,” I snarl. “That’s why I tell everyone they’re traveling. I have no idea why people think it’s okay to go around asking other people about their parents all the time anyway. And I didn’t fucking run away from anything.”

“Then where are your parents?” he demands, refusing to back down.

“They ditched me when I was six, and I never saw them again.” I hate them for it, and hate myself for it too. If I’d been a different kid, if I’d been sweet, like Erin, maybe it would have been different.

"No siblings?"

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