He was the one they followed. The one they looked to for guidance. He was the one who made the rules and made sure they were followed. All of that applied outside of this house and their tightly knit group as well. Huck was at the top of the food chain when it came to the hierarchy on campus. He was infamous, and the sole reason I’d run away and transferred here.
I wasn’t a stalker. Not really.
I just happened to know Huck Snyder almost as well as I knew myself. And I’d been dying for any information on him since he left home when he was sixteen. He always did everything first while I ached to follow. Including running away and leaving a really toxic environment behind. The enemy of my enemy had always been the best, and only, friend I’d ever had.
I slowly turned around to face the one person on the planet who could understand how hard it was for me to be here right now. Without winning Huck over, I had no hope of setting my life back to the way it was before someone else successfully took it over.
“Hi, Huck. Long time no see.”
Everything seemed to fall deathly silent as I found myself pinned in place by a pair of eyes that were the same color as the world’s purest, sweetest honey.
“Ollie.”
It wasn’t a question or a curse. It wasn’t a greeting or a dismissal. As always, it was somewhere in between.
It was said flatly with little emotion. I went cold all over, and this plan that I’d spent weeks concocting suddenly seemed like the stupidest idea I’d ever had.
“Wait.” Vernon’s voice broke through the tense moment, as did his wildly waving hands. “You two know each other?”
Once upon a time, we were inseparable.
Now, we were further apart than most strangers.
The distance between us was confirmed when Huck growled, “Not anymore.”
Just call me Goldilocks.
Not just because we had the same hair, but because I’d been bouncing around all the wrong places until I realized the only spot that was ‘just right’ was right next to the boy glaring at me like he wanted me to drop dead on the spot.
Huck
Olivia Adams.
My little Ollie.
There was a time when we were inseparable. We were so in sync, I was convinced she could read my mind. We were conspirators. Twin troublemakers. Her wild spirit spoke to my soul in a way no one else had before or since. We were the odd ones out in our very affluent, entitled neighborhood, but it was never a problem to be on the outside looking in because we had each other.
Until we didn’t.
Ollie looked the same, if not a little bit taller. It’d been five years since the last time I laid eyes on her, but I could’ve picked her out of a crowd if I was blindfolded. She was still cute and innocent looking with all that curly blond hair in every shade of gold, yellow, bronze, and white imaginable. Her wide brown eyes still looked warm and velvety soft, but where they’d once sparkled with unlimited humor and mirth, they now looked dull and flat. There was no shine, no life. This young woman was like the discount version of the one who’d followed me blindly, no matter where, or into whatever kind of trouble I was bound to find growing up. She was still pale, which made that scar on her cheek stand out even more. Despite myself, I felt my hands clench and my breath still when my gaze locked on the pink imperfection.
Five years later and looking at that scar still felt like a punch to the gut.
That mark was a constant reminder of the worst night of both of our lives. And that was saying something coming from a guy who’d pretty much been on his own since he was sixteen.
My family threw me to the wolves the minute I showed them my one and only weakness. I hated it with the passion of a thousand fiery suns that said weakness was now standing in front of me looking as unsophisticated and guileless as ever.
“What are you doing here, Ollie? How did you even find me?” It wasn’t like I was in hiding or anything, but I knew my name and whereabouts were pretty much forbidden in the place she called home. It was unlikely she had the resources or the support to track me down.
Why hadn’t she just stayed a distant memory?
A memory wasn’t dangerous. It could be painful and hard to let go of, but overall, a memory didn’t have the power to destroy the life I’d carefully and diligently rebuilt. A memory wasn’t going to endanger the people who helped me heal and made sure I kept all my worst tendencies in check. I could turn my back on a memory and pretend like it no longer haunted me. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to do that to the young woman standing in front of me more than once.
I’d done it before, and in the process, I’d lost a huge part of myself. The part of my heart and soul that attached themselves to hers had left giant, gaping wounds when I tore myself away from her and everything else I knew when I was just sixteen. I always figured she needed those pieces I left behind more than I did anyway. I had little use for a whole heart and a fully functioning soul back in the day. It was only as I got older and gained some perspective that I realized what I was missing and how hard it would be to live a totally successful life without reclaiming the pieces of myself I walked away from.
Ollie was frantically twisting one of her curls around her index finger, and she refused to meet my gaze. She was nervous. Outwardly, it would’ve been hard to tell if you weren’t familiar with her mannerisms. But I used to know what every twitch, flinch, eyebrow lift, and eyelash flutter meant when it came to this girl. I could tell she was about two seconds away from crawling out of her skin. It was apparent that she wasn’t surprised to see me. I figured that meant she was here because of me.
Ollie cleared her throat and shifted her weight. The soles of her black combat boots squeaked on the wood planks of the porch, and I saw her try and fight back a cringe.
“I go to school here now. I transferred for the upcoming semester. This rental is perfect, and one of the few I can afford. It’s nothing more than a coincidence that you happen to live here too. I didn’t know you were one of the tenants when I filled out the application.”
Her voice was steady, but I could see that she was fighting hard to keep her tone and expression bland. She was a bad liar, which was why I ended up being such a good one. It always used to fall on me to spin tall tales to keep us out of trouble. I lied to protect her far more than I lied for my own gain.
“Is the fact you picked this school a coincidence as well?” I smirked and stared at her without blinking. It’d been a long time, but apparently, she thought I’d gotten stupid in the years we’d been apart.
Ollie flicked her gaze between me and Vernon. I could see my younger roommate was totally confused and slightly alarmed by my confrontation with the girl I never wanted to see again. Vernon was the best of us. He was totally innocent and too good to be influenced by me and the other boys who sheltered him after I rescued him and brought him into our circle. It was a full-time job keeping him focused, and if anyone in this room was going to have a bleeding heart toward the little liar standing in front of me, it would be him. He was still too soft, regardless of all the bullshit life had thrown at him.
My other roommate, Harlen, and I got along so well because we had a lot of similar qualities. Neither one of us trusted easily, and we were both hardwired to take absolutely zero shit from anybody. The big football player and I had butted heads a few times over the course of our friendship, and it never ended well. But I knew he would have my back without question, and if I asked him to toss this fragile interloper out on her admittedly fine ass, he would do it with no questions asked.