Chapter 18
Olive
It wasn’t a lie. I kissed Colin Fantino in the heat of the moment. It wasn’t planned, but I don’t regret it. It felt too good for that.
All the same, I’m pretty confused. This afternoon things were kind of different between us.
We still bickered and fought a war with words as we cleaned according to Mr. Carpenter’s instructions, but Colin doesn’t look at me the way he used to.
I wish I was even a wee bit less bothered about that, but the truth is that I spent the whole morning sitting in class unable to concentrate on anything.
I don’t know which is worse: the time I spend sitting in classrooms with him where it feels like the air between us is crackling with tension, or the time without him, when I’m analyzing the shit out of last night and our kiss in the swimming pool.
It isn’t until I get to my bedroom for study hour this afternoon, after our first cleaning duty, that I have time to stalk Colin on social media in peace.
Not that I hadn’t already done that. But it seems that as well as his public Instagram account, he has a private one that he updates way more often.
God knows how I missed the fact that he’s been following me from that one for a while.
I follow him back right away because I’m nosy.
Besides, it feels desperately urgent to find out all about Colin Fantino.
As if I could find the answer to whether or not the kiss, and everything he showed me of himself yesterday evening, was genuine, hidden somewhere among his Insta photos and TikToks.
After twenty minutes’ scrolling and careful zooming into pictures to make sure I haven’t accidentally missed any chance to give him a hey-I-stalked-you like, I’ve come to the conclusion that his life in New York was pretty crazy.
I’ve probably experienced less in the last six months than Colin did in a week.
And that’s got nothing to do with my having spent a good chunk of that time in hospital.
Colin knows thousands of people, goes to parties—it looks as if he was having a bloody good time—and now he’s here.
I’m gradually starting to understand why he considers Dunbridge and Ebrington so lame.
There’s none of that here. If you’ve been at the school for seven years, you don’t know anything different, but to him, the contrast must be massive.
Once I’ve gone through his whole feed, I focus on his story highlights and get goose bumps every time I hear Colin’s voice on a video.
Reposts of his friends’ stuff, Colin in his slouchy jackets and baseball caps.
He looks just the way I imagine New York lads.
I find it almost impossible to imagine that this Colin and the one who turns up reluctantly to Monday-morning assemblies in full uniform are the same person.
The next story makes me freeze. Colin with a girl, blond hair tumbling down her back.
You get just a glimpse of them before the camera pans away, but Colin’s got his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. I watch it again. And again.
Fourteen weeks ago.
OK, that’s quite a long time and, anyway, I don’t care. So why do I go through the stories in the accounts he tagged until I find the girl?
Maresa Vega has one of those Instagram accounts that consists only of fuzzy snapshots.
I know how time-consuming it is to take that sort of snap, the kind that says: Hey, my life is so much more exciting than yours that I don’t even have time to take posed photos.
Even so, her selfies are elegant and her legs are long.
She has no photos with Colin. At least not at first glance, but then I trawl through her latest photo dump and find him in the next-to-last image.
A kiss, and not so long ago. I kind of want to work it out, but my mind has suddenly stood still.
The only thing I know is that that wasn’t fourteen weeks ago. It’s way less. A week or two longer than Colin’s been here at Dunbridge. She must have uploaded the photos just before he left New York. And now he’s here, kissing me in the swimming pool.
That’s not true. I kissed him. But he didn’t do anything to stop me. He let me kiss him, and then he kissed me back. Even though there’s a Maresa Vega in New York who posts photos with him and is presumably longing for him to come home to her.
I could boak when I understand what that means.
I got into something with a guy who’s in a relationship, or at least something that was important enough to him and Maresa for there to be photos of them both on the internet.
I don’t want to, but I look at more of Maresa’s stories.
Colin’s only in them now and again, but when he is, it’s very clear that they’re more than just friends.
You can rarely see their faces, but I recognize Colin Fantino’s arms when I see them.
His hands around my hips, pulling me toward him.
My heart is thumping in my throat when I eventually close Instagram. I can hardly move. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. All I want to do just now is to confront Colin fucking Fantino, but study hour hasn’t finished yet, and after last night, I don’t want to bump into Ms. Barnett.
My thoughts won’t stop whirling.
