It felt good to lie down. Calm slowed my racing heart and I just decided to stay here where it was better and imagine that Olivia was right beside me. I moved my hand to where hers would be if she were laying with me. I curled my fingers around her imaginary ones and let my head drift with the clouds.
Chapter Eight
Olivia
I squeezed my phone in my hand. SO ANGRY!
What was Avery thinking?!
Why would she say all that about Nat?
We’d talked about everything. We talked about all of it before. We’d gone over EVERYTHING!
And she said she understood.
What could’ve possibly happened?!
I pressed on Natalie’s call button and put her on speaker.
“Hey you!” She sounded so happy.
“Hey,” I laughed nervously. The weight of an anvil seemed about ready to fall. “What just happened? I’m gonna need you to tell me because Avery’s freaking out.”
“Wow. I miss you too,” Natalie said sarcastically. She was right, it was rude of me not to even offer trivialities. I just never faked with Natalie, she always got the real me which was probably for the worse.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Really. And I wanna know what’s up but- whatever you said set Avery off and now I don’t even know where she is and she won’t talk to me.”
“Wow. You were right. She is a princess.”
“Stop,” I laughed, tucking my hair behind my ear. I didn’t like knowing that Avery was hurting. Not even if it was pointless. I got why she was insecure. I felt that way too with her. But Natalie and I were done, that was obvious. I mean, I proposed for Christ’s sake! Did that really not count?
“I may have said something along the lines of: Wow! Olivia moves fast,” Natalie teased and chuckled.
“You didn’t,” I groaned.
“You know me,” she boasted, proud of herself.
“Of course you did,” I sighed. Natalie was Natalie. There was a reason I liked her. Things like this were the reason. She got a rise. Always. “Anyway… I’ll deal with it… How are you?”
“Eh, I’m alright… It’s been pretty shit without you.”
“Yeah right,” I laughed. All I did was drop in and ask her for sex every now and then. I didn’t do much more. It’s not like I was a good friend.
“No really. I have no one to tease. No one I want to tease anyway,” my lovable ex explained.
“Uh-huh,” I tried not to be amused but it was amusing. Natalie was always so easily charming. I reveled in her.
“I sorta need to get a few things back from your house.”
I took her stuff sometimes. On purpose, on accident. Life was like that.
“Oh shit, yeah, I forgot about that.”
“Did you forget about my pictures?” She teased.
“Sorta, kinda, had to burn that one.” She would know which one. It’d been my favorite and we’d talked about it a lot.
“WHAT?!”
“AVERY FOUND IT!” I yelled embarrassed. “I don’t think she really expected you to be so hot.”
“No one does,” she laughed evilly.
“I can bring your stuff if you want, are you busy?”
“Nah, it’s fine, I’ll swing by later. I have this gig right now. I can’t bail.”
“You sure?” It would probably be best if Avery didn’t see her.
“Yeah.”
“K,” I said. But I was worried. She shouldn’t come by. Not with everything going on.
“Tell your chick to calm down. She’s obviously got you. And she’s hella lucky.”
“Wish it was that simple,” I sighed.
“Well, if it doesn’t work out-”
“I proposed to her Nat.”
I didn’t want her to show up and see the ring and not know. She deserved more of a warning.
“What?” Her voice wavered.
“Yeah… That’s why I felt so bad when I saw you. I knew I loved her. I felt like I used you.”
“Well, you didn’t,” she said, reminding me of our talk and how she still felt on that front.
“Still,” I sniffed.
“Well…” She paused a while. “I’d say congratulations but I’m kind of pissed off at you now.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. No matter how many times I apologized it was never enough.
“I gotta go,” she mumbled. “I’ll swing by though. I need that dress. My mom’ll kill me if I don’t have it tomorrow.”
“I’ll get it,” I said.
“I know,” she said grumpily.
I waited for her to say something else but she didn’t.
I thought about apologizing again but that seemed stupid.
“See ya soon,” I offered.
“K,” she said back. It was the most normal conversation we’d had in a long while.
I walked to the closet and pulled out the one dress and threw it on the bed.
Avery was somewhere else. Though she had snapped at me for asking- she probably did want to be alone. I was worried about her and I couldn’t let her disappear right now. When Avery spent time alone she did crazy things, scary things. Half frozen lakes in a snow storm. Rooms with bad men...
I ran down the steps and called her name.
Nothing there...
“Avery?” I called even louder. The panic in me was just starting to rise.
