Chapter Three

"Misery"

February 2007 New Jersey

Olivia never thought of herself as a foolish or stupid person, until now. Listening to Jake's ramblings about his daddy's money and his mother's lack of motherly affection but somehow he thinks he was better off without it. It made her realize the dynamic of Fitz and Jake's relationship. Because someone as lacking and oblivious as Jake it raises the question of why Fitz would ever associate with him, and all she's come up with is; pity. Disguised as mutual respect and love of a best friend, but nonetheless, it was a pity.

Another thing she was sure about was Fitz's high capacity to sit and listen to Jake's pointless stories of wasting money and partying with strippers. Strippers and blowing twenty grand in Vegas on your 21st birthday isn't how to start a conversation with the girl you hope to date. And though Olivia is no dating expert it isn't how she would have started the night. But alas it was over and she'd never have to do this again.

Olivia gripped the handle above the car door, practically hanging on for dear life. She sighed in deep relief when she opened her eyes, and they were in one piece, parked in front of the entrance of the dormitory.

"Tonight was fun, I think we should go again tomorrow," Jake says, and the unclicking of his seatbelt is louder than it usually would be because Olivia couldn't fix her lips to say that she hated every second of tonight and would rather drop out of school before going out with him again.

Never in my life. "Yeah, maybe not tomorrow because I have a mock quiz coming up and I want to study as much as I can." Take the hint. Take the hint.

"Oh for Professor dumbass?" A smirk cracks his face and he leans over and kisses Olivia as she's still fastened to the seat with nowhere to run. Eventually Jake moves back to the driver's seat, and as if it wasn't awkward enough, Olivia realizes that her seatbelt is locked. Across the car, Jake is wearing a huge cat grin that unsettles her stomach. She can almost see the sense of victory he has etched on his face. She might be sick.

"Goodnight, Jake." Before Olivia is out of the car she's thinking of excuses that'll last until the end of the year. And as she's walking to the door, she wipes her mouth on her cashmere sleeve. 20 years of being the responsible one, ugh what is wrong with you Olivia?

A gut feeling struck her, getting rid of Jake isn't going to be easy while crushing on his best friend.

Olivia impatiently glanced at the wall clock for the hundredth time within the fifty-one minutes that's passed. Her professor stood at the podium slowly and painfully calling students up to return their graded papers. The ones whose names had been called were dismissed right away but Professor Davis was only just getting through the last names that began with J. Seems like everyone was a Johnson or Jackson of sorts. Her next appointment would be starting soon and if he didn't speed up she would be late. If Olivia valued nothing else she valued punctuality even more so than before.

"Miss Pope." Professor Davis held her paper up with a shaky hand and a smile etched itself across her face.

"Have a nice day, Professor." Usually, Olivia would have posted outside of the lecture hall to read over the professor's notes and final grade. But she had another commitment at the moment. When Olivia arrived at her dorm Kelly was gone as usual so she set up her laptop and began skyping.

"Hello, Olivia," Crystal said, still adjusting her webcam. "It's nice to see you."

"Yeah, sorry about last week, there was a lot going on with school- and there's good news, I haven't had an attack...even after I rode in the car with Jake," Olivia says happily but humbly. "And…I uh…met some new people," tell her about Fitz. Her heart skipped a beat and her face brightened with a smile.

"That's a good thing, so tell me about them or do you want to start somewhere else?"

Olivia recapped the first week including the party and the fight that Fitz and Jake were in. Noting that the second week was just as overwhelming but not too eventful. Crystal had been with Olivia since she was a freshman in community college. Olivia had seen other therapists after the car accident but none of them connected with Olivia the way that Crystal did, she wasn't that many years older than Olivia so sometimes it felt like she was chatting with her bestie. But Crystal is very professional and never lets their sessions veer too much off the path of her client's best interest.

"And then there's Fitz." Olivia tried biting her cheeks to keep the huge smile from spreading across her face but she couldn't hold it.

"This sounds like a good thing, what's he like?"

Olivia slouched a bit in her chair, and her head fell to the side, gazing at a spot on the wall. "He's sweet, funny, protective. He has a goofy side to him but he's serious when it's time to be. And I think he likes me too. He sneaks into my dorm and we play video games and talk." A calmness had come over her words, she seemed truly relaxed.

"It sounds like he's a prince. Have you asked him if he feels the chemistry between you two?"

Olivia sat up straight sighing, "That's the problem he's trying to set me up with his friend, Jake. But I hate him and I literally don't hate anyone but he's a jerk and he's full of himself. And I know Fitz is trying to be a good friend but I don't know how to tell him that I despise his best friend." She knew she sounded a bit dramatic but that's what spilled out when she thought of Jake.

"Is that why you agreed to go on a date with Jake, to keep Fitz close?"

