Jake, Alicia, and Isaac stared at me with disapproving looks as I exited the mess hall. I’d tried to warn them about me. They’d all found out the truth during group therapy, but no one had believed me. This was Ollie’s fault, not mine. I’d told him my rules. He’d known what he was getting himself into. He should have known better.
As soon as I opened the door to my dorm room, I paused under the door frame. Ollie sat over the edge of my bed with his elbows over his knees. His head hung between his shoulders, and I could tell his hair had been gripped numerous times on the way from the mess hall to here.
After closing the door behind me, I took a few steps toward the desk and leaned into it. “I warned you.”
Ollie lifted his head. “What the fuck was that back there? Was that your way of proving something to yourself?” His voice was thick but without malice, and there was a mixture of pain and sickness in his eyes.
“No, that was my way of proving something to you.”
Ollie stood from the mattress and walked toward me. “You want to prove something to me, yeah?” He brought his palm to my cheek, and my head involuntarily sunk into his hold. “Prove this alone doesn’t mean more to you than your ego.”
His thumb stroked my cheek, and I closed my eyes against his warmth. “Nothing,” I cracked in a lie.
“What about this?” Ollie lifted my chin and grazed his lips across mine, and I remembered the taste of him. I sucked in a breath. “We’re both sober right now, and nothing is stopping you from pulling away from me, but you can’t.” His long fingers reached behind my neck as the mint rolled off his tongue. “Mia, I’m going to kiss you now, and when I’m done, I promise I’ll leave, but—”
And I shut him up with my mouth against his.
As soon as our lips met, we caught fire, and a sort of frenzy took us over. His tongue danced along my lips before slipping inside, injecting me with life. I was sober, but he became my drug and dose of medicine wrapped up in one tall and beautiful, tattooed pill. His other hand found my face as he pushed his torso against me, and the desk slammed against the wall. Each swipe of his tongue was more sensual, every catch of the lips was more determined, and every touch of his fingers satisfied every need I hurt for.
He became my oxygen, stealing my breath only to return it. My lifeline. And just when I thought the pieces of me were finally coming back together, he pulled away to leave me breathless. Ollie pressed his forehead to mine, struggling with his promise to leave on his ruined lips. The tempo in his breathing steadied, and I shut my eyes as he kissed my forehead.
“Don’t ever kiss another before my eyes again,” he stated before his hands left me.
The sound of the door closing caused me to flinch, and when I opened my eyes again, he was gone.
Chapter Nine
“To everyone, she’s seen as nothing.
With everything I have, she is
quite thesomeone.”
—Oliver Masters
IT WAS HARDER to breathe at Dolor. Everywhere I turned, I was being forced to talk about shit—feelings and emotions. People talked about me as if I weren’t standing right there. They told me what was wrong with me, who I was, my symptoms, my disorders, what went through my mind as if they knew me. I wanted to scream nothing was wrong with me. They’d poked and poked and poked, and when I’d thought they couldn’t poke any longer, Ollie had shown up and kissed me likethat.
Pacing my dorm room, my lips beat like a drum to its own pulse in his absence. At one point within the last five minutes, I’d believed he was the actual devil. Surrounded by indestructible walls, only Satan could punch through and lure me in the way Ollie did.
Frustrated with my irrational thinking, I shook my head. Ollie clouded my judgment, and I couldn’t think straight. A slow rising pressure built, and with each step I felt myself gradually losing it. He’d kissed me, and before leaving, he’d somehow managed to pick up my scattered pieces, stuff them in his pocket, and take them with him.
Before Ollie, I didn’t have pieces. He’d built them, broken them, and stolen them.
Pulling on my hair, nothing took away the suffering brewing inside my chest. And when the pulling didn’t work, I threw my fist into the concrete wall.
Instant regret.
“Mother fucker!” I cursed at the top of my lungs as my body crumbled to the ground. My chest burned, unable to find a single breath afterward. Thoughts even stopped as I curled into a fetal position with my fist clutched to my chest. My door swung open and a cool rush of air brushed past my already frozen body. Voices echoed throughout my room, but I couldn’t focus long enough to understand what they said. Low moans came from somewhere. Was it me? Was I moaning?
My heart was in my fist as it pounded at an irregular pace.
My vision was stunned. I could no longer blink.
“Alicia, go get the nurse!” someone shouted. “Oh my god … Alicia!”
My eyes fixed on the gray cement wall I had punched moments before, and I couldn’t find the will to move them in either direction. Voices came in and out of focus like a long-distance call.
“Don’t move her. She’s in shock. Everyone back up.” It was my dark angel in all white—the nurse.