I walked out back and checked the pool but she wasn’t there.
All the while I was calling her name but I couldn’t hear her.
I checked the guest house next but she wasn’t there. No sign of her. No clues. No noises.
The silent air was still with no breath upon it but my own.
I felt tears sting at my eyes. She was making me nervous.
I walked the path to the treehouse and climbed up.
Going through each room. I remembered us- the times we had. It hurt to think that she could be hearing me calling her right now. What if she was ignoring me? Hurting me on purpose. She could do that now. So easily, by her, I could be hurt.
I climbed down the treehouse ladder and fell a little in my haste to get down.
I didn't know where else to look but I knew she had her car. I guess the worst case scenario would be her getting in it and leaving me in the dust.
Walking out to the front I felt a tightness in my stomach like I was going to throw up.
She never did this with me. She never ran. Reaching back in my mind, I couldn’t remember a time. This was a negative first.
I walked by our cars one-by-one. They sat next to each other like they somehow belonged. But they didn’t. My eyes reached inside every window of her car. Empty seats, messy seats. We hadn’t completely finished moving her in. I checked inside to make sure she wasn’t in there and laying down, hiding from me.
She wasn’t there.
“Avery, you’re scaring me!” I yelled. My voice cracking. I was a crazy person now, yelling into the nothing at the beginning of my secluded lot.
I’d checked the rooms, the pool, the treehouse, our cars… What else was there? She’d left me nothing there was nowhere else to look.
Absentmindedly, I forced my feet to just walk.
I was crying now, no sense in denying it. Avery had never run from me physically, she’d never tried to leave me like this.
My long private road felt so much longer now that I had to walk it in order to look for her. The perfect pavement, the well placed trees. I stifled my sobs and tried to pretend to myself that I wasn’t just breaking.
When I got to the gate I noticed it open and wandered out onto the street.
There was nothing but emptiness. No cars. No visible people. It was just what I expected now. There was too much silence to be anything else.
“Avery!” I yelled, pure anger now as I turned the other way. I was so sure she was gone that I let anger flood me and invade.
My eyes found her and focused. She was there, laying down in the road. It was very unsafe.
<
br /> My heart skipped and I tensed, walking as calmly as I could over to see her and find out what the hell went wrong.
As I got close though I noticed something strange.
She had red on her face.
“Oh no,” I mumbled, tears quickening. I ran and fell next to her once I realized it was blood.
“What did you do?” I asked, scared to touch her.
My hands were shaking.
“Avery?” My voice shook weakly. I needed her to talk to me. I needed to know she was awake. There was blood all over her face, and her shirt, it was everywhere. My hands shook. “Oh Avery,” I cried, leaning down into her and crying hard into her chest.
She moved and I lifted my head to find her blinking up at me.
“You’re here,” she said, smiling. “I was pretending you were and now you are.”
“Don’t do that!” I cried like an angry idiot. “I was so scared,” I realized it now.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Don’t cry. I’m okay.” She shifted, trying to sit up- then she stopped. “Wooooah.”
“Sweetie, what did you do? Do you need a doctor? You look like you need a doctor,” I said, searching her for wounds. I made my hands settle and reached to find the source of the blood.
Face wounds bleed a lot. If she’d gotten cut on her face and just let it bleed it could be something small. I moved my fingers around gently until she grimaced. It was small. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. There’d been so much blood it frightened me.
“I ran into a fence or something. I was running really fast and then BAM.” She leaned over, spitting blood out onto the asphalt.
“Jesus,” I exhaled, watching her. “Why were you running?” I asked. I was trying my best not to cry. But she scared me. She always did. My body shook and I was overwhelmed by this. Deep down I knew, she didn’t know how easily she could break me.
“Because I felt like I was failing you.”
“Can you walk?” I asked, ignoring her. I couldn’t take her fucking words right now.
“Um, sure,” she muttered, taking my hand and standing up shakily.
I just wanted to get her back into the house. She needed to lay down. I couldn’t talk to her like this. I had to recalibrate. I had to make room for a place where things like this could just happen all of the time.
“Come on,” I said, pulling her to hold me around my neck and let me hold her around her waist.
“I’m sorry. I just wigged out and by the time I was getting my sense back I ran into that fucking fence. Those trees hide it really well, by the way. A+ job on that.” She was walking well enough but she still seemed directionally challenged. “Then I was just lying there thinking about how I failed you and I was a coward and I should have stayed and talked to you but I was just like my dad and worthless and then I got really fuzzy and imagined we were on our honeymoon on a sailboat and I pretended you were with me and I was holding your hand and then you came.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“Can you forgive me?” She asked.
