I finish my last lap and move into a slow jog as I make my way to the locker rooms off the practice pool, rather than the lockers in the practice gym. Coach will know I’m here eventually, but that can wait for another day.
Students are meandering about campus, trailing each other through the cloisters, stopping to catch up on benches. Thefreshmen are the easiest to spot because, unlike the returning students, they walk alone, staring at the tops of the buildings looking for names. The west side of campus feels buoyant, and it’s contagious.
My shower is peaceful, the scalding hot water cleansing the thin layer of sweat from my skin, sluicing down my chest, the sound of it putting me in a meditative trance. I lose track of time until I hear a group of guys filtering into the showers, the nostalgic sound of towels cracking.
I quickly shut the water off, toweling myself off in a hurry and snatching up my duffel bag. In the stall furthest from the men’s swim team, I slip on my sweatpants and slide my shirt on, unceremoniously trading my running shoes for my Killshots, cringing at the way the collar scrunches. I escape from the lockers unnoticed, but my previously meditative trance is gone.
Deep breaths, Ben, I remind myself.
Slowing my pace, I stroll through the campus center.
My real concern isn’t that some guy on the swim team will stop and ask me about the weather— though that would be annoying. It’s that I might see Will, who I haven’t spoken to in any meaningful capacity since I left. Which is fucked up, I know. He needed me more than he’s probably ever needed anyone, and I chose myself. Thinking back to the space I was in, though, I’d probably choose myself again. And I don’t need to be reminded of that, just like I don’t need to be reminded ofher. Don’t need to be reminded of everything that happened.
I haven’t been able to shake Olivia Beckett from my thoughts since that night. The pull I felt toward her was so new to me; the urge to go to her, listen to her, admire her, be near her, protect her was confusing. I hadn’t even met the girl. But looking at her under the glow of those market lights, I felt a spark of hope. Even now it sounds like the most nonsensical thing, but I can recall how relieved I felt when I found her.
I was going to go to her, try to get her attention. I would’ve asked her everything there was to know about her before seeing her stifle a yawn and offering to drive her home. I wouldn’t have tried to kiss her, wouldn’t have made even the slightest move, mostly because it's exactly the type of thing I would have done to most girls. And I knew, just by the way she stood there, Olivia wouldn’t be like most girls to me. She probably still isn’t, but I wouldn’t know.
Will’s been dating her ever since, but he hasn’t brought her home. Hasn’t been welcome to, really. But then, I guess I haven’t been welcome there either. It was a mess; it still is. It’s been two years, and I know whatever connection IthinkI had to Olivia has been snuffed out by Will’s claim to her, that and the fact she has no idea who I am. That doesn’t stop me from dreaming of her on a regular basis.
Morgan thinks my fixation on Olivia is because I’ve tied her to this emotionally draining night, and that I’ve “romanticized this idea of her” in contrast with the women of my past because I’m “eager to shed the playboy act” I adopted when I came to Astor. Her words, not mine. She’s probably right, though. Maybe Iwason the precipice of a breakdown anyway, and that night just set me over the edge. Maybe I saw Olivia and felt like I could go be someone different with her, and that’s the end of it. Regardless, I don’t want to see him, I don’t want to see her, and most importantly, I don’t want to see them together.
I haven’t even told Will I’m back. Neither Pops nor Morgan could convince me on that one. I’d rather just let that bomb explode at a later date.
Blinking back into the present, I witness a wisp of chestnut hair whip around a column as a girl gracefully strides out of Cliveden.Of course. Like I summoned her with my thoughts.
Not two seconds later do I see my brother speeding after her.
3
Olivia
The start of Olivia’s junior year
I pick at the hole in my tights with the tip of my pen. If they were going to have a run in them I had to at least make it look intentional. Wrapping the thread around the point, I hear a satisfying rip. Gen’s dark tendrils bounce as she turns, looking away from our astronomy professor to raise an eyebrow in my direction.
I toss her a look that I hope expresses how nauseous she makes me feel.
“Can I help you?”
A blush runs straight to her cheeks and I roll my eyes. This is the start of my third year at Astor Hill and honestly, the atmosphere here still feels as gray as it did when I was a freshman.
I begin writing the date in my notes and get the familiar ache as I write September 8th. Two years ago today I woke up beside my best friend after the final kegger of the summer, a basketball team tradition before the start of their season. My stomach knotsat the memory of her back to me, blonde curls spilling over onto my pillow, tickling my face.
“Lily, your hair is so frustrating, chop it off,” I muttered, yanking my pillow away. I was expecting her typical “I’ll do the big cut if you do,” but instead I was met with silence. She was so quiet on our way back to the dorm from the kegger the night before.
“I feel like shit,” she’d mumbled.
“I bet you’ll start your period tomorrow,” I’d remarked optimistically. She’d just shrugged.
“Can I sleep with you?” Lily knew I was big on personal space but she looked so pathetic, I threw open my comforter and let her in.
“You better not get me sick bitch.”
I force myself to look up from my laptop and focus on my astronomy professor’s syllabus being projected on the large screen in front of me. Even now I can feel the cold slipperiness of Lily’s forehead from when I reached over to check her temperature that morning. I press my fingers together to warm them up, a familiar action as I’ve done it about fifty times a day for the past couple of years. I feel the burn in my throat, the one that never left from that morning where the paramedics had to drag me out of the room, my fingers gripping the door jam unable to accept that my best friend was dead. An unexplainable brain aneurysm. Lily’s mom fell to her knees upon receiving the news. I fell too and somehow still feel like I’m falling.
“Miss Beckett, so glad to have you back in my class,” Professor Daniels says cheerfully, handing me my syllabus and bringing me back to reality. “It’ll be great to have your perspective again this year, and that TA spot still stands,” he says, pushing his glasses up his nose. Even with the semester I took off freshman year, I still had one of the highest GPAs atAstor Hill. My teachers were gracious during that time of course, sending me work via email so I could keep up with my peers.
“Thank you, but I?—”
