The New Plan

pizza is important in this chapter not sure what else to say.

In the morning Olivia leaves early for a doctor’s appointment. Eleven o’clock rolls around and I don’t feel like going to work. Jeremy calls to tell me that I’m late and I delete the message he leaves without listening to it. At two my brother calls again and leaves another angry voicemail. Olivia comes back in another half hour and showers before leaving for work. I call David back at four thirty and Maria answers. I apologize, I say that I’m scared and she tells me that my family loves me and they’re concerned about me, David just doesn’t know how to show it. I agree to come back. 

I eat dinner with Maria and David, pretend to be happy to be there, grateful for another chance. Fortunately they buy it. The next morning I accept my medication and take it with a glass of orange juice, watch David and Maria leave for work. Maria will return during her lunch hour to check on me, so I don’t waste any time. I go upstairs and search my brother’s room until I find his pistol, tucked away in the back of his sock drawer. I put it in my bag and drive back to Olivia’s. I walk inside and I’m drawn down the hallway to the bathroom by the sound of sobbing. I gently push the door open and she is sitting on the floor, crying, one hand buried in her hair. 

I have to say something, right? But I don’t know how to comfort people. “Olivia?”

She jumps, “Oh, hey Jimmy.” She hugs herself. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I spent the night at my brother’s house, I should have knocked.”

“It’s okay.” She wipes her nose on her wrist.

“Are you okay?”

She nods, “Yea, I’m just not feeling very well.” She explains. 

“Oh, you should be in bed.”

She shakes her head. “If I go to bed now I will fall asleep and I won’t be able to get up for work.” 

I lift her up, “I will wake you up for work, but if you’re still feeling crappy you should just stay home.” She lets me cary her to bed but she insists that she can’t miss work. At three o’clock I wake her up like she told me to but she can’t even get ready without throwing up again so I convince her to call in sick. She cries a lot so I sit with her in her bed for a while afterwards trying to get her to calm down. 

“So, what’s with the horses?”

She shrugs, “I was obsessed with them when I was a little kid. We couldn’t afford one, so my parents thought the next best thing would be to buy me a little glass one every Christmas.” 

“There are only twelve of them, though.” 

She nods, “One for every year, from when I was five until I left home when I was seventeen.” 

“Why did you leave?” I find myself absent-mindedly stroking her hair.

She shrugs, “I needed to get out. And I knew if I waited until I graduated I would never do it. I would get stuck in that damn, dead end town for the rest of my life, just like everybody else.”

“So you came here?”

She laughs, “This isn’t where I was planning to end up, but it’s better than where I was before.” She rests her head on my shoulder for a moment, “Thank you.” These two syllables are a sigh of contentment. “I know you didn’t sign up for this, and I really appreciate it.”

“No problem. . . Try to take it easy, alright?” 

I leave her alone and she sleeps for the rest of the day. Maria calls at noon when she comes home to an empty house and I let it go to voicemail. After sunset I take my shovel  and my brother’s gun back into the woods, but a black and white dog with big, sad eyes blocks my path. He doesn’t have any tags, just a plain red collar. I lead him back to the house and let him into the garage. I bring him a bowl of water. He is docile and when I try to leave again he whimpers so I sit in the garage and pet him for a while. At midnight I go back in the house and fall asleep on the couch. In the morning Olivia confirms that it’s the same dog she found before. 

“He must live nearby.” She scratches his ear, “Poor little guy, did you get lost again?” She looks up at me, “Do you mind taking him to the pound? I’ve got another doctor’s appointment.” 

“Sure. Are you feeling any better?”

“Yea, a little.” She sounds so tired. 

After Olivia leaves I take the dog to the pound. At noon she comes back with pizza and insists that I have a slice. 

“Have you eaten anything the whole time you’ve been here? I promise, it is so not a problem. Just have some.”

I take a slice, reluctantly, and sit with her at the kitchen table. I hope Olivia isn’t trying to get me to fall in love with her, but if she is pizza is a good place to start. 

