Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Olivia
It's one of those days that feels like it was made up.
The sky is too blue, and the air is just cold enough to feel clean, and everything is slightly too good to be entirely real.
I’ve loved every moment with Hayden. There are days I still think about what I did, when I see the scars, the guilt hits me and he sees it.
He always tells me not to think about it, it’s in the past.
I ruined his life with my decision, and I have to move past it. Hayden and his family have. Yet, there are times I struggle with it.
We're outside the main building after lectures, Hayden, Mason, Miles and myself are sprawled across the steps. Mason’s eating something out of a paper bag that he won't share with anyone.
Miles is pretending to read something on his phone and failing because he keeps looking up to respond to things.
Hayden is beside me, close enough that his arm is pressed against mine, his legs stretched out in front of him, and his head tilted back slightly in the sun.
He looks relaxed today. The last few days he’s looked stressed.
I noticed he's been quieter. I haven't said anything, but I’ve noticed.
Right now, in this moment, he looks like himself than he has done for so long.
He looks like the boy I loved before all of this ugliness happened.
So, much has changed with his life, and I want to know everything.
"I'm just saying," Mason says, pointing at Miles with whatever he's eating. "If you had to fight one of us, who would you pick?"
"I wouldn't fight any of you," Miles says without looking up.
"Hypothetically."
"Hypothetically, I still wouldn't, because I'm not an idiot."
"Olivia." Mason turns the point to me. "Who would you fight?"
"Out of the four of us?"
"Yeah."
I look at Hayden. He raises an eyebrow, waiting.
"Miles," I say.
Miles looks up from his phone in shock. "Excuse me?"
"You seem like you'd be reasonable about it."
"That's—" He pauses. "I don't know if that's an insult or a compliment."
"Little bit of both."
Mason chuckles, and Hayden's mouth twitches. He reaches over without looking and tucks my hair back where the wind has pushed it across my face.
"What about you?" I ask him. "Who would you pick?"
"Mason," he says.
"Bold," Mason says, not even slightly offended. "I respect it."
"You'd be easier to feel bad about afterward."
"That's—" Mason stops. "Wait, is that an insult?"
"Little bit of both," Hayden jokes.
From what Hayden has told me, Mason is the one who doesn’t care when he has to fight. Even said I should watch him fight, just so I can see for myself.
I glance over at the other students going about their day, and then I see Jen walking this way. I’ve not seen her since Hayden and I’ve been got together, mostly because I’ve been trying to stay out of her way.
She's crossing the courtyard toward us. She's looking directly at Hayden with an expression I can't quite read from here, and then her gaze slides to me and I can read it perfectly.
Oh crap, she’s coming for me right now.
"Jen," he says.
She stops a few feet away. "Hayden." She glances between us. "Didn't realize you'd be out here." Then, to me, like an afterthought, "Hi."
"Hi," I say.
"Olivia, right?" She tilts her head and smirks at me, she damn well knows my name. "I've heard about you." A small pause, loaded. "Everyone has, I think. Hard not to, given the history."
What game is she playing? She knows who I am, we’ve seen each other a few times, and she also knows I know that she was Hayden’s fuck buddy. I hate the thought of him with her, hell I hate that he was with anyone else.
I feel Hayden shift beside me.
"I mean, it must be strange," Jen continues, like she's discussing the weather. "Coming back here after everything. I don't know if I could do it. Walk back into a place where everyone knows what happened." She smiles again, and it’s aimed right at me. "Must take a certain kind of person."
"Jen." Hayden’s voice is quiet. Completely level. The kind of quiet that isn't calm at all but wears calm like a coat. "Walk away."
She blinks, her smile flickering. "I'm just—"
"I know what you're doing." He doesn't raise his voice. Doesn't move. "And I'm only telling you once to walk away."
"Hayden, I was only—"
"She's with me." The words are flat and final, with something underneath them that isn't quite a warning and isn't quite a threat, but lands somewhere between both. "Whatever you came over here to do, it's done. Walk away."
The smile disappears.
Jen looks at him for a moment, something crosses her face that might be hurt, or embarrassment, but it could be both. Then she turns and walks back the way she came without another word.
The four of us watch her go.
Mason exhales slowly. "Well," he says. "That was fun."
"Shut up, Mason," Miles says.
"I'm just saying—"
"Shut up."
