“What about college?”
“I’m going to the London School of Economics. I was accepted.” Another fact stated dryly.
“Wow. Good luck.” I couldn’t imagine what being Oliver was like. Living abroad part of the time, going to London for college. Having a father like he had.
“So, no more Pizza Pizazz for you, too?” I asked with a chuckle.
“The tragedy,” he replied with a smile. “What about you?” He turned his gaze from the windshield toward me, and we looked at each other.
“I’m staying here and working on getting a scholarship.”
Oliver nodded then bit the side of his lower lip. It looked like he was holding back from saying something.
“What?” I coaxed when he returned his face to the front.
He let out a soft, audible breath. “I was just thinking—I wish my father was decent enough to pay for your tuition. Your mother has been working for him for so long, and he can afford it. But that cheap son of a bitch …” His profile hardened and embittered all of a sudden. His jaw muscle clenched. “And I can’t … I don’t have enough—” His palms gripped the steering wheel tightly.
I put a hand on his exposed forearm to stop him. “That’s okay. My mom and I wouldn’t take charity from anyone, anyway.” The touch of his skin was as warm as it looked. I could swear I tasted a ghost of caramel in my mouth.
The sudden touch made him look at me again. “Not charity. I meant … fairness. I hope you get the scholarship.”
“Thanks.”
When I sat in that car and Oliver’s house came into view, I didn’t know that, a few weeks later, I would get a scholarship and that I’d lose it eighteen months later. I didn’t even know what was about to happen ten minutes later.
Oliver parked the noisy car at the back, and we both entered through the kitchen. He stopped at the door that connected the kitchen with the large living room. “I’m gonna change and come back to help you. You’re not cleaning this place on your own.”
He stepped out, and I went to the utility room to get the cleaning supplies. It’d been ages since I had been in that house, but nothing much had changed.
I heard voices coming from the living room, and they were growing louder. I stepped out of the supply room and into the kitchen and froze. The male voices were arguing. Oliver and his dad. I covered my mouth with my hand, my breath quickening. Fear, like cold fingers on my skin.
I was six years old again.
I peeked through the kitchen door. Exactly across the living room from where I was, Oliver stood on the first step of the staircase that led to the upper floor. His dad, clad in a suit, stood on the floor, a head shorter than him, and yelled. All I got was that he had heard from school that Oliver had skipped classes while Mr. Madden had been away.
“I told you already,” Oliver said in a raised voice. “I made up for everything I missed, and I did go on Tue—”
His father’s fist smashed into his face.
Oliver was strong and tall, but that fist came out of nowhere. It was the surprise that made him stumble and fall back, half-sitting, half-lying on the carpeted stairs.
His father bent over him and yelled into his face, “You will not do whatever you want around here!” He slapped the side of Oliver’s head, then straightened up and marched away.
I slinked out of the kitchen and rushed to the stairs, hearing my own blood gushing in my ears.
Oliver held his hand over the left side of his face. Through his fingers, I saw a red bruise forming around the socket of his eye. Blood trickled between his fingers from his nose.
“Oliver,” I whispered.
He shifted his palm slightly down and looked at me. I couldn’t even describe in words, not for years later, the expression on his face and what I saw in the green eyes, one of which was encircled in purplish red.
I tried to help him up by grabbing the inside of his elbow, but he recoiled from me and pulled himself up. I staggered back as he got to his feet, still holding his hand over his face. He then started climbing two steps at a time, and I followed him, tears blurring my way.
He went into his room and straight into the adjoined bathroom, and I heard the water running.
I just stood there in the middle of the unfamiliar room, my heart pounding as if it was trying to escape my chest. When I heard the faucet turn off, scared of his father, I closed and locked the bedroom door.
He emerged from the bathroom, holding a towel to his face. There was a wet, scarlet trace on his dark gray tee-shirt.
