The Rules They Broke

Chapter 19: Passing Notes

OLIVIA

When Olivia woke up the next morning, Logan had already gone. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had started up his motorcycle and taken off on his three hour trip without saying goodbye to either of his brothers. Elijah was livid, and Olivia heard him angrily talking into the phone later that day. Blake, on the other hand, wandered around with a despondent look on his face and talked far less than usual.

Needless to say, Olivia was glad when she got on the bus Monday morning.

During history, Olivia sat in her chair, trying to ignore Cody's nasty words behind her back. Whenever Mrs. Peterson turned around, pieces of balled up paper landed on her desk and lap. Annoyed, Olivia kept sweeping them to the floor until she felt Cody lean so far forward she could feel his hot breath down her neck.

"You're supposed to open them and read them, moron," he hissed.

Olivia knew she was going to have to go home and shower at least three times before she could get Cody's lingering germs off her skin. She ignored his words and swept another three crumpled balls off her desk. She bent her head forward so he couldn't get close enough again.

But Cody didn't take the hint. He threw another piece of paper over her shoulder, this one not scrunched like the others. The flat piece of paper floated into her lap, and she couldn't help but see the words on the paper as she lowered her eyes to look at it.

You should be more scared of your friend Milo than me. After all, he did go to juvie.

Olivia stared at the paper and blinked a few times, as if the words would rearrange themselves and present some mean words about her, or her family, or anything else. This wasn't what she expected.

Cody threw another crumpled ball of paper, and Milo turned around in his chair on hearing it hit Olivia's desk. 

"Cody, stop it," Milo hissed at him, and Olivia wadded up the piece of paper in her lap and pretended she had seen nothing at all.

*****

During lunch, Mr. Tanaka caught Olivia's eye and waved her over.

"Olivia Jones, right?" he asked.

Everyone at the table looked up at the teacher. His voice was like that voice that teachers got when you were in huge trouble. Olivia nodded slowly and stood where she was sitting. 

"They want you at the office," Mr. Tanaka said.

The office? What did the office want her for?

Were they going to tell her they had found a dead body? That she was going to have to go in and identify which one of her brothers was lying in a morgue? That she would have to identify all three of them in the morgue? That Milo had broken out of juvie just before school started and her hanging out with him and his friends was a crime?

Olivia tried to convince herself that she was being paranoid, that she hadn't done anything wrong, that her brothers were not dead but awful images of her mom, lying blue in the face with blue lips and staring red eyes began to overwhelm her. Twice, she had to stop near a bathroom for fear of throwing up, but eventually, she made it to the office without losing her breakfast.

What she found there was possibly just as worse as she imagined. 

So I know it's super short but I realized when I was writing this I kind of like this cliffhanger. 

Anyways, yesterday was my sister's birthday, and I made the ugliest cake the world has seen. The frosting kept making the cake fall apart, the letters were thick for the first half and thin for the second half because I realized halfway through that thick was just not working, and the rounds were much flatter than I expected, making the whole cake flat. 

Overall, I thought that it was the most beautiful cake I had ever seen, like when a parent knows their child is the most beautiful thing ever, no matter what they look like. 

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For next time: wonder what's at the office? and for what reason?