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Olive

L ogan’s Psychiatric Hospital is a mixture of red brick, beige stonework, and windows. Lots of windows for natural sunlight. The roof is flat in most places, except for the angular section above the front entrance that makes it look more like a modern art museum than a mental institute.

That’s probably for the better.

The outside is well kept with trimmed hedges and an assortment of flowers and bushes lining the front of the building. There are small trees that look a lot like my mother’s favorite lavender ones back home planted every twenty feet up the road that leads directly to the front entrance.

When Alex puts the car into park in front of the sliding glass doors, he looks at me with a pleading look in his blue eyes. “Can you stay here for me? I won’t be long. I’ve got some paperwork to fill out and I want to talk to Mom’s head nurse.”

Whatever is going on here is between him and his mother, so I nod. “I’ll make sure nobody tows us.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. Looking over his shoulder, he says, “Ready, Ma?”

“No.” Sighing, she opens the door. “But I don’t think I have a choice. Let’s go. I’m sure my prison cell is waiting with a fresh lock.”

Alex’s jaw tics, but all he does is get out of the car and guide her inside the sliding glass doors until they disappear out of sight.

I lean back in my seat and pull my phone out from my pocket for the first time since getting to Pittsburgh. There are at least twenty messages waiting for me, mostly from my friends.

Skylar: Are you alive?

Skylar: You better be having the best sex of your life right now

Berlin: What if the sex incapacitated her?

Skylar: Are you okay????

Skylar: If you don’t stop you won’t be able to walk tomorrow

Berlin: Best problem to have

Skylar: I am going to call the cops and do a wellness check on you if you don’t answer me in two hours just in case you’re in a sex coma

Berlin: Do you even have an address??

Skylar: We share our locations

Berlin: How am I just finding out about this? Do you not love me enough to share your locations with me?

Skylar: Your phone doesn’t have that feature or we would include you

Berlin: I hate you both

Skylar: No you don’t

Skylar: Olive, you have fifteen minutes before I call the cops

That was ten minutes ago.

Me: If you call the cops would you tell them you’re worried I slipped into a sex induced coma and need assistance?

Me: Because idk if I would be embarrassed or proud if I had to face them with that

Skylar: FINALLY. Where have you been?

Skylar: Did you at least use protection?

I roll my eyes. “She’s such a mom,” I muse to myself, cutting through some of the confusion that’s been weighing me down since meeting Colleen.

Berlin: Did you cum at least???

Me: Protection hasn’t been necessary because there hasn’t been sex

Me: This trip hasn’t gone smoothly

Berlin: So no orgasm then?

Skylar’s name pops up on my phone. “Is everything okay?” she asks, her voice a whisper that probably means Bentley is napping.

“I’m fine. I met Alex’s mom. She was at his apartment when I got there.” I frown as I stare at the hospital. Alex doesn’t want anybody to know about this, so I don’t give my best friend the details I’m sure she wants. “She’s nice.”

That much is true.

“Oooh getting cock blocked by a parent sucks,” she says sympathetically. “Or whatever the female equivalent is.”

“Same thing. Either way, there has been no cock,” I answer easily.

I’m not sure there will be, and I’m okay with that.

We’ve never shied away from physical stuff.

If he truly wants me, I guess we’ll see if we can do the other stuff.

The talking. The seriousness. Then maybe the clothes can come off.

“I should have told him I was coming. Or just not shown up. This was a dumb idea.”

“No, it wasn’t! It was spontaneous and sweet, if you ask me. You two have gone through a lot of stuff to get where you are, and I think it’s great he wanted you there with him. I’m sure his mom won’t be there the entire time, right?”

I study the building’s welcoming white letters spelling out the name of the hospital. There’s movement on the other side of the windows on the first floor—nurses moving down brightly lit halls. It looks colorful. Happy.

Taking a deep breath, I nod once. “Right.”

“Then enjoy yourself,” she tells me. “You deserve it, Olive. Really. Soon, classes are going to start and you two will both be busy with your lives. You might as well have fun while you can. What’s stopping you?”

I know she’s right. I didn’t drive all this way just to drive back.

