“You didn’t care. When I told you about Ethan and the kiss, we just did it and you didn’t care then.” I throw it at him wildly, hoping to land on something that will make him sorry.
“I thought that’s what I was supposed to do, Liv.” He sounds defeated. “I thought if I made a big deal about it, it’d drive you away faster. If you knew sex was a big deal to me…” He trails off again, looking embarrassed.
“What, so it’s not a big deal to me?” I shrug, hurt. “I’m just some kind of slut—”
“No!” he says quickly. “It’s just that look you gave me when you found out I was a virgin was so embarrassing.”
“That’s because I thought I had taken something from you.” I push my hair out of my face. “Something you’d want to save for a different girl. Someone special.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” he asks, cutting right through me. “Because you saw your opportunity to get Ethan and piss off Adrienne, and you took it.” The usual barely controlled anxiety radiates off him now. I worry once he explodes, I won’t know how to contain him. “And now because of you, I’ve got this fucked-up GPA and they’re holding my scholarship and everything is a fucking disaster, Liv, so just leave me alone.”
“Your scholarship?” I ask, my breath catching in my throat.
He doesn’t meet my eye. “I called the coach at Clemson, and he said they’re holding it for now because of my character issues.” He snorts. “I have character issues. He says we can reevaluate in a few weeks. Mom says I should go to Duke.”
“But that’s not what you want.”
His eyes linger on me. “C’mon, you know better than anyone. You can’t always get what you want.” He almost smiles.
“What if I could help?” I say. I hear my own voice tightening: same desperate Olivia.
“Help with what?” he asks.
“Your GPA! Your character! Clemson. Everything,” I say. “What if—what if I tell Dr. Rickards about everything?”
Confusion colors his face. “What did you do?” he asks slowly. “What does that mean?”
I cover my eyes with my hands so he can’t see me, the light slanting in between my fingers. Then he is touching me, prying them away from my face. Anger is creeping into his voice. He’s smart. I know he knows. “What did you do?”
“You don’t understand.”
He drops my hand. He won’t touch me at all anymore. “Say it.”
“It was Adrienne. She told them that she saw you and Mrs. Baker and I didn’t say it was true, I just—”
“Motherfucker!” he screams. I recoil because the truth hurts like nothing else. “That’s the problem with you.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“You didn’t say anything. That’s what you do, Liv, because you’re a fucking coward.”
“Shut up,” I say, head down. I feel like I’m tearing apart from the inside out. The two Olivias are colliding in a body that’s only big enough for one of us. And I’m still lying. To him and myself.
“Did you put that test in my locker? Did you lie about that, too?”
I nod, meeting his eyes.
“Christ,” he spits.
I hate him. Everything about him. The way he looks at me, how he sees me so small. I hate him.
“You ruined Mrs. Baker’s life. I lost my fucking scholarship. God, Olivia, I’m losing my mind.” He’s pacing, the most contained person I know bouncing back and forth and back and forth like he’ll die if he stops. “Why? Why would you do this? And don’t say Claire, because that’s your excuse. You love your excuses.” I try to break in because it sounds like he’s stopping, but he’s just getting wound up. “It’s not like you want to watch the world burn like Adrienne does. You know what you’re doing. You do it anyway. Why?”
“How do you know I don’t want to watch the world burn?” I answer defensively. “It’s about my brother, okay? I know it doesn’t matter to you, because you have this brother who loves you so much and you live to, like, be better than him, but I love my brother. I loved him, and I won’t let Adrienne change who he was.”
“Another excuse.”
I take in the scene, the beautiful copse of trees and the field and this boy and this girl falling apart, and I see myself so clearly. In denial. I have to give up. I’ve lost. “Whit, I’m so sorry,” I keep saying over and over again. And “I’ll fix it” and “I want you so badly,” only I can’t bring myself to say it at all.
“I did everything for you!”
“I know, and I promised we were in it together. And we were, but all these things got in the way. My brother—I didn’t want my mom to know and Adrienne said—”
“Is that all you got?” Whit’s voice is sharp, jagged edges, his entire stance daring me.
We stare at each other, and I can feel the words, the ones I didn’t know how to say before: I want this to be real, Whit. I want you to have flirted with me in the lunch line and have taken the long way to biology every day so you could walk by my locker and have worked up the courage to ask me out and have kissed me outside my house when it was raining and I just want something normal. I want to feel like I deserve something normal and I want to start over—
“I thought so.”
“Whit—”
“Don’t ever speak to me again,” he cuts me off.
I watch him as he grabs up his clubs.
He turns back to me. “You are—you are…” Giving up, as though he could never find words terrible enough to describe me, he turns away.
“Whit,” I try to say. I want to tell him that he matters so much to me, and I’ll do anything—anything—to make this right.
But he’s already gone.
65
It starts sprinkling on the way home from Whit’s spot. Pretty erratic weather for the beginning of October. The thermometer sits at a ridiculous 85 degrees, begging for the end of a long summer. The smell of wet, hot sidewalk melts into the air as I walk slowly through the front door of my house, where my mom is working at the kitchen table.
