The bell had finally gone a few minutes ago. Oliver had been waiting for a chance to speak with Felicity ever since the start of the first lesson, but there wasn't any free period. It was just a week before the exams, so the teachers were all hurrying to meet up with their various schemes of work.
After the incident in the woods the previous day, he had fallen into very deep thoughts and trepidation, that he forgot all about trig study with Felicity, keeping her waiting all by herself in the old library. Today, he figured out she might be upset with him. She could barely even look at him the entire time, and that was unlike her. He really wanted to explain to her what happened.
Oliver was hurriedly scribing away in his notebook, trying to take down the last few lines of note before going to meet Felicity. He quickly looked up now, with a sense of seriousness, quickly scanning the place with his eyes. He hadn't realized until now, that she was no longer in the classroom.
"Not again," Oliver mumbled to himself, as he sprang up from his seat and headed towards the door.
The hallway was unusually scanty today. Oliver was scanning around for Felicity, but she wasn't in sight.
"Where are you, Felicity," he muttered under his breath, as he went.
While Oliver was wondering what place Felicity was likely to be at that moment, he spotted someone likely to know, coming towards him. All he had to do now was ask.
The person coming his way was no other person but Lilah. Oliver was so convinced Lilah would know where to find Felicity because he remembered her saying that they (Lilah and Felicity) were both roommates and very close friends. Plus he had also been an eyewitness to that on several occasions.
Oliver wanted to ask Lilah if she knew where Felicity was, even though he knew doing that might serve as evidence to her, that she was right about Oliver and Felicity being in a relationship.
"Lilah..." Oliver muttered as she reached closer.
"Yay! Oliver! The underdog from the underground!" she screamed out loud as she saw him, grinning from ear to ear.
Oliver glanced around nervously, to see if someone was looking. Hopefully, Lilah's over-jovial character wasn't something new to anyone. They all went about their normal activities, without even flicking a glimpse.
"Hay, are you always gonna keep doing that whenever you see me?" he told her in his lowest voice.
"Sure, I am. It's called doffing one hat to someone who actually deserves it, not to some self-centered snubber who thinks she's the only one that matters, I want you to know how big of a genius you are, Oliver, just own it," Lilah said aloud.
Oliver scoffed at her words, nonchalantly.
"Let me guess, you're only doing this to make Olivia jealous, aren't you?" he asked.
"No I'm not," she grumbled, "all I'm trying to say is..."
"For the one-hundredth time, Lilah, please don't say that again," Oliver said.
"Whoa... would you look at that. 'For the one-hundredth time,' boy I bet you recited that line the whole time. Guess what? I'll stop only if you give me a considerable reason why I should," she said.
"It makes me so uncomfortable," Oliver quickly muttered, "and... and besides, I'm not the only one that represented Melrose. You and Olivia deserve as much praise as you give me, except you prefer depriving yourself of it because of some lame favoritism," Oliver said.
Lilah seemed very speechless now. Oliver gave her an inquiring stare that budged her off her thoughts.
"Alright, I won't say it again," she said.
"That brings us to why you called me," she added.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to ask if you kind of like... knew where Felicity is. There's something I need to tell her, and I can't find her anywhere..."
Oliver paused now, as he noticed the sly smile on her face.
"Wait... What's funny?" muttered Oliver with wide expectant eyes.
Even without her uttering a word, Oliver knew what was amusing her, and that was not funny to him at all.
"Hay, no no no, it is not what you're thinking. I've told you before, we're not dating, I just need to tell her something about class," Oliver said in a lower tone.
They were still talking when all of a sudden, Felicity pass by without even looking or saying a word. She headed into the locker room area.
Oliver's eyes narrowed with dismay as wrinkles of surprise appeared on his forehead. He was so shocked by what he had just witnessed.
Unlike Oliver, Lilah didn't seem surprised at Felicity's sudden change of mood. She stood there, staring down at her shoes with a sober expression.
"She's not in a good mood," Lilah muttered.
"I should go," Oliver said to her, then he went after Felicity.
When he got to the locker room, he quickly spotted Felicity facing, an opened locker, and shuffling through her books. He walked straight towards her and gave the steel locker door a slight knock.
"Lilah, I said I can't talk about it," came a low soft voice.
Oliver realized she didn't know it was him. Her words made him more worried she might be so upset with him, but he knew it was now or never.
"Um... Actually, this isn't Lilah," Oliver muttered, after a brief moment of silence.
The shuffling and clattering sounds from the locker suddenly ceased to sound. After a short while, the steel door slowly creaked to the side, revealing the average frame of Felicity staring straight at him, wide-eyed and mystified.
"Oh... It's you," she muttered with a tense voice.
"Yeah, I, uh, I've been looking for you," Oliver managed.
Her brows wrinkled quizzically.
"You have?" she muttered thoughtfully.
"Oh... right, I'll be there in a minute, I'm just gonna go grab the textbook," she said to him, about to leave.
"Wait, hold on a second," Oliver said to her, his voice slightly edging with urgency.
She stopped, looking more puzzled than ever. Oliver was surprised, as how she behaved wasn't what he expected.
"That wasn't what I wanted to tell you," Oliver said.
As she looked at him now, he found out that her eyes were a bit reddened, he also noticed that the parts of her face just below her eyelids were moistened.
