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OLLY SAYS<br />
HE’S NOT ON the wall when I see him again the next day. Instead he’s in what I’ve<br />
begun to think of as his resting position: bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet with his<br />
hands tucked into his pockets.<br />
“Hi,” I say from the door, waiting for my stomach to complete its crazy Olly dance.<br />
“Hey yourself.” His voice is low and a little rough, sleep deprived.<br />
“Thanks for chatting last night,” he says, eyes tracking me all the way to the couch.<br />
“Anytime.” My own voice is husky and low as well. He looks paler than usual today and<br />
his shoulders are slumped forward a little, but still he’s moving.<br />
“Sometimes I wish I could just disappear and leave them,” he confesses, ashamed.<br />
I want to say something, not just something, but the perfect thing to comfort him, to<br />
make him forget his family for a few minutes, but I can’t think of it. This is why people<br />
touch. Sometimes words are just not enough.<br />
Our eyes meet and, since I can’t hug him, I wrap my arms around my own waist,<br />
holding on tight.<br />
His eyes drift across my face as if he’s trying to remember something. “Why do I feel<br />
like I’ve always known you?” he asks.<br />
I don’t know but I feel it, too. He stops moving, having come to whatever decision he<br />
needed to.<br />
He says your world can change in a single moment.<br />
He says no one is innocent, except maybe you, Madeline Whittier.<br />
He says that his dad wasn’t always this way.