Sometimes, she sits there so long, I wonder if she’s melded right into the chair.
“How was school?” she asks as I run water from the faucet into a plastic cup.
“It’s raining,” I say, about one step up from catatonic.
Mom glances out the window. “The weatherman didn’t seem to think that was ever going to happen again.”
I shrug.
A million unsaid words bounce around the kitchen. A clock ticks in the background. “I need you to go to school with me tomorrow,” I say.
“Why? What happened?”
I set down my cup on the counter and look at her. My face must say a lot because she slowly closes her MacBook, sits back in her chair. “Nothing yet,” I tell her. “But I’m going to be in a lot of trouble, and I’d like you to be there.”
“Olivia.” She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. Is this some kind of game?”
I almost laugh. “I—I don’t want to do it alone,” I say. “I have been for so long.” When I breathe in, it makes a sound that might be a laugh and might be a cry, and I put my hand up to my mouth so no one will hear it. Mom shoots up from her spot at the table and puts her arms around me, and I lean my cheek into her T-shirt. “I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.”
Mom stiffens. Pulls away from me. “Why would you say that?”
“I’m not smart. Or talented. Or good at anything except ruining good things for other people, and I know you wouldn’t be so miserable if Ryan was alive instead of me.”
“Olivia,” Mom says, touching my cheek. She’s crying, too, like she did at Ryan’s funeral, all red cheeked. “I know that I’ve failed in a lot of ways as your mother, but that’s my fault. Not yours. I never thought I’d be raising two kids alone, and when your dad died … I messed everything up so badly.”
I blink slowly. I try not to think about my dad much because sometimes I can’t keep myself from blaming him. For Mom losing it,
and then for Ryan losing it. I never think about who he was. Spending time on that’d be like holding on to a fairy tale. All I know about him is whispered stories Ryan told me, and I think most of them were made up as much as the ones I imagined and kept in my head.
“You’re more like him than me, you know. The way people are drawn to you. You’re magnetic; I’ve known that since you were little.
“I’m not that. You have your cheerleading and you’re so outgoing, always have so many friends. I was glad you found things that mattered to you, but it wasn’t what I knew. You know I’m no good with people and I was never any good with you, and then you started acting out in these erratic ways, and your brother did, too. At least I understood the way he acted out. I thought I could help him.”
“Do you know how long I’ve spent filling in the gaps where I wanted you to be?” I finally say. “I wanted you. I wanted you to laugh or cry or show any sign at all that you cared.” I shrug. “I always wondered how far I’d have to take it for you to care. What line I’d have to cross.”
“Of course I care,” Mom insists. “I’m just not good at showing it. I—I know it was so hard on you and Ryan those last years in Charlotte, when I was pulling myself back together. I had to be so careful about my balance, and that was hard. I couldn’t always be what you needed.” Mom pulls at her bun. She’s about the same size as me, but she looks smaller right now. This is where she’d usually walk away, but she doesn’t. Not this time. “I never knew that’s what any of this was—this world you had with Adrienne. I always saw you … functioning. Not just functioning, but excelling in ways that Ryan couldn’t. Fitting in. He had so many problems, and I focused so much attention on him. I wanted to help him, and I thought you didn’t need my help.”
My eyes water. “But I did.”
“I know.” I thought I’d get more satisfaction out of this when it worked. From having her look at me so intently. But right now all I see in her eyes is my hopeful reflection staring back at me. “I’ve tried so much since he died. Tried to be around, tried to be a mom, but I know you decided it was too late. You didn’t need me anymore.”
It’s funny. Making her beg for forgiveness, making her understand that I’ve been chasing whatever love someone would throw my way for twelve years because of her, won’t change anything, and forward momentum is all I have to keep me going. Right now, she is all I have to keep me going. And I want that. I don’t want to keep blaming her for things she can’t control. “I do,” I finally admit. “I still do. I can’t help but push at people—sometimes it’s the only way I really feel anything. Because I’m so cold, like Mr. Doolittle said.”
She blinks a few times, assessing me. I said too much. The cold thing—I didn’t mean to bring that up. “You remember what you said to me the day you were suspended? That Ryan was the only real relationship you ever had? That he was the only one who loved you for who you are?”
I nod.
“I should’ve said it then, but I want you to know. Olivia, I love you. You think there’s something wrong with you because feeling is hard? Look who your mother is.” I shake my head, but she grabs either side of my face and holds me still. “You may be magnetic like your father, but you’re guarded like me. So you understand when I say I love you more fiercely than anything on the planet, when I tell you I will do anything for you, they’re the most sincere words that could come out of my mouth. And you know that we may be hard to break down, but when we feel, we feel harder than anyone else. Too hard, sometimes, right?”
I nod, tears spilling down my cheeks. They won’t stop coming now, like a spell has been broken, like the wall in my heart has been torn completely down, and I’m nothing but feeling. White-hot feelings. All-consuming, broken feelings.
“I know—I know,” I say. “God, I couldn’t hate you so much if I didn’t love you so much, Mom. I wanted so badly to blame you for Ryan. I wanted it to be someone else’s fault. That’s always what I want.”
