Page 75 of Waking Olivia

“No, I’m not talking about tonight. I’m talking about us.Weare not going to work out.”

Even with my eyes on the road, I can feel the way she recoils.

“You’re breaking up with me?” she gasps.

“This just isn’t working anymore, Jessica. I’m sure if you think about it, you’ll see that too.”

“But we’ve been together for a whole year! We aren’t even having problems!”

“We’ve been having plenty of problems,” I reply. “We just haven’t discussed them.”

“Is this about sex? Becauseyou’rethe one who keeps turning me down. I tried talking to you about it—”

“It’s not about sex.”

“Then what? You can’t just break up with me and not even have a reason!” she cries, almost unintelligible at this point. “Everyone thought you were about to propose and you want to take a break instead?”

“I was never planning to propose. I must have told you a thousand times I didn’t want to settle down. And I don’t want to take a break,” I correct her. “I want to break up.”

I pull up in front of her apartment complex. “Then why?” she demands. “I’m not getting out of this car until you’ve given me a reason.”

“We have nothing in common, Jessica,” I say gently. “If you think about it, you’ll know I’m right. You don’t run, you don’t climb, you don’t even like sports. And I don’t do the things you do.” In truth, I’m not sure what exactly she does away from me aside from work and shop.

“Right,” she hisses. “I don’t like those things, but your preciousOliviadoes, doesn’t she?”

“She has nothing to do with it.”

“She has everything to do with it!” Jessica screams. “Everything! We were fine until she showed up and it’s been a steady downhill ever since! Iknewyou were cheating when you stopped sleeping with me.”

“I’ve never slept with Olivia and I think you know that.”

“Bullshit, Will! You think I’m stupid? You think I really believe you and that girl are spending all this time together and sleeping under the same roof, but you’ve never hooked up with her?”

I meet her eye. “Yes, I expect you to believe it because it’s the truth.”

“You’re going to get caught!” she cries. “You’re going to get caught and lose your job and then your mom will lose the farm. Is that what you want?”

“I’m not sleeping with her!” I shout. “For the last time, there is nothing going on. Now please get out of my car.”

“Fine,” she says, climbing out, “but just for the record, you don’t need to have slept with her. It’s enough that you’ve been staying together at your mom’s.”

And then she leans her head back in andsmiles. “When word gets about that, you’re royally fucked.”

“You’re home early,” says my mother.

“Yeah,” I sigh, flopping down on the couch and closing my eyes.

“Where’s Jessica?”

“We broke up.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

I laugh. “No, you’re not. You never liked her. You can admit it.”

“Jessica had her good qualities,” she counters, but even she laughs a little at how insincere she sounds. “So what led to this?”

“She started in on Olivia again and I kind of lost it.”

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