Stay with me

I took a step back. “You made me smile, but I haven’t laughed.”

“Fuck. Alright, one more.”

I held up a finger to regain a straight face.

Ollie waited patiently, his eyes never leaving mine. “You good now?”

I nodded.

“Knock, knock.”

“Who’s there?

“Water.”

I mimicked his accent, “Water who?” And the second it rolled off the tongue, I completely lost it as a loud laugh belted through my lips. My hands flew back over my mouth.

Ollie threw his palm in the air. “What was that? Your British accent?” He laughed between questions and brought two fingers to his eyes. “It was terrible … and you ruined it!”

I managed to catch my breath as I held up my hand. “Technically, I made myself laugh.”

“As long as you’re laughing.” Ollie leaned back against the wall and propped his foot up with a daydream look in his eyes. “With a laugh like yours, you should always be doing it.”

Oscar would be here any second, and for some reason, I didn’t want to see him. Grabbing Ollie’s hand, I surprised myself by saying, “Let’s get out of here.” I didn’t want Oscar’s hands all over me. What I wanted was to keep this smile for as long as possible. Dr. Conway’s words replayed in my head. “If today was your last day, would you spend it differently?” And I supposed I would.

I led Ollie in the opposite direction toward his room. Once we were behind closed doors, I fell over his mattress as Ollie dropped my books on the floor against the wall.

“Isn’t this dangerous?” he asked, standing tall. A dimple peeked beside his smile as he stood in the middle of his dorm room. He ran a hand through his hair before glancing around the room, unsure of what to do with himself.

“Extremely, but I can’t be in my room for another second.” I folded my arms behind my head and looked up to the ceiling. “My dorm is suffocating. Heck, this whole place is suffocating.”

Ollie took a seat on the floor beside the bed, pulled his legs up, and rested his arms across his knees. “I see what you mean, but you have to look at the positives, or it will drive you crazy.”

“Yeah, and what’s the positives?” I asked, turning on my side to face the back of his head.

“If this place didn’t exist, where would you be now?”

Where would I have been? What a loaded question. I could have been a runaway living off the streets in New York City. I could have been dead, buried six feet under and soon forgotten. I could have been in jail. But out of every scenario, I knew exactly where I would have been if this place didn’t exist.

When I didn’t answer right away, he turned around to face me. He stretched his long arm across the mattress in front of me, and after studying my face, he arched a brow.

“A mental institution,” I said through a sigh.

“Right …”—another disbelieving expression—”because you killed your mum …”

Why couldn’t anyone believe I had killed someone?

Narrowing my eyes, I teased him with my past. “Are you scared I’m going to hurt you, Ollie? You believe I’m capable?”

Ollie drew his fingers closer to my hand that was lying flat against the mattress between us. “Not in the way you’re thinking,” he said simply, but all I could focus on were his fingers not touching mine, and whether or not I wanted them to.

“Why are you here?” I asked, not really caring to know the answer. My need for distracting my mind from his distant hand weighed heavier.

“That’s a conversation for another day.”

“Let’s have your notions decide then,” I said, remembering his words from the night before. He believed in something stronger than science, and I couldn’t judge him for it. Most people believed in that shit.

“What are you proposing?”

“We’ll use music to decide the next …” I glanced up at the same clock as mine above Ollie’s door “… two hours. Where’s your phone?”

Ollie reached under his mattress for the phone and handed it over to me.

“Think of it as a magic eight-ball. I push shuffle, and it’ll answer our questions based on the lyrics.” I looked over to him for a hint of understanding, and he rolled his head back but eventually agreed. “First question, why is Ollie here?”

Ollie nervously laughed as I pressed shuffle and a song I’d never heard before came through its speakers. The bright screen read it was “Lean on” by Major Lazer.

Glancing up from the bright screen, Ollie’s mouth dropped open. “That’s fucking weird,” he breathed as he looked at the phone and back at me as if I’d done some kind of magic trick.

“Didn’t have anyone to lean on?” I gri

He grabbed the phone out of my hand. “We’re still not getting into it. My turn.” He waited in thought while the chorus played for a second time and shook his head before he continued, “Oh, magic eight … phone, should Mia get up and dance right now?” he asked into the phone and peeked over at me with a wayward smile.

Shuffle was pressed.

The intro to “Killing Me Softly with His Song” by The Fugees flowed, and Ollie’s eyes widened as a smile crept across his face. “That’s it … you have to get up, Mia. You can’t turn down the Fugees, it’s an unsaid law.” He stood and pulled me off the mattress until both feet of mine were planted in the middle of the dorm room. My face flushed and Ollie, with a massive grin, fell back over the mattress. “Come on, love,” Ollie teased, and held up his head in his hand. “The notions are saying you have to dance.”

And finally, I did. My hips swayed to the smooth beat, lost in the rhythm. Adrenaline rushed through me as Ollie’s eyes followed my body’s flow. His eyes met mine as they burned with fever. “You’re missing out,” I said with a teasing conviction.

Ollie’s eyes beamed back at me with a wild smile. “I can promise you I’m not.”

Before the song came to an end, I grabbed the phone from his hand. “What is Ollie thinking right now?” And I pressed the almighty powerful shuffle button.

Kings of Leon’s “Sex on Fire” played and I hunched over as a loud laugh came from inside me. Ollie’s stuffed his face into a pillow and my laughter turned into the quiet kind as my vision turned cloudy.

“This whole thing has got to be rigged somehow,” he said with flushed cheeks. He quickly jumped to his feet and towered over me while trying to grab the phone from my possession. My laughs only increased as he pi

“Is your sex on fire, Ollie?” I asked through each breathless laugh.

He was able to secure the phone from me and fell back over the mattress as I sang the song with an air guitar and an invisible drum set. Around him I was free, stuck in a natural high as I whipped my hair and did stupid dance moves. Ollie watched me in awe, and I enjoyed the way I physically affected him. The dimple, the blushing, the glowing smile. It was all worth every embarrassing move as his eyes radiated in my direction.

“Should Mia leave or stay with me?” he hesitantly asked out loud and pressed the button.

An unfamiliar song played. He glanced up at me and waited for my reaction.

My laughing dissolved as I tried to recognize the tune. “What song is this?”

He smiled. “Wait for it.”

I put my hands on my hips as I waited for a voice to come through, and when it did, I grabbed the phone from him and looked on the screen. It read, “Nice to Meet You Anyway,” by Gavin DeGraw. What the hell? I tossed the phone over the mattress beside him and turned to leave since we were now following by the rules of my own game.