Takes Its Toll

by Kit Graves

  "No, come on, can't we get to dessert first? You're that eager not to talk about your lady?"

  "Well, not unless you want to tell me about your love life?"

  Outside, a motorcycle growled by. Olivia found herself blushing, and was mad at herself. She didn't have a love life! One intimidating, handsome stranger goes through her booth and she was blushing at street noise and innocent questions? George took it as a hint, though, and plowed forward.

  "Dad... Thom met someone. He seems to be serious about her. Want to have dinner with them while I'm in town?"

  Olivia hesitated. Thomas Everett only lived an hour away, but it usually felt like forever. They spoke on the phone every so often, and tried to have dinner together around birthdays and the holidays. These visits vacillated wildly between healing and horribly depressing.

  Without everyone, it wasn't the same. And dinners at her dad's house alone were similar: too many people were missing from the table. He'd moved into a condo a few years ago, and it was too unfamiliar and too often filled with a fragrant fug of whiskey.

  "A serious girlfriend? I don't know..." She didn't want to meet anyone who took any part of her mom's place, even just the place at Thom's side. But... "of course I'll go, I just. It's hard."

  "Yeah." George reached his hand out again, and Olivia took it. Both of them ignored the burger grease. "Look, I know. I wish a lot of things were different too. But Thom's all we have left."

  Olivia squeezed George's hand hard before letting go. "Okay, fine. Want to come over?"

  When they got back to Olivia's apartment, she could hear noise spilling out into the hall before they even made it in the door. "Sounds like everyone's home," she warned, throwing open the door.

  The front door opened into a carpeted living room, where Olivia's three roommates were currently screeching with laughter. Laurel was holding a box over her head, laughing as their shortest roommate Winnie tried to reach it. Winnie's girlfriend Tiffany was tall enough to grab it, but she seemed to be laughing too hard to help. Laurel and Tiffany looked over when Olivia and George came in, Laurel lowering her arms enough that Winnie was able to snatch the box and dance away.

  "Ha!" Winnie crowed, clutching the package to her chest. "Got it, you bitch." She turned, a triumphant grin still on her face, and waved at the newcomers.

  Olivia rolled her eyes at her friends. Winnie was a fiery little thing, a pre-law student and competitive horseback rider whose dogged nature helped motivate her to keep striving toward justice. It didn't always make her the easiest person, though, as she didn't really have an off button - but Laurel, who’d been playing keepaway, was just as bad, and it was clear that Laurel had been the cause of her anger,

  Tiffany unfolded gracefully from the couch, plucked the forgotten box from the floor, and padded toward Olivia on slippered feet. She was a willowy beauty, a linguistics student who was somehow the perfect balance to her firecracker of a girlfriend. “What’s in the box?” Olivia asked her, while Winnie and Laurel fussed over George.

  "Oh, it's just clothes. Laurie here thinks she has first dibs on every piece of fast fashion that comes through the apartment."

  "I just look better in everything," Laurel agreed, without looking away from George.

  Winnie made an "ugh" sound, but she was smiling. "Oh, Olivia, our tickets came today, too."

  "Great!" Olivia wasn't exactly looking forward to a night out on the town, but Tiffany was friends with a popular DJ, and he'd invited all of her friends. It was rare that they all managed to hang out away from the sofa, what with their school schedules, but this was going to be the biggest event of the year. "Oh, George, when do you leave town? Want to go see a show with us? Tiff can get you a ticket."

  George, it turned out, wanted to go. "It would be fun to have a drink with my sister,” he said, but glanced shyly back at Laurel.

  They'd decided to meet up over the weekend, which was luckily right before George had to return to school. And before then, they'd have dinner with Thom.

  And his new girlfriend.

  Olivia hated being so polite sometimes, but she was never really going to refuse Thom and George both. They were really all she had.

  Chapter 5

  Tomer loomed over her, his eyes hard with rage.

  "You stupid bitch, I told you to be at Sur at 7, and were you?"

