Page 46 of Waking Olivia

"Will," his mother says softly.

"No, Mom," he snaps. "Donottake her side. I've had to watch her pass out one too many times and I'm not watching it tomorrow too."

When the door slams behind him I turn, jaw agape, to Dorothy. I'm livid, and I expect to her to be as well. But she's got a small smile on her face instead, the kind people get when they’re looking at a puppy or a newborn.

"Yousupportthis?" I demand. "He's being completely unreasonable! You can't possibly think he's right?"

"No," she says, "but I think he cares. And it's been a long time since I've seen my boy care about anything."

Something seems to flip in my stomach at her words, nauseating and hopeful at once, but I cling to my anger instead. I know well enough that feeling hopeful about anything is always a dead end.

33

Will

I'm notsure why I did it. I guess I just assumed she'd be eating with us. And when I saw her all dressed up and discovered she had other plans, I was weirdly – I don’t know exactly what it was. Angry? Disappointed?

Whatever it was, it was illogical and I should have gone about it another way. I could have insisted that she eat a decent breakfast, or even have a snack when she came back to the room, but instead I behaved like a controlling dick, which has led us to the present moment: a dinner where Peter and my mother chitchat away while Olivia and I scowl at each other across the table in silence.

I stop her before she goes into my mother's room when the meal is over. "I'm sorry," I tell her.

"For what?" she demands.

"Tonight. I was out of line and I should have handled it better."

Her eyes flutter open in surprise, and then her mouth turns down at the corners unhappily and she looks away. Her awkwardness is something I could easily have predicted. When she feels threatened or mistreated, no one is more sure on their feet than Olivia, but show her the smallest amount of kindness and it's as if she's on a foreign planet.

It’s still fairly early but my mom keeps farm hours – a prompt bedtime, up before the sun. She’ll want to sleep soon but Olivia is far too nervous about tomorrow to lie down just yet.

I go to our shared door. My mother isn’t there, so she must be in the bathroom. “My mom goes to bed pretty early, so I guess you can watch TV in here,” I sigh.

“Don’t do me any favors,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You make it sound like I’m someone’s pet ferret you have to watch.”

“Olivia, it’s not that, it’s just …” I stop and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t like breaking the rules.”

“There’s a rule against watching TV?”

“In my room?” I laugh. “Yeah, there’s a rule.”

She follows me and stretches out in the double bed beside mine. We end up watching the last 45 minutes of some movie I’m completely incapable of focusing on. There are a lot of explosions, which I’m a fan of, but every time she moves I grow aware of her to the exclusion of all else.

She changed into a T-shirt and shorts earlier, so I can’t get her endless legs out of my peripheral view, no matter which direction I shift. And then she moves, and her T-shirt rides up, revealing a swath of toned stomach and I have to stifle a groan.

I had it pretty easy in high school and college. If I wanted something from a girl, I almost always got it. This must be my karmic payback, because I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something quite this much, yet I’mabsolutelynot allowed to have it.

When the movie ends, some trivia show comes on and we watch that too. The guy walks away with over $500,000, even though Olivia and I answered the questions before he did.

“We totally could’ve taken him,” she says sleepily, rolling over on the pillow to face me. Her shirt rides up again and it takes almost superhuman restraint not to look.

“Maybe you should go on game shows if the running thing doesn’t work out.”

She smiles. “Maybe I will.”

“What would you do if you won that money?”

“Spend it all on hookers and blow.”

“No, seriously, what would you do? Would you stay in school? Would you keep running?”

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