Hayden turns back to me. He looks at my face the way he does, checking to make sure I’m okay. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," I say. I actually am. Because whatever Jen thought she was going to do, it didn't land.
"She's not wrong though," I say quietly, so only he can hear. "People do know."
"People know a lie," he says. "That's different. You’re with me," he says again, softer this time. Just for me. "That's the only thing that matters out here."
The rest of the afternoon is fun, Mason eventually shares his food, and Miles wins an argument with Mason about something Cain made them do while training.
Mason has started doing impressions, terrible ones, Miles is his current subject, and I can’t stop laughing.
My phone starts ringing and I glance down. The screen says: St. Matthew's Hospital.
The laughter stops in my throat.
My hands move before my brain does, already pressing accept, already lifting the phone to my ear with fingers which have now started trembling.
"Hello?"
"Is this Olivia Banks?"
"Yes." My voice sounds strange. "Yes, that's me."
"This is Sister Doherty from St. Matthew's. I'm calling about your mother, Patricia Banks. She regained consciousness approximately forty minutes ago." I don't make a sound. "She's comfortable, and we wanted to let you know, so you can come in.”
My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.
"Miss Banks?"
"I'm here." My voice breaks clean down the middle on the last word. "I'm — yes. I'm here. I'm coming. I'm…yes."
I'm already standing, my legs automatically moved, carrying me up off the step while my brain is still somewhere three seconds behind trying to catch up with what she just said.
"We'll see you shortly. Take your time—
"I'm coming now," I say, and I end the call.
Hayden’s on his feet before I've turn around. I don't know what my face is doing but whatever it is makes him close the distance between us in two steps, his hands coming up to my arms, steadying me.
"Olivia." His voice is low and immediate. "What happened?"
I press my lips together; my eyes are burning and that's not helping either. I need to say the words out loud but every time I try to start them something rises up in my chest and takes up all the space where words should be.
"Hey." He dips his head to find my eyes. "Talk to me."
"Mom woke up," I manage. It comes out as barely anything. A breath with edges. "My mom…she…she's awake, Hayden, she's awake.”
Hayden's arms come around me before I can think about it, pulling me in, one hand at the back of my head, and I press my face against his chest and cry in a way I haven't let myself cry since the first day in the hospital when this nightmare started.
Not from fear this time.
Not from guilt or grief.
Just from relief. Pure and overwhelming and so long coming that my whole body doesn't know what to do with it.
When I pull back, my face is a mess, but I don't care. Hayden looks at me, his thumb moves across my cheek, wiping without making a thing of it.
"Let's go," he says simply.
I nod. I can't speak yet and I don't need to. He keeps one arm around me as we move, and I let him.
My mom is awake.
The doctor meets us in the corridor outside mom’s room.
"She's awake and she's responsive, which is genuinely good news," he says.
"But I want to be honest with you. She's not out of the woods yet.
The swelling has reduced but her heart took significant strain from the impact.
We're monitoring her closely." He pauses.
"She asked for you the moment she could form the words.
That's a good sign. It means she's fighting. "
I nod. I understand everything he's saying and I'm filing it somewhere to process later because right now the only thing my body wants is to be on the other side of that door.
"Can I see her?"
"Of course."
She looks smaller than I remember.
That's the first thing that hits me, walking through the door. She's always been small, but she looks it differently now, against the white of the bed, with the tubes and the monitors and the pale blue of the hospital gown. Her hair is loose around her shoulders. Someone must have brushed it.
Then she opens her eyes and smiles when she sees me.
"Livvy." Her voice is rough, barely there. But it's hers. It's completely, entirely hers, and it goes through me like a current from my throat to the base of my spine.
"Mom." I'm at the bed before I finish the word, her hand between both of mine, and it's warm. She's warm. She's here, and she's warm and her fingers curl around mine. I press them to my mouth and hold them there and just breathe.
"Don't cry," she says softly, which is a completely useless thing to say.
"I'm not," I say, which is an obvious lie.
She makes a sound that is almost a laugh. Almost.
She looks over at Hayden. He's standing back, close to the door, giving us space. But she sees him and something shifts in her expression. Something warm and certain, like recognizing something she'd been half expecting to find.
"Hayden Crawford," she says quietly.
He moves closer to the other side of the bed. "Hey, Mrs. B."