Right after six in the morning, I reached the bathroom and turned on the water in the last stall. Only a minute passed before the water got to its warmest level and I stepped in and closed the curtain. I’d timed it perfectly. Ollie always left before I arrived, and I’d managed to avoid the morning rush. As long as I reached the bathroom at 6:10 AM and left no later than 6:25 AM.
Before I had a chance to rinse out all the shampoo, my curtain flew open with an angry Bria on the other side.
“Shit. You scared me,” I said, wiping water from my eyes. Bria crossed her arms over her chest and pressed her brows together. “What do you want, Bria?”
“You need to leave Ollie alone.”
Rolling my eyes, I continued to rinse the rest of the shampoo out of my hair.
“I’m serious, America. Find your own play-thing. Ollie and Isaac are with me.”
“I thought what happens in the dorm, stays in the dorm.” Bria thought she could make me uncomfortable by confronting me in such a vulnerable state. Little did she know, I happened to be more comfortable naked than clothed, and Bria didn’t budge as she continued to stare me down. “You’re an idiot.” I grabbed my towel from the hook and wrapped it around my body before pushing past her.
“Excuse me?” She followed me to the mirror as I pulled the toothpaste from the basket.
“It’s the reactance theory. You discourage someone from doing something, their freedom threatened, and they will be even more motivated to regain control by doing the exact opposite,” I popped the toothbrush in my mouth and turned to face her. “Because the forbidden fruit tastes so much sweeter.”
She shifted onto her other leg and straightened her posture. Her short black hair was flat and not sticking up in the back like it usually did. She was the dark version of Tinker Bell, but instead of sprinkling fairy dust, she discharged ammo.
“You were better off not saying anything at all,” I added.
“Just … stay away from him.”
I spit a mouthful of toothpaste before pointing my toothbrush at her. “You presented me with a challenge, Bria, and the best part is … I have nothing to lose.”
Bria and I stood eye to eye for what seemed like minutes before she finally turned on her heel and left. I loathed drama, but I enjoyed making girls squirm just as much. I had no interest in Ollie. Hell, I had no interest in anyone. But seeing her unravel the way she had at the thought of losing one of her “play-things” was an excellent way to start my morning.
The inability to feel for someone always prevented me from having anything more.
I’d tried faking it once, only to see how far the relationship could go, and if anything would develop, but nothing. Love was nothing more than a myth, something produced by major corporations to increase profit. According to dictionary.com, the verb definition of love means to love someone and be affectionate. The definition of affectionate means to love. Case in point.
Proving my theory once in a high school project, I surveyed fifty people on what love meant to them. Fifty different people, fifty different answers. No one could give me a clear explanation, and what happened when something couldn’t be proven? The results were inconclusive.
I believed in chemistry and comfort. You felt comfort and ease around someone, so you didn’t mind being around them all the time—hence, my father and Diane. My father found some sort of comfort in Diane, more than being alone, so he married her. Chemistry attracts two people together, comfort makes them stay. Simple explanation. What dictionary.com should have said was:
love (verb)
/ləv/
the perfect combination of chemistry and comfort
I sat at my usual table during breakfast and played with my wet eggs as the crew from last night made their way into the mess hall toward their table. Jake waved me over, but I turned away. I’ve had enough of them over the last twenty-four hours.
Soon after, Ollie pulled out a chair and took a seat before finding me across the room. In a matter of seconds, he managed to remind me of our moment from last night, and I bit the inside of my cheek to fight off the tightness in my chest. He offered me a sleepy, lopsided smile, and I averted my eyes.
Chemistry was the damn devil.
The bell rang. I stood in a hurry, grabbed my tray, and left the mess hall before anyone else, walking at a much faster pace than I should have been this early in the morning. The last thing I wanted was for Jake to catch up to me, or anyone else from last night. As soon as I turned the corner down the left wing, I was pulled by the arm from the corridor and through a door.
Face to face with familiar green eyes, I backed against the wall. The room was dark aside from a hint of the morning sun’s rays coming through the window. Ollie leaned over me and rested each palm against the wall beside me. The smell of mint became a passenger between us as he licked his lips. His gum switched from one side of his mouth to the other before my eyes lifted to his. “I can’t stop thinking about last night,” he admitted. “This morning I woke up sober, and still feel a part of me is missing.”
I opened my mouth, and when nothing came out, I closed it again. Ollie was breathing hard. I was breathing hard. His chest rose and fell with every breath. I couldn’t break away from his stare.
“You said it would pass, but it didn’t. And then in the mess hall, you can’t even look at me … but I want to be seen by you, Mia.” His eyes scanned my face. “I really like it.”
“You like being looked at?” Finally, words. I was able to speak.
He raised a brow. “It does feed my narcissism, but it’s different with you.” He lifted a hand off the wall. “Even though you claim this to be so dangerous.”
I straightened my posture when he took a step back. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.”
His face was unreadable, and with my books clutched to my chest, I pushed passed him and walked out the door. He remembered every detail of last night—the confessing of my rules and the dangers of crossing the line—then had the nerve to use it against me. He was playing with fire, and in the end, he would get burned.
