Olivia Beckham

I turn off my alarm and groggily sit myself up. I have to wake up early on a Saturday for dance. They're lucky I like them. Because there are very few things I would wake up for at this time on a Saturday. We have practice from 5:20 am to 3pm. Because it's our first day back, we have a lot of crap to run through and we need to start numerous dances for the starting competition season and for upcoming performances. I get out of my bed and stumble to my closet to pull out the dance set I'm going to wear today: a pair of light pink leggings and a white compression shirt that ends where my leggings start. I throw my hair up in a low ponytail and then braid the ponytail. I put some bobby pins where my fly aways are to make sure my hair doesn't come out. I grab my favorite UGGS and I put them on. Then I grab my turners, toe tape, and pointe shoes and put them all in my duffel bag. I go downstairs and grab my water bottle and add water and ice to it. I run upstairs and give my dad a kiss on the cheek to tell him I'm leaving. He doesn't have work today but my mom does at nine this morning. I go back downstairs and pre start my car before opening the garage and putting my bag in the back of my car. I get in the driver's and use the fob on my keys to close the garage again. I then put my car in drive and head to my studio.

I get to my studio and see only a few cars in the parking lot. Even though practice doesn't start for another 10 minutes, I go to the locker room to drop off my bag and keep my pointe shoes, turners, water bottle, and toe tape. I walk into our studio to see the lights turned off and no one inside. I flick on the light switch and set my stuff on the side of the room.

I go to the center of the room and start stretching my legs because I want to practice my leaps and turns before coach and the other girls come in.

After a few minutes of stretching my legs, I walk to where my turners are and put one on. I walk back to the center of the room and get into position to turn. I prep and then go into my turn. I do this about 20 more times before moving onto my single stag leap, doing that another 20 times. I do this for every turn and leap that I know until the rest of our company starts to trickle in. I then stop and start to catch up with some of the girls until Rachel and Makenna show up with WAY too much energy for five in the morning.

They both run up and hug me at the same time before speaking excitedly about everything that went down in their dance campout that they both drove down from at THREE in the morning and STILL have a lot of energy. Man, if only I could operate on the amount of sleep they can.

We catch up and they tell me all about what's happening in their life recently. Rachel is in the talking stage with some guy that's in her science class and Makenna is about ready to break up with her boyfriend because he keeps telling her that he's going shopping but then he goes and hangs out with her brother. They've become best buds and she doesn't like that.

Finally our dance coach, Mrs. Silman walks in and we start guided stretches and workouts. Amelia was right, she didn't stretch all break and it shows. Coach definitely gets annoyed about it.

After stretching we get into running our dances millions of times. Coach wants them to look perfect. We get onto our day of running dances and perfecting every little error and flaw in our dances.

By the time it's three, I'm exhausted. We've been dancing non-stop and you can tell. I'm ready to go home. Even though I live for dance, I still want to go home and relax after ten hours of dancing. I haven't eaten anything since lunch yesterday maybe? I don't know, it could've been breakfast because I don't like lunchtime very much. But for some reason, I'm actually hungry and my wrist still hurts again like when I first hurt it. It burns like a ghost pepper in your stomach. I've never actually had one of those. I've just heard they're really spicy.

Coach Silman tells us we can leave after we run this last dance 3 more times so we all scramble to do it perfectly. When she finally lets us leave after five more times, we all scramble out of there like it's on fire. It's 3:30 by the time we leave.

Ugggghhhh.

Dragging this bag is terrible. I swear there's not very much in it but it definitely feels like there's fifty bricks inside. I finally lug it into my car and hop in. I feel my phone vibrate and see that Charlie texted me:

Charlie: Is practice over yet?

Olivia: Yea

As soon as I text back, my phone starts vibrating with an incoming call: Charlie.

I answer and my phone connects to my Bluetooth in my car and he starts talking on the speakers.

"Hey Ollie girl! How was practice?"

"Just great." I answer sarcastically.

I hear him laugh just before saying, "That good huh?"

"The best. Definitely not worth waking up at 4:30 for though."

"What was so brutal about it? Don't you love dance?"

"We ran every single dance at least fifty times, if not more. And while I do love dance, would you love to do the same thing over and over for 10 hours straight? We literally didn't have any breaks. That's how brutal it was. If we wanted water, we had to get it while we weren't in the dance."

"Wow ok I get it. Anyways I did have a reason to call you. I wanted to know if you wanted to come over and watch a movie in our movie theater. We just set it up and it's lowkey chill. I thought you might want to relax after dancing all day." he says

"Yeah that sounds nice. I have to check with my dad first but if it's ok with him then let's totally do it." I answer.

