by Alison Grey
Olivia opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it.
“Okay, I’ll wait here for the girls.”
* * *
Amanda was in the middle of a field that I recognized as the Madison Bowl. I’d been to it last year with Sheridan to watch a friend of hers play touch football. He’d ignored us the entire time and blocked her on messenger. Asshole.
“Hey.” I had jogged to catch up with her and was out of breath. I wondered if it was a good idea to exert myself after doing as much coke as I’d just done, but the worry faded as soon as I saw the anguish on Amanda’s face.
“Alec…” She could barely get the words out. “Olivia kissed him.”
I was shocked.
“What the fuck, are you sure?” I was angry now. “She kissed him?”
Amanda nodded. “I was waiting for him to come back with my drink and when he didn’t, I went looking for him. I caught them in the hallway hooking up.”
She wiped her tears away with the heel of her palm.
“I know it’s stupid.” She sighed. “But I’ve never felt so betrayed… I don’t know. I just never ever expected her to do that.”
I turned around to see where Olivia was. She was walking toward Sheridan and Brooke now who had just pulled up in my Audi.
“Should we walk about it in the car?” I asked. “Do you want me to confront her?”
Amanda shook her head. “No. Let me talk to her about it privately. When we’re not all so fucked up.”
I nodded.
Amanda would always be the better of the two of us.
Twenty-Five
BROOKE
I don’t remember much about the car ride home, but I do remember the quiet.
It was an unusual silence for us. But I’d had so much to drink and was so focused on not puking, that I didn’t think much of it. Hollis would have killed me if I’d soiled her leather interior.
Sheridan put the passenger window down for me and I rested my tired head on its sill, my eyes closed, letting the September breeze hit me.
Hollis was in the back with Amanda and Olivia, sitting in the middle which was very much unlike her. She hated “sitting bitch” as she called it.
But again, I didn’t think of it too much. I just wanted to get home.
* * *
The next day, none of us were up before noon.
Sheridan was up first. She hadn’t been drunk, but she’d stayed up late chatting with Heath on IM, the guy from SMI she was infatuated with for reasons unknown to any of us. He was such a bore, I couldn’t imagine what there had been to talk about other than himself, since that always seemed to be his favorite topic.
Olivia had been up next, and she and Sheridan had been the only ones with the stomach for lunch, so they’d gone off together. Amanda was still sleeping when Hollis peeked into my room.
“Brooke,” she hissed from the bathroom door. “Are you awake?”
I gave her a thumbs up, my face still buried in my pillow. She laughed and jumped on top of me, her sharp elbow hitting my ribs making me yelp.
“I need to talk to you,” she said in a hushed tone, serious.
I was immediately awake and alert. My head was throbbing a bit, but I didn’t feel all that bad considering how much alcohol I’d practically mainlined the night before.
“Olivia and Alec hooked up last night,” she said, and I gasped.
“No way.” I covered my mouth, my eyes wide with shock. “Is that why…”
Hollis nodded. “That’s why Amanda ran out. She caught them.”
“That motherfucker.” I never cussed, but this seemed like the time to do it. “Why would Olivia do that?”
“I have no idea, it makes no sense at all.” Hollis sighed and looked back at the open bathroom door. “She’s still sleeping. She says she wants to talk to Olivia about it privately.”
“God she’s so mature,” I said. “I’d want to murder her. I kind of do now.”
I remember saying it. Clear as day.
It had just been a turn of phrase, a way to show my loyalty to a friend who’d been betrayed.
Still.
It haunts me. Especially now.
Twenty-Six
AMANDA
I hoped it had been some weird dream.
The next day when I woke up, the memory of it came flooding back. The way she’d leaned into him. Touched him.
He wasn’t mine, that was true. Alec could do what he wanted to.
But Olivia wasn’t supposed to be the girl who tempted him. Why?
I knew I had to find out. I was sober, more sober than I wanted to be, honestly.
No one was in the room when I woke up. I stared at my alarm clock.
“Jesus, it’s already 1 pm?” I groaned, flopping back down on my pillow and throwing my forearm over my face.
I lay there for a few minutes and thought about how I wanted to approach it.
Part of me didn’t believe what I’d seen. Olivia was the last girl in the world I’d ever worried about this kind of shit with. She’d been so excited for me to have a crush. I never had those. I was so focused on school and my studies. Guys were distracting and I couldn’t afford anything like that. I was at Martha Jefferson on scholarship, I needed to stay on my A-game academics-wise.
But that summer… I’d really thought there was a possibility.
And as soon as I’d seen Olivia kiss him, I regretted ever knowing him at all.
* * *
I wanted to talk to Olivia that afternoon, but when Sheridan came back from the dining hall, she came back alone.
“Where’s Olivia?” I asked when she walked in.
“She said she had to go to the computer lab,” Sheridan replied. She pulled me in to hug me before I could say anything else.
