Chapter 21
Olive
My head aches. Maybe because I had too much to drink, maybe because last night feels like one long fever dream.
Colin Fantino holding my hair while I whitey.
Colin Fantino in my bed after the nightmare, the memory of which still sends ice-cold shivers down my spine.
Colin Fantino kissing me, hungrily yet incredibly gently, and me falling back to sleep in his arms.
We almost got caught because, suddenly, it was getting light outside, and I now know that Fantino is absolutely useless in the mornings.
It’s just as well Ms. Barnett doesn’t come to wake me for the morning run like she does the others, or we’d have been so busted.
As it is, he managed to slip up to his own room unnoticed, leaving me time to sit motionless on my bed, staring into space.
I don’t know what this thing between us means.
I just know that my belly feels warm when I think of him.
Remember the way he held me tight. He was a different Colin from the one who never misses a chance to show everyone what a monster he is.
It was a version of him I want to see more of, yet I’m scared that last night was a one-off.
That he only treated me that way because I was drunk and needed his help.
At least in his eyes, because of course I didn’t really need help.
I don’t need anybody. But I can’t deny that the way he looked after me felt nice. So I’m weak. Great.
I go down to breakfast feeling nervous because I don’t know if he’ll have pulled the walls back up around himself.
I’m early, and he doesn’t show up for ages, but then, when he walks through the double doors into the dining room—which is buzzing like a beehive, same as every morning—his eyes rest on me first of all. He seeks me out among everyone else, and I feel warm again.
“If you can face eating, that’s some kind of miracle,” he comments, coming to sit next to me. Just like that. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I can’t help smiling. “Get tae fuck, Fantino.”
“Language, Olive, really!”
I jump. That was Mr. Acevedo, who’s just walking behind us.
“Sorry,” I mutter. Colin gloats at me as the teacher moves away again.
“Instant karma,” he says quietly, lowering his gaze to his phone, where he’s tapping in assorted numbers. It takes me a while to grasp that it’s his insulin dose, which he’s setting for his breakfast.
“How do you know what it needs to be?” I ask, without thinking.
Colin looks up wordlessly.
“Sorry for being interested.” He doesn’t need to look so pissed off.
“You get an instinct after a while,” he answers.
“But you don’t even know how much you’re going to eat?”
“Well, I just have to figure that out in advance.”
“What a pain.”
“Very helpful, Olive Garden. Very helpful.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
He mutters in a decidedly hostile way. Then he glances up again and watches me, like he wants to check how it landed. And his eyes are so brown that I can’t even come up with a put-down.
Colin grins, like he knows all that. And I hate him. But I’m starting to worry that I’m well on the way to falling in love with him.