Avoiding Oliver is like being a peasant in the middle ages—one who thought prayers absolved shit-carried diseases—avoiding premature death. It just doesn't happen.
'Sammy!'
I raise my eyes up to find Yasmin, bringing along her newest boytoy around. My name's not Sammy, but Samara. Yasmin loves nicknames and she's the only person in the world I let call me that, though it's only been two short months.
Our friend group planned to go out some days ago, and Oliver decided, for an ill-timed once, that we've been good enough for him to come along. I much prefer to stay in and considered telling them I had contracted a vicious illness.
Had I not suspected Yasmin to bring me medicine and tend to me the entire time, just to have me admit I was lying, I would've. Which brings me to the city's biggest park, St. Orwell's Park.
'Yaz.' She throws her arms around me in a hug and I wrap my arms around her. As soon as she springs off, she's assessing me, as I assess her. 'Look at you, gorgeous.'
Yaz doesn't work out, but she might as well be a bodybuilder with how she hefts my mood high over her head. I almost forget it all, seeing her.
'You're the beauty.'
'Says you. Babe, which modelling agencies battled for you yesterday?' She holds my hands and swing them.
'Lady, what runway did you strut yesterday?' I ask her.
She grins and her cheeks push up. Her smile stuns me. When I say she's a model, I mean in the sense I almost want to shirk away from her and run when I see her coming, just so I don't get in her sparkling, stunning way. Nobody should break her sparkling, stunning path.
I won't stand for it if she spends time with Oliver alone. She won't spend time with him. That's the major reason I came: on the off chance I stayed back and she didn't come over.
'No, but seriously, I think you look cuter everytime I see you,' says Yaz.
'So, I wasn't cute last time?'
'Babe, I can't help that your beauty keeps growing.'
Her latest boyfriend stands behind her, shifting from foot to foot. Poor thing. He's third wheeling.
'You're such a sweet talker.'
She tucks my hair behind my ear and taps a finger on the tip of my nose. 'Only for you, Sammy.'
'I love you,' I say, and I mean it.
'I love you more.'
'We understand, you two. You're both infatuated.'
That's Derek, with his other guy friends coming behind us. Derek came from Birmingham in England and his British accent's soon copied by Yaz. 'Your arse's just jealous of me and Sammy's love.'
I grin. Yaz's new boy does not. Derek tries not to sound as British and says, 'Shut up,' without much luck of erasing his accent.
Derek's other guy friends, Freddy and Avery, take interest in Yaz's new meat. That sounded better in my head and less, well, whatever. Freddy reaches to dap him up, while Avery stands back, squints his eyes, and says, 'Who is he?'
Once upon a time, Avery used to date Yaz. Nobody talks about it now. During the breakup, me and Yaz had a phase where we called him Avenue instead. Recently, I feel he might revert back. I should conjure an awful nickname for Oliver too while I'm at it, but nothing might be enough.
'Yaz's boyfriend,' me and him say together. Except he calls Yaz Minnie. Yaz looks at me and her eyes beg me to say nothing. Later, I'll ask where she found him, after I warn her about Oliver.
I should've, earlier, but each text I tried sounded like crazy person talk. Yaz is friends with Oliver anyway. Enough for me to revise it over and over and hit my head at the unsent message before I deleted it all over again. I had to say it in person.
Avery stares at Yaz's new boytoy then daps him, too. 'Hey, man.'
'Hey.'
Yaz asks, 'Where's Oliver?'
My mood drips away at once and I intake a breath. Yaz is not helping anymore.
'Fashionably late as always,' says Derek.
'The bugger,' says Yaz. Derek throws her a scathing glance.
I do a great job at compartmentalizing, storing my feelings in boxes for later review. Seeing a man die, however, doesn't fit in any of my boxes. It bursts out like an elephant in a bird cage when I hear his name.
'He's probably not coming,' I say, 'we might as well just go without him.'
'No. He said he'd be here,' says Avery.
'So?' I glare at Avery. 'He's late.'
'No, he isn't,' says Yaz's boytoy, and I struggle to comprehend why he's siding with his girlfriend's ex. 'It's not one yet.'
'He's not coming,' I repeat. 'We should go.'
Yaz sends me an odd look. I know she'd never, but I hear her juggling the word nutcase in her head. Like the workers at the store, eyes glued to me like a maggot and honey mix as I collapse from my own dread. I gaze down at my shifting feet.
'Oliver's always late,' I say, 'we might as well go without him. Remember last time we waited on him?'
'When that grown man called Derek a bitch because we had to find our seat at the movies late?' Yaz says.
