Page 52 of Waking Olivia

Whatever he’s about to say, I don’t want to know. I want to plug my ears and sing to block him. I want to flee.

“Last month,” he says, “a child’s remains were found buried in the woods about a half mile from your old home.”

My ears begin to ring and it feels as if I can’t breathe. I jump to my feet, but Will blocks me, gripping my arms and holding me in place.

“Olivia,” he says. “You need to hear them out.”

“No, I don’t,” I insist, trying to wrestle free. “I don’t know who they found, but it isn’t my brother.”

“Miss Finnegan,” the officer says gently, “we ran a DNA test. It’s been confirmed.”

The sweat turns to ice. I’m leaving. I’m not listening to another word of this. I will my feet to move, toward the door, out of this office, but they don’t respond.

“An autopsy was performed,” one of them says.

“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop talking.” Why can’t I move? Oh my God, I need to get out of here as badly as I’ve ever needed anything. “Please make them stop,” I beg Will, but I know by the resigned look on his face that he will not.

“Miss Finnegan, we could really use your cooperation here. Someone snapped his neck.”

I need to go.

I need to go.

I need to go.

I need to go.

I take one step toward the door and then there is nothing but black. A long dark tunnel and I’m falling into it …

The first thingI see is Will’s face. It’s October, but he’s still tan. He has beautiful eyes. So pale against his skin that they seem to glow.

“I called 911,” says Peter’s secretary. Where’d she come from?

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t want help.”

“I think we should—”

“No,” says Will, still looking at me. It feels as if I’m drowning and his eyes are the only thing keeping me from going under. “She’s okay. She doesn’t want help.”

He raises his head and looks to the police officers. “I think you should go now. Everyone out. She just needs a minute.”

There’s the click of the door and then there is silence. I sit up and he moves back, just enough.

I wish I could cry. There’s a sadness in me, so infinite and boundless that it seems as if I shouldn’t be able to do anything else.

“Can you make them leave? The police? I don’t want to see them.”

“Yeah, but you’ll have to talk to them eventually. You know that, right?”

I nod and squeeze my eyes shut. My brother … I can’t think about it. But I’m picturing him in spite of it, how little he was, how fragile. “I’m gonna be sick,” I whisper, and I lean over and throw up in Peter’s trashcan. Will holds my hair back while I empty the contents of my stomach.

I finally pull back and put my head between my knees.

“Is there anywhere you have to be?” he asks.

“I have astronomy,” I tell him, “at two.”

“Are you going?”

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