Paper Dolls [Book Five] Read online

  “Now that, I believe,” she said, tracing my face with her fingers.

  “People like to get in other people’s bubbles these days,” I said, sighing and capturing her hand to bring it to my lips.

  “Uhh-huh, and what if I never got in your bubble?” Olivia posed.

  “I’d have gotten in yours. It might have taken me awhile though. I don’t have a lot of practice starting things with people I actually like.”

  It was true. Every relationship I’d had was started by the other person.

  “I was too into you to play coy,” Olivia reminded. “It would’ve been fun though… To be chased. By you.”

  “Oh god, I can imagine it. You would have laughed. I’m so bad at it. Cheesy and dumb. I probably would have made sure that I ran into you a lot and got your number and then left stuff in your locker….”

  She was the one I would have been like a puppy with, like a cute little stalker.

  “You would have gotten a restraining order,” I teased. My eyes widened and then I bust out laughing.

  “But really, what would you have done if I asked you out first?”

  “Depends on when you asked,” Olivia said. “If you waited a long time I would’ve been mad at you and just said maybe,” she teased.

  “That would have just made me try harder.”

  If she said maybe, I’d have waited until she was ready to say yes or begged, whichever came first. It would have made me feel silly and small but I’d have done it.

  “You wouldn’t have held out long. Have you seen me?”

  “Uggg,” she groaned, rolling off of me to stand.

  “Awww, it was a joke!” I lay there pouting up at her. “You know I have no confidence.”

  “Umm, excuse me? You know you’re attractive. Don’t play that game with me,” Olivia warned as she walked away. She wasn’t mad just always willing to call bullshit. I heard the fridge door open. When she came back to pass me she had a container of fruit. “I’m getting tired,” she said. “I know that’s lame but the drive wiped me out.”

  “Okay,” I said, hopping up and following her.

  “Let’s go to bed. I’ll feed you fruit and you can forget about my tendency to make terrible jokes.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” she joked dryly.

  I grinned, trailing after her like the love-sick girl I was. Even her sarcasm turned me on.

  “Yep, I would have been your willing slave.”

  She set the container of fruit on the nightstand and sat on the bed. Before she could even blink I was barreling into her, pushing her back into the comforter.

  “Olivia Holbrook, will you go out with me?” Apparently, I wasn’t done making bad jokes.

  She sighed and rolled her eyes, looking everywhere BUT at me. “I dunno,” she said. “I have a lot of important things to do.”

  “Like me?” I moved my hands to her sides and wiggled them to tickle her.

  She laughed and fought to stop me.

  “Now, do you have more important things to do than to go out with your finance?”

  “I’m a terribly busy person,” she insisted, bracing herself for another bout of fighting me.

  “Oh?” Instead of tickling her again I got up and slid off the bed. “Then I guess I should go.” I took one step back, watching her.

  She sighed and fingered the soft fabric of the blanket, staring longingly off into space. “Just as I suspected,” she whispered to herself. “She never really loved me.” I watched her shrug and make an OH WELL sorta face before turning over on the bed to move and then crawl away.

  My mouth formed a big O and I drew in a breath, my eyes going wide. I scrambled back onto the bed and attacked her again, relentless in my tickling until she was having obvious trouble catching her breath. Her body weighed and she kept on trying to fight me.

  “That’ll teach you,” I scoffed.

  She panted all flushed. I’d tuckered her out but she still seemed extremely happy.

  “Now, be good and lay there while I feed you berries.”

  I pulled the container toward me and opened it, waiting for her to get comfortable before I lifted a leg and straddled her waist.

  I pulled the first berry out and lifted it over her, lowering it slowly until it touched her lips. She opened her mouth but I pulled the berry away and ate it myself. While chewing, I leaned down and kissed her. When I pulled back I was smiling at her.

  I felt her pinch the skin on my hip. She tried to buck me off her but I bounced my eyebrows and easily stayed on top. My legs were a lot stronger than her entire body ever could be.

  “You’re an asshole,” she said assuredly, breathless and stuck.

  “Yep,” I said, pressing another berry to her lips and this time letting her have it.

  “Tastes like defeat,” she said, apathetically.

  “I never knew defeat was so healthy,” I deadpanned.

  She let me feed her a few more berries and then I threw a few in my mouth, chewing and looking down on her, tracing her face with hungry eyes.

  “You gonna take a picture,” she teased.

  “Oh, I’ve got one. What do you think I look at when I’m in class and bored?”

  I grinned, smoothing my hand down her cheek and onto her chest.

  “What?” She laughed awkwardly.

  “Yeah, I have pictures of you and when I get all bored or sad in class I look at them and grin like an idiot. It’s kind of sad how obsessed I am.”

