Olivia Christakos and Her Second First Time (14 page)

His mouth twists up in confusion.

“What?”

“Why do you call them that?”

“I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t. It just feels awkward to call them Mom and Dad. I guess somewhere deep inside I know they’re my parents, but that doesn’t mean I remember my mom cleaning my cuts or dad teaching me to ride a bicycle. I just woke up and the doctor was like,
these strangers are your parents
. It’s just weird.”

“I guess I get that,” he says sweetly.

I click on his dashboard and then
stats.
“Holy shit. Wyatt!”

“What?” he leans over to look. Our shoulders touch.

“You have millions of page views!” I give him this look like I have no idea who he is, which, technically, is true. “What the hell?”

He shrugs. “There are a lot of us nerds out there.”

“Yeah, but don’t you have to kind of know what you’re doing to get this many people interested?”

“I learned SEO in my class
.
”

With my mouth hanging open, I make a little sound. I don’t even know what
SEO
means. There is something about a guy who can do something well and Wyatt knowing this stuff is super sexy.

Pull...

For a very odd, very frustrating moment, I want to kiss Wyatt. He looks at my eyes for a long moment, cocking his head, like
what?
Then he looks at my lips and I know he’s going to go for it.

I lick my lips, lean in the tiniest of bits.

But instead of him leaning in too, he stands and disappears from the room again.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Summer After Twelfth Grade

James and I weren’t the same after the night he hit me. He’d woken up, snuck inside Chloe’s house and found me crashed out on her bedroom floor. He cuddled up to me and I found him nestled into my armpit the next morning. My arm was dead from his heavy head.

I sat up after pushing him off me and noticed Chloe was already out of the room. My movement stirred James awake and after he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, I said, “You slapped me across the face last night.” I stared at him, daring him to deny it, wanting him to fix it.

At first he laughed and then said, “Are you serious?”

I nodded and started to cry. He wrapped me in his arms, pushing my face into his chest. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even remember that.”

I would have forgiven him and just moved on because he’d been seriously messed up and promised never to do coke again, but a week after that night, sex with him was too rough. He liked doing it doggie style and tried to slip it in my behind even though I told him no and he left hickeys all over me that were hard to cover up. A few nights after that, he got even rougher. He kept throwing me on the bed and pinning my arms down until my muscles screamed. I yelled at him to stop, and he did, but there was a constant fire behind his eyes.

After that, rough sex became our new normal. Sometimes I could get him to slow down, touch me softly, but most of the time he seemed distant and angry, like he was in a fistfight.

Despite all of that, I still loved him. Even though he wasn’t acting like it, I knew he was still the same guy that treated me like a princess on every date, that danced with me and made me laugh, and wanted to wait until we were both sober to lose our virginity. He was still my James. He was just going through this angry phase or something.

But some time later, I found more coke in his room when I was searching for a condom. I’d sat up. “What’s this?” even though I knew. And he knew I knew.

He got defensive and asked me to leave. I did because I was pissed that he’d broken his promise.

We didn’t call each other for two weeks. I didn’t know if we were broken up or what. I missed him and wanted to reconnect before we started school the next month. We’d all planned—him and Chloe and I—to go to UCLA together and if James and I were no longer dating, it wouldn’t feel right. What if he met someone new and I had to watch them kissing before class?

I wanted him back; I thought I could fix whatever he was going through. I could get him help.

So I bought some condoms and headed over to his house. He let me in. We had decent sex, but he seemed tired and put out, then asked me to leave again. “I don’t want to leave you until we fix this,” I told him.

He pulled away from me on the bed. “There’s nothing to fix. We’re fine,” he said. “I just need you to leave.”

I let a single tear fall down my face and onto James’ sheet that used to smell of his Axe body wash and now smelled like B.O. “We’re not fine. And I love you. Let’s fix this.”

I could see in his eyes that he was withdrawing from me, like he’d built a steel cage around his heart. I couldn’t find a way in. “Please,” he said, exasperated. “Please just leave.”

So I left.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Now

Wyatt and Chloe are standing outside by Wyatt’s truck when I walk out of my house, car key, ID and a cute sundress on my person. Wyatt sports a hesitant smile and Chloe a sympathetic frown. Their expressions make me feel like I’m suffering from leprosy or something.

When Wyatt came back into his room yesterday, we were all business. There were no more accidental touches. No more almost-kisses. If anything, he was professional—a colleague—and I wondered why this had to be so awkward. I was the one who was about to make the first move. He’s my boyfriend. I’m his girlfriend. We’d had claims on each other for five years. If anything, he should have been all over me. I should’ve been fighting him off with a stick.

