7

Chris looked up from his textbook. Olivia was speaking under her breath, numbers and letters rolling off of her tongue like algebra was her second language. He could tell from her tone that she was enjoying the challenge that the problem she was working on posed.

He cleared his throat.

Olivia glanced up sheepishly. “Was I doing it again?” she asked.

“Yep,” he said, amused rather than annoyed.

He had no idea what he was doing at her table again, but they’d formed a sort of routine in the last month, and now he wasn’t sure how to break it. Or if he even wanted to.

“Sorry,” she replied with a groan.

Her bangs had grown a bit too long, and the ends were kissing the top of her glasses. She brushed them aside for the tenth or so time. It looked like she’d covered the scar on her forehead with makeup, but the raised line was still visible to Chris for barely more than a second.

Chris swallowed. The mark on her face reminded him of the scar on her leg. She hadn’t worn shorts since the day he’d apologized, but he could still see the surgical scar running down her thigh as if only a day had passed rather than a month.

He’d known she’d been hurt in the accident. He’d known since day one, but seeing the scar had reminded him of just how badly she’d been injured. In his attempt to hate her, he’d pushed her injuries to the back of his mind, and her calling him out on his shit and the sight of her scar had forced him to confront the reality.

Noah had been right all those months ago. Olivia was also a victim of Drew’s actions. It shamed Chris to know it had taken so long and so much for him to finally see that.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “I don’t mind.”

Olivia sent him a smile before focusing back on her work. Chris should have done the same. He had a lot of work to do. But instead, his eyes stayed on the woman sitting across from him.

She was wearing a yellow sundress, and though Chris usually wasn’t a fan of the color, it complimented her blue eyes and blonde hair in a way that made him reconsider. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about Olivia, but he couldn’t keep lying to himself. He was attracted to her.

But even though he no longer thought she should be blamed for Drew being on the road that night, a part of him still couldn’t get past the fact that she’d gotten in that car with him rather than calling the cops immediately. So, yes, he was still attracted to her, but he knew he couldn’t act on that attraction.

With an inaudible sigh, he returned to his studying. The two of them worked quietly for the next hour. It was the norm for them. Olivia always waited for him to initiate conversation, but sometimes Chris never did. Silence was usual for them, and if she minded that he was still putting distance between them, Olivia didn’t show it.

So, when she was the one to clear her throat next, Chris looked up in surprise. She was fidgeting with her pen, clearly nervous as she met his gaze. Her eyes darted down almost immediately, eye contact still something she clearly preferred to avoid.

“Everything okay?” Chris asked.

She cleared her throat again. “Uh, I wanted to ask you a favor,” she began. “Although, maybe ‘favor’ isn’t the right word. I need your help, I guess,” she corrected, speaking so quickly that Chris was almost struggling to keep up. “Not that you owe me anything, and not that I expect you to say yes, but I thought I may as well ask, you know?”

Chris’s eyebrows had risen as she spoke. He blinked at her twice before asking, “What do you need help with?”

She shifted in her seat. “Noah told me you go to a rock climbing gym a lot,” she explained, only managing to confuse him further.

“Yeah,” he replied slowly.

“And he said you did the rope thingy for him when he did it that one time.”

Chris suppressed a smile. “You mean belaying?”

“Yes, that,” she said, her cheeks growing rosy. “And well, I need to go rock climbing, so I was wondering if you could maybe help me. With the rope thingy. The belaying.”

He hadn’t heard Olivia speak that much in over a year. Even before the accident she’d grown quieter, the drama with her and her mom making her retreat. This Olivia, who rambled and spoke at a mile a minute had been gone for a while.

He’d always liked this Olivia better.

“When you say you need to go rock climbing,” Chris said, his voice lifting at the end to make it a question.

“Oh, um, well, I suppose I don’t really need to do it. I don’t even want to do it if I’m honest—”

“Olivia,” he interrupted gently, trying to get her back on track.

She took a deep breath. “It probably sounds stupid,” she said with a grimace. “But my therapist said I need to start facing my fears.” She shrugged. “And, well, getting over my fear of heights seems like an easier place to start than driving again.”

Chris knew Ella had still been giving Olivia lifts to and from campus, but he’d thought the reason was that Olivia didn’t have her own car. He hadn’t known it was because she was afraid to drive after the accident. Considering how tense she’d been in the car on that first day of classes, he should have realized.

