Chapter 9
Nine
Olivia
I waited for Hayden, he said he'd pick me up after my shift at the ice cream shop, and we would go for dinner.
Hayden has had his car for a while now, but this is the first time I'll be sitting in it, as I’ve always been at his house and my dad was there.
So, there's no reason for me to be in the car with him, but today he said he wanted to have dinner and would pick me up and to my surprise dad didn’t say no.
I thought he would, but I think Hayden has won him over.
“Hey Olivia.” I smile at Tom, one of the guys who works with me. “You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, waiting for someone. Are you starting your shift?” I ask him. He is a nice guy, he has a good group of girls come in every time he works, he loves it and starts flirting with them. Shame they're like fifty, but he loves the attention he gets from them.
“Yes, the last place I want to be after studying all day. You know one day, I might be doing brain surgery on you.” I burst out laughing, pushing him away from me.
“You want to kill me? I don’t want brain surgery ever.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, but there's no better way to say it. One day you’ll see my name in an article, "Best Surgeon in the state.” He takes hold of my hand as I go to push him away again. “You never know it could happen.”
“It could, and the amount you study, I’m sure you’ll do it.” If there are no customers in the shop he’s in the back studying, his head is in a book all the time, while my head is in the romance book I’m reading. We’re both reading, mine is just a little spicier.
We both look at the car parked in front of us, and Hayden gets out, and walks over to us. His eyes on my hand which Tom is still holding, then looks at me.
“Ready to go?” he asks, and I see his jaw clench when he looks over at Tom. Is he pissed off that someone is holding my hand? Do I want him to be annoyed?
I can’t have feelings for Hayden, he means too much to me, to lose him as a friend.
“Yep.” I pull my hand away from Tom, and Hayden opens the door for me, and I get in. I wait for Hayden to get back into the car, and smile at him. Before he can start the car, I grab his hand and take his keys off him. “You were serious?” I ask while looking at the keychain I got him.
“Of course I was. I wouldn’t lie to you, and I hope you wouldn’t lie to me.” Hayden takes the keys from me and starts the car.
“Never.”
“Good, are you dating him?” His tone sounds like he’s jealous. I’m not sure why, he told me a while ago about him kissing a girl, and I just wanted to shout at him to shut up. I don't want to know if he’s dating anyone. So, he has no right to be jealous of me.
“No, if I was you’d be the first to know.” Hayden nods and doesn’t say anything else. “Plus, what happened to the girl you were telling me about a few weeks ago?” I ask, now I’m the one who sounds jealous.
“Nothing, it was one kiss, nothing more.” Hayden stops at the lights and turns to me. “She wasn't for me. I don’t want to talk about each other's dating life—”
“You started it,” I remind him.
“And I’m ending it. How was school?”
I look at him for a moment, wondering if I wasn’t sitting under the tree that day would he ever have spoken to me, or even thought about going on a date with me.
Because for me, Hayden is the most handsome boy I’ve ever seen, and he is my best friend, so I can't do anything about it. It’s not worth risking losing him completely out of my life. I don’t want that. Ever.
Present Day
He called me trailer trash. That’s something I never thought he'd call me. The look in his eyes when he grabbed my neck and told me I’d regret coming close to him, scared me to my core.
It wasn’t the Hayden I once knew, this one had a dead look in his eyes, a lethal shot of poison he'd happily hit me with.
There was nothing but hate in his eyes. I can’t even blame him.
I look at the name flashing on my phone for the third time in the space of five minutes. Taking a deep breath, I answer the phone.
“Hi, Dad. How are you, and Mom?” Sitting on the bed I play with my necklace. It’s the necklace he gave me, and I never took it off.
“We're both good, the doctors are doing tests on your mom, so we don’t know anything yet.” I listen to my dad telling me about the hospital appointment they had yesterday, and what the doctors are doing.
“I got the job. I’ll send my pay over—”
“Olivia—”
“Before you even start Dad, I’m sending you eighty percent of my pay.” I worked it out that I can live off twenty percent of my income, for food, and other things I may need. I had already paid the college fees, and accommodation so I don’t have to worry about anything like that.