We registered a website creatively called
Christakos Creatives
and made a plan to go downtown in a couple of days to take pictures of some of the work the company has done. We agreed having tons of visuals would up business. Then we talked about my memory some more and if I thought I’d ever get it back. “I think I need to go to L.A. soon,” I’d told him, “to see if that helps.”

Then he said he’d take me, and Chloe could come with if I wanted. I did, if only to be a buffer for the tension between Wyatt and me.

“Did your mom give you a hard time about the trip?” Chloe asks. She’s in a cute turquoise skirt and white high-necked tank top with ruffles at her throat.

“Hard time? That’s an understatement,” I say. “She kept me up late, asking about my feelings and if I’m going to be safe. I’m still not sure if she meant the drive or with Wyatt.” I laugh, but I also feel the heat of a blush on my face.

“It’s weird she’s so overprotective now,” Chloe says. “She didn’t used to be. In high school, both your mom and dad gave you a long leash.”

“Really?” I say, laughing. “I would have loved to see that.”

“The change is probably because of your accident,” Wyatt points out. “Maybe she feels guilty.”

And now so do I. Even though I’m an adult and shouldn’t care if my mother is worried about me leaving town with my friends, I feel bad that she could ever feel guilty over something that was completely out of her control. I’m still unsure of how I acted before my accident—even though I keep getting the vibe I was a brat—but I can make the decision to be, if anything, a nicer person in general.

We pile into Wyatt’s truck. There’s very little room. I have to straddle the gearshift and there’s no way to avoid Wyatt’s touch. His right side and my left side are squished together and he has to rest his right arm over my leg to change gears. My broken arm doesn’t make things any better, but Wyatt’s careful not to bump it.

“Did you tell your parents about the website yet?” he asks. “I was filling Chloe in and she kind of agrees it was a bad idea.”

“No. I figured me leaving was enough of a stressor for them. I wouldn’t want to drop the bomb of the website and leave them to figure it out by themselves.”

“Makes sense.” Wyatt switches gears and brings his arm back to his lap. “Would you like me to be with you when you tell them? Maybe I can show them how stuff works? Or you could blame the whole thing on me. Tell them I forced the idea on you.”

“Not like they would believe you.” Chloe says. “No one can force Liv to do anything she doesn’t want to.”

They both laugh and I can’t ignore the fact that they are sharing an inside joke at my expense. I smile it off, though, staring through the windshield for the rest of the trip.

When we pull out on Highway 101, I make Wyatt and Chloe tell me stories about when we were all younger, but I stop them after only a couple because it’s more of the same: I acted spoiled, mean and better than everyone else. Especially toward Wyatt. I wish Old Liv wasn’t so hard for me to like.

We stop in Oxnard—which is about halfway between L.A. and Santa Barbara—at a convenience store for gas. When we take off again and Wyatt tries to pull his hand away after changing gears, I grab it. I have so much to make up to him. I can start by showing him that I’m beginning to have feelings. My chest tightens and all the butterflies that have sprung from their cocoons in my stomach fly up to my throat.

He gives me a sideways glance and a smile and then squeezes my bare knee. I’m glad I made the choice to wear a sundress today. His touch feels amazing, natural. When he doesn’t move his hand until we stop again, I feel victorious.

Before we arrive in the actual city of Los Angeles, we’re hit with a gorgeous view of the skyscrapers against a powder blue sky. When Wyatt takes the exit, he has trouble navigating, but Chloe helps him stay in the correct lane, take the right turns, all while I’m quiet and observant.

I expected to feel overwhelmed by being in L.A. again, but I don’t. I’m more in awe. The place is huge, but it doesn’t have that sterile, inhuman feel I figured a big city would have. Tons of people clog the streets, a lot of them in suits. The traffic is bumper to bumper and it’s visibly stressing Wyatt out. I place my hand on his knee and that seems to help. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, though. “You okay?” I ask. “Want Chloe to drive?”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I just kind of hate this place.”

“I wonder what the population is here,” I say, estimating how many people could be in each of the towering buildings to me right and left.

Chloe answers. “I think it’s a few million.”

“Whoa. Santa Barbara is a rural country town compared to this,” I say. There must be a building for every person in L.A.’s population. Well, probably not, but that’s how it seems.

It takes twenty minutes to get downtown, circle around to find the right block and park. We all sit in silence while Wyatt takes a moment to consume deep breaths.

“Maybe Chloe should have driven,” I say.

