Page 50 of Waking Olivia

“Is that what happened with Mark Bell?” he asks.

I sigh. “Sort of.”

“‘Sort of’?”

“I mean I remember fighting him and I remember seeing the bat. I don’t remember the rest.”

“Wait. What do you mean by ‘fighting him’? I thought you just attacked him unprovoked.”

“Why would I attack him without a reason? EvenI’mnot that psychotic.”

Will’s face grows still, wary. “Did he do something to you?”

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. What happened with Mark Bell isn’t something I need to share. It’s not like anyone would believe me anyway. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“That’s not what I asked you,” he says between clenched teeth. “I want to know exactly what he did.”

I roll my eyes as if it doesn’t matter. But the truth is that it does matter, to me, and he’ll be the only person alive to whom I’ve told the truth. “He found out about the nightmares. He offered to stay with me the night before a meet to keep me from running.”

Will’s face has fallen just a little. Anyone can see where this story is going. Anyone could have seen it then too, aside from me. It was so fucking stupid to trust Mark, and I’m not sure why I did. Maybe because I just wanted, so badly, to think there was a solution. “I’m sure you can figure out the rest,” I sigh.

His mouth opens and it takes a second for any words to emerge. “Herapedyou?”

“Hetried,” I reply. “That’s where the bat came in.”

“Olivia,” he groans, putting his head in his hands. “Did you tell the school that?”

I laugh. “Right. I was sleeping in his apartment and I had the worst reputation in the history of the school’s track team. Who the hell would believe it was rape?”

“Even if you’d beendatinghim you’d still have been allowed to say no.”

“I could have had the whole thing on film and no one would’ve sided with me, Will. I had a bad reputation and was about to lose my scholarship anyway. Mark is the star of the team. It was pretty obvious how it would all go down.”

Mark even had the gall to press charges against me, which he only dropped when I told him I’d gone to the hospital that night and had everything documented. I didn’t really go, of course. A few bruises and some torn clothes weren’t proof of anything, but he didn’t know that.

He sits back in his seat, looking helpless and stunned. “This is insane. All of it. You should still be there, and that asshole should be in prison.”

“I wasn’t going to be there in any case. No way was I getting another year out of that scholarship.”

“But that’s not the point!” he cries. “You left there letting hundreds of people think you’re some sociopath who goes around swinging a bat!”

“Iama sociopath who goes around swinging a bat, Will,” I retort. “I don’t rememberanythingafter I saw that bat in the corner, so why shouldn’t they think it?”

“That’s what this is really about then,” he says, looking grim. “You hate that you did it. You feel guilty it went as far as it did and this is how you’re trying to pay for it.”

There’s something in his words that stings, and I don’t like it. “If you’re done with the analysis, Dr. Langstrom, I think I’m gonna take off.”

"How's your cheek?" he asks.

I shrug. "Fine, I guess."

"You need to go get it checked out."

I shrug again. "I think it's okay."

"Right," he smirks. "I forgot about that medical degree of yours.” He gets up and kneels in front of me. "This might hurt a little," he warns. "Let me just make sure it's not broken."

I close my eyes because he’s too near. His warm mouth and the curves of his face and his ungiving jaw make me feel slightly unhinged, when he’s this close by. The pad of his thumb presses to my skin. He stops when I wince in pain, holding his hand there, waiting for me. He continues, and just the brush of his skin against mine awakens other things. Things I'm not supposed to feel. My eyes open of their own accord and lock with his. His hand holds my face, his mouth slightly ajar as he looks at mine, both of us breathing quickly. I want him to kiss me. I want him to kiss me so badly that my blood starts to sing, and all logic goes rushing from my brain. It sits between us, quicksand that drags us under so fast that fighting it seems impossible. He leans toward me, for just a second, before his hand falls away suddenly and he practically jumps backward.

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