Page 100 of Waking Olivia

In Denver, I call Erin from a pay phone. I gloss over the whole I-just-slept-with-our-coach part but tell her everything else—what Jessica has proof of and what she is threatening. I ask if her brother will let me stay with him in LA just long enough for me to find a job and save a little money. No, LA isn’t where I want to end up, but right now I just need to get on my feet and I’d prefer not to do it in a women’s shelter. I’ve stayed in women’s shelters before, and you either wind up getting hit or robbed there eventually.

But the whole thing worries Erin. “What do I tell Will? I mean, you know he’s going to ask.”

He’s not going toask. He’s going toflip. I can see it unfold and it makes me sick. The way he’ll worry. The way he’ll blame himself, and he’ll call, and he’ll go see his mom and probably go to my apartment and find it stripped. “Tell him I got sick of living in a small town and that my chances were better somewhere else.”

“Why would he believe that?”

That one’s easy. Because he said it himself.

69

Will

My mother takesone look at my face when I enter the house and she knows. “Oh God,” she whispers. “What happened? Is she okay?”

I tell her. I know she wants to cry, but she doesn’t because one of us has to be sane here and it sure as shit isn’t me.

“It’s okay,” she says. “We can find her. We can fix this.”

“No,” I rasp, sinking into the couch. “We can’t. I can’t. I did this. Something happened last night, something that shouldn’t have happened, and I told her I needed to think. I mean, I thought she understood. I was just trying to make sure I could do this without impacting her scholarship, but …” I bury my head in my hands, so fucking frustrated by my own stupidity, by the way everything in my life has seemed beyond my control and now Olivia, the most important part of it, is too.

And I did it to myself.

“No, she wouldn’t just take off like that. She’s a strong girl. She’s dealt with so much and things were turning around for her. They were. She wouldn’t just leave.”

“She did. There’s nothing left in that apartment but the furniture I took over there. Nothing.”

“Maybe she’s coming here.”

“How would she get here? She doesn’t have a car.”

“Did you talk to her friends?”

I shrug. “She kind of kept to herself, aside from Erin, and maybe Evan.”

“And you spoke to them?”

“I asked Erin and she didn’t know anything.”

“So call Evan.”

I like that idea less. It’s unfair, how angry the idea makes me, how jealous I feel, but if she went to Evan I’m gonna lose my shit. I guess it’s a good thing I’m already out of a job because if she’s there I’d beat his ass and get fired anyway.

How did I ever think I’d be able to stand being near her but notwithher for the rest of her time at ECU?

I finally call him but he knows nothing. “Are you sure?” he asks. “She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t just take off.”

It’s a struggle not to sound miserable when I reply. To sound like a worried coach and not a guy who’s just realized he can’t live without someone. I’m pretty sure I didn’t pull it off.

I contact her landlord, who hasn’t heard from her. No one in the administration has either. She won’t answer her phone. I call Erin again, who continues to swear she knows nothing. Things are as dire as they’ve ever been.

And then they get worse.

The detective who interviewed Olivia calls on Monday. He says he left her a message yesterday and she hasn’t returned his call.

“She’s taken off,” I tell him. “No one knows where she’s gone.”

His quick intake of breath unsettles me. “Are you sure she left?” he asks.

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