“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 direction 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.