“Everything okay?” she asked, not letting me go.
“I’m fine.”
She squeezed me tighter. “Liar. I will not let go until you tell me.”
I laughed. “Seriously. It’s nothing. I was just drunk and tired.”
She let go of me but gave me a look that told me she didn’t believe a word I said.
We all just knew each other too well for her to buy that story.
Twenty-Seven
SHERIDAN
I figured Amanda would tell me in her own time. I knew it had to be about Alec and I wondered if maybe he’d rejected her or done something crass to offend her. The second I saw him I knew he wasn’t close to worthy of her.
Amanda is so beautiful. And very smart, and her coldness and reserved nature makes her a little mysterious.
I decided to work on a paper for my Virginia History class. Amanda went back to sleep for a bit. Hollis and Brooke shared the papasan chair that Hollis had pulled into our room to listen to music.
Hours went by before we realized we hadn’t heard from Olivia.
Hollis went to check her desktop. It was locked from being so idle for so long, so I signed onto AIM to see if she was active on it in the computer lab. She was signed in, but had been idle for a few hours, probably since we’d gone to lunch.
“I wonder where she is?” I asked. “The lab closes at six on Saturdays.”
Hollis shrugged. “Maybe she’s avoiding us.”
I looked at her, confused.
“Did something happen last night that I should know about?”
Hollis shook her head. “We all drank too much. We’re tired. She’ll show up, she’s probably working on something.”
* * *
Olivia never came back that night. But her AIM was active for a few minutes around midnight. We heard the “door” sound of it closing and then reopening again, as if Olivia had signed in somewhere else.
Hollis messaged her, but no answer. At least not a while.
“This is fucking weird, should we tell someone?” Brooke asked. Amanda had joined us now and even she seemed worried.
“Yeah let’s tell Shannon.”
Shannon was our RA. But before we could walk down to
her room at the end of our hall, Hollis got a ding back on her laptop.
It was Olivia.
“Sorry guys,” she typed. “I didn’t mean to disappear, I got a message from home, something is going on with my mom, so I hightailed it back to Richmond for a bit. I’ll be back Tuesday!”
Hollis typed back, “What do you mean hightailed it back, you don’t have a car?”
Olivia waited so long to answer we thought she was gone again.
“Yeah, I just ended up calling a friend of mine at UVA to come pick me up. She was on her way up there anyway.”
“You don’t have any of your clothes?” Hollis typed back. This was so crazy and out of the norm for Olivia.
“I have plenty at home, silly!” she typed, adding a smiley face at the end. “Don’t mean to be weird and cryptic, will explain when I’m back!”
Before Hollis could reply, Olivia had signed out.
She was gone.
Twenty-Eight
HOLLIS
The whole thing was weird as shit.
And it made me think Olivia had left town to avoid dealing with Amanda and the rest of us about what she’d done.
Amanda didn’t want to talk about it though. So, we didn’t. We spent the rest of the weekend sleeping, studying, and hydrating. Amanda blocked Alec on AIM and I secretly thought of ways to get revenge on the asshole that had hurt my friend.
What I hadn’t said to Amanda was that I truly wondered if there was more to the story with Olivia. In the almost two years we’d known her, there’d never been even a hint of this kind of behavior. It was disheartening. What if she’d just been drunk? Or what if Amanda hadn’t seen what she thought she saw.
I didn’t want Amanda to feel doubted.
I just really hoped, somehow, she was wrong.
* * *
The following week started out like any other.
Early September in Virginia is still summer for the most part, but without the humidity. It’s my favorite time of year, other than the fall when the Shenandoah Valley and the Blue Ridge mountains erupt with bold color.
That Tuesday morning, I was up early, despite not needing to be at my Shakespeare class until 10 am. I wanted to message Olivia about when she’d be back and tell her I hoped everything was okay with her mom since we hadn’t heard from her and we were worried.
She hadn’t signed onto AIM though. So, I emailed her instead.
Amanda was snoring softly as I padded around our room. I could hear Sheridan in the shower and the sound of Brooke microwaving something in their room.
I peaked in after walking through the steam of Sheridan’s shower and closing my eyes for a moment. I enjoyed the sudden heat and the sound of Sheridan humming behind the shower curtain.
“Coffee?” I asked. Brooke yawned and gave me a thumbs up.
“Mind making me one?”
Brooke nodded, her eyes still half closed.
Instant coffee isn’t my favorite, but it’s better than nothing. And I was out of Adderall.
I could hear Amanda’s alarm going off in the other room.
“Rise and shine, princess!” I cooed and she flipped me the bird as she pulled her comforter over her head.
“I’m skipping Shakespeare,” she mumbled. “I just can’t today.”
“Bullshit.” I yanked her covers down. “Are you wearing my Juicy sweatpants, bitch?”
She laughed and kicked her long legs dramatically, pointing her toes.