“So who’s Katie?”

I look up, confused. I don’t remember mentioning her. “Huh?”

“You talk in your sleep. I can’t make out most of it, but you say her name a lot. Old flame?” She says this in a manner of pleasant conversation, interested, but not prying, jealousy does not touch her voice.

“Sort of. She was my first girlfriend.” I take a bite of pizza before continuing. “She moved to California when we graduated from high school, though. I haven’t seen her in years.”

“That’s so sad.” She frowns. She finishes her slice of pizza and stands to leave. “I’m gonna’ go take a shower. . .” She turns and looks at me, “Unless you want to come with me?” 

I blink, “Like in the shower?”

She nods, laughs, licks her lips and stands there, swaying on her feet. And for a moment I’m in love with her, and I’m sure it’s not just the pizza or the offer of shower sex. It’s her eyes and her hair and her smile, and the way she looks at me, full of life and energy. And pinned between my bare chest and the wall of the shower she laughs and I can feel the warmth of her spirit coursing through us both: alive with passion and ecstasy.

When Olivia leaves for work I walk out into the woods with my brother’s gun tucked in my waistband. I stand over my empty grave and try not to think about the things that have happened today. It was a fluke. A beautiful, beautiful fluke. My hair smells like mango-strawberry, but it won’t last. Sweet things never last. They wilt and fade and move to California. 

I step down into the pit. I am inexplicably nervous. I level out the bottom a little, removing tiny green plants that have sprouted in my absence with the tip of my shovel. The familiar sensation of sinking the blade into the soil calms me, but not much. I toss the shovel out when I’m finished and lay down. The sky above me is clear and blue, I steady the gun in my hand, against the soft skin beneath my chin. My palms sweat, and no part of me believes the words I am repeating over and over in my mind This is it. No regrets. This is it. No regrets. 

I take a long, deep breath, filling my lungs with the damp, earthy air of the woods one last time. I shut my eyes and squeeze the trigger. 

The click that should have stopped my heart, instead makes it drop into my shoes. I pull the trigger again, and again, but nothing happens. I eject the clip: it’s empty. I check the chamber: same. “You’ve gotta’ be f****n’ kidding me.” I throw the empty pistol to the end of my grave. Only my brother would keep a gun in his sock drawer for self defense without any bullets in it. 

I lay in that hole until the sun goes down. I watch the stars for a while, then climb out and walk back to the house, covered in dirt and failure. As I shut the sliding door Olivia peers over the back of the couch at me. I wave. The room is lit only by the television behind her.

“You sure spend a lot of time back in the woods. What are you doing back there?” Her light, airy voice finally pulls my head out of my grave, it is everything the forest is not. 

Those big eyes murder the truth inside my throat so I mutter, “Mushroom hunting.” instead. 

“Oh,” She says, not entirely convinced. “Any luck?”

“Nope.” I go to sit with her and she rests her head on my shoulder. “What are you watching?”

“Hell’s Kitchen. There’s nothing on.” She yawns and I close my eyes and feel the ache of longing as I wish that things could stay like this forever. But I know better. It could last a week, at the most, but my feelings for Katie would claw their way back to the surface and Olivia’s patience would run out. 

Author's Note

if you are having a hard time understanding the motivations of the characters at this point in the story you might want to wait and see if there is further explanation in future chapters (spoilers: there is.)

Reviews

[Jake Donald Stephens]

I had indeed planned to keep reading, and find out more about why Jimmy is so motivated to check out. (I had assumed he wasn't just insane).
I'm also sensing there is something up with Olivia.
"Carry" was missing an "r" again.

[Elle Thompson]

Carry, not cary, sheesh, it's a wonder no one else has pointed that out, I had no idea. Thank youread moreCarry, not cary, sheesh, it's a wonder no one else has pointed that out, I had no idea. Thank you
yea, you don't find out about Olivia until chapter 9, Jimmy is just crazy.