Page 9 of The Young & the Sinner

Olivia

The followingthree days passed by in a blur.

I couldn’t remember what I had done for most of it, except gone to school. I remember a brief visit from our next-door neighbors, Jacob and Mary Jenkins, who brought over some homemade cookies for me.

I had known the Jenkinses since Max bought this house and I went over to visit him for the first time. They were an older couple in their mid-sixties. Mr. Jenkins was a jokester, who could always make me laugh, and Mrs. Jenkins was sweet and kind, and she was, possibly, the best cook in the world.

They had been Max’s neighbor for as long as I could remember. They moved here a year before he had, and I remembered Mrs. Jenkins used to bake cookies whenever she knew I was coming by. Her chocolate chip cookies were my favorite.

I had come to think of them as my surrogate grandparents, and knowing they were close by, with Max gone, had eased some of my worries.

At night, as promised, Max would FaceTime me and tell me about all that he’d done, and he would listen to me talk. I was sure most of the things I told him weren’t all that interesting, but he listened to every word I said, as if I were the world’s best storyteller.

It was the highlight of my day. But the calls weren’t long. Mostly because, even on screen, I could see how tired he was. Nevertheless, I went to sleep with a smile on my face.

On Friday, the day of Max’s birthday, the first thing I did when I woke up was send him a text wishing him a happy birthday. Max replied almost instantly, which meant he’d been up a while, despite how early it was.

Lizzie found me by my locker that day, and in her hands was a medium-sized gift box, wrapped in bright green wrapping paper with purple ribbons. It looked much better than the present I had wrapped for Max.

She had put a lot of thought into it.

“Can you give this to him when you see him tonight?” she asked.

I smiled and nodded, taking her present and carefully placing it on the top shelf of my locker. I knew Lizzie wanted to come to dinner to celebrate Max’s birthday, but he didn’t say anything about inviting her, and it didn’t seem right since she was my friend and not his. Selfishly, I was glad she wasn’t coming.

For tonight, I wanted him all to myself. Four days apart was long enough. I knew I was a codependent ward to the only adult I had left in my life, but Max didn’t seem to mind that I needed him beyond what was healthy.

“Hey, don’t look now, but Lorenzo Vitelli is staring at you,” Lizzie whispered, throwing conspicuous looks somewhere to my left. I wished she’d stop doing that. Lizzie wasn’t the most subtle person I knew. And if she kept looking, soon Lorenzo would know we were talking about him.

I tugged at her arms and forced her attention back to me. “Stop it. You’re making it so obvious.”

She shot me a sly grin. “Come on. It’s not like he’s being subtle about it either. I think he likes you.”

My cheeks heated, and I looked away. Lorenzo was in the same grade as us, but he may as well be from a different planet. Athletic, popular, and incredibly good-looking, I had a crush on him since my freshman year. But he never noticed me. I had thought he didn’t even know my name, but last week he had greeted me with a small smile and a “Hey, Olivia,” right before he walked off to baseball practice.

There had never been any reason for him to notice me. His dad owned various chain restaurants through the country. One of them, Lo Scoglio, had been one of mine and Max’s favorite places to go since I was a kid, but because of the outrageous prices, I only ever went with Max. That was where we were going tonight.

“I don’t think he likes me,” I said quietly. And I wasn’t saying that because I wanted Lizzie to argue with me. I wasn’t his type. Unlike me, Lorenzo didn’t have a problem dating around. He had had at least five different girlfriends that I knew of. And they were the complete opposite of me, with long blonde hair and pouty lips. They were all incredibly beautiful and, more importantly, filthy rich. I almost thought he was dating specifically for status. Or for his dad’s approval.

Knowing that should have killed my crush on him a long time ago. I knew better. And I wasn’t blind to the kind of boy Lorenzo was. Yet, my stupid heart stuttered every time he turned those green eyes on me, even in the most casual way. He had such deep green eyes, despite his Italian heritage. There was no getting over this crush. He would have to do something pretty bad for me not to feel this way about him anymore. My stupid teenage brain was to blame. When I liked someone, I tended to like them pretty hard. Lorenzo wasn’t the exception to that rule.

And now Lizzie was saying he was staring at me?

Impossible.

“Oh, I think he does. Did you know it’s been a month since he broke up with his girlfriend? What was her name? Sandy? Sandra?”

“Sydney,” I muttered. Lizzie shot me a knowing a look. “I’m not stalking him, if that’s what you think. They’re both in my US History class.” The fact that I also knew he drove a silver Mazda didn’t count as stalking, either. The car garnered just as much attention at the boy.

Her smile softened. “I know. But I’m telling you he’s been staring at you a lot for a while now. I really do think he likes you.”

Had he been staring at me?

I craned my neck back a little, glancing in the general direction Lizzie was just looking, and sure enough, Lorenzo was standing there, in the middle of his group of friends, who were all being obnoxiously loud.

Lorenzo was the only one in the group not laughing. He was just standing there, staring directly at me.

I quickly looked away when our eyes met, and Lizzie’s grin widened when she saw my reaction. Slowly, I looked back. Lorenzo was still staring at me. And I didn’t know what that look in his eyes meant, but it made my heart beat frantically against my chest.

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