Stay with me

“What was that all about?” I asked, looking up at him.

Ollie dipped his head down. “We’ll talk about it later, love.” And he kissed my temple.

Out of anyone who could have said something, Alicia was the last person I expected. It took a lot for me to admit to him my feelings for him openly. I had confessed it before to Zeke, but because Zeke didn’t talk, I never really treated him as a real human being—more like a part of my subconscious. I had been afraid until now to openly say it. But after seeing the look in his eyes, the one that said, trust me and I will never let you fall alone, without having to utter a word at all, my words came out effortlessly.

Perhaps he was right, and he would be the one to help me save me from myself.

“Mia?”

“Yeah?” I asked, snapping my head to the source.

“How about a score, yeah?” Alicia asked.

I dropped my head back to look at Ollie. “Eh, I’ll give him a one.”

Everyone laughed, including Ollie as Alicia tallied up the scores before she dug her hand into the beanie. “Okay, my turn.”

Alicia withdrew her action and read it, her eyes darting around the circle. “Mia and Isaac, you’re on here. Stand up,” she said.

Ollie’s fingers tensed against my arms as Isaac and I exchanged glances. We got to our feet and walked outside the circle in front of Alicia. “You’re my life-sized Barbies for the next minute, and you have to do whatever I say,” she whispered to us.

Pursing my lips together, I stood before Isaac, trying refrain from an awkward laugh.

“This one’s mine,” Jake bragged from the circle.

Ollie shook his head. “Yeah, thanks for that, man.”

Alicia started her roleplay game, using Isaac and me as her pawns. “Oh, Ken. Please take your shirt off, I want to feel your body against mine,” Alicia said in the most authentic British versioned Barbie voice, and Isaac obliged. He removed his shirt as everyone in the group let out a laugh, except for Ollie. Ollie wasn’t the least bit amused.

“I want to feel your body,” Alicia hinted again at me.

“Oh, right,” I mumbled and brought my hands to Isaacs abs.

“Yeah, Barbie. That feels nice. Why don’t I help you out of your shirt,” Alicia said in a deep man voice. Isaac took a step toward me and helped me out of my shirt, and it dropped to the floor as we waited for our next instruction.

“Kiss me, Ken. I want to feel your hands on my boobs, and your tongue down my throat,” Alicia said through a laugh, and I looked over at Ollie with wide eyes.

“No, she doesn’t kiss, Alicia. You know that,” Ollie said, drawing the line.

As I remembered the sickness on Ollie’s face when I’d kissed Liam, my legs wobbled. It had been right before Ollie kissed me sober and I punched a wall. “Don’t ever kiss another before my eyes again,” he said in my dorm room before he left.

“She kissed you, didn’t she?” Alicia asked.

Ollie scrambled as his attention went from me and back to Alicia. “Yeah, but that’s different …”

“Different?” Alicia turned to face me. “Mia?”

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. I darted my head between both of them as my mind raced, trying to do the right thing for once. I’d hurt Ollie too many times to count, and I couldn’t bear to see the pained look in his eyes again.

Ollie got to me. He got to me in so many ways, on so many levels. Even though Ollie couldn’t accept the way I was, he was the only one who fought for me, which was more than I deserved.

I picked my shirt up off the ground and pulled it over my head before taking off through the woods.

That’s right—I ran.

It was the only option that made the most sense at the time. I darted through the woods, past the green lawn, and back through the double doors of Dolor.