Pieces of Olivia (3 page)

I stood my ground. That was the one thing I managed to hold on to after everything that happened—my resolve. I wasn’t willing to lose face in front of my old friends and that unwillingness nearly cost me my life. I wouldn’t make that same mistake again. Screw everyone else. Screw their judgment and their expectations. Screw them. I could survive coming to this party. I could stand around and talk and forget the fact that every second I was here felt like torture. What I couldn’t do was drink. I had no idea what I might say or do if my inhibitions were down.

“I don’t drink,” I repeated, this time with more force. I hated that I had to be that person, but it was either come across as a bitch or come across as crazy. I chose the bitch route. At least that resulted in a bit of respect. Crazy just equaled crazy.

Sarah turned away with a glance at Rena that said she wasn’t so sure about me and immersed herself in the party. Whatever.

“Don’t worry about her,” Kara said. “I’ll drink enough for both of us.”

I grinned. “I bet you will.” I liked Kara already, which put Preston off-limits. Completely off-limits. I didn’t need to complicate my life by getting close to my roommate’s best friend. And besides, something told me there was more to their story. I just couldn’t put my finger on exactly what yet.

“I’m going to check things out. You okay?” she asked, and after I nodded, she went on into the apartment. I glanced around, wondering what I was doing there. The only people I knew just walked away. I felt my insides closing up a little, the desire to escape so intense I had to concentrate to keep from fleeing.

“So, no drinking, huh? You’re something of a mystery, Small Town.”

I turned to see Preston still behind me. I expected him to be lost in the party. Seeing him still beside me was a surprise. An unsettling surprise. “What can I say? I don’t like to lose control.”

He took a long sip of his beer. “See, I
prefer
to lose control.”

I laughed. “I can see that.”

Just then a tall girl with long red hair and a smattering of freckles across her cheeks came up. She wore a simple ivory dress that skimmed her calves and set off the golden tones in her skin. Not a speck of makeup could be found on her face, and I instantly thought she was just the sort of girl I pictured Preston being with. Earthy and natural. Beautiful.

“Hey there. I didn’t realize you were back,” she said.

I eyed Preston suspiciously. As far as I understood, he had never left.

“Yeah. Just got back today.” He glanced sideways at me and then to the girl. “This is Olivia.”

The girl’s enthusiasm level dropped a good ten octaves. “Hi. I’m Alexis.”

Ah, the famous Alexis. I remembered the name from lunch. I nodded to her. “Well, I’ll let you two catch up.” I started to walk away when Preston took my hand.

“I’ll come with you. See ya around,” he said to her.

I shook my hand to free it from his grasp, but he locked his grip tighter. “Dude.”

“Come on, help a guy out,” he whispered.

I rolled my eyes and sighed, allowing the weight of his hand to settle in mine. I had to suppress the urge to smile. I hadn’t held hands with anyone since my boyfriend, Matt, and even with him, it had been a long time since I’d had any feeling at all when holding his hand. It had become natural—too natural. Where his touch had once caused a flurry of butterflies, it had become stilted, boring. I remembered opening my eyes once during a kiss and wondering when I had stopped feeling the kiss. Was it just that kiss or all kisses? And how did I get to that point? When had my body stopped reacting to Matt? Probably the same moment that I realized I didn’t love him.

A sliver of guilt hit in my stomach at the truth of my thoughts.

“Thanks for the save,” Preston said as we made our way out onto the balcony.

“Yeah, well, I owed ya. And just so you know, you’re still holding my hand.”

He glanced down at our intertwined fingers, and then cocked an eyebrow at me and grinned. “Oh, I know.”

I released my hand, shaking my head. “God, you’re so typical it’s almost laughable.”

“Listen. I am anything but typical.” He edged closer. “And I’m willing to show you just how untypical I am if you’d like a test drive.”

I released an exaggerated breath, but I couldn’t keep myself from smiling. Damn flirty guy and his penetrating stare. “So that was the famous Alexis?” I asked, desperate to shift the topic from him and me and test-driving him.