“Of course, baby,” I muttered, the all of me aching. We finally made it to the steps and I started to take them. When we got to the room I laid her down on the bed and went to get a wet towel to clean her off.
On my way back from the bathroom she was standing on the landing trying to come find me.
“You need to lie back down,” I said. She had no idea how wild she looked.
I followed her back inside and gently pushed her to lie down. My shaky hands tried to calm as I pulled a mirror out from my side drawer.
“Baby, look,” I said, holding it up so that she could see what she looked like.
“Well, that’s hot,” she said, chuckling and letting out a groan of pain.
“It’s not funny,” I said, worried. I brought the towel up and tried to be gentle as I wiped away the drying blood.
“It is to me. I’m the one who did this to myself. On accident but still. If I hadn’t been the idiot who let all the bullshit from the last few days buildup and stress me to the point that I flipped at the slightest provocation.”
“Babe, stop,” I said, trying to calm myself. I was about to flip out. Her words kept on stabbing me like sharp pins. You’re nothing. Stab. I can leave you. Stab.
“Sorry,” she said again, letting me wash her face off while she sat there, staring in the mirror that she’d taken from me.
I took the mirror away and tucked it into the drawer. I didn’t like the way she was thinking right now.
I got down on my knees and rest my head in her lap to try and calm down.
I’d almost jumped up and gasped back there. I almost freaked out and left.
I was afraid to bring up the call. Afraid to ask what “bullshit” she meant?
All my talk… That was the bullshit.
My chin quivered as I laid the side of my face on her legs.
She put her hand on my head and twined her fingers in my hair. “I shouldn’t have been so scared when she called. I know logically it wasn’t a big deal but I just felt like I could lose you and it’s stupid. I’m sorry. I’ll apologize forever if that helps.”
“You can’t lose me,” I reminded. That’s all I’d been trying to tell her yesterday. “I already told you, you can’t lose me. That’s why I was saying it. I was saying it because of this.”
She moved her hand through my hair and I could feel her other hand in her pocket moving something around. She was always fidgeting.
“Stop,” I said, reaching up to her wrist and stopping her. I couldn’t take it, all her crazy energy.
Her hand stilled but she kept it there in her pocket. “I didn’t know I was doing it.” She adjusted her seat on the bed and calmed a little.
“Do you need to go to the doctor?” I asked. “You could have a concussion. Have you ever had one of those?”
“No, I’m fine. It doesn’t feel like a concussion. Yes, I’ve had one.” Her mouth kept moving like she was talking to herself.
“Great,” I sighed. “So you were just trying to scare the shit out of me, that’s all.”
“Trying? No, but I succeeded anyway. I’m sorry I made you worry. This afternoon when we were talking about pasts, my past. I realized how you felt all the times you’ve heard about Holland or the barista. Daisy was her name by the way. But I never thought to tell you that. I knew that it must be how I felt when I thought about Natalie and you. I feel like an asshole for not getting it before. I understand. We both have people we’ve been with and we’re both a little freaky when it comes to that.”
“I don’t even know what to say to you right now,” I said miserably.
How many times was I going to have to fetch her out of a lake or steal her out of hotel rooms or pull her up off the ground with blood all over her face? Her broken fist after that talk with her dad.. My mind wandered back.
“You should say yes.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, exhausted.
She needed a doctor. She wasn’t making any sense.
I moved my hand to try and find hers but she was holding something and it felt strange.
I lifted my head to see and immediately burst into tears, crying even more than I was before, this time hurting myself.
What the hell was she thinking?!
“Now?” I tried to speak. But it came out all miserable.
She got down onto her knees, pushing me back a little and sliding in front of me so we were level. “Baby, I know, but I’ve been thinking about this for awhile and I finally got a chance to get the ring and I was going to wait and make it super romantic but I can’t wait. I need you to have it now because it’s right.”
She turned my chin up, trying to dry my tears with her free hand. A fool’s errand. They tears just kept coming. “Olivia Holbrook, please marry me. Even though I swim into frozen lakes and run into fences and generally cause havoc in your life I want you to be the one to clean me up. If you still want to, that is.”
She held the ring box out and flipped it open to reveal a small engagement ring. It looked old. Not too fancy but well-made and with a bright, shining diamond in a vintage setting. It was perfect.
Paper Dolls [Book Three] Page 17