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“Getting comfortable, obviously. What do you think you’re doing?”
“Trying to watch TV, obviously,” she mocks. Olivia scoots closer to the edge, so I lie on my side between her and the back of the couch, propping my head up with one hand, the other resting on her stomach.
“I think we should talk.”
Her brows raise. “Really? About what?”
“Not me. You.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything.” My answer surprises me a bit. It’s so…so…honest. Which makes it weird. Do I honestly want to know everything about her? Or more than I know now?
“Okay.” Olivia nods. Of course she has no problem with this. “Let’s see. I grew up in a town about four hours from here. You already know I have a brother and a sister. My sister, Hannah, is married now and lives back in my hometown. My brother, Steven, goes to SU. Ben is my cousin and he and his family live here. After I graduated, I wanted to leave home, start fresh, and here I am.”
“Why did you want to start fresh?”
She interlocks her fingers with my hand on her stomach. “You know, college is the next chapter in our lives and I wanted to get away from the previous one. Makes sense to go somewhere else, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” That was my intention with coming here, but it didn’t work out so well for me. Plus, I was trying to run from something that’s within me and can’t be escaped by moving to a new location. “Do you want to move back to your hometown once you graduate?”
“I don’t know yet. I really like it here so far and I’ve made plenty of friends. I’ll figure it out once I’ve graduated.”
“Do you have a good relationship with your parents?” My parents were as great as they could be to a ten-year-old. Dad was my hero, my teacher of life, and Mom ran a business from home so she could cart us off to wherever we needed to go.
“Yeah. For the most part. They can be a pain to deal with, but their intentions are always good.” Her voice softens. “Do you miss your parents?”
“You’re the topic, remember?” We’re not about to change that either. Not tonight. “How did you get into yoga and video games?”
Olivia lets me continue with my interrogation. “Chelsea. We met freshman year and she dragged me to a class. She slacked off, but I enjoyed it enough to buy everything and do it here. As for the video games, I have a younger brother. I got stuck playing with him a lot since Hannah was so much older. The habit stuck when I left for college.”
What else can I ask her? I’m tempted to ask her when was her last boyfriend, but I don’t really want to know. Her bangs fall over her eyes and before she can move them away, I do it instead. Olivia’s skin is soft underneath my fingertips. She watches me with a small smile as I let my hand continue until it sinks into her hair.
“Want to stop talking now?” There’s a teasing tone in her voice that causes me to grin.
“I think those may be my favorite words to come out of your mouth.”
Olivia laughs, but I cut her off with a kiss. She tastes minty instead of like the two beers she had at the bar. Minty is definitely better. Olivia snakes her arms around my neck and tugs me even closer to her. I glide my hand down her side, stopping at her hip with a firm grip. All I want is to kiss her, nothing more, not tonight. I want to feel her mouth against mine, hear her short inhales of air in between, and cherish every time she pulls me closer. With my eyes closed and my lips on hers, all that exists in my world is Olivia.
She’s the only person left standing, the only thing left shining bright enough to cover up the darkness, even if it’s only for a little while. I kiss her with those broken pieces of my life, of myself. I kiss her as if I was whole again. Because right this second, I am, and it doesn’t matter that by daylight, the cold truth will return. I kiss her until I’m near the point of wanting so much more it’s about to kill me.
Olivia is grinning when I pull away, pressing myself into the back of the couch to take advantage of what little space I have.
“What?”
“Nothing.” The smile is still there, though.
I grant myself one last kiss on the corner of her mouth. “That’s not nothing.”
“Maybe so. Let’s watch TV.” She turns her head to the TV to look away. We lie there for a while before she asks, “Hey, did you take your night dose of your medicine?”
And the tall brick wall that built when I agreed to go out tonight, shutting out all my problems, making me temporarily forget they existed, comes tumbling down as they rush back to consume me.
YESTERDAY, I DIDN’T leave the house. I didn’t get out of bed today either, except to quickly grab something to eat or drink or run to the restroom. My texts with Olivia were short, like the one I just sent her.
Olivia: Bad day?
Me: Yep.