“Someone put them in my laundry basket, so I assumed it was a gift,” she smirked. “I mean I think my ass looks better in them anyway.”
“It does.” I threw the comforter over her head. “Fine. Skip. But don’t ask to copy my notes later.”
“Like you ever take notes.”
Amanda was sitting up now, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
“I’m up anyway,” she sighed. “Might as well go.”
I knew she wouldn’t skip. Amanda probably hadn’t skipped a class in her entire life. Every morning she said she wasn’t going, but she always did.
You could count on her to show up. Always.
* * *
It was 9:32 am when we finally rolled out of room and down the hill to the English and History building. I remember the specific time because Amanda had yelled at me to check the time before closing our door and locking it behind me.
We’d both stayed in our pajama pants and simply threw hoodies on to protect us from the inexplicably frigid temperatures found in all Martha Jefferson classrooms.
“Weird, where is everyone?” Amanda asked as we ventured down the many steps it took to get from the junior dorm to the English building. “Did I miss a memo? Daylight savings time?”
I laughed. “That’s in the spring, goober. Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe no one else wanted to get out of bed either.”
But as soon as we walked into the building, it was clear something was very wrong.
Twenty-Nine
BROOKE
I was really dragging that morning. Coffee wasn’t cutting it.
Sheridan left around the same time Hollis and Amanda had, but I’d decided to skip my philosophy class that day. Admittedly, this was a terrible recent habit of mine. I’d never skipped class my first two years at Jefferson, but this would be my third skipped class in less than a month. I promised myself this would be the last one until next semester, if I could help it.
I was flipping through my notes for political science when our phone started ringing, something that was unusual for that time of day.
I figured it was Olivia. None of has had heard from her. She’d left with almost nothing on her, so I figured that included her key to get back into the dorm. She did that all the time. Then she’d call one of our phones so we’d let her in.
But when I answered the phone, it wasn’t Olivia.
It was my mom.
“Brooke.” She sounded relieved when she heard my voice. “You’re in your room.”
I immediately felt guilty, as if she must have known somehow that I was skipping.
“Yes…” my voice trailed off. “Is everything okay?”
“Turn on the news,” she said, a cry in her voice. My mother is a very stoic woman who I have never seen cry, not once. How she sounded terrified me.
I fumbled around the room, looking for the remote to the small television Sheridan and I shared, the one we kept on top of her dresser drawers. It was one of those TVs with the built-in VCR/DVD combo and we hardly used it other than to watch the occasional movie.
“What happened?” I said as I looked under Sheridan’s comforter and saw the remote peeking out from between her mattress and the wall.
“The World Trade Centers…” Mom started. She continued talking, but I don’t remember what she said.
I turned the TV on, and as soon as I did I screamed.
I watched as one of the World Trade Center towers, the tallest buildings in the world, collapsed. My mother wailed on the other end of the line; she’d just seen it too.
What was happening?
Out in the hallway I could hear people rushing around and someone was yelling.
“Mom, I’ve gotta go,” I said.
“Stay where you are,” she replied. “I wish you were home.”
She was full crying now and my father had taken the phone from her.
“Brookie…” he said. It was his pet name for me. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
I don’t even remember hanging up, but I must have.
I needed to find my friends. I didn’t know what was going on, if the world was ending or what, but I knew one thing.
I didn’t want to be alone.
Thirty
AMANDA
I wish I remembered more about that terrible day, but it’s a blur. There had been so much happening around us, and we didn’t have the hindsight we have now. It truly felt like the apocalypse was happening and no one knew what to do.
I just remember how bea
utiful it was outside, despite the terror happening around the country.
Hollis and I had shown up to a half-empty classroom, everyone staring at the mounted television in the corner of the room. We gasped as the South Tower collapsed, live, in front of our horrified eyes. Plumes and clouds of smoke surrounded it, as if there’d been another explosion.
“The Pentagon!” A girl yelled from the hallway. “The Pentagon’s been hit too!”
A girl next to us started to cry.
“My dad works at the Pentagon,” she said. I stared at her, not knowing what to say or do.
It was truly like we were all living in a nightmare.
* * *
Martha Jefferson immediately cancelled classes for the rest of the day, and we all headed back to our rooms.
As Hollis and I walked back up the hill to our dorm, we passed so many panicked girls. Some were crying. Others looked like we must have looked— dazed and perplexed, unsure of what was happening.
In the main lounge of our dorm, dozens of girls surrounded a television, many of them hugging their knees to their chests, hypnotized by something so unbelievable that it was hard to believe it was all real.
Upstairs in our suite, Brooke was standing in front of the TV watching Matt Lauer. Hollis went directly into our room and turned on our own TV and put it on CNN.
We spent the next few hours glued to one set or the other. We barely spoke. Sheridan was the only one of us who cried.
She was also worried about Olivia.