Lincoln’s words stain my morning and afternoon, like a dark cloud. Classes feel longer, the task of moving around campus with my crutches greater, and when one professor trips and spills her iced coffee down my back, my day goes from marginally shitty to full-blown shitty in a split second. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to go home and change before my physical therapy appointment, so I stay in my damp shirt, reeking of caramel and coffee—guaranteed to spoil the drink for me.
“Arlo!” the guy at the front desk greets me with the same level of enthusiasm he uses each time he sees me—like I’m a local celebrity. It should make me feel better—instill hope that others believe I’ll overcome this and return to the field come late summer.
Then I remind myself this is only my second week of physical therapy, and the dude likely knows next to nothing about recovering from an injury of this nature.
I sign the clipboard he hands me to sign in and am about to pull out my phone when dark hair catches my attention.
“Olivia?”
She turns, her shocking blue eyes connecting with mine as recognition dawns. She’s wearing a white polo shirt, a stack of folded towels in her arms. Her brows pinch. “Hey. What are you doing here?”
“Are you stalking me?” I ask her.
She laughs, the reaction smoothing her brow and making her face and shoulders relax. “You aren’t that lucky, remember?”
“You work here?”
She nods. “My step-mom owns the place.”
I nod. “Yeah, I know.”
She glances at a computer. “You want to come on back? I can get you in a room and started with your warm-up.”
“Yeah. Sure.” As I follow her, she glances back at me, her gaze dipping all the way to my foot.
“You’re not putting weight on your foot today,” she says.
“It’s a little sore from when the furball made me slam on my brakes, and I braced myself with my knee.”
I catch her lips drawing down with a wince, seconds before she turns and shoves the towels she was carrying on an empty bay of shelves. “You’ll be over in this room today,” she says, pulling the green curtain back.
“How come I’ve never seen you here?”
Olivia takes my crutches as I heft myself onto the exam table where my appointments always start, propping them against the wall. “You probably weren’t paying attention.”
I shake my head. “I would have noticed you.”
She doesn’t lift her head, but she does lift her eyes. “I was off for the last two weeks.”
“Vacation?”
“You’re getting nosier by the second.”
I grin with defiance. “I thought we were friends? Can’t friends ask questions?”
Her dark hair is pulled back today into a ponytail, the strands all straight as pins. “Another person who works here is trying to save up some money for her wedding, so I gave her my shifts.” She lifts her shoulders as though dismissing the conversation, and then she takes a step closer, her eyebrows drawing down. “You smell like coffee.”
“And caramel,” I tell her, nodding my head. “My professor spilled her drink down my back. But, hexes aren’t real, so it’s cool.”
She smirks, fighting a laugh. “Did you break a mirror? Walk under a ladder? Open an umbrella inside?”
“Oh, so you believe in bad luck now?”
“I don’t believe in curses.”
“Then riddle me this: every single day, something shitty happens. I went from star running back to having a bum knee and nearly running over cats and ordering fast food at a chicken restaurant and being told they’re out of chicken. This isn’t like minor bad luck. It’s so obvious that it keeps trying to outdo itself. That lady probably has a voodoo doll of me in her house, poking pins in it and spilling bat blood.”
Olivia raises one eyebrow. “Bat blood?”
“That’s what you came out of the story with?”
“It was kind of a pivotal moment since you were accusing someone of cursing you.”
I release a heavy sigh as her smile grows.
“Look, I get it. Sometimes, it feels like the world is dumping on you, and you can’t get anything to go your way. We’ve all been there. But, I think it’s a challenge—a test from the cosmos or something to see if we can focus on the good that is beyond all the bad.”
I shake my head as I glance at my knee, the skin peeking through is still a gruesome shade of dark purple due to the frequent swelling. “I don’t know.”
Olivia glances at my information. “It looks like you have Dr. P again today. I’ll let her know you’re ready.” She starts to turn.
“How’s Elton?”
Olivia twists her head around, a small smile teasing her lips. “He destroyed a pair of Rose’s sandals.”
I wince. “That sucks.”
Olivia lifts a shoulder. “She used it as an excuse to go shopping.”
“Did you guys hang the posters?”
“Yeah, but no one’s called yet. Rose mentioned you posted to social media asking if anyone lost a cat, too, right?”
I nod. “Nothing, yet.”
“Hopefully, we find its home before Rose gets too attached.”
“I think she sent me a hundred photos yesterday.”
She laughs. “Same, and I was home with her. Anyways, I’ll see you around.” She disappears behind the curtain and pulls it closed.
I lean back and close my eyes. I haven’t been able to sleep for shit since my injury, unable to sleep on my stomach or sides because they both make my knee hurt. I’m stuck to lying on my back with a pillow propped beneath my knee, and it’s never comfortable. Around me, gym equipment clinks and sighs, and voices quietly murmur, the overhead air vents masking all of them as I realize for the first time how loud it is, and joining it is the twenty-year-old pop music pouring through the speakers. I’m staring at the speaker overhead, recognizing the song as something I’ve heard Raegan and Paxton’s mom singing along to when the light overhead pops and flickers and breaks. The whole place goes black. I can no longer see the ceiling or my purple knee or even my hand.
The rings from the curtain slide with a quick burst of sound, and then a light blinds me.
“Sorry,” Olivia says, lowering her phone she has turned on as a flashlight. “Are you okay?”
I brush the debris off my shorts. “Could you help me find the positive in this situation? Because I’m struggling a little.”
I see the faint outline of her wiping a hand across her brow. “Okay. Where did you run into this lady? Let’s go see if we can find her.”
“Now?”
“It’s either that or I’m going to have to file a restraining order against you, considering I’ve inherited a cat, and you’ve now put me out of work for the foreseeable future.” She blinds me again as she passes me my crutches. “But for the record, I still don’t believe in curses.”
8
Olivia
It takes thirty minutes to help get everyone out of the office. Another five to reach my step-mom, Whitney, and explain to her what happened, and another ten for her to show up to meet the firefighters to ensure there are no plausible risks of an electrical fire.