  "Tomer, baby," Olivia heard herself pleading, her voice unfamiliar with panic. "I have a class at 6, I told you that. It's midterm week, I told you I couldn't skip it."

  "You stood me up on purpose," he continued, as though she hadn't spoken, "You humiliated me just to be a cunt. You're so selfish. Roland asked where you were, you know. I had to make something up!"

  "You knew where I was, baby, please," she whispered. He didn't acknowledge her: this was always part of it, his denying her voice until she couldn't be sure she was really speaking. She'd thought she'd done well on the midterm, too. She'd been excited to tell him.

  "If you aren't dolled up on my arm at shit like this, what's the fucking point of keeping you around? Keeping you in pretty clothes? God knows you're no good for anything else. I've had better blowjobs from my secretary. Honestly, you should have been in that car accident! Go be with your stupid family, since you're so worthless."

  Tears were streaming down Olivia's face but she didn't remember starting to cry. Tomer always got like this when he was upset, said things she told herself he didn't mean. His family business, Lannister Imports, was a multi-billion dollar importer, and she knew a lot was expected of him in terms of showing up and looking good. She knew it made him frustrated. And this time it felt like her fault. Guilt and panic weighed her down, hurt her heart. Olivia tried to reach out to him, but he shoved her arm away angrily. She curled in on herself further, waiting for his rage to die away.

  Some nights he would rant about his family, his friends, the idiocy of vendors and business partners. She suspected his job was mostly decorative, but it seemed to stress him out, and on these nights she'd listen to his anger until it burnt out. Then he'd apologize, touch her hair, and order some ludicrously expensive meal to be picked up by his driver so they could eat in bed. Sometimes he'd take his anger out there, too, moving her through positions that cramped her legs as they made love. Olivia was always happy to try to soothe him, but that rage inside him sometimes left him incautious to her bruising.

  Tonight didn't seem like one he would work out his anger. He was still raving, pacing, not even looking at Olivia as he spilled his ugly thoughts. She took advantage of his distraction to force herself to stop crying. It wouldn't do to give him something else to be upset about. If he noticed her tears it would only get worse. If he noticed her tears-

  Olivia woke suddenly, covered in a film of sweat. She was too busy most days for thoughts of Tomer to bother her anymore, but she wasn't always so lucky. The memories still found her sometimes, slipping through the cracks in her unconsciousness.

  Being awake in the middle of the night never led to good thoughts for Olivia, so she quietly made herself some lemon tea and dug out her copy of Jane Eyre. Imagining herself into her books had always been a reliable source of comfort for her, and she sank into the familiar pages with relief.

  It didn't work, though. She could hear soft television sounds from Tiff and Winnie's room, like the couple was having a late-night Netflix marathon. If they'd been in the living room she would have joined them. As it was, the low hum of dialogue too faint for understanding just reminded her of how empty her bed was now. After Tomer, she'd felt too unclean to try dating again. Boys in her classes tried to catch her eye now and then, and some were indeed very nice and dateable, but she just hadn't been ready to even consider it. And a purely physical relationship wasn't something she could ever imagine for herself.

  Although she missed that feeling of closeness.

  Olivia curled up in bed, imagining herself into broad, warm arms. In her imagination, the man holding her would never speak to her like Tomer had. In her ima
gination, she felt totally safe. Seen. Loved.

  It was those warm, happy feelings that sank her back into sleep.

  Olivia was writhing, moving, her hips bucking up even as her shoulders pressed down hard into the mattress.

  There were enormous hands on her hips now, pushing them firmly down, long blunt fingers wrapping nearly all the way around her body. A hard mouth was pressed against her; soft lips, insistent tongue. It was into this mouth she was moving, her breath coming in stutter-starts like she couldn't breathe the air.

  It didn't stop her from making noise, though, embarrassing cries that she'd surely never made before. A voice hummed in response, the vibrations moving against her heated skin to delicious effect. There was more friction, too. Stubble? A beard? Only when she shattered against it and was drawn once again into those warming arms, boneless, did she feel them. She was cradled against someone, the cheek of a face she couldn't see resting against against her forehead. When she tipped her head into his embrace, she could feel them on his cheek.