How could he let that happen? Did he think she’d never find out so it was perfectly fine to kiss women on the other side of the Atlantic?
Maresa is so going to find out. I’d love to send her a DM to prove to her that her so-called boyfriend is a cheating bastard, but I’ll save that up for later, once I’m done with Fantino.
I don’t pick up a single book for the rest of study hour, but use the time to keep stoking my rage.
Almost the moment the tower clock strikes five, I grab my key and slam the door behind me.
Up on the boys’ wing, the first of them are out and about.
I ignore them all and head right for Fantino’s room.
I knock but don’t wait for an answer, just open the door.
Fantino’s chilling on his bed, and Sinclair’s across the room pulling on his jodhpurs. They glance up simultaneously as I stand there in the doorway.
“D’you mind? I’m naked here,” protests Sinclair, but I ignore him and walk over to Fantino.
“He’s naked” is all he says.
“Hurry the fuck up, then,” I snap at Sinclair.
“Jeez, Olive,” he mutters, doing up his fly. “What’s got into you this time?”
“Don’t you have to be down at the stables or something?” I ask in irritation.
“Are you seriously chucking me out of my own room?” Sinclair inquires in disbelief.
I say nothing, just wait by Colin’s bed while Sinclair grabs his stuff and finally clears off. I give a quick check that the door is shut, then turn back to Colin.
Colin
She’s apeshit. Anyone can see that, but I still don’t bother to stand up.
I’m way too pissed at the casual way Olive Garden thinks she can just burst into my room and make a scene.
What the hell is her problem? Kicking Sinclair out is fine by me, but how long is she planning to stand by my bed and stare at me?
Am I supposed to be able to guess what’s bothering her?
“What?” I ask, and I can’t resist the temptation to link my arms behind my head.
“You’ve got a fucking girlfriend at home.”
I freeze. What makes her think that? “No,” I say curtly.
“I saw it,” she spits at me. “The photos with Maresa.”
Maresa . . . I wait for the stab in the chest, but there isn’t one. Even so, I feel kind of exposed. And confused. Why’s she stalking me? Because how else would she know about Maresa? And why do I have to justify myself? I never made Olive Garden any promises. Not one.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” I growl. “She’s a goddamn bitch.”
“Mind how you speak about women,” Olive snarls, taking a threatening step toward me.
“Mind how you speak to me.” I sit up.
“You can’t kiss me just because you happen to be a few thousand miles from her!”
“I can kiss whoever I like,” I say, even though I know I can’t.
Why’s she freaking out like this? I’ve done nothing wrong. Olive has no clue what there is or isn’t between Maresa and me, and I don’t have to answer to her. It’s none of her business. And I really don’t need Olive to remind me how humiliating the thing with Maresa was for me.
“Besides, I didn’t kiss you,” I add, standing up so that she has to look up at me. “You kissed me.”
“Like you didn’t want me to.”
“That’s a bold assumption, Olive,” I snap at her. “If I remember right, I said that I wasn’t going to kiss you. And you went right ahead and did it anyway, and now turn up in my bedroom to chew me out?”
I’ve stepped closer to her with every sentence, and I hate myself for it, but she winds me up. Who does she think she is? This constant flip-flopping is messing with my head.
Her chest rises and falls, but there’s something sparkling in her eyes.
It scares me as much as it turns me on. But no, that’s enough.
I don’t want all this again. I knew it would end in drama if I let her get close to me.
It was naive to think it could be different with Olive.
I can’t do this: I’ve got enough other stuff to work on in my life.
I can’t keep getting into fights with her, so I have to convince her to keep her distance from me.
“For a moment, I thought you weren’t as much of an arsehole as you make out.” Her voice is shaking. “But I guess I was wrong.”
Yeah, Olive Garden. How nice that you’ve finally figured that out.
I grit my teeth, then wind up for the knockout punch. “I feel truly sorry for you, that you thought I’d want to kiss someone like you.”
Wow. Still got it.
But it’s not funny anymore.
She clenches her fists, pain flickers in her green eyes, followed by rage.
There you go.
“Get tae fuck, Fantino.” Eventually she gets the words out.
And then she storms out.
Olive
My life was easier before Colin Fantino was part of it. It was really so much easier, and nicer too. No meltdowns, no hot rage in my belly.