  I set the berries down and swung my leg off of her, landing on the floor. My phone was still in the living room. She watched me go, probably wondering what had gotten into me. When I got back I handed her my phone. I’d hit the gallery icon and opened the folder with all my pictures of her.

  She turned onto her side and looked through them seriously. “I didn’t know you took this many pictures of me,” she said, swiping through them one-by-one.

  I shrugged, getting on the bed and laying down, watching her look through them.

  “I like having them. I still want a really good one of us.”

  “We could’ve done that in Napa…” She said. “I have equipment… I guess I just blanked and forgot my camera...”

  “We could just do it here, right? I think we could find somewhere pretty.”

  “We can,” she said. “Doesn’t matter where we are… You’re always pretty,” she was staring at me seriously now. I hadn’t been paying attention, I didn’t know how long she’d been doing that.

  “You’re sweet,” I said, sneaking closer to her so that our heads touched.

  When she told me these things it was different than anyone else telling me I was pretty. There was so much more weight behind what she said. She believed it all the way down to the deepest parts of her soul and she wanted me to know.

  “Thank you, baby,” I said, feeling tired again.

  Strange how my body just went through these phases of energy until I was so up and down I felt discombobulated. I yawned and reached down to pull the covers up.

  “I love your jawline and you have a perfect chin. Just so you know.”

  My eyes were getting heavy and I didn’t even care that I hadn’t brushed my teeth or washed my face.

  “Mmmhmm,” she said sleepily, turning inward to rest ontop of me in that half way she always did.

  I turned on my back, pulling her more on me. She was now like my blanket. I couldn’t sleep unless I felt her weight on mine. My head was so fuzzy now that I could hear her steady breaths in the quiet room. That was all I needed, I started slipping into sleep.

  I knew I would regret not getting up but it was so comfortable. I knew it would be hard to get where I felt like this again. So, I just let it slide, right into sleep. The best sleep I’d experienced since Ben.

  There were dreams, not bad ones. Normal, run of the mill dreams. They were boring and that alone was glorious. Olivia and I doing normal things. There was weirdness of course. I know at some point Olivia was speaking to me in Portuguese and
I understood her. Plus, the pool outside was full of pudding, tapioca pudding. That was the only bad part.

  I woke up to the feeling of vibration under me. My eyes blinked open and I rolled a bit to the side and reached under my body. It was my phone. The alarm was buzzing and growing in volume. I silenced it before it could wake Olivia up.

  She was in the same position she had been when we fell asleep. I peered down through the darkness and saw the outline of her face against my chest. At last I had a good dream to tell her about.

  I only had thirty minutes to get ready and get in the car so I slid, ever so gently, out from under her, replacing my body with my pillow. She slept on, frowning at my absence. Even in sleep she missed me.

  I backed away, still watching her until I bumped into the door-frame of the bathroom and turned around. I pushed the door closed and turned on the light, narrowing my eyes when the brightness hit me.

  My mouth felt dry like sandpaper and gross. I was right about all that regret but it was still worth it. I brushed my teeth and quickly made myself presentable, slipping back out into the bedroom and through to the closet to find something to face Skylar in.

  I didn’t want to wear anything that made it look like I was trying. For some reason I was worried about leading her on. I considered that after she kissed me. Could I have made her think in some way that I liked her like that?

  I didn’t know for sure but I hoped not. I found a pair of clean jeans and a loose graphic tee and dressed, grabbing my big hoodie before leaving. When I got back out and approached the bed Olivia was still just like I’d left her.

  I so dearly wanted a goodbye kiss but I settled for kissing her cheek and a whispered goodbye. With a heavy sigh, I left my sleeping beauty. I’d see her in a few hours but I needed her support and strength for this conversation.

  She thought I was always the strong one but I could be weak. Right now I felt that way. When I got in my car I shivered, feeling the cold from the leather seat seep right through into me. I fired up the heater as soon as I started the car and waited for it to kick in so I could move my hands out of the sleeves of my hoodie. There was no way I could drive with frozen fingers.

  I got to school an hour early and parked in my spot, glancing over at where Olivia’s car would be parked later. The lot was empty and desolate now. I walked in through the double side doors and made my way down to the pool area where Skylar told me to meet her.

  She was there on the bleachers just like she said in her text but she didn’t see me coming. The cords of her earbuds trailed down to her pocket where I knew her phone was.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, realizing that I’d left mine at home.

  She must have had her music on low volume because she turned around and saw me, pulling the buds out of her ears as I stepped up onto the bottom row of the bleachers.

  “Hey,” I said, sitting and turning so I could use the row behind me for support.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said, her voice wavering a little.

  “No problem. I mean. We needed to talk,” I answered.

