Page 111 of The Catalyst

“No, she’s not.” Oliver scoffs, but she doesn’t respond to his words. Instead, her lips tremble, and she looks like she’s going to cry.

“Fuck off!” I yell at him, but she steps out from the shield my body provides just as I do. Aimee glares daggers at Oliver even as the tears fall down her face. She has no shame in her emotions, a trait I wish more people had.

“How would you know?” she says, her words affected. “You don’t even remember what I look like. You said it yourself. For all you know, I’m some girl you or your friends fucked. You didn’t even ask why I’m here. You just wanted to get rid of me. I guess some things never change. Am I right, Ollie?”

Oliver Doyle softens–his expression going from irritated to solemn. Something in her words changes his mind about her.

“Aimee?”

She doesn’t offer him another word. Instead, she turns on her heels and dashes off the porch like a modern-day Cinderella, making her escape at the stroke of midnight.

“Wait!” I call after her and make chase down the hill their house resides on. I collide with the side of her car as the ignition roars to life. “Don’t leave. What about Nigel?”

“This was a mistake,” she cries as more tears fall down her face. “I’m sorry I wasted your time, but if my brother turned out anything like Ollie, I don’t want anything to do with him either.” With another sob out of her lips, Aimee punches the gas and races down the street just as Nigel’s truck turns the corner.

This is a fucking disaster. Aimee was here. Nigel’s sister was here, and Oliver upset her so much that she ran off.

Nigel has told me so many times how much he misses his sister. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about his mother. She abandoned him and took his sister with her. She might as well be dead. That’s how little love he feels for her, but not Aimee. She was still a kid when their mother took her in the dead of night. She probably had no idea where they were going when they left.

Aimee was innocent in it all, and she sought Nigel out.

Nigel barely pulls into the driveway before I jump into the front seat and slam the door shut.

“Follow that car!” I demand vehemently.

The look on his face is purely pensive. “What? I just got?—“

“Nigel,followthat car!” I push again, and he doesn’t fight me on it. He busts a U-turn on the front lawn and zooms out of the neighborhood.

I give him the cliff notes, enough for him to understand what is going on and who we’re trying to find, but not enough for him to want to turn back to the house and murder Oliver.

“Of all the fucking times for her to show up,” he growls as he punches the steering wheel, aggravation clear on his face. “Why the hell did she run off?”

“No offense, but your friends can be major dicks to girls. They didn’t recognize her, and Oliver didn’t believe her at first.”

“Then, how can you be so sure it's even her?” he asks, his voice full of anxiety.

My gaze turns from the road to the side of his face as Nigel zooms down the highway, searching for the navy blue Town Car I described.

“She looks like you and she called him Ollie.”

His head snaps around, staring at me blankly without losing his direction. I know those two things must’ve been shocking for him. This whole situation is something out of a TV drama. Hell, it would’ve been even if Oliver hadn’t been a dick to Aimee. Her showing up out of nowhere was unexpected.

Oliver wasn’t callous enough to warrant such a reaction from Aimee, but if I had to guess, there’s something in the past that added to her running off.

“Were Oliver and Aimee around each other much when y'all were kids?” I press, trying to put the shattered pieces of the picture together to fit some type of narrative.

“I don’t know,” he answers, flabbergasted, as he jumps off the highway and heads back toward Grove Hill. We made it to the outskirts of Houston. If we haven’t found her by now, we’re not going to.

Sadness thrums in my heart as my shoulders fall. “You don’t know?”

“Ollie is ten years older than me, butterfly. I don’t know much about his childhood other than our parents wanted him and Aimee to end up together before my mother ran off with her. Something about keeping it within the families, or at least that’s what Ollie said about it. He hated the idea, though. He’s never liked anyone trying to make decisions for him.”

It doesn’t paint a complete picture, but his statement gives me a general sketch of the past. From what Aimee said earlier, Oliver hurt her at some point, and according to Nigel, Oliver detested the forced union. Maybe Aimee didn’t hate it so much. Perhaps she actually liked it and wanted that kind of future for herself. Maybe Oliver Doyle was her childhood Prince Charming, and he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with that arrangement, leaving Cinderella heartbroken on the steps of the castle, wondering why midnight ever had to come. The spell was broken, and every crush leaves a mark, some positive and some not.

You just wanted to get rid of me. I guess some things never change.

“How old is she?” I ask. He said Oliver is ten years older, which makes him twenty-eight, but what about Aimee?

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