Her eyes rolled down to the left edge of the desk and she started picking at her fingernails. At least she wasn't biting them, Crystal thought because then she would have known that the situation was much worse than she anticipated.

"I'll take your silence as enough of an answer. Olivia, this isn't a good idea. You should tell Jake the truth and express your feelings to Fitz. He might be more receptive and it sounds like he enjoys your company just as much as you enjoy his.

"Okay."

When her session ended Olivia flopped on her bed, she liked the idea of Fitz remaining in her fantasy, it kept her emotions safe and let her be in control for a bit. That's what Olivia thought anyway. Popping up she remembered she had a grade to obsess over.

He's a genius. Olivia stared at her perfect score, not doubting for a minute that she would've got it without Fitz's help. Pulling out her blackberry she started to call him but then Crystal's warning plagued her and as usual, Olivia chose to listen to her. It was an issue Olivia already weighed the pros and cons of but she couldn't find a con in Fitz. He was all pros. Still, she dialed a different number.

"Hey, Abby, are you busy?"

Off-Campus, Fitz's Apartment

"She kissed me last night," Jake said, smiling hard. "Dude, what did you say to her?"

"Could it be that Olivia just likes you? I thought she'd think you were punk after you ran out of the alpha house." Fitz shook his head and laughed in merriment to ruffle Jake's feathers. He went back to the omelet, and Jake was still wearing a sour look of embarrassment.

"You're a bitch you know that." Jake grabbed a box of cereal out of the cabinet and began eating it dry, between stuffing hand fulls in his mouth, he grumbled out "I think she's a virgin though."

Fitz coughed, and as his eyes opened, he brought a fist up to cover his mouth. He almost choked on his eggs but managed to stifle his sudden reaction to his friend's statement with a hasty gulp of water. "Where the fuck did that come from?" A look of disgust spread across his features.

"I don't know the way she kissed me. It seemed like it was the first time she'd done it."

"A kiss. You're a dumbass, you know that." Fitz dumped the omelet in the trash and put his plate in the sink, his appetite gone. "And don't speculate about Olivia's virginity, it's gross and you sound like a pervert."

"If she was a virgin you'd wanna fuck her too," Jake said with a dumbass smirk tugging his mouth. Fitz slapped the box of cereal out his hand and it went flying all over the kitchen floor.

"I have a fiance. I would never cheat on her." Fitz grabbed his bag and coat. "Clean that shit up and then go home, Jake."

Fitz didn't spend time thinking about what Jake said but he did worry if he was setting Olivia and Jake up for failure. Olivia's a nice girl and she's his friend, he didn't want to see her get hurt by anyone, not even his best friend. But he wanted to keep up his end of the deal so Jake wouldn't have any reason to back out of making nice with Mellie.

The campus was booming when got out of his last lecture of the day. His phone had been going off with non-stop messages and calls from his fiance. Surely she had classes to be present for, and homework and tests to study for. Nonetheless, Fitz called her back.

"Baby, where have you been all day?" Was how Mellie greeted him as if they hadn't spent last evening on the phone.

"Class." Fitz says "Missed you babe, but I needed to focus, Dr. Rosen is very particular, then I had three hours of lab. How was your morning?"

"Better now that I get to talk to you. I wanna come down for spring break, I'm sick of New Haven, I was thinking we could get the keys to your dad's beach house, the one in Cape May." Mellie says.

A suggestive grin appeared on his face. Fitz couldn't pass up an opportunity to spend time with his fiance and he also knew that Mellie wasn't going to take no for an answer. So he agreed to call his father and see about getting the keys. His father would likely give them up easily. Gerry always boasted about Fitzgerald being his most responsible son.

Fitz started walking across campus, continuing his conversation with Mellie who shamelessly kept dropping hints about their wedding. He was convinced she would eventually talk him into tying the knot before graduation. "Uh huh," That's when Fitz spotted Olivia across the grass, sitting with a group of boys and a redhead.

"Hey, Mel, can I call you back?"

"What, no I've been waiting all day," Mellie whined into the phone. With a heavy sigh, Fitz walked around the quad listening to Mellie's gossiping. It was a wonder that she was still friends with Sally Langston, after all the shit she talked about her. Not to mention how she ragged on Liz. But Fitz did what any good fiance would do, he listened, and finally, when Mellie was content with her venting she got off the phone, promising to call back later.

Luckily when Fitz circled back to where he had spotted Olivia with her new squad of friends. They were still there, though they had moved to the grass area and were sitting in a circle.

"Hey, Liv." His lips held a faint smile and his eyes twinkled. And Olivia felt something in her tingle.

"Fitz, what are you doing here?" Since Fitz didn't live on campus, after his lectures he would go home or hang out with friends away from campus. So the only time she really saw Fitz was if he came to her dorm or if she called him to play video games. And in trying to take her therapist's advice she was determined to keep him at arm's length, so she hadn't called.

