¹ SOME KIND OF DISASTER ─ oliver wood

[ 043 ] but you'll never be the death of me

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
but you'l never be the death of me

CONTENDING WITH RIO was never a good idea, not because it was a fight you wouldn't win, but because Rio had nothing to lose and he made an intemperate living of making your life difficult so much so the cost outweighed the pyrrhic victory. So maybe it wasn't that none of them were trying to reach out to him. That wasn't the case at all. In fact, Rio's absence should've been a relief to Marcus, but in turn it'd achieved the opposite effect. The one time Marcus saw Rio was by complete accident and coincidence, when he was rushing out of the Potions dungeons to get to the library so Quinn could help him with his essay, but as he'd rounded a corner, he'd literally run right into his ex-boyfriend who looked worse for wear and glared at him like he was nothing more than the dirt under his expensive shoes.

"They argued," Sawyer said, flopping onto her back as Oliver drained his water bottle. "But I think in order to argue, they'd have to say more than ten words to each other."

All Rio had said to Marcus yesterday was, "my brother? Really?"

And Marcus didn't have anything to counter with, since he'd been the one to approve the lineup. Callum Alvarez wasn't his first pick, but it was the smartest. He was better than Rio, more committed, and he didn't flake out on practices. Even if he was an entitled brat with no regard for anything or anyone, his contribution to the team couldn't go ignored. Still, Marcus felt the sting of betrayal in Rio's tone like a slap to the face. The Alvarez brothers were a twisted pair, an orchestrated war that saw no end. They weren't like Wyatt and Sawyer, who had someone standing between them that needed to be excised like a tumour in order to repair everything that was broken. Though it began with the father they shared, the damage wasn't a poison in their blood, but a poison coded in their DNA. There was no going back from that.

Oliver hummed, stretching his legs out in front of him, sweat glistening on his face. In the morning, the world came to Sawyer with a jarring clarity that she clung to no matter how much it grazed her nerves with the sandpaper-abrasiveness of a friction burn until it was time for the first dosage of Valium to push her head under the medication-induced haze and numb her to the world. In the morning, her boyfriend was a vision against the dawn sky, gilded by the sun like a personally appointed vessel. Sometimes she wanted to touch him because he might burn her. Today, Oliver didn't kiss her. He'd asked, yes or no, but Sawyer felt his touch burn and couldn't bear a moment longer. She'd told him no, for the first time. And he'd listened, and kept his hands to himself. Today was another one of those days where she felt like a raw, exposed nerve and the world couldn't stop touching her and everything hurt. She'd worn one of her older sweatshirts even though there were holes in the hood and the sleeves were worn thin, the material was softer.

"Can I ask why he's not hanging around you guys anymore?"

Sawyer staked her fingers into the grass. "It's not my place to say, and it's not my business anymore."

Oliver's brows furrowed. After all Sawyer and Rio had been through together, this, coming out of her mouth, didn't sound right. Even Oliver knew it.

"It sounds like he needs help," Oliver said.

"He doesn't want it." Trying to help someone who didn't want help in the first place was a recipe for disaster. No matter how much you tried, they'd still resist. Sometimes they'd resist until they were forced towards the edge of the cliffs of their sanity, and sometimes they'd use that resistance to push themselves off.

Oliver's lips twitched into a frown, but it was gone when Sawyer blinked.

Tired of talking about Rio, Sawyer rolled onto her stomach and peered up at him. "You said you were going to tell me about your dream."