As I walked into Latin, I had come to the conclusion they were all crazy. People like Bria and Ollie walked around with rules they couldn’t live up to, like “no hurt feelings,” and I should have known better. Whatever happened in Ollie’s dorm would never stay in Ollie’s dorm, but at least I was the one who couldn’t get hurt. I had decided to have my fun with them, and when everything came crashing down, it would be me laughing in the end.
I took a seat beside Liam. He was a year younger than me, and a complete asshole, but I enjoyed every second of it. With blond hair pulled back into a man bun, and full lips, I could see why the girls surrounded him. He was like me in a lot of ways. Perhaps the reason I stuck to him on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
We walked together to lunch, but I refused to sit with him and his friends. His group was something my old self would typically be drawn to, and a part of me did want to change. I kept telling myself I didn’t care whether or not I ended up in a mental institution, but I knew somewhere deep down, I didn’t want to go there, and if I fell into the arms of Liam’s group, I would never make it out of here alive.
“What are your plans tomorrow?” Liam asked as we stood in the lunch line.
“I don’t know … homework, I guess. What else is there to do on Fridays?”
Liam put his arm around my shoulder and turned me toward the students in the mess hall.
He pointed over to the jocks, all of them with muscles bulging from their Dolor shirts and punching each other in the shoulder. “Every Friday, they have a game of football in the yard.” He turned my attention to the group of girls at the table beside them. Gwen was the only one I knew by name. She flipped her short blonde hair as she talked into another girl’s ear. Liam continued, “The girls sit off to the side and watch as they bat their pretty eye
s.” His fingers landed on a table seating six thugs. “Poker in the courtyard, 10 quid buy-in.” And, finally, he pointed toward Ollie. Ollie clenched his jaw as Liam leaned into my ear. “They take off to the woods and … no one really knows what the fuck they do. They’re all rubbish.”
“What about you?” I asked, turning my attention away from Ollie’s tense position.
Liam smirked and pulled me to his side. “Meet us after breakfast in the morning and have a gander, yeah?”
His choice of words made me smile. “I’ll think about it.”
After eating the horrible cheese sandwich at my table, I pulled To Kill a Mockingbird from my stack of books and read, keeping my attention away from Ollie at all costs, and not giving in to his narcissistic behavior.
“Mia, you’re late,” Dr. Conway stated and flicked her eyes over to the clock on the wall behind the couch.
After taking a seat on the sunken brown leather, I handed her the book. “I finished the book. It sucked. What was the point in wasting my time?”
Dr. Conway grabbed the book and placed it back in its rightful place on the bookshelf. “That was only a warm-up. Tell me why you didn’t like it.”
“You’re kidding, right?” I leaned back into the leather and ran my fingers across the cracks in the arm of the couch. “You have a middle-class, middle-aged man who wants to teach his kids lessons in life, but then calls a rape victim a liar, and basically a slut. The author took advantage of the on-going racism in America to sell millions of copies, and give off the impression rape victims are asking for it and should be ignored. I can’t believe they allow this shit in grade school.”
Dr. Conway’s brows lifted at my response. “Interesting … So, from all the characters, who do you think you could relate to the most?”
“This is ridiculous. What’s my next assignment?” I turned out the window toward the front of the building where the gates were. The things I would have done to be on the other side of them right now and far away from here.
“You have a writing assignment.” Dr. Conway swiveled in her chair and grabbed a pad of paper and handed it to me. “From this point on, I want you to spend at least twenty minutes a day free-writing. Write whatever comes to mind. I don’t care what it’s about. Put pen to paper, free your mind, and write.”
“That’s it for today, then?”
Dr. Conway gave me a hard look. She pressed her mouth together in a line, contemplating her next words carefully. I turned away from her and back at the window. The only sound in the room was the second hand on the clock clicking away and the air conditioning vent rattling.
“Whatever you have to say, just say it,” I said through an exhale. “I can do this all day.”
“I want to ask you a question, but I don’t want you to answer. I want you to really think about it …” She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands together over her crossed knees. “If today was the last day of your life, would you spend it differently?” My lips parted, but Dr. Conway held up a hand. “I don’t want you to answer.”
The funny thing was, I had no idea what I was about to say. Surely it couldn’t have been some life-changing epiphany. More like a sarcastic remark. I didn’t know if I would do anything differently today. I had my fuck appointment with two-humps-and-done Oscar. If I didn’t wake up tomorrow, would I want my vagina’s last moments to be with Sir Grunts-a-lot? Did I even really want to have sex with him at all?
Dr. Conway and her stupid question had me reeling. I grabbed my stack of books off the side table and gave her a curtsy. “Cheerio,” I said in my best British accent before taking off.
After turning the corner of my wing toward my dorm, my eyes fell on Ollie who waited outside my door. My head rolled back at his presence. I had exactly five minutes before Oscar arrived.
“Is your narcissism running low? Need some more gawking to fuel it?” I asked with wide, ogling eyes and a smile.