  I didn’t want her to think that I felt like I was doing her a favor. That wasn’t it.

  “So, this is weird but I just wanted to apologize again and say that I never would have done what I did if I’d been in my right mind.” For her, it was an honest script.

  “It’s okay. Seriously,” I twisted my body and looked up at her.

  “I just want to move on. If we can anyway. I don’t want to lose you as a friend,” I said.

  She stuffed the buds into her pocket with her phone and twisted to face me.

  “It’s going to be hard but I just need some time. You know? You’re not easy to get over.”

  I wanted to laugh but I didn’t. I’d never get what these wonderful people saw in me but maybe I wasn’t supposed to. I should just accept it and be thankful that someone, multiple someones, saw me like that.

  “I wish I could make it easier,” I said.

  “You can.”

  My mouth fell open a little. I finally really saw her. Her hair was shiny, like she hadn’t washed it in a few days and she looked wan and thin. She’d suffered.

  “Tell me why you wanted to be with him instead of me,” she looked down and away. “I know it’s not fair but it’s something that keeps going through my mind.”

  “What?!” I thought I shouted it but it sounded low and mean.

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I felt like throwing up.

  “It wasn’t like I actively made a decision between the two of you. I had no idea how you felt and even if I had…”

  That would hurt her and I didn’t want to do that. Even if it was true. I wouldn’t have started anything with her.

  Skylar sniffed, “You wouldn’t have even tried if you knew, would you? How did you not know I loved you?”

  “Skylar… I just didn’t. I didn’t see you like that. You’re my friend.”

  “But you saw him and he’s an abuser,” she whined and turned in on herself- 100% hurt. “I would have been good to you.”

  I didn’t know this was what she wanted to talk about. I could be waking up with Olivia right now instead of feeling the approach of a major panic attack. I just needed out of this conversation. It was hurting and I knew I’d lash out at her or freak if she said anything else. I started looking around, thinking of a way to tell her I needed to leave.

  “And now you don’t even want to talk to me, do you?”

  She was crying. I could hear it and when I turned to see her, I knew what kind of damage I’d done without intention. She was miserable. My chest hurt and I backed away, almost falling between the bleacher benches. This is what I avoided when I kept people on the outside.

  I could see Skylar giving me that look like I’d killed her heart. I closed my eyes. Someday I might make Olivia look at me like that if I wasn’t careful.

  “I just didn’t feel the same way,” I said.

  There was nothing wrong with that. I kept repeating that in my head. She was just upset. It was understandable but it wasn’t fair… Or was it?

  My hand went to my pocket where I would usually have my phone. I needed to talk to Olivia.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, turning away completely.

  “Avery, don’t you dare.”

  I stood up and took a step back.

  “You never said anything. How could I know?”

  I didn’t pick Ben, he chose me. The only person I had ever consciously chosen was Olivia. My shoulders slumped for a moment as images and sounds I never wanted to experience again came to me. All the feelings came after them in a rush.

  His hands on me. The sound zip ties made when they tightened. Fear and anticipation making a trickle of sweat slip down my back when I waited for him to strike.

  “Do you realize what he did?” I asked, feeling a vacuum opening around me.

  “You never told me.” Skylar was standing now, coming toward me.

  I felt her closing in and she changed. She wasn’t Skylar anymore. She wasn’t anyone. I blinked and felt that weird separation of consciousness. I didn’t know if I was asleep or awake. I didn’t know who was there with me but I knew Ben was somewhere. I rushed backwards, slipping off of the edge of the bleachers and falling in a heap on the concrete but I got right back up.

  “Avery!”

  I heard my name and looked around, trying to find out where it came from. I was alone. There was nothing, no one but him somewhere looking for me. I wasn’t safe.

  “Olivia?”

  She wasn’t there. No answer. No one in sight. I felt along the wall and the world spun. My chest felt like it was going to burst and I couldn’t breathe. I choked on the air I was taking in. In spite of that, I ran to where I knew the door should be.

  When I felt the handle I pulled it open and stumbled out, running as fast as I could down the hall and toward the only place I thought I might find Olivia. Her first class was across campus. I didn’t even notice people watch
ing as I ran down the outside of the gym, past the tennis courts, and out toward the main building that housed the classrooms.

  I was out of breath when I reached the doors but I pushed them open and the world came into a little more focus. At least I knew where I was now. Her class was upstairs. It wasn’t really a class so much as a place for independent study students to access research materials. It was where she was in the mornings most days.

  I passed the elevator, heading for the stairwell. I took them quickly, my lungs still burning and when I got two flights up I pushed through the door and into the hallway. Only another hundred yards. I had to make it but it felt like running a marathon while having a heart attack.