I turned around so my back was against the rail and noticed Alexis inside talking to Kara. Uh oh. Kara’s hands were moving quickly, and she kept looking around like she needed an escape.

“Look out, Kara’s going to kill you.” I pointed inside. Preston glanced in, only to turn back and duck his head.

“Shit. Hide me.” He pulled me in front of him and squatted down behind me, his hands on my hips.

I shook my head. “You know, for a guy who looks like you, you sure are acting like a douche. Why don’t you just tell her you’re not interested or some other halfhearted letdown? Why run?”

“First off, I take offense. You’re assuming that I’m an asshole, and I’m not. At least, I’m not the kind of guy that gets off on being an ass.”

“So you’re just a coward?”

“Easy now. And secondly,” he said, a smile in his voice. “What do you mean, ‘a guy who looks like me’? Am I sensing a compliment somewhere under the rest of that shit you just threw at me? I realize I need a shower to find it, but I think it’s there.”

“I—”

“I am going to kill you,” Kara said through gritted teeth as she shut the balcony door behind her. “I told you. I am not their friend. I am not their confidant. I am not an ear to listen to their whining, and I sure as hell am not a shoulder to cry on. Stop introducing me to these twits. Or date one for real. You don’t have to—”

“Enough, Kara. I get it.”

Their eyes met, his full of anger, hers guilt. What was going on?

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I looked away, feeling like I had invaded something private.

Kara let out a breath and smiled over at me. “I’m tired of this lame-ass party. Can we go get ice cream instead?”

I smiled back at her. Nothing in the world sounded better to me in that moment than ice cream. I had survived the party, even if it was only because Kara wanted to leave early. Still, it was a step. A tiny step. But a step was much better than a fall.

Dear Trisha,

Sometimes I pick up my phone and scroll to your name and stare at it, waiting for you to call. I pretend everything is normal and we are just at different colleges. You would tell me about how electric the atmosphere is in New York City, and I would tell you about how I want to walk out on the Vendue Wharf pier. For a moment I think it’s real. My heart starts to do that anticipation thing, and I check the ringer to make sure it’s on, and I’m so excited I can hardly breathe.

But then the time turns, the minute is up, and the screen goes dark. That’s when the sadness finds me again, washing over me like a tidal wave, bathing me in its misery. That’s the moment I hate the most. The moment just after hope.

With love,

Olive

On Monday morning, I waited for Kara to leave for her eight a.m. class, then slipped from the building for the short walk to my own eight a.m. appointment, which unfortunately had nothing to do with class.

My parents allowed me to come to Charleston on one condition: that I would find a local therapist and attend weekly visits. That was the reason why I found myself standing outside the white Victorian house with an elaborate sign reading
Dr. Rose Campbell
out front.

I refused to see male shrinks. Actually, I refused to see male doctors in general. Not because I was an epic feminist—though maybe I was—but because eventually, something would come up that was a little less embarrassing to tell a female.

I made the appointment at eight a.m. on the first day of classes, which may sound insane, but since my first class was at 10:10, I knew there was no way this new doctor would make me talk for more than an hour. I’d need time to get back to my dorm and then to class.

I pulled open the glass weather door and heard the hardwood floors creaking as soon as I stepped inside. The entryway consisted of a wide hallway with an antique sofa and two wingback chairs positioned in front of one another, like a makeshift waiting room. I glanced around for a sign-in form or an admin or a freaking bell if nothing else, but came up empty. I sat down on the sofa, expecting a puff of dust to greet me, but instead the door across from me opened, like the sofa had some sort of sensor inside it.

“You must be Olivia. I’m Rose,” the woman in the doorway said. She had short gray hair and wore a crisp white dress shirt tucked into black slacks with pleats. Shiny flats peeked out from the bottoms of her slacks instead of heels. The look was entirely masculine, like she hadn’t quite gotten the memo that she was a woman, not a man. Everything else about her, from her smooth Charleston accent to the way she smiled like we were old friends, oozed Southern breeding. But the thing that had my attention and made me think I might actually like her was the long white cigarette dangling in her right hand. Not because I was a smoker—I wasn’t—and not because I necessarily approved of smoking, but because it suggested she had a no-bullshit, her-way-or-the-highway attitude, and I could appreciate that.