We’re going to talk. Then…well, I don’t know what happens after that.

It’ll depend on how the conversation goes.

What I do know is that I don’t feel like paying for a hotel or going all the way back to Lindon, so the very least he can offer me is his couch.

“Nothing,” I finally answer. “Nothing is stopping me. I’m here, aren’t I?”

Skylar’s voice is gentle. “ Are you? I know you, Liv. You put on a brave face, but there’s an emptiness in your eyes sometimes. And that’s okay. But don’t self-sabotage something that has the potential to lead somewhere great just because you’re scared.”

Is that what she thinks Alex is for me? Something great? “I don’t self-sabotage. Alex made his decision the last time. He chose hockey.”

“And he regrets it,” she reminds me pointedly. The tone she gives me is like when my mother talks firmly to me. “He asked you to come there, Olive. He chose you .”

But for how long? It’s terrifying to think I could fall for him again only to wind up in the same place. “He hasn’t chosen yet. He just thinks he has.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” she tells me. “Maybe all it will take is a little openness. Give him a chance, but more importantly, give yourself one. You don’t do things you don’t want to, so make the most of this.”

I look at my lap, picking at the seam of my jeans.

She takes my silence as hesitation. “I told Danny when we first met that I didn’t need anybody, and you know what he said?”

I squeeze my fingers together. “What?”

“He said everybody needs an ally in their life to stay sane,” she answers. “And he’s right. You’ll always have me and Berlin, but Alex could be that reinforcement too. Don’t exclude him yet.”

Alex could be everything I’ve ever wanted.

Or he could destroy me.

I’ve heard the people you love the most are the ones who are the scariest to trust. Because they’re the one who could destroy you the worst.

When I lift my head, I see Alex appear on the other side of the entrance door. “He’s coming back. I’ll talk to you later. Thank you for the advice, and for not siccing the cops of me.”

I quickly hang up and tuck my phone back into my pocket as Alex slides into the car.

For a full minute, he doesn’t say a word.

He just sits there, staring out the windshield with his fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel.

The skin of his fingertips turns white as he twists his hand and lets out a long, deep breath.

Closing his eyes, he says, “She didn’t always struggle. There were…good times.”

I angle my body toward him, wanting to touch him but seeing the fragile paleness to his skin that makes me keep my hands to myself.

“She’s always had bouts of depression,” he explains quietly, staring at the hospital entrance.

“I remember days when my father would take me out to the park and try getting her out of bed, but she refused. Then one day would turn to two that turned to three, and so on. That didn’t happen often, but it was at least two or three times a year.

As time went on, she started acting out more.

Her episodes would last longer. She’d get mad easily, over the smallest things she never used to care about as much.

“One day, her and my dad got into it. I’m not even sure what, but probably something mundane.

All I remember is that she started throwing things at him.

The neighbors saw him rushing out the front door trying to block his face from getting hit.

They called the police on her. He didn’t want to press charges, but the officers convinced him it would be a good idea if anything like that happened again. And it did.”

He takes a deep breath, that broad, muscular chest rising and falling with his deep exhale.

“I’m not sure why he didn’t call the cops the second time.

I guess he knew that she wasn’t acting like herself, but that it wasn’t her fault.

They got into it about a bill or something.

I don’t know. My dad shielded me from a lot back then because he didn’t want me seeing her like that.

But it became hard not to because she started acting like that more often.

Not sleeping. Being overly energetic. Getting irritable. It was…a lot.”

I frown. “That sounds hard.”

He dips his chin. “It was. I was lucky that my dad tried his hardest to deal with it on his own. He eventually got to the point where he needed extra help, so instead of letting her get arrested, he got the police involved to take her to a psych evaluation. She fought it, at first, but she ended up agreeing to go when Dad pointed out it was impacting me too. And she loves me. She always has. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder shortly after.”

I don’t know much about that, but I’ve heard it isn’t easy. This time, I do reach out. I rest my palm on his forearm, so he knows I’m here, even when he won’t look at me.

His eyes drop to my hand, but not over to me to see the sympathy there. Because he doesn’t want that. And no matter how hard it is to wipe it off my face, I try. For him.