  Scars.

  The next day Olivia found him at her booth again. This time he had exact change, and smiled at her first, as though privately amused by her somehow.

  He should be. Olivia was refusing to think about her dreams from last night. Both of them. She was determined not to let anything show, though.

  "Hello again! How are you doing today?" He'd come at an odd time this time around, it being the middle of the day, and the road behind him was clear until the horizon line. It stretched for a mile past waterfront warehouses before approaching the city center. But behind him it looked like a cinematic backdrop, the way he held himself like an action star.

  "Better now, dove," he rasped.

  "Dove?" She laughed a little before processing the rest of what he'd said. Was he flirting?

  "Yeah, you chirp like one. A pretty little dove perched in the road." He rubbed his hand over his chin. She could see he'd surprised himself by speaking. And he was definitely flirting.

  "Thank you," she all but whispered, suddenly wondering if he could read her mind. Her face felt like it was burning. "It's Olivia, actually."

  "Harlan." They watched each other a moment longer. Olivia meant to ask him about his destination, the weather, any other customer service fallback that she could normally reel through without even paying attention. But the words didn't come.

  "Harlan," she repeated at last, committing it to memory.

  "Olivia," he grinned back at her. She liked how her name sounded, underlaid with his timbre.

  Another car was coming. Olivia flicked her eyes up as she caught its movement, and Harlan turned to look, too. The movement threw the undamaged side of his face into perfect clarity, and this angle nearly made her gasp aloud.

  He gave her a wave and took off, and she had to deal with a short burst of lunch traffic before reflecting on it further. The unblemished side of his face had been... just perfect. For those first time she realized the true extent of the damage from his scars. Without them he was utterly, devastatingly handsome.

  With them he wasn't so bad, either, though.

  So she went back to daydreaming, back to the cheek on her forehead and the big, strong arms. And this time she could imagine his face.

  Chapter 6

  Thom’s condo was on the north side of the city, perched in the hills that surrounded the sprawling Brooksville terrain. Olivia and George drove together, Olivia nervously changing the radio over and over again as George calmly handled the winding roads. He looked like he was in a car commercial: handsome, quiet, dressed in black. Olivia felt fried. Her makeup had worn off after a day at school but there hadn’t been time to do much to save it. It already had her feeling like she was starting off in a defensive mode, although she didn’t know why she felt defensive. Nerves, probably.

  The Everett family had once had a lot of money. The kind of cash that makes five kids seem like a good idea, and that made adopting George a no-brainer instead of a financial hardship. The home Olivia had grown up in, was sprawling and situated on acres of Everett land. She’d had horseback riding lessons, ballet classes, and whatever pretty dresses she took a fancy to. Her parents had never spoiled her outright, instead rewarding all their children for their behavior and successes in school, but it had been comfortable. More than.

  But five funerals were expensive. Even after the insurance, there was the loss of her mom’s income as a consultant. There was the loss of Rob as Thom’s right hand man. There was Thom’s leave of absence, a kind phrase for being forced temporarily out by his partners when his grief and drinking had taken over. For Thom’s best friend and business partner to take issue with someone’s drinking really said it all. Thom had refused to allow that leave to be paid, out of a combination of pride and shame, and he hadn’t gone back to work in any major capacity in all that time. He’d tried and failed once, and the failure had cut him deeply. Thom just hadn’t been ready, hadn’t been healed. Hadn’t been sober.

  He’d had to sell their family home, and seeing him cry for the first time since the accident had ripped Olivia apart. She hadn’t wanted to keep the house, not really; it was too empty now, too huge and sad for her. But it had been home, and they both mourned it. Now Thom was living a comfortable, downgraded life in a two-bedroom condo. His office took up one room, with photos on every wall of the family. His bedroom was the other, a spacious living room looked over the hills, and his kitchen offered every sleek and modern accessory one could want. It always seemed empty, though, and Olivia had come over more than once only to find herself recycling bottles and restocking the fridge with something other than beer.