We talk for a few more minutes before we say goodbye and hang up.

15 minutes later I pull up to my house and park my car inside the garage. I close the door and walk inside. Strangely it's very quiet here. I look around and only see my dad on the couch with a sleeping Sofia in his arms. He looks up at me and smiles before saying, "How was practice?"

"Good. Brutal but good" I answer him. He gives me a nod to show that he's listening and I say, "Is it ok if I go over to Charlie's and watch a movie? His parents are home."

"Yeah that's fine. Are you going right now?" He replies

"I'm going to take a shower first. An- oh where is everyone? It's really quiet." I say

"Leo, Adrian, Ben, Bella and Aurora are all at friend's houses. Surprisingly they all planned playdates and hangouts on the same day. And Emma is upstairs playing with her barbies" He answers me.

Interesting.

"Ok well I'm going to take a shower." I say already walking away. I send Charlie a quick text message saying I'll be there at five and then I grab some comfy clothes and hop in the shower.

After I'm all showered, I don't bother drying my hair because it takes forever to blow dry and I don't really care if it freezes off. Less hair I have to put in a bun for competitions. I throw some lotion on my legs, face, and arms before walking downstairs again. My wrist is still hurting, so because I'm feeling generous, I open our freezer and grab a frozen pack that straps around your wrist. I strap it around my wrist underneath my sweatshirt and pull the sleeves down over it. I don't need Charlie worrying about my wrist again.

Since it's five minutes till five, I tell my dad I'm leaving and walk over to Charlie's house.

I get to his house and ring the doorbell and a moment later he answers the door with a big smile on his face.

"Hello hedgehog. You look comfy today." He says smile still firmly in place. He gestures for me to come inside and I enter and take my shoes off at the door. Before I've stood all the way up, I'm encompassed in a soft warm sweatshirt with arms and I freeze when I realize that Charlie's hugging me. "I missed you Ollie. You didn't even say hi to me." He says and I realize I hurt his feelings.
"Awww poor baby, somebody doesn't like it when they don't get attention." I answer him sympathetically. I straighten up all the way and start to pat his back. "It's ok. Don't cry over me." I say trying to hold back my laughter. He lets go of me to look in my eyes and when he sees the laughter on my face it makes him scowl even more. "C'mon misery lover, My parents are in the kitchen." he says before walking in the direction of the kitchen.

I enter the kitchen to see them deep in discussion leaning over the counter. They look up at us when we enter and both smile at me. So this is where Charlie gets it.

"Hello Olivia, How was dance?" His mom says while smiling

"Fine. yeah." I say awkwardly with a polite smile on my face.

Charlie thankfully takes the queue and tells his parents we'll be in the theater watching a movie.

He grabs my hand and guides me to the theater room where there's blankets, popcorn, candy, and soda all scattered on a table built into the side of the room.

Charlie guides me to the middle of the room where there are theater seats and already some popcorn and candy and soda by the chairs and blankets on top of them. He sits down and motions for me to do the same, then he brings the armrest up between both chairs. Once we're settled, he grabs the remote on his side and presses a button that dims the lights in the room. Then he presses another button that starts the already paused movie. I start to watch when I realize it's my favorite movie, Monsters inc.

I smile upon realizing that he remembered when I told him this was my favorite movie.

I decide that I'm tired of the space between us about halfway through the movie and snuggle up next to him and get that feeling of home back. I feel myself drifting off and I let it happen because I never sleep better than when I'm with Charlie.

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Charlie Williams

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We're sitting in my movie theater when my Ollie girl starts to drift off on the side of my body. She falls asleep pretty quickly once she remembered where she was and who she was with. Once she's asleep, I take this time to admire her. She has her head on my stomach and she's curled up into a little ball of sweatshirt beside me like a kitty cat. I gently run my hands through her hair combing it away from her face as I do. This makes Ollie move a little bit and she moves her hand from beside her body to my legs. I continue running my hands through her hair once she's settled down again.

I turn my attention back to the movie when a few minutes later something cold starts seeping through my pants. That's weird. I lift Ollie's hand up and the cold starts to heat up again. I gently feel her wrist to see why it's so cold when I realize that this is the hand that she hurt a few days ago. I gently pull up her sleeve and see the cold pack strapped to her wrist.

Three emotions run through me at this moment: Hurt, Frustration, And Sadness.

Hurt because why couldn't she tell me that she was still injured. Frustration because why is she trying to hide this from me. Sadness that she doesn't trust me enough to be able to share her struggles with me. Hurt being the dominating emotion, I gently replace my body with a pillow and walk out before I lash out on her unnecessarily.

