3. JJ #3
If a crime happens on campus or even in this town, the first people accused are us. In their eyes, we associate with a bad man. Thus, we’re the reason everyone is dead.
Fuck. Dead.
Olivia. How in the hell am I going to explain this to Hux and Mack? Oh, hey, by the way, guys, Olivia is alive and she’s pretending to be Oliver. You know, the kid you set up against Brutus to fight…
My goddamn head hurts. My heart hurts. My entire body aches with every step I take.
And it hurts even more when the graveyard comes into full view.
The bright midday sun shines down on Mack as he rests against Olivia’s headstone in his running gear.
Waffles lies beside him, getting his head rubbed with a lovesick expression.
Mack’s mouth moves a mile a minute, I’m sure, telling her every detail of his day.
Even in her death, Olivia is the only person Mack turns to when he needs to get something off his chest. And now, I have to march up to him and tell him that Olivia is alive. I’ve seen her with my own two eyes.
I stand at the edge of the graveyard with my heart in my throat. Waffles wags his tail when he sees me standing there and lopes over. Reaching down, I rub his ears, looking deep into his soulful eyes.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I barely say, earning a lick on my wrist as he sniffs every inch of me.
Smelling her. “That’s why…” I shake my head, trying to get all these emotions off my face.
“That’s why you let Oliver pet you. You knew…
” I roll my lips together when Mack stands tall, dusting off his tiny running shorts. “God, you knew.”
And I didn’t.
We didn’t.
Truly believing she was dead.
Over the past five years, Mack has seriously lost himself to the grief eating him from the inside out. He’s grown reckless, putting his life in danger. And now, I have to decimate his world all over again by telling him the girl he was speaking to isn’t in that grave.
How the fuck can I do this?
“Come to see me in action?” Mack mocks, running his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.
“In those shorts?” I jest, rolling my eyes and hoping he can’t sense what’s on my mind.
I could tell him now. Tell him everything I saw. Show him the video evidence from the hotel and the gravestone. Prove to him once and for all.
Olivia is alive.
And has been this entire time.
“You found those fuckers yet?” He gestures to the broken gravestone, cracked through her name and the 224.
That’s when it hits me. Like, really gut punches me and knocks my breath away.
She’s not in that grave. Never has been.
Mack talks to no one. Not her corpse. Just a casket six feet deep with her name above it.
Because Olivia isn’t there. She’s walking around, breathing, and living still.
And somehow, we missed that in all our grief.
Franco told us she died, and we unquestioningly accepted it.
Even looking into the ashes of her home, we never questioned the firefighters or the people at the funeral.
We all thought she was dead and gone, but how wrong we were.
I swallow hard, my brain filling with static and indecision. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Olivia is alive. I saw her. We spoke. She threatened me with a knife. Watch the evidence; I can prove it to you.
Her words ring in my mind, her tone authoritative and demanding. “This stays between us.”
Too bad she’s in no position to make demands, but I can’t come into this conversation full of emotions and half-cocked.
I need to know more information. Even if this creates a rift between us later.
I’ll take that risk to figure out what the fuck is going on and why she’s suddenly alive and breathing.
I’m sorry, Mack.
“No,” I blurt way too quickly. Mack raises a brow, inspecting my stone expression. Do not show him any ounce of emotion, or he’ll suspect something. “But I have a few leads from around town. I need to investigate it more. Then, we’ll have confirmation.” Not a total lie. I do have a few leads.
And one very alive suspect.
There’s something about outing Olivia that feels wrong.
There has to be a logical explanation as to why she faked her death and ran.
Her father, maybe? He’s still at large. Somewhere on this planet.
What if he’s responsible for all of it? Not to mention, she ran again.
Right out of her dorm and God knows where.
If she never came back, Mack would be heartbroken all over again.
Angry Mack I can handle. Grieving and rage-filled Mack is another story.
Maybe it’s selfish to conceal that she’s alive. I’m sure the other two would do the same if they knew. Protect her at all costs. But no one ever said I wasn’t selfish. I am. So, I’ll keep her secret for now. I’ll use her to my advantage and suss out why she’s here again.
Because if I were Olivia, I’d never want to come back here again and face us. Not after faking her death. Or making us think she was dead for five years. I’d stay as far away as I possibly could, instead of coming back dressed as a man named Oliver.