Recovery | Hood

seven

The next few weeks at school were hard, well harder than they were before.

"Calum." Olivia shook my arm, trying to get my attention in economics, the one class I have with her where she's not making out with her boyfriend the whole time.

"What?" I asked her, biting down on my pencil nervously.

"Are you okay?" Her hazel eyes trailed down to the pencil in my mouth.

"I'm fine." I lied. I scanned her face, noticing a bruise just below her eyes, on her cheek. I noticed she tried to cover it up with makeup, but she didn't normally wear makeup all that often and she wasn't very good at putting it on.

I nodded towards her,"What about you?"

Her hand went instantly towards her cheek,"Oh I got this from Tennis. The ball hit me in the face...silly me, I wasn't paying attention."

She smiled up at me as I nodded, imagining her zoning out in the middle of a practice game, seems like something she'd do.

"Try not to space out, next time," I grinned, elbowing her in the arm.

She winced in pain and I snapped my head towards her, full of concern.

"-the hell?" I exclaimed, a little too loudly.

I grabbed her elbow gently, grabbing the edge of her sleeve, and pushing it up. I was able to see few marks of purple for only half a second before Olivia started fighting back.

"Mr. Hood, keep your hands to yourself and get to work." the teacher instructed. Olivia shook herself from my grip, looking down at her paper.

"Was it another tennis ball, Liv?" I asked her later when the teacher wasn't looking. My obvious first instinct was-

"It was an accident," she responded quickly.

"Olivia-"

"Calum, you know me. I'm clumsy. I trip, I fall, I stumble, I run into things, I spill things, I break things, I knock things over..." She began talking to her hands, moving the rapidly with her voice.

"Okay." I responded, licking my lips. She wasn't lying, she was clumsy. I remember once in grade 8 she spilled a whole plate of pasta on her khaki skirt, leaving a bunch of red stains i had to help scrub out in the girls' washroom before the bell would ring.

Another time in physical education we were playing a game of volleyball with the girls and she had dove to her knees just to hit the ball with her face, resulting in a lot of blood.

"Do you want to eat lunch with me today?" She invited.

I shook my head,"I promised I'd go with Lennon today."

I usually sat with Olivia, but Lennon was the only one who knew what was going on with my dad, and she thought that eating lunch with her today would somehow help relieve the problem.

"Oh well, whatever. Have fun." Olivia shrugged, getting up from her seat. She started to pack her things and when the bell rung soon after, I realized why.

Whenever I had met Lennon outside, she moved her stuff for me, and smiled gently.

"Are you hungry?" Her eyes fell towards my cafeteria food,"I brought some of Gavin's leftover chicken quesadillas. They're really good, probably better than the petty school lunch."