"Your eyes are red," he muttered silently, with a solemn expression.
"They are?" she mumbled, "I think it's because I didn't sleep well last night."
"You were crying," Oliver said, still in his stolid tone.
Felicity quickly looked up at him, with her eyes wide in alarm.
"Me?!"
She quickly dried her face with the sleeves of her shirt.
"You're definitely mistaken, I wasn't crying," she said, forcing a brief laugh.
She took a deep breath.
"So, uh... What's the deal, what were you going to talk about?" she asked him.
Just at that moment, someone nonchalantly walked up to Oliver from out of nowhere.
"Hay, Oliver, we need to talk," she said to him, sounding so serious and direct.
It was Olivia Anderson.
Oliver was surprised and puzzled at the same time. It felt so strange and a little sinister, Olivia of all people walking up to him out of the blues, demanding a talk.
"A talk?" Oliver asked her.
"You heard me clearly, I need to talk to you right now," she said, sounding so insistent and arrogant.
Though he was curious to know what it was she wanted to talk about, he still found it rather rude the way she approached him while he was already in a conversation with someone, casually interrupting the already going conversation, and abruptly demanding an immediate discussion with him, as if Felicity's presence wasn't in any way relevant.
"I don't know if you were aware, but I was actually talking with someone before you came, so maybe we can talk later," Oliver said.
Olivia scoffed at him irritatedly.
"By someone, you mean this ridiculous loser of a girl? You can't be serious," she said nonchalantly.
Oliver's eyes immediately met with those of Felicity. She quickly looked away from him, burying her gaze in the opened locker. With the look on her face, Oliver could tell she wasn't happy at all.
"That was so rude of you," Oliver said to Olivia, meaningly.
"No, I was just being sincerely honest. What I'm about to ask you now is way more important than all she could ever say, Oliver. Think about the humiliation you've already put yourself in, merely standing with her. All eyes are watching, you know," replied Olivia.
Felicity quickly slammed her locker shut. The lock made a snapping sound as she switched the key.
Retrieving the key, Felicity looked up at Oliver.
"She is right, you know. You should listen to her," she told him.
Oliver was totally loss for words as he stared at her soft ingenuous glistening green eyes. At that moment, he wanted to say something, but he just couldn't come up with the right words. He wanted to let her know how sorry he was, but he felt saying something to her at that point might make matters worst, probably make her hit her yield point, causing an outburst of painful sentiments. He struggled so hard to muster even the least of emotions, but he felt nothing else but the cold-blooded emptiness inside, the same dead sensation he had gotten used to longer than he could remember.
Oliver stood there, still in his cold nature. They were times it was advantageous, and he doesn't get to look or feel vulnerable, and other times like now when he regrets his inherent lack of warmth. If only she could perceive his sympathy, or rather, he could be a little warmer, he thought, she'd understand. But he knew she would never understand, and because of this, he hated Olivia the more.
"I should probably get going. You know where to find me," Felicity said to him at last, walking towards the door side.
Oliver looked on with grief as Felicity walked out of the door. Even after she had gone, he still fixed his eyes there. He gazed emptily at the door to prevent further eye contact with Olivia.
"What a shame. Sometimes I feel sorry for her, she's always been a disappointment," Olivia said, with a wicked smirk.
Oliver turned to her furiously.
"You should talk now you have the chance, I'm a little busy, and I'm not in a good mood," Oliver said to her.
"Accept it or not, Oliver Logan, I just did you a favor," Olivia said.
"Anyway, I'll just go straight to the point, since I don't want to be seen standing with you either," she added.
"Make it quick, then," Oliver told her.
Olivia came a little closer to him, slightly tilting her head close to his side.
"I'm gonna ask you a question Oliver Logan, and I need you to tell me the truth. I've been wanting to ask you this question ever since we returned from New York, but I was just trying to wrap my head around it. Something happened that day on stage when you took the last shot. They didn't sense it, but I did, and now you're gonna tell me what really happened," she said in a demanding tone.
Oliver could already suspect the incident she was referring to. It was a surprise to him for her to have detected that something strange happened when he was on stage. He knew it was about the strange man that tried to hypnotize him while he was at the head of the competition. He wasn't going to tell her anything about that, as he knew she wouldn't believe him, and would probably use that as an opportunity to tarnish his self-image.
"Olivia, I think this conversation would have been a little better if I knew what you were talking about. See, I don't know what you're proposing, but I do know one thing; you've got the wrong person," Oliver replied.
She grimaced at his response in disgust.
"You do know I'll be damned to believe your lame lies. You know what I'm talking about, Oliver, I can see it in your eyes. Just quit the act now and answer the question; what happened back there?" she demanded.
Oliver sighed.
"How on earth am I supposed to know what you're talking about? You know what, I'll tell you something I know that happened that day, I got caught up in a little stage fright that almost cost us our victory, that's what happened," explained Oliver.
"Something else happened that day, and you seem so afraid to say it. You saw something in the crowd, didn't you?" Olivia asked him.
Oliver's eyes slightly widened in shock, as he heard what Olivia had just said. This was getting more serious than he thought. So many questions ran through his mind at this point. Somehow she knew he had an encounter with someone while on stage. Could it be she saw the strange man in the crowd too, he thought. He could only hope she never did.