Alicia started her roleplay game, using Isaac and me as her pawns. “Oh, Ken. Please take your shirt off, I want to feel your body against mine,” Alicia said in the most authentic British versioned Barbie voice, and Isaac obliged. He removed his shirt as everyone in the group let out a laugh, except for Ollie. Ollie wasn’t the least bit amused.
“I want to feel your body,” Alicia hinted again at me.
“Oh, right,” I mumbled and brought my hands to Isaacs abs.
“Yeah, Barbie. That feels nice. Why don’t I help you out of your shirt,” Alicia said in a deep man voice. Isaac took a step toward me and helped me out of my shirt, and it dropped to the floor as we waited for our next instruction.
“Kiss me, Ken. I want to feel your hands on my boobs, and your tongue down my throat,” Alicia said through a laugh, and I looked over at Ollie with wide eyes.
“No, she doesn’t kiss, Alicia. You know that,” Ollie said, drawing the line.
As I remembered the sickness on Ollie’s face when I’d kissed Liam, my legs wobbled. It had been right before Ollie kissed me sober and I punched a wall.“Don’t ever kiss another before my eyes again,”he said in my dorm room before he left.
“She kissed you, didn’t she?” Alicia asked.
Ollie scrambled as his attention went from me and back to Alicia. “Yeah, but that’s different …”
“Different?” Alicia turned to face me. “Mia?”
Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I darted my head between both of them as my mind raced, trying to do the right thing for once. I’d hurt Ollie too many times to count, and I couldn’t bear to see the pained look in his eyes again.
Ollie got to me. He got to me in so many ways, on so many levels. Even though Ollie couldn’t accept the way I was, he was the only one who fought for me, which was more than I deserved.
I picked my shirt up off the ground and pulled it over my head before taking off through the woods.
That’s right—I ran.
It was the only option that made the most sense at the time. I darted through the woods, past the green lawn, and back through the double doors of Dolor.
Chapter Fourteen
“This girl ismy heaven.
With lips of an angel,the sweet
taste of mercy lingers. She has halos in her
eyes, and my heart beats to the sound of her wings.”
—Oliver Masters
WE WERE HALFWAY through the broken record, and I felt like an idiot. Did they see what Ollie could do to me? Were they pushing our buttons on purpose to see me lash out again? Were my public displays of affection and feelings a joke, when it had been so entirely hard to get to this point? A wall came up as anger brewed, but I fought through it, keeping Ollie’s words rolling as the record got stuck on this specific song.
“Stop!” he called out, but I shook my head as I turned the corner. “Dammit, Mia. Slow down,” he shouted before I reached the bathroom, and I wished it were a private bathroom where I could lock the door behind me.
After turning on the faucet, I splashed cool water over my face, washing away the last ten minutes. When I opened my eyes, Ollie stood beside me, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.
“I couldn’t go through with it, Ollie. I couldn’t do it to you …”
Ollie stayed silent as he flipped the water on and washed his hands, studying my face in the reflection of the mirror.Say something. He ripped the paper towel from the roll, taking his time drying his hands as a smile rose, and I shook my head at his audacity.Say something. He crumbled up the paper into a ball before throwing it in the trashcan, and turned toward me.
“Why did you take off running?” Ollie asked as he adjusted his gray joggers around his hips. He pulled down the bottom hem of his white tee and took a few steps to stand behind me so we were both standing in the same mirror.
“I don’t know,” I said, and Ollie wrapped his arms around my waist. My tense body relaxed in his hold as I continued. “It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”
He held my gaze in the mirror, his green eyes glued to my brown ones as if once they separated, he would lose me.
“Would you look at us together.” He nudged his head toward the mirror as he grinned. Two pairs of eyes stared back in the reflection. One pair was mine. The other was his—a vibrant soul, bright enough to compensate for my lack thereof. He was beautiful. I wondered what he saw.