“Thank you,” my dad says, and it makes me smile knowing I can help them with all this. “Have you seen him?” Dad asks, he’s not said his name to me once since what happened, because he knows I still hurt not having him in my life anymore. Again, I’m the only person to blame, no one else.
“I saw him today, and it went exactly the way I thought. He hates me, while the others are just being idiots, and trying to talk to me.” I can’t hide anything from my dad, he was just as worried as me about coming here, but we both know what this college can give me.
“I’m sorry, Honey. We got a letter about law school.
If your college teacher can give you a letter to say anything about your work, and you finish with a top grade, then they have a space for you.
” The happiness in his tone makes my heart ache, because he hates me being here, but we both know this is the best college to finish my education, so no matter what, I have to work through the next five months.
I was never meant to come back here. But then Mom got sick and the hospital we were at told us she needed to come back to this state and back to the original hospital we were at.
It’s the best hospital in the state for cancer patients.
Mom refused and said she'll go anywhere but here. It took us three weeks to finally convince her to come back. I told her I would be fine; it’s only five months.
Now, I think the five months are going to feel like five years.
“I'll talk to my teacher tomorrow and see what they say. I have to get going Dad, it’s my first shift in the club and I have to leave soon.” It’s a lie, but I can’t keep hearing my dad being excited about law school, but worried about Hayden at the same time.
My first shift isn't until the weekend, the best part is I know how to make all the cocktails on the list. Mr. Cain doesn’t seem like a man who gives many chances, so I can’t fuck this up.
“Promise to message every day, and call when you’re free. I'll let you know when mom is home so you can talk to her.”
“I will Dad, I love you.” Ending the call, I throw my phone on the bed and grab my headphones to listen to music while I read my book. I want to get out of my world and into someone else's. Forget my problems and stress over the characters' problems instead.
I glance up from my page as Abigail walks into my room.
I paid extra to get a room for myself, mostly because I knew when people found out I knew Hayden I would get a million questions, and the look on her face tells me she has questions she wants answered.
She puts her bag on the floor and sits on the bed.
“You know there are better ways to get yourself off, than a porn book. Like a man, and to be more precise Hayden Crawford.” She sits on the edge of the bed, and takes my book off me, and puts it to the side.
“Or maybe even Leo, now they are both super hot. If I had to pick I’d go with Hayden.
The stories about him have me wondering if he is crazy in the bedroom. ” Abigail walks over to my closest.
“What stories?” I shouldn’t ask, but the question came out before I could even stop it.
“One thing they say is he never has sex while looking at you, from behind only.” She looks over her shoulder at me and raises her brows a few times which makes me laugh.
“Then one girl said he choked her until she almost passed out, another said he never chokes a girl. One said he slapped her ass until it was raw, but then another said he didn’t.
No one really knows.” She turns around and shows me my outfit. “You’re wearing this.”
“To?” I ask her. But my mind wanders to Hayden. How many different stories are there about him? I shouldn’t care, but I do.
16 years old
“Are you ever going to tell Hayden you like him?” I listen to my mom as I read my book. It seems to be mom’s favorite conversation when we come to her chemo appointments. “He likes you, I can see it. The way he looks at you—”
“Mom.” I finally look up at her as she’s smiling.
“I’m his friend, don’t think he sees me as anything else.
” I wish he did, but no he has to tell me about the girls he’s kissed.
It’s like listening to nails on a chalkboard, it’s torturing.
I hate it, so there's no way he sees me as anything more than a friend.
“Friends can always become more. He looks at you like there's nothing else in the world he loves more.” Not replying to her I read my book again and let her continue talking about Hayden like he’s my boyfriend.
I’m not really paying attention to my book, but instead listening to my mom, and wishing we could be more. The more time I spend with Hayden, the more my feelings change from friends to wanting more.
Present Day
“Are you listening to me? Now get ready?” I look at her, because I didn’t listen to one word she said to me.
“The party tonight, Hayden will be there, and so will Leo, maybe you’ll get lucky with one of them.
So, are you going to tell me how you know them?
” She grabs her bag off the floor and pulls out her stuff.
I guess she’s getting ready here then, she knows there's no way I would have gone to the party, so she’s dragging me. “I’m waiting.”
What the hell do I tell her?