Both Sides | ✓

Chapter 36

Olivia's POV:

I wanted to scream, or hit someone, or disappear. I definitely did not want to go to school that morning. The feeling in my gut had grown overnight and now, I was petrified. Things would be worse. I knew they would be. I didn't have a single friend anymore, my girlfriend was suspended, and everyone in that building would smell my fear on me. Nobody wanted me there, including myself.

I hadn't slept much the night before and woke up with a crying hangover- puffy eyes and sour insides. Every move I made while getting ready for school was calculated. I knew that the morning before, I had to have done something wrong to make everything that happened happen. Maybe I hadn't made my bed tight enough, or I didn't count the stairs while I stepped down them, or I didn't flick my bedroom light on and off three times before leaving. Whatever it was, it was my fault, and that morning I made sure to be extra careful with each routine.

I drove myself to school. I sat in the parking lot for twenty minutes, summing up the courage, before I walked inside.

Some people stared at me when I walked down the hallway, but more people stared at Andrew. His face was bruised pretty badly, and his nose had a small bandage over what looked like stitches. It made me sick to look at him, but also a little impressed. Cleo had a good arm.

Daniel wasn't waiting for me at my locker. Cleo wasn't there to meet up in the bathroom. I just walked through the motions of what a normal day should be, like a sleepwalker- dazed and lost in the hallways of my nightmares.

I sat alone in first period, but people eyed me quietly from the other desks. Not every look felt sharp. Sometimes, I could see in someone's eyes that they felt bad, or that they were pissed for me. I didn't like that kind of attention either, but it made me feel a small bit lighter.

When I walked into my second class, Cara practically barralled into me, her arms filled with books piled to her chin.

"Olivia!" she said, her voice bright. "I was worried you wouldn't show up today."

"Hi, Cara." I sat at our table, taking half of her stack and setting them down.

"Thanks. I'm donating to this book fair thing and... anyway. How are you? Really." She sat beside me and cupped her chin in one hand.

"I'm alright. Tired. You know."

She hummed, and it sounded like disbelief. "Yeah."

If I had told Cara the truth, I would've said that none of this felt like real life. It was like the universe had glitched in a way it wasn't supposed to. The girl in the video shouldn't have been me. I was supposed to be talking about her with my lunch table, not living her life. But, it was me, and everything was real, and nobody else could understand it.

"I just want you to know," Cara said after a beat, "I'm not talking to Daniel anymore. I heard that he posted the video, and that he called you, um... well, you know."

I shook my head. "He's not wrong, right?"

"Olivia-"

"No, come on, be straight with me Cara. Does this not change how you see me? Me being with Cleo- me being with a girl. That doesn't bother you?"

Cara kept her eyes on my. "Why should it?" she answered.

"You can't even have friends who aren't straight A students. How am I supposed to believe that all of this-" I gestured to myself vaguely- "doesn't disgust you?"

There was a beat of silence before she replied. "You're still you. You still work hard, and... and smile at people in the hallways. And put your friends before anything else."

I looked away. "I don't know."

"I do. And, you liking girls doesn't change any of that. You're still you, Olivia. You're too tenacious not to be."

I chewed her words before finally looking back at her.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I bit my tongue over everything I wanted to say in that moment. Over the hours of sleep I'd missed, and the words I'd heard whispered about me in the hall. I didn't want her to worry, and I knew that she would. Sometimes, it felt like my entire life was spent making sure everyone else felt okay about me being there.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm sure."

If she knew I was lying, she didn't show it.