O2 5/18
Chapter Four:
Charlie had insisted on going with Don to the hospital the next day when he reported for his shift in the morning. Seeing Olivia again had much the same effect on Charlie as it had on Don, only for different reasons.
Olivia had been one of the few friends the brothers had shared in high school and the only one of Don's girlfriends to pay any real attention to Charlie. Being the most advanced students in the school, she and Charlie had almost all their classes in common so she'd come to the house to do homework with Charlie rather than Don, much to Don's annoyance.
Charlie had had a hopeless crush on the much older girl for over a year before Don finally asked her out. Charlie was secretly glad when they started dating, mostly because it meant he'd get to be close to her even if he'd never have a chance to date her himself. Their age difference was too pronounced.
Charlie could never tell Don the real reason he liked Olivia so much. She was brilliant like him, but he had a soft spot for her as the girl who gave him his first kiss. She'd been a junior then and Don was dating some blond cheerleader. Olivia and Charlie had become friends in AP Chemistry and often met in a quiet corner of the library to study together. But that one day... That day was something he'd never tell his brother about.
Now suddenly she was there in front of him, looking as lovely as the last time he'd seen her.
"She looks... exactly the same," Charlie murmured, unable to take his eyes off her.
"Yeah," Don agreed.
Before Don could claim it, Charlie slipped into the chair beside Olivia's bed. He took her hand, causing an irrational pang of jealousy to rise up inside Don. Twenty years later his brother still had a connection to Olivia that he couldn't touch.
Don settled himself into a second chair near the door. "Let me know if you see any signs that she's coming around, okay?"
"Sure," Charlie answered, his voice still a bit far away while he replayed a certain memory in his head.