"Late lecture. I'm Fitz, everyone."

"We know," Abby said, snark dripping off her words, she sent Fitz a fake nose-scrunched smile.

"Nice to see you, Abby. Let's go, Liv." Fitz cocked his head in the direction of Langley hall. Abby gave Olivia a confused look that held a hint of mirth when she pushed off the grass bed, dusting off her legs. "She owes me a rematch in Mortal kombat."

Grabbing her shoulders, Fitz puts Olivia in front of himself, walking her away from the group."I'll see you guys later." Olivia called over her shoulder. "Call me Abby."

"Isn't he still dating that one girl?" David spoke up.

"Not 'cat fight girl'. She doesn't even go here anymore." Abby says

But Harrison interjects "She never went here but that Lillian chick had a crush or some shit on Grant and I guess she didn't like that. So she tried to fight her in the dining hall."

The three gaped at each other and Abby and David say in unison "oh"

Olivia didn't owe Fitz a rematch because he practically won every game they ever played together. Corey was the only one she'd ever really beat in that game because her dad used to beat her all the time. Her mother never got the point of the game so she didn't want to play but she liked having that time to bond with her little brother. He was the only sibling she had left.

But she knew Fitz was just saying that to get her away from the crowd, it struck a grin across her face. His hands were still planted on her shoulders when they got to the door of Langley hall. But Olivia's shoulders fell with disappointment when she spied the guard sitting at his post. This was the first time she'd ever seen him and it made her wish that he wasn't here.

"The guard is here today."

"Not a problem, open the door," Fitz said confidently. However she stared back at him with a look of confusion, so he just took her key card and swiped it for her. "Hey, Luis."

Luis waved but turned his head in the other direction, Olivia had an awe moment looking back between Fitz and the guard whose name she was also hearing for the first time.

That mystery was solved, Olivia took her keycard back and they walked to her dorm.

"How do you know the guard?"

"I go to this institute and I pretty much know all the faculty. My father made sure he met everyone so that I was thoroughly introduced to them. It's just the Grant way of doing things." He shrugged, waiting for her to unlock the door.

The second Fitz got into her room he plopped down on the bed and used his palm to prop his head up. Her graded paper was still laying on her bed, Fitz felt it crunch under his body. "Solid one hundred percent. Almost three weeks later but I guess you did have a quiz to study for."

"Shut up." Olivia spat playfully. She took a seat at the head of her bed causing Fitz to raise up.

"I could help you study more. I took most of the courses on your schedule."

No. you're supposed to be staying away from him and he's sitting on your bed. No. Olivia chastised herself, shaking her head, leaning forward to readjust her position. Broadening her shoulders, if she could mimic prey then she could have the courage to turn down his generous offer despite the fact that she wanted nothing more but to spend more time with Fitz.

"You need to focus on your own studies, you'll be graduating soon," Olivia says, and she's proud of herself. But Fitz is unrelenting, he nudges her leg and she just melts under his touch. Her mind fogs up, forgetting why she was fighting this feeling. He could live in her fantasy a little longer. "Okay, but when your midterms come around I'll help you study-not that you need it."

"Deal" Fitz hops off her bed, turns on her gaming console, and hands her a controller. "I'll go easy on you this time." Fitz always played Kenshi and won without fail. He swore Kenshi was a lucky character Olivia said he was lucky because she hadn't fully mastered the game or her characters. She didn't have a lucky character, she always chose girl players and her brother Corey always lost. However, with Fitz, she had to bring her all.

Today Olivia played Jacqui Briggs and won the second match which had Fitz demanding a rematch. And when Olivia gave him his rematch he didn't spare her even a little. By the last round, Fitz had sweat droplets on his forehead and a determined look in his eyes. Olivia was watching him out of her peripheral vision and getting turned on. Her controller slipped out of her grasp and instead of waiting for her to gain control again Fitz completely destroyed her player. When the bold KO flashed across the screen he jumped up howling in victory.

"That was cheating." her arms folded in protest causing him to pause his victory dance.

"Strategy. Did you really think I was gonna let you beat me twice in a row?"

"You only won because my controller kept slipping out of my hand."

"Mine was nice and dry. No slip."

"Well, it's easier for you to grip because you have freakishly large hands." Olivia turned off the console and sat crisscrossed on her bed.

"Are you always this sore-a-loser?" Fitz says "Here put your hand here." He faces his palm out and Olivia smiles, putting her small palm in his large one. Proving her point.

"Like I said you have freakishly large hands." Fitz closes his hand around hers and Olivia's cheeks heated red, and before he realized why, she pulled her hand out of his gentle grasp.

"Guess we know I'm gonna win rock paper scissors," Fitz says

A/N: I absolutely love hearing your thoughts and predictions. So keep writing reviews they're very important to me and helpful as I'm writing and publishing.