She breathes deeply. I shouldn’t have said hate, either. I didn’t mean it. Not really. But then she says, “I should’ve done more for him. I let you both down.” She pauses. Then, “I flew up there last year once, while you were staying at Adrienne’s. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to scare you. I tried to bring him home, but he convinced me he could do it. I should’ve known better because I used to be able to convince myself I was okay. But I believed him, and it was the worst mistake of my life. If only I’d…” She trails off, looking a little lost.
“Ryan was sad,” I say, and for the first time, I believe it when I say it. It’s cathartic, even. Ryan was sad in a way outside of our control, and in a way we never completely understood, and he only got sadder when he left. Mom didn’t feed Ryan shots and tell him to drive, and it’s not karmic retribution that he crashed. He was sad, and he made a mistake. “He called me. Before he died.”
Mom covers her mouth with her hand. I’m shaking all over, but I keep going. “He said he missed me, like he already knew what was coming, and I didn’t want you to know.” I choke over my words. “I didn’t know what it meant, and I don’t know what would’ve happened if I’d answered. If I’d talked to him and not been with Ethan.” The words are so hard to get out, over the almost-sobs that threaten to completely destroy me. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”
She puts her hands on both of my arms, gripping me hard. “Listen to me,” she says, and she’s crying but I’ve never seen her look so fierce, so in control. “It is not your fault. You did the best you could. We did what we thought was right, and we can’t change it. You loved him so much. I think he tried as hard as he could for you. He never would’ve wanted to leave you behind.”
“I wanted him to be okay.” I draw in a ragged breath. “I want him to be here.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Me too.”
I sniff loudly, ruining the moment, and she smiles and I smile and my heart collapses. “I’ve really screwed everything up,” I tell her.
“Well,” she says, pushing a hair back from my face, “let me help you fix it. Just this once.”
“Do you think I’m trapped?” I ask. I’m dreading the answer. “In Buckley? That I’ll always just be Adrienne’s lackey? That I won’t ever be able to feel like anyone else? That’s why Whit—” I choke up all over again. I can’t say Whit and think about all-consuming feelings. It hurts too much. She runs her thumb over my cheek.
“Olivia, you can do anything you want to do, be whoever you want to be. Watch the sunrise on the West Coast. Chase tumbleweeds in Texas. I know your grades aren’t perfect, but not everything in life is orderly. Eighteen years ago, I thought your father and I would be raising two children in the suburbs, driving them to their first day of college, but I was wrong. I have you, and you’re flawed and strong, and everything on the planet is ahead of you. The world is terrified of what you’ll do to it. I promise. Okay?”
I can barely form the words, but I manage to nod. “Okay.”
66
Adrienne always used to tell me that if you apologize for something, you’re admitting you’re wrong. Admitting you’re wrong is absolutely the worst thing you can do. It’s just another piece of her obsession with never showing weakness. How strange, that for so long, my biggest fear was someone knowing that I had feelings.
Maybe I’m contemplating the mysteries of my life because I’m about to do the scariest thing I’ve ever done. Mom pulls up in front of a split-level house on the outside of town. There’s a playhouse on the left side of the lawn, bright pink with a white lattice trim. Mom stops the car. I feel sick to my stomach, nausea burning up and down inside my chest.
“Be direct,” Mom tells me in her most professional voice. “She’ll be angry. The point is to not get emotional.”
I nod, staring out the window. Ironic, since I’ve just started to thaw out.
“Olivia. Do not get emotional,” she repeats.
I look at her with a half smile. “Me? Never.” Before I can th
ink about it much more, I open the door, hop onto the sidewalk, and pound up to the house. Ring the doorbell and wait, each agonizing moment stretching longer than the last. Then Mrs. Baker opens the door, looking startlingly normal. She wears a pair of tattered old jeans, a sorority T-shirt, and her hair up in a ponytail.
“Olivia?” she asks, surprised.
“Hi,” I say because I’m a dumbass. I push a piece of stray hair behind my ear. “I came to talk to you.”
“Okay,” she says slowly. She glances at my mom’s parked car and then up and down the street like she’s expecting someone to jump out at us. I can’t blame her for paranoia.
“Mommy! Mommy!” A little blond girl runs up behind her, then stops when she sees me. She points. “Who is that?”
Mrs. Baker puts a hand on top of her head. “This is one of my students. Olivia. She’s a cheerleader.” She looks up at me. “She loves cheerleaders,” she confides with a smile.
Silently, I die on her doorstep.
“Honey, go back in the den, okay?”
Her daughter nods and runs off.
“What can I help you with?” she asks, looking less bright. I start to consider that maybe she doesn’t hate me. I’m probably not her favorite person by any stretch of the imagination, but she doesn’t hate me. Yet. That makes things worse. It was much easier to ruin her life when she wasn’t a real person. It always is.
“I wanted to let you know”—I look anywhere but at her—“I’m going to go to Dr. Rickards tomorrow and tell him that I never saw anything between you and Whit and that I’m pretty sure Adrienne made it all up. Even though obviously I don’t think Adrienne is going to admit that. Without my word, they’ve got nothing. They’ll have to let you come back to school.”
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