Derek groans and even that sounds British. 'Can we not?'
Yaz strains not to bite back in a British accent, but I hold both her hands again, and repeat, 'He's not coming. We should go.'
'Come on, it's not even one yet,' says Avery. He looks around the park, the stone steps behind us, and the ones ahead, along with the sprinkling of trees. For a park, the place looks manufactured, funding from the tax distribution laws concerning places built by an Ivy league.
Oliver's family could buy the entire park without blinking. He could buy the law. 'And you think he'd show anyway?'
Avery hesitates. His eyes track above my head. I don't follow his gaze in time, not until Yaz laughs.
'I'm actually on time, Samara.'
I jump. He spawned behind me.
Oliver's voice reminds me of the strange expectation you hold of water at noon, only to dip your toes into it and find not a chilly bite, but a warm, outwards ripple. Inviting, kind, and welcoming you in. I forgot his voice, somehow. Expecting it to sound deadly, but killers never sound like killers.
'Told you he'd be here,' says Avery.
Shut up, Avenue.
When I see Oliver, I picture a gun in his hand, the barrel on me. I scan his pockets. No guns lumping in his pants. I don't know why I thought he'd bring it to the outing. That's dumb. I lift my gaze and meet his hazel eyes with a boy-next-door smile worthy of posters and lottery cereal commercials.
I wonder if he spotted me those three days ago. If he plans to snatch me aside when nobody notices and tie up his loose string.
Run and hide, my head tells me. Don't make eye contact. He'll know. Run now. You idiot. Nobody comes to any outing with a murderer. A gunned, pyschotic killer who smiles three days after lobbing a bullet into a man.
My feet don't budge, neither do my lips, or my tongue. The three guys river around me to congratulate him for arriving. Avery grabs of Oliver's arm as Freddy throws his round Oliver's shoulders.
'You made it for once in your life, man,' says Freddy. 'How's it feel leaving your house? Touching the grass?'
'Oh, cut it out,' says Derek, 'else you'll scare him back into hiding again and we won't see him till next semester.'
Oliver laughs. I break out of my stupor when I spot Yaz heading for him. No way. In any horror movie scenario that plays out, me and Yaz have already agreed we must reach the endgame phase together. She's not marching to her death. Oliver kills.
He'll kill her.
I snatch her wrist and drag her to my side. She throws me another maggot-honey kind of glance and it hurts. I'm not crazy, just trust me, I want to tell her, but my tongue weighs like a stone on my mouth. Even her boytoy stares at me, and before I scream hell on him, he passes us for Oliver.
'Sammy, you alright?' Yaz asks me, and she slides her hand to hold mine properly. Her touch restores me.
'Perfect.' I'm shaking.
'Are you really feeling well?'
'I'm good.' Her face changes and I realize I rose my voice. 'I'm good,' I say, softer.
Yaz looks at me some seconds longer but doesn't press. She always knows when to stop. Too soon, the guys return, all five of them, with two of us. There is not enough space between Oliver and I. I could be at home, and there would still not be enough space.
Avery compares Freddy's dreads with his hippie curls, while Derek pairs Yaz's boytoy and Oliver into conversation. I wish Derek wouldn't try and integrate him so fast, but it's what he's best at.
Derek could succeed as a therapist for the moon and the sun, reconcile them, then doom us with solar eclipses and those hideous shades forever. But no one would hate him for it, either.
I met him after Yaz, and he united us all. Of course, more of us exist—most popular college friend groups lack limits—so I can't count our true friend group with my hands. Or feet.
Oliver still holds more influence over them, though, and befriended Derek before I even knew him as anything other than that British kid. Unlike Oliver, thugh, Derek wouldn't spout deciet.
Actually, how could I tell?
Derek could be in on it. Avery, too.
Other people in school could know. All of Oliver's friends could know.
He's a killer. A cold-blooded killer.
Not my Yaz, though.
I slip my fingers through hers. My Yaz squeezes back. I can't imagine her soft hands wielding a gun and blowing a man's life out from between his eyes. No. Instead, she grounds me and colour returns to my world again. I sink back into sensation enough to comprehend the conversation floating around me. As we head inside the park, her hand brings me along, swinging, and I divert us to the side that's Oliver-free.
Throughout the outing, I stay by her side. It doesn't matter her lame boytoy wants to talk to her. Each time, I cling, and he retires back to the guys. I almost hope he stays by Oliver, so he'd leave us alone—potentially forever.
Yazmin will understand, though. I'm going to warn her, save her, and she'll never talk to Oliver again. We'll migrate social circles. She'll understand.