The Lies He Spoke

TWELVE

Olivia glanced up at Angel as he strolled into the corridor, his smile nearly as brilliant as the sun itself. He pulled his tie from his neck, dropped his backpack like a sack of rocks on the floor, and put his arms up on the windowsill at the end of the hall, sighing.

"It's a really nice day outside. Let's not be stuck in here. Want to go out?" he asked.

Olivia scowled. It was not a nice day. It was an awful day. "No. I need to finish this homework."

"Hm." He walked over and hovered over her. "You always finish your homework before class."

"I'm sorry I couldn't live up to your expectations."

Her acidic tone seemed to have no effect on Angel. He sat down beside her and leaned over, putting a hand on her arm. "Let me see, maybe I can help-"

She yanked her arm away from him and said, "Just leave me alone!"

Immediately, she realized she must have looked like a madman and tried to take a few deep breaths to calm her heated face, but it was no use. Her hands trembled and the pencil in her hand shook with it. She balled her hands into fists so they wouldn't shake so much.

Beside her, Angel was quiet.

"Sorry," she managed, unable to look at him. "I'm sorry, that was rude."

He was silent for a moment before he said hesitantly, "Is everything okay?"

Olivia pressed her fingers into her eye sockets and tried not to cry. Nothing was okay. Nothing was ever going to be okay. The way she kept screwing everything up, she didn't exactly deserve for things to be okay.

But she only said, "I just had a fight with my brother this morning."

"Oh. The one that's in, you know-?"

Olivia interrupted him before he could say that dreaded word. "No, a different one."

Angel exhaled slowly, silence growing around them. He hugged his knees to his chest. "Yeah, it really sucks. I had a fight with my brother last night too." He sighed and put his chin against his arms. "It was bad."

Olivia glanced at him. She realized she hardly knew anything about Angel. This was the first time she was hearing about his family. "You have a brother?"

"Yeah, his name is Marcus. He's way older than me. He's twenty-five."

"Me and my oldest brother's gap is the same. Elijah - he's also twenty-five."

"I think the huge age gap kinda sucks," Angel admitted. "I hate that he's so old. I mean, he's really great and all, but he just doesn't get me."

Olivia knew what he was talking about. She felt it every time she spoke with Logan. "Is that what the fight was about?" she asked.

Angel sighed. "Yeah. I told him to quit his job and he got really angry at me."

She frowned at him. "Why do you want him to quit?"

"It's not a great job," he said vaguely.

Olivia didn't think that was a good basis for yelling at anyone to quit, but she asked, "So why is he still in it?"

"For revenge."

Olivia's jaw dropped. "The job is his revenge?"

"Yeah."

That one word was quiet and grief-stricken, a million memories laced behind that one syllable. It was the voice of someone who had seen horrible truths and couldn't voice them. It was a word hiding immense pain.