“Olive,” I said as I stood, though I didn’t know why I was giving this lady permission to use my nickname. Maybe it was because her eyes pierced through me in a way that said she knew all my secrets before I spoke them. Or maybe it was just because we would be talking a lot about the old me and apparently, I didn’t feel right doing that out of context. Either way, her grin widened a bit at the name. Something about her felt familiar, as though her voice was one I’d heard a thousand times, but I couldn’t remember ever meeting her before.

“Well then, Olive, come on in. My office is feeling terribly unused this morning. I’d hate to think what Doris and Gertrude will think if I don’t get in there soon.”

“Doris and Gertrude?” I asked as I slipped inside her office.

She shut the door behind us and started for a plush leather chair beside a matching sofa. “The ghosts that haunt this home, of course.”

Oh. Of course.

Rose nodded for me to take a seat on the sofa. “Well, go head, sit. It is surprisingly comfortable. If I could sleep during the day, I would find it a great place to nap.” She took a seat in the chair and flicked her cigarette into an ashtray shaped like a cat. I noticed all the ashes were piled up over the cat’s head, none over the rest of its body, which was odd, and I wanted to ask her why, but I wasn’t ready to speak. Not yet. I had learned that with therapists, it was best to let them get their spiel out first.

I allowed my gaze to roam over the rest of her office, taking it in. A grandfather clock sat against the wall beside her desk. On the other wall was a large portrait of a bird hanging upside down on a wire. Her curtains were a rose print, like something you would see in the kitchen of some old TV show, but her furniture was all modern.

I turned back around to face her only to find her watching me, her eyes tight like a hawk’s. “What do you think?” she asked, though I suspected she already knew what I thought.

“It’s nice,” I said, because my mother was paying her and she would expect me to be polite.

Rose smiled. “That’s interesting. I didn’t peg you as a liar, but at least it’s refreshing to speak to someone with intellect.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry?”

Her smile remained in place. “It’s easy to speak the truth. A lie, however, takes more thought, more intelligence.” She waited a beat, as though allowing me the time to process what she just said. “Now, I’m sure you want to ask about the ghosts. Most do.”

I studied her. Was this lady for real? Had I somehow walked into a crazy person’s home instead of a shrink’s office? I focused back on her, torn between running for the door and staying to see what she would say next. Damn my curiosity.

“Why do you think the house is haunted?”

She laughed. “Oh, I don’t
think
it’s haunted. I just understand that some things—or some people, in this instance—refuse to be put to rest. They linger, whether we want them to or not.” Her eyes held mine, and I sensed that there was deeper meaning to her words.

I glanced down at my hands, deciding in that moment whether I should stay or leave. I had enough crazy in my life, and this therapist was all sorts of crazy. Yet . . .

I lifted my eyes back to hers. “Okay. So, tell me about the sisters.”

***

I left Dr. Rose an hour later, my mind a convoluted mess of confusion and awe. Rose spent most of the time explaining the ghost sisters. How Doris and Gertrude were alive during the Great Depression and how they had run the house as a sort of social place for people to come and feel like they belonged. Not like a brothel, even though it sounded that way to me. It was just a place people could come and eat or have tea or just talk. The sisters were apparently very wealthy, so they allowed their house to become an escape for those who weren’t.

Rose said the sisters never really left the house after they died. Rumors of it being haunted spread, and soon the house became a steal on the market. Rose scooped it up when she had opened her own practice nearly ten years ago because, as she put it, “The sisters were nothing more than therapists in their own right, and I wasn’t one to be prejudiced against therapy. Regardless of the brand.”

I listened to the story, asking questions all the way, and before I realized it, Dr. Rose had done something a dozen therapists before her couldn’t do. She had me talking. And I hadn’t even realized it.

Damn her.

