The Affection Multiplier - Chapter 215 - Intermission 19: Olivia Hughes wants to be a good person. (Patreon)

It seems that Ms. Miller finally remembered mercy is a thing that exists, because for the third day, most activities have been on the easy side. After all, most students are pooped by now. Two days of running, swimming and jumping are enough to tire anyone out. Even the more sporty types are feeling the weight of the exercise, not to mention the rest of the students.

Today is the last day Olivia and her friends get to share a table with David and the others at dinner. Tomorrow will be all about packing things up and going back home. As they sit around the table and eat, Olivia lets Jessica carry most of the conversation while she observes the rest of the girls.

There really is no getting around to the fact that, if they want to have a shot at something with David, they need to get these girls to accept them first. It’s obvious to Olivia that they’re as important to David as Jessica and Lilian are to her. She has to admit to herself that, while it’s true that she thinks David is a great catch, another big part of why she wants to be with him is because he seems to be the only guy she could trust to take her, Jessica and Lilian together. Something that would normally be unthinkable seems like an extremely appealing idea when he’s concerned.

She lets out a short sigh. Since they can’t just erase everything they did, they have to keep moving forward with the assumption that many people are holding a grudge towards them. In a sense, it’s not so different to her middle school days, only people now have fair reasons to hate her.

She focuses her eyes on Emily Miller. The girl is blunt and forward. She’s one of the few people in school Olivia didn’t want to mess with, mostly because it would’ve been too much trouble and not enough to gain. She wouldn’t have been scared to stand up for herself, no matter what they did.

Her eyes shift to her partner, Megan Grant. The first time Olivia saw Megan in this group she was more than a little surprised. The girl always seemed meek and quiet, letting Emily take the lead in conversations. Apparently all it takes is a group of close friends and she’s a ball of energy and sunshine. But despite that, there was never any worth is messing with her, either. Not only would Emily stand up for her, but she doesn’t have as much influence at school or any special skills they could take advantage of. No, it would’ve been detrimental, actually, since she’s a bit of a school idol being the soccer team’s star player.

This means that the grudge these two have against her is not from anything they did to them personally, but for things they did to the ones around them. Yes, they messed with some of the soccer team members, but nothing big. David was the one that gave them the most profit since it earned them favor with the headmistress and he would do their homework for them.

Olivia then turns to Sophia. This girl knows people from every class and every year. She has a wide network of information, so she probably knows most of what they did, but has never openly shown any hostility towards them. Even that time at the headmistress’ office when that… trial happened, Sophia was all business. Either she doesn’t care much or is really good at hiding it. She’s really the biggest mystery here.

Then… there’s Katherine. Olivia has to grimace internally. They were schoolmates back in high school. Katherine was smart and beautiful. She also had a much more forceful personality back then, to the point they bumped heads a few times. That’s why they made her a target. And she was an easy one. She already had confidence issues, so all Olivia had to do was push a few buttons and she damn near broke the girl. From that point on, she could never stand up to them again. If she looks at it from a certain way, they didn’t do all that much to the redhead. A few rumors, some threats and mean looks, some whisperings to other students while she was within earshot… but it’s clear that she’s the one they probably did the most damage to.

It’s clear that the only reason she can share a table with them is because David is here. He gave her back the confidence they took away. But the issue is… how do they make up for that?

Now that Olivia has stopped thinking of the world as her enemy, she can see that what she did to Katherine is exactly what others did to her. Olivia was abused because she was a threat to the popular girls, and she bullied Katherine because was a threat to her.

She’s drawing a blank. She doubts there’s a way to make up for it at all. After all, Olivia didn’t accept the apologies of her former bullies. Hoping for Katherine to be as forgiving as David is too much to ask. It’s that guy that’s an anomaly.

Oh, that’s right. Olivia subtly turns her eyes to the table where the teachers are eating. It’s easy to forget since they don’t act like it at school, but David is also seeing the nurse, Ms. Fujiwara. She has no idea how that happened, and it makes her a little mad. It’s irrational, yes, but it does. Here she is thinking of ways to get together with him and out of nowhere the nurse already is.

Not to mention there’s…

…No. That’s not an issue. Mostly a gut feeling, but Olivia is good at reading people. It’s what made it easy to know what buttons to push to get people to do what she wanted. If anything, her gut is telling her that she’s one of the few things in their favor.