  When the door opened to George and Olivia this time, the place looked completely different. It looked bright and cozy, everything clean and tidied away. A dish towel had appeared on the stove, and real home-cooked food on the counter. There was a blanket tossed over the couch, a new painting on the wall. A new coat rack, Thom’s anorak and a fuzzy faux fur swing coat on top of it. But that wasn’t what caught her attention.

  Thom Everett stood at the door, a welcoming smile on his face. And his face looked so different. Gone was the gaunt, haunted look that had infected his handsome features for the last few years. He looked healthier, stronger, fuller-cheeked. He filled out his soft checkered shirt again, his hair was clean, and for a moment Olivia was looking up at her Daddy like she was six years old again.

  They hugged hard, Olivia feeling tears pricking at her eyes already. “Dad, you look wonderful!”

  “Thanks, hon.” Thom squeezed her, and at the strength of his hug, Olivia did blink away a tear. He’d been weakened, physically and emotionally, for too long.

  George was next to hug Thom, and Olivia was left looking at the other person who had answered the door. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you -”

  “Eva,” the woman said, smiling warmly. She was a buxom, beautiful woman, sun-tanned and warm-toned. Freckles spattered her face and grey and auburn curls spiraled out from a bun behind her head. She must have been younger than Thom, but she wasn’t close to Olivia’s age either, which Olivia was privately relieved by. “Please, come in!”

  The four chatted as they moved inside. Conversation was light and surprisingly easy - George had apparently kept Thom up to date on his research, and Thom had a lot of specific questions that George was happy to go into detail about. Eva was naturally gifted as a hostess, it turned out, as she was able to join in George and Thom’s back-and-forth without effort between asking Olivia about school, all while setting out the elements for a rich wood board full of charcuterie. She’d pre-sliced the salami and placed pickled olives into a rustic ramekin, and was delighted by Olivia’s questions about the various cheeses. It turned out she had a wicked sense of humor and a deep roster of stories. George, though polite, was clearly shocked to find out she taught burlesque classes downtown. Olivia found herself secretly impressed.

  Olivia had brought a bottle of wine, but Thom waved away a glass when they opened it in
the kitchen. It was a first that delighted her. As they sat and tucked into a meal of Thom-cooked steaks with sides of rosemary potatoes and bacon-wrapped green bean bundles that Eva had made, the discussion began to feel more comfortable. It was downright familial, Eva included. It should have made Olivia happy - and she was happy - but it was hard, too. She excused herself to the restroom after her first glass of wine, taking a few deep breaths over the sink. Everything was great. It just wasn’t the same. And now her dad had Eva, and George would doubtless find someone soon, and they would be three separate families, with Olivia standing alone.

  She fought down the jealousy that rose at the thought. She managed it, but it wasn’t as easy as she would have liked.

  After dinner, George and Eva volunteered to clean up, while Thom invited Olivia onto the patio for a cigar. She’d insisted he include her once as he’d smoked with Rob and George, and she had quickly become his favorite smoking companion. She and George had discovered that it lead to the best talks with their father, something about how it cleared his mind and loosened his words. She mourned for Travis, both gone too young to have that one-on-one time with Thom in a cloud of smoke.

  “I like her, Dad,” she said once he’d puffed a few times and sat back.

  “I’m glad.” Thom fixed her with a long look, and Olivia smiled calmly back so he could see she meant it. He reached over and squeezed her arm. “You don’t have to worry about me anymore, sweetheart. I’m really sorry that you ever had to.”

  Olivia put her hand on his. “It’s okay. I wanted to.”

  Thom shook his head. “You take far too much on. I wish you would stop and smell the roses.”

  Well, we can’t all just opt out of life, she wanted to say, but bit it back. Things were going to be better now. There was no reason to dwell. No reason to fight. Olivia was an expert at biting back her negative thoughts like that. Maybe she did need a break, someone to voice her ugliest thoughts to, a male Eva to make her evenings warm again. But she was doing her best.