“You go to a therapist?”

Olivia’s expression grew guarded. “Since the accident, yeah,” she replied stiffly.

“I’m not judging,” he assured her. He would never judge her for needing to speak to someone after losing her boyfriend in the same accident that had prevented her from joining a ballet company. “I just didn’t know.”

“I don’t exactly like to advertise it,” she replied, looking down at the table.

“My lips are sealed,” he promised.

She started twisting her pen between her hands again. “I shouldn’t have asked you. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Chris replied. “But if I say yes, can you even rock climb with your leg?”

She’d gotten rid of the crutches three weeks earlier, but she still walked slowly, and he’d noticed her limping a few times closer to the end of the day. She was healing, but it seemed like her muscles took strain throughout the day.

“My physiotherapist cleared it,” Olivia said. “I obviously need to be careful and go slowly, but she said it would be okay.”

“Have you ever climbed before?” he asked, still unconvinced. The last thing her leg needed was to get a new injury while it was still weak.

She nodded. “I tried it once with Amy. Her mom is really into it, and she did the belaying for us.”

“And?” Chris pressed, knowing that wasn’t the end of the story.

Olivia’s cheeks grew pinker. “I didn’t get very far up,” she admitted. “I could climb just fine. The problem was I got freaked out and didn’t want to go higher.”

“Is there a reason you’re not asking Amy or her mom for help?” Chris asked, still unsure about if he wanted to help her.

It would mean spending time with her outside of their library study sessions. It would mean interacting with her far more than he was used to. It would make their relationship look far more like a friendship.

Olivia flinched. “I asked, but Amy hasn’t replied to my messages for a while.”

“Oh.” Chris felt like an ass for asking now.

Olivia and Amy had been best friends for years. Hearing that things had changed between them was unexpected, to say the least, though going to different colleges probably didn’t help.

“Yeah,” Olivia said, looking embarrassed. “But, honestly, you really don’t need to feel pressured. I’m sure I can find someone else, or Noah said they have those auto-belay things at the climbing gym you go to. I could just use those.”

Chris lifted a brow. “Do you know how many accidents happen with those things because inexperienced climbers don’t know how to use them properly?”

Olivia gulped. “Okay, so maybe I’ll start with my fear of sharks instead,” she said, even though she looked terrified just speaking about it. “They have shark diving in Montauk in New York. That’s not that far from here.”

Chris couldn’t help but laugh. A full belly laugh that had the other students around them shooting him dirty looks.

“What?” Olivia asked. “I could go diving with sharks.” She didn’t sound remotely convincing, and her face looked alarmingly pale like she might pass out just planning her underwater adventure.

“Olivia,” he said with an amused shake of his head. “I cannot in good conscience allow you to go shark diving.”

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t think exposure therapy is the way to go with sharks, spiders, or snakes.”

Chris bit his lip to stop his grin from spreading boldly across his face. “Tell you what, I’ll help you with the rock climbing if you promise you won’t get yourself eaten by a great white.”

Olivia’s defeated expression slowly transformed into a smile, crinkles around her eyes included. “Are you sure?”

He nodded, smiling back. “You twisted my arm, but I’ll do it.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” he warned her. “We’re not leaving the gym until you get to the top of the wall.”

“What if we did it in stages,” she suggested. “Like I go up about a quarter of the way in the first month, and then halfway in the next month.”

Chris sent her an unimpressed look. “When you get in a pool, you don’t get in at the steps and slowly submerge yourself. You jump in.”

“Some people get in at the steps,” Olivia argued.

“And let me guess,” Chris said. “You’re one of those people?”

“There’s nothing wrong with being cautious,” she told him, pushing her glasses up so they sat higher on her face.

Chris smirked. “I think you’ll find that when you’re facing your fears, caution kind of needs to be chucked out the window.”

Olivia looked like she was fighting a smile at that. “Alright, so maybe you have a point.”

He nodded and started packing his books away. “Good. I’ll see you on Sunday then.”

“This Sunday?” she asked, her eyes widening. “I was thinking we could wait a week or two so I can mentally prepare myself or whatever.”

Fuck, she was cute. And hilarious.

“I’ll see you this Sunday,” he insisted before standing up.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “This Sunday it is.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said before walking away from what was slowly becoming their table.

He would probably regret saying yes to her once he had more time to think about it, but as he walked out of the library, he found himself oddly looking forward to it.