Page 71 of Waking Olivia

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I huff, “and why does it matter anyway?”

“Because he’s a distraction. You’re here to improve, not to show off for a guy.”

“I wasn’t showing off. I didn’t even know he was here.”

“Whatever,” growls Will. “You can inform him, or I can inform his coach. Your call.”

Once Will’s done being a complete dick, I climb the steps toward Evan, who puts down his book and nods at Will, who’s out collecting cones from the track. “What was all that about? You guys looked like you were arguing.”

“He was informing me that you are not allowed to be here,” I sigh. “Sorry. He said either I tell you or he tells your coach.”

“What the hell? It’s none of his business. I’m allowed to sit here. It’s public property.”

Technically, it’s university property, but I see his point. “He thinks you’re a distraction.”

“Am I?”

“I’m not saying you couldn’t be, but I’m pretty focused during practice.”

Evan’s eyes narrow as he watches Will on the track. “That’s okay. I can still spend plenty of time with you when you’re not practicing. Let’s see him try to monitor that.”

I get the feeling that if Will could, he would.

Sunday’s meethas weighed on me all week, and by Saturday, it’s ramped into stomach-churning self-doubt. Betsy’s the fastest girl on the team aside from me and I’ve never seen her come in better than sixth, which means I have to be first to get us a high enough weighted score. If I fuck this up in any way, we don’t go to regionals.

I’ve been pacing my living room all day long, and by the time Will picks me up I don’t even have the energy to give him shit about the way he acted the day before.

Dorothy makes dinner, but I can barely choke it down. I listen to them talk but don’t participate, because I’m too busy thinking about all the things that can go wrong tomorrow.

Will sighs, taking a look at my untouched plate. “Let’s go for a ride.”

We head to the lake his father built for him and Brendan. I look out over it while the horses graze, beginning to understand why Will is so conflicted about his dad. How can you love someone who treated you the way his father did? But how can you hate someone who also wanted to give you the world, who built you a lake just hoping to make you happy?

He sits beside me on the grass. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how nervous are you about tomorrow?” he asks with a wry smile.

“1000,” I reply.

“Olivia—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, just do my best and don’t worry about the nerves and what happens, happens.”

“Actually,” he smirks, “I was gonna say, ‘please don’t lose’.”

I choke on a surprised laugh. “Asshole.”

“And also, just do your best. What happens, happens.”

“The whole team will hate me if I don’t place tomorrow.”

He scowls. “You’ve said a lot of crazy shit, but that’s got to be the craziest. How could they possibly hate you if you fail to do somethingthey’vealso failed to do?”

“Because I’m the only one on the team capable of winning it.” I know that sounds arrogant but it’s the truth. The girls on the team work their asses off, but there’s only so much hard work can do and the rest is genetics. “And if I hadn’t fainted during the first meet, we’d probably already have a spot at regionals, but now we don’t.”

“Or you could consider the fact that if you hadn’t come to ECU we wouldn’t have placed once all semester.Youdid that for us.”

He may be right. It doesn’t change the fact that we will all be disappointed if I mess up tomorrow. Anyway, there are other things I’d rather talk about. Like the way he kissed me the other night. I’d like to know if he enjoyed it. If he wishes he could do it again. There are a thousand bad things in my head, things I push away all day long. But that kiss is a good thing and it’s the only thing I’m not allowed to discuss with him.

“This conversation is making my stomach hurt. Can we talk about something else?”

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