With dinner done, it’s Olivia’s, Lilian’s and Jessica’s duty to do the dishes. And judging by Katherine’s good mood, Olivia guesses she’s happy about it. Well, every small part counts, she guesses.

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Dammit. The two previous nights were fine. Why is there a stone under her spot in the tent tonight!? Trying to avoid it is making it impossible for Olivia to fall asleep. And it’s not like there’s any more space. This tent fits her, Lilian and Jessica tightly enough as it is. Those two are already sound asleep since this camp has been so exhausting.

She’s moving around in her spot, but when she hears faint whispers and sees the light of a flashlight pass through her tent, she keeps quiet and listens.

“Come on. David’s tent is over there.” She hears a girl whisper between giggles.

She knows that voice. That’s a one of her classmates. And since there’s two other sets of steps with her, she can imagine who they are. They’re a group of very annoying girls, but relatively harmless. They’re the type to say things that make people uncomfortable and pull pranks only they think are funny.

It’s 2:00 am now.

Are they…? Shit.

Her body moves on its own. She puts on her shoes and exits her tents as quickly as she can. If they’re going to peek at David’s tent, there’s a chance they might find him… busy. But the real issue is… what if SHE’s there?

It won’t end simply with people annoyed and angry at a simple prank.

“Olivia…?” She hears Lilian’s groggy voice calling out.

“I’ll be back in a second. Just go back to sleep.” She says.

Not turning back to confirm she did, Olivia grabs her own flashlight and walks pointing it down into the ground to avoid getting noticed. She walks as quickly as she can in the direction of David’s tent. She can’t see it because there’s a huge rock in front of it, but she does see the three girls getting closer.

“What are you doing?” Olivia says with a loud enough voice to scare the shit out of the three girls. But her true objective is a warning. Not to these stupid girls, but to David in his tent.

“O-Olivia!?” One of the girls asks, taken aback but still speaking in hushed tones. “W-What are you doing here.”

“I was going to the toilet and saw you three. What? Are you pulling one of your pranks again?” Olivia asks, standing firmly and with a confident smirk on her face. Their flashlight is pointing to her, so they can see her clearly.

“W-W-We were just…”

“You girls know that watching porn on the internet is more reliable than sneaking around trying to hear something happening in a tent, right?” The panic and embarrassment in their faces is clear. Olivia knows she’s already won this. She just needs to get them out of here. “So? Did you hear anything?”

“N-No. We just got here, so…”

“A shame.” Olivia says, shaking her head in fake disappointment. “Go back to your damned tents! I don’t want to get in trouble just because I happened to run into you here. If you get caught and they call me too I’m gonna be pissed.”

She gives them an icy glare, and that’s more than enough to send them running away. Olivia lets out a tired sigh. They probably didn’t mean anything bad by doing this. They were probably curious to know if the only guy in school really did bring girls to his tent at night.

But…

Olivia walks up to David’s tent with noticeably loud steps. She’s not trying to sneak around. She wants him to know she’s there.

“David? It’s Olivia.” She announces. She can feel her heart pounding for some reason. Her face getting hot. “Just… cough once for yes, twice for no if you don’t want to talk. Did you hear what happened?”

“…Yeah.” His voice comes from inside. It makes her a little happy that he’s talking.

“Look. I don’t know what’s going on in there, but it’s not really my business. The girls went away. I doubt they’ll come back, though. What you do from here is your business. Just…” She swallows. “Be careful.”

As she takes two steps to leave, Olivia stops in place. Without looking back and without thinking her words thoroughly, she speaks.

“Is Ms. Owens in there with you?”

Why!? Why did she blurt that out!? There was no need. She could’ve just chalked this up as a win for herself by doing something good for David but now she just fucked everything up.

The problem is that she knows exactly why she did it. She wanted to let him know that she knows. That she’s known for a long time but still hasn’t said anything. Dammit. The right thing would’ve been to simply keep quiet. But her desperation for his approval made her make a huge mistake.

“It doesn’t matter. Goodnight.” With a hurried step, she goes back to her tent.

God dammit! He’s gonna hate her for this!

When she’s back in the tent, she curls into a ball and tries and fails to fall asleep for several hours. Goddamned stone.