Ollie’s hand shot to his chest as if it were a blow to his ego, but he followed up with a crooked smile. “So, you and Liam friends now, yeah?”
“No, I don’t need friends. I prefer solitude.”
Ollie dropped his head and peered over at me with disbelieving eyes.
And there it was, the same incredulous look I’d seen in both his drunken and sober states. Even in disbelief, he was authentic. I liked that about Ollie. He was simple—easy. When I wore my venom on my sleeve, he wore his emotions. I never had a need to guess what kind of person he was or what he thought because he always came out and said it. He was not complicated, but this thing between us was.
“Then how do you expect to smile like you are right now all by yourself?” he asked.
Shit. I hadn’t realized I was smiling. I pressed my lips together. “I’m not smiling,” I mumbled through a controlled mouth.
Ollie threw his head back and ran a hand down his face. “I haven’t got a chance with you, love. Tell me, when was the last time you actually laughed? Wait … do you even laugh?”
“Oh, is that the purpose of having a friend? You think you can make me laugh?”
“You and I could never be friends, Mia, but yes, I have a few jokes.” Ollie leaned in. “But you can’t tell anyone. It may ruin my cool reputation here.”
I’m glad we were on the same page with the whole “friend” thing, but I couldn’t help but think there was some hidden meaning behind the way he’d said it.
Shifting my heavy books to my other arm, I sighed. “Alright, let’s hear them.”
“I have you laughing, you let me inside?” he asked, taking the books from my arms. “I’ll hold these in the meantime. No need to thank me …” His smile turned smug.
Resting my hand over my hip, I dropped my head to hide my smile from his fortitude. There was no way he could succeed now I was prepared for it.
“Knock, knock,” he said with a poker face, and I pressed my lips together.
A damn knock-knock joke? The determination on his face and his youthful antics could have ruined me alone. This was going to be much harder than I thought. “Who’s there?”
“Tank.”
“Tank who?”
“I told you no need to thank me, but you’re welcome.” He held up his empty palm with a wide smile.
My hand shot over my mouth to hide my grin, and I shook my head
Ollie reached for my hand. “Did I see a smile under there?”
I took a step back. “You made me smile, but I haven’t laughed.”
“Fuck. Alright, one more.”
I held up a finger to regain a straight face.
Ollie waited patiently, his eyes never leaving mine. “You good now?”
I nodded.
“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?
“Water.”
I mimicked his accent, “Water who?” And the second it rolled off the tongue, I completely lost it as a loud laugh belted through my lips. My hands flew back over my mouth.
Ollie threw his palm in the air. “What was that? Your British accent?” He laughed between questions and brought two fingers to his eyes. “It was terrible … and you ruined it!”
I managed to catch my breath as I held up my hand. “Technically, I made myself laugh.”
“As long as you’re laughing.” Ollie leaned back against the wall and propped his foot up with a daydream look in his eyes. “With a laugh like yours, you should always be doing it.”
Oscar would be here any second, and for some reason, I didn’t want to see him. Grabbing Ollie’s hand, I surprised myself by saying, “Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want Oscar’s hands all over me. What I wanted was to keep this smile for as long as possible. Dr. Conway’s words replayed in my head. “If today was your last day, would you spend it differently?” And I supposed I would.
I led Ollie in the opposite directi
on toward his room. Once we were behind closed doors, I fell over his mattress as Ollie dropped my books on the floor against the wall.
“Isn’t this dangerous?” he asked, standing tall. A dimple peeked beside his smile as he stood in the middle of his dorm room. He ran a hand through his hair before glancing around the room, unsure of what to do with himself.
“Extremely, but I can’t be in my room for another second.” I folded my arms behind my head and looked up to the ceiling. “My dorm is suffocating. Heck, this whole place is suffocating.”
Ollie took a seat on the floor beside the bed, pulled his legs up, and rested his arms across his knees. “I see what you mean, but you have to look at the positives, or it will drive you crazy.”
“Yeah, and what’s the positives?” I asked, turning on my side to face the back of his head.
“If this place didn’t exist, where would you be now?”
Where would I have been? What a loaded question. I could have been a runaway living off the streets in New York City. I could have been dead, buried six feet under and soon forgotten. I could have been in jail. But out of every scenario, I knew exactly where I would have been if this place didn’t exist.
When I didn’t answer right away, he turned around to face me. He stretched his long arm across the mattress in front of me, and after studying my face, he arched a brow.
“A mental institution,” I said through a sigh.
“Right …”—another disbelieving expression—”because you killed your mum …”
Why couldn’t anyone believe I had killed someone?
Narrowing my eyes, I teased him with my past. “Are you scared I’m going to hurt you, Ollie? You believe I’m capable?”
Ollie drew his fingers closer to my hand that was lying flat against the mattress between us. “Not in the way you’re thinking,” he said simply, but all I could focus on were his fingers not touching mine, and whether or not I wanted them to.
“Why are you here?” I asked, not really caring to know the answer. My need for distracting my mind from his distant hand weighed heavier.
Stay With Me (Stay With Me Series Book 1) Page 6