I walk into the kitchen where my parents both are and they both look up at me.

"How's it going in there?" my dad asks.

"What do you do if you have someone who's really close to you and you trust them and you think they trust you back but then you find out that they don't trust you and said trust was only one sided." I say trying to keep my voice even

My mom then says, "What's going on Charlie?"

"Exactly what I just said. She doesn't trust me." I answer

"How do you know she doesn't trust you. Did she say she didn't trust you? Or was it in her actions." My dad asks

"Sh-She fell asleep on my lap and she hurt her wrist a few days ago and she said it was fine and I believed her like the hideous fool I am! And it's hurting her! IT'S HURTING HER DAD!" I say feeling tears streaming down my face. Crying from the mental anguish I'm getting knowing she doesn't trust me. I turn around so they can't see the tears on my face but it's a futile effort when both my parents wrap their arms around me a moment later. They hug tight. So tight that it's just what I needed. Sometimes all it takes is one's parent's love and they can feel whole again for a little while. Until that pain consumes them again.

I break away from my parents, needing the air that they're holding out from me. I start pacing the room needing to fend off the restless energy and get a grip on myself. Not once have I ever cried about a girl being hurt. Never. Except my sister. But I don't think that counts.

After a few minutes I've gotten my composure together, I tell them: "I'm going to go talk to her." When they both give me a nod, I walk out of the kitchen to the theater room.

I enter the theater to see Olivia still asleep. I reluctantly go sit beside her and wake her up.

"Olivia, we have to talk." I say when she's woken up enough. I pause the movie and direct all my attention to her.

"Ok?" she says skeptically

"Why didn't you tell me that your wrist was still hurting you." I say, jumping right into it.

She pales a little bit as if she was a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I didn't tell you because I knew you would worry. And I don't need you to worry about me or my wrist."

"I want to worry about you though. You're my GIRLFRIEND. I don't know if that just hasn't settled yet, but you MATTER to me. You're IMPORTANT. I want you to tell me if you're hurting. I want you to tell me if you're sad. Want to know why Olivia? Because I CARE ABOUT YOU. You are such an amazing person I don't know who wouldn't see that. Because I certainly do. I see it every time that you smile or you laugh. I see you everywhere. You consume my every waking thought. And when I'm sleeping, you consume those thoughts too! I don't know why, I don't know what is happening to me. Some might call it love. But I know that I can feel way stronger feelings for you than I am now. You are my world Olivia and I don't want you thinking that you mean nothing to me or that I don't care that you're hurt. Because I do. I care more than you know and more than I care to admit. And you know what? I don't even care about hiding it anymore. Just please communicate with me and let me be here for you. That's all I'm asking."

What happens next shocks me.

I feel tiny hands and a tiny body squeezed next to me. She's trying to make me feel better. I wrap my arms around her small frame and just squeeze. We stay like this for a little bit, none of us daring to move until she braves it and makes the first move that brings us out of our little bubble.

"I'm sorry for not telling you. I just didn't want you to worry so much. It doesn't hurt too much, I was just getting annoyed from the little bit of pain I was getting. I promise next time I'll tell you. I'm sorry." She says with an attempted smile on her face.

"You have to tell me stuff otherwise I go crazy." I answer.

"I will, I promise." she replies

"Do you trust me?" I ask

She gives me a weird look and says, "Yeah, why wouldn't I trust you?"

I shrug saying, "Just wondering."

After that, we unpause our movie and we finish watching what's left of it.

 Ollie securely placed in my embrace.

After we finish the movie, we sit and talk for almost two hours before I have to leave and go back home. When I do finally get home, My parents are both waiting for me with not so happy expressions. Uh oh.

"What's with you and that neighbor kid?" they inquire.

It's bad. He doesn't even have a name anymore. And I forgot to tell them about the latest developments.

"Umm yeah. I forgot to tell you that he's my boyfriend now."

"Yeah we realized that when the neighbors asked us how 'great it was that our kids were together' and all we could do was smile and nod our heads! What the heck Olivia!" My mom says anger pulsing through her features.

I look at the floor guiltily. I probably should have told them. But in all honesty, I forgot and it slipped my mind that they didn't know.

"You are not to hang out with that boy again. Do you hear me? And you're in some serious trouble miss. You're grounded until further notice. You may go to dance and school but that is it. Now go upstairs and go to bed." My father says with the same amount of fury as my mom.

Deciding I don't want to fight and I'm genuinely tired, I obey their requests and go upstairs rubbing my still half injured wrist.