Waking Olivia (The Langstrom Brothers #1)

by Elizabeth O'Roark

I ignore everyone in the locker room. These people aren't my friends now, and they won't be my friends in two years. I've done all this before, and I know exactly where it got me.

There isn’t a single afternoon, when practice is done, that a tiny voice doesn’t suggest I go climbing.

There's a small muscle at the corner of his jaw that pops when he's mad. That muscle and I are practically family I know it so well.

The minute those big green eyes of hers go even the slightest bit vulnerable I want to hand her my keys and sign over my paycheck. God help the man she ends up with.

"Look, I’ll try to stay awake all night. It usually fails but maybe it’ll work. Or sometimes if I do a hard run before bed, I'm tired enough—”

Sudden thought!!! She could have handcuffed herself to the bed. I mean maybe ?

I have it today. Whatever it is I need, I have. And the moment I realize it, I break ahead and forget about everyone behind me. They’re not my competition. I am. I’m competing against my desire to slow, against the burn in my legs, the rasp in my chest. With one mile left, I blow it out. I'm sprinting and I'm still fine when I see the finish line in the distance, when I come around the curve and hear the clang of cowbells and the shouts.

At the end of the fifth 800, I can no longer stand to watch. I call out to her, and I know by the panicked look in her eyes as they meet mine that she's going to pass out. I'm sprinting toward her before she's even begun to fall, but she’s on the ground before I reach her. I was worried the last time this happened, but now it’s a different sort of thing, bordering on panic, because I care a little more than I should.

I wish I could cry. There’s a sadness in me, so infinite and boundless that it seems as if I shouldn’t be able to do anything else.

“I would do anything to fix this for you,” he says quietly, “and it kills me that I can’t. Tell me what to do.”

He cares—just not enough. And somehow that’s almost worse. Because I’d have waited a decade for him if he’d just asked.

“How does it feel to come within seconds of breaking the world record?” a reporter asks. I give the answer I’m supposed to, tell her I’m shocked and thrilled, and that it’s the best day of my life. And the whole time I watch Will, knowing I’d give it all up for him—my wins, the team, my future—if he only wanted me enough to take it.

He digs a hand through his hair. “I’m just saying that we can get past this.” I set my suitcase down and perch on the edge of the bed. “That’s just the problem, Will. You can get past it. I can’t. If you wanted me enough, you could have had me. Or you could have asked me to wait until I graduated. But you didn’t, and you won’t, and do you know how hard it is to have to look at you?” My voice grows raspy and I pause because I refuse to cry over him again. “To look at you and know that you made your choice and you didn’t choose me?”

lives on some shitty farm, with no coach and no group to train with? Where she can’t get endorsements and doesn’t have the money to fly to big races? She gives up her future for this?” “You can’t know how things will play out,” she argues. “That’s over a year away.” “Mom,” I say, rising to conclude this conversation, one I’ve had with myself many times. “I know the only two things I need to know: that I can’t leave and she can’t stay.”

He’s forgotten her hangups?? She needs him to be there with her. He’s the one who stabilises her. Reasoning is off.

as made for each other as the two of us.

The best sex I’ve ever had and the biggest mistake I’ve ever made just occurred simultaneously.

I pretend I’m just going on a short trip because it’s easier than thinking about the fact that I’ve left him behind for good. Does it matter anyway? Better to leave now than to spend the next fifteen months falling more deeply in love with someone I’m not going to end up with.

Sean assured me this place was “cool” but I’m thinking he was talking about the customer experience, not the employee one.

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Olivia, in the last few hours you were assaulted and nearly died. You just got out of the hospital. So yeah, under those circumstances, I want you to rest. We have lots of time to do this the right way.” “Oh my God,” I groan. “You’re not going to do, like, candles and rose petals and shit, right? While you recite poetry, maybe play some slow jams on your guitar?”

Erin and Brendan both come to help, though Brendan’s version of “help” involves a lot more lying around than you might imagine. “I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” Erin says in wonder as we enter Will’s apartment together. Brendan is, at the moment, “helping” by watching TV.

“I love you,” he whispers. “God, I love you so much.” There is something desperate in his voice, something I feel too. He’s as scared to lose me as I am to lose him. And gratitude blooms in my chest, because I’m not sure anyone ever felt like this about me until now. For the first time in my life, I feel safe.