Wyatt slowly nods.

“Well, now what?”

“You sure you want to do this?” Chloe asks me, turning in her seat so she can see my expression.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m fine. I doubt it’ll be as bad as everyone is making it out to be. Whatever emotions I have about the accident are gone with my memory.”

Chloe gives me that sympathetic frown again.

We get out of the truck and I take it all in. We’re in a “downtown” type of neighborhood on a busy street. Most of it looks like a normal business strip, except for the bright pink building on my left and the bright blue building to my right.

“Is this it?” I ask.

Chloe links elbows with me and tugs me to the side of the pink building. “This is Pink Dollars,” she says with large eyes. “And that,” she points to a spot in the middle of the road, “is where you were hit.”

I see no evidence that something even happened here. I’m not sure what I expected—it’s not like I thought there’d be chunks of my skin in the street or anything, but I don’t know. I pictured it differently. But it looks normal. Unfazed. Life for everyone else had to keep going, so it did.

We walk around—me, checking the sidewalks and ditches for cell phones, even though I don’t expect to find mine here. Mom tried to call it with no luck. It went straight to voicemail. Wyatt and Chloe follow behind, whispering. Them talking without letting me in on their conversation is pecking at my nerves.

I figured I would feel one of two emotions when I finally saw my near-death scene. Either I would feel some kind of sadness or I would feel nothing at all. But that isn’t the sentiment that flows through me. I feel ripped off, like everyone should be driving around this exact spot in respect. That my near death should be memorialized with a plaque or statue or something. I mean, I don’t
really
feel this way. Of course I don’t deserve that kind of recognition. I was just some drunk girl.

“What’s wrong?” Wyatt asks, coming up behind me. I only realize that I’m staring out to the street, watching car after car pass by, with what must be a frozen look of bewilderment on my face.

“Nothing. I just...” I point to the club. “I want to go inside here.”

Wyatt takes a few steps back toward the front door. He pulls at the handle. “Closed.” He peers down at the times written in white stickers on the door. “It’ll open at seven.”

“What time is it now?” Chloe asks, even though she’s pulling out her phone to look.

“1:42,” Wyatt says, looking at his own phone. “What do you want to do until then?” he asks me.

“I’m sure we can find something to do,” I say.

“Like what?” Chloe asks.

My body speaks for me. My ribs and arm ache. I haven’t gotten this much exercise since...well, I have no idea. But I hurt. “Would it be weird to get a hotel? I might need to lay down a while. And then maybe we could go out to eat after.”

Chloe smirks and Wyatt looks horrified. At least, that’s what I think his wide eyes and open mouth mean.

“Um...I guess that would be weird,” I say. “Maybe we could go to a restaurant or something and get a booth and—”

“No,” Wyatt interrupts. “No. That wouldn’t be weird at all. We should do that. If you want to do that, we should. Yes. Whatever you need.”

Maybe horrified was the wrong word. Now he looks, I don’t know...eager. The butterflies claw through my skin and burst out of my every pore.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Freshman Year at UCLA

James avoided my stare in Math 101. After the night that I’d slept with him and he kicked me out, I called him at least once a night until last week, when I was too busy moving into my dorm, getting books, figuring out financial aid and wondering if my meal plan was going to be enough food. I’d simply either forgotten or been too tired to call him. Or maybe it was something else: that I was ready to accept the fact that I should start letting him go.

But looking at him in math destroyed me. It felt like someone stabbed me in the gut with a rusty blade. I gripped my brand new pencil too tightly and it broke.
He belongs to me
, I thought,
so why can’t I have him?

He wore a tight, blue T-shirt with the Superman symbol on the front and his hair was cut short so that you couldn’t see his waves. It broke my heart seeing this, like his hair had been amputated. I bit down on the eraser of my broken pencil, trying to concentrate on the professor. He kept babbling about expectations and absences and I couldn’t focus on something so trivial when the man I loved was just a few rows away. Ignoring me. I wanted to walk over and grab his arm. Lead him out of class and force him to talk to me.

Maybe he just wanted freedom in college. Maybe he didn’t love me anymore. All I could think about was how we used to be inseparable. We rarely did anything unless we were doing it together. He’d had my heart since elementary school and, according to him, I’d had his since the sixth-grade dance. How could he let all of that go? How could he act like none of that meant anything to him now? Without him, I didn’t make sense. We’d always been a team. If I didn’t get him back, all of that time and heartbreak was for nothing. A fist squeezed at my heart as I turned my gaze to the opposite wall.