When I returned to my dorm, it was empty, but Kara had scribbled a note for me to meet her for lunch after my 11:25. I grabbed my messenger bag and set off for my first official college class.

Because Kara and I had spent most of Sunday walking from building to building, I knew what I was doing when I entered the Science Center. I knew where to go. I knew it would be a large auditorium-style class. I had my mind set on where I would sit. How close to the door. How far away from the teacher. I was prepared.

But I wasn’t prepared to see Preston Riggs walking into the class moments before me.

He didn’t see me enter, which was maybe the only thing that kept me from running back to Dr. Rose’s office to hang with her and the ghost sisters. I wasn’t an especially shy person, but something about your first class on your first day of college felt private, sacred even, and I didn’t want it ruined by having to be “on.” I wanted to settle into things before I had to talk to the people around me. I wanted to observe and listen and take it all in. And there was no chance of me doing any of that with Preston Riggs in the room.

He was a sophomore, anyway. What was he doing in Bio 102? Unless this wasn’t Bio 102, and I had somehow pulled an Olive and jacked up my schedule. Oh God. What if I was in the wrong class?

I had already taken my seat in the middle back of the room, a good six rows from the class-ruiner, Preston Riggs. There were no less than five people blocking my way to the exit. And my last name was Warren. God, why couldn’t it be Abbott? If the professor came in and took attendance, without announcing himself or the class, I would be stuck until he finished calling everyone’s name and then I would have to stand like an idiot and—

“Well, isn’t this butter on toast.”

I hadn’t realized I’d propped my elbow on the armrest of my chair or that my hand was covering my eyes. But even with my eyes covered, I knew that voice. I cringed as I forced myself to look up and into Preston’s mocking gaze.

“What did you say? Butter on toast. What does that even mean?”

He grinned. “Is anyone sitting there?” He pointed to the seat beside me, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to the girl on the other side of the empty seat. She shook her head and smiled, and I wanted to throw up all over both of them so they would leave me alone and let me have my first real class. Even if I wasn’t sure I was in the right class. Oh God.

I leaned down to grab my schedule, just as the professor walked in and announced himself as Dr. Carter. My heart jumped inside my chest. Dr. Carter. The same name listed on my schedule.

I relaxed back in my seat and took out my new notebook and pen, smiling to myself.

“Thought you were in the wrong class, didn’t you?”

“Shut up.”

His lips quirked up. “Care to share one of those fancy pens? I’m stuck with this Bic.” He twiddled a basic white pen with black cap against his notebook. I eyed my sparkly purple pen. I liked colored ink—pink, teal, purple. I hated to use regular ink colors. Where was the fun in that?

“I’m not sure ‘fancy’ fits you.”

Again with the quirking. “Touché.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. And then instead of filling my brain with Dr. Carter’s lecture on what to expect in Bio 102, or thinking about how to get to my next class, or any one of a zillion normal things I should be thinking about on my first day of college, I ended up spending the rest of class trying desperately to say something else smart just so I could see his lips quirk up once again.

The Preston Riggs thing was becoming a problem that I needed to fix, stat. Thankfully, class ended before my mind became any more muddled. Preston was Kara’s best friend. Forget feelings, I shouldn’t even have thoughts about him. I grabbed my things and started for the door, but Preston hadn’t budged.

“What?”

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

“What is your major, anyway? This is an intro class, and you’re a sophomore.”

He finally stood, but he didn’t move toward the door. “I just switched majors from Undecided to Biology, so I’m playing catch up.”

“Biology? Are you planning to pursue medicine?”

His expression turned serious. “Pediatrics. And why the surprise? What did you think I was majoring in? Ways to screw over innocent girls?”

I rolled my eyes, which annoyed the hell out of me. I hated girls who rolled their eyes all the time, and now I was becoming one. “Not surprised. Just . . .”

“Surprised. It’s okay. I get it.” He started for the door. Damn it. Could I have a normal conversation with this guy without offending him? Clearly not.

Preston turned back just before exiting. “You know that whole ‘don’t judge a book’ thing? Yeah . . .”

And then he was through the door before I could reply.