Nepenthe (Bracing for Love #2)

by Lindsay Paige

  She’s in the fetal position on her bed, holding a pillow to her chest, crying her heart out. The sight of her shoulders shaking, the sharp, quick inhales, and the pure agony in her sobs momentarily stops me. What the hell?

  “Olivia,” I say softly from the door, wondering if she’ll hear me.

  She does, sitting up immediately. Her skin is blotchy, tears steadily rolling down, her hair stuck to the edges of her face while her lips have parted. I close the distance between us and pull her in my arms.

  “What’s wrong?” What could have happened while I was gone to cause this? Then a low hum of rage simmers within me. Who the fuck upset her so much?

  “What’s wrong?” she mocks, confusing the hell out of me as she pushes me away. “You let it take over again, didn’t you?” What? “You can’t do that, Corey!” she yells, shoving my chest before she scrambles off the bed. What is she talking about? Olivia tries to storm out of the room, but I quickly follow her and grab her elbow, which she promptly yanks out of my grasp.

  Olivia swivels to face me. “You can’t give in and let it consume you! You can’t ignore me and shut me out either! I can’t believe you! You even moved your spare key so I couldn’t get in! You’re such a selfish bastard!” she screams at me through her tears. Her eyes are so angry as she shoves me.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?!” she continues. “I’ve been trying to help you and after an argument, you just push me away?! You can’t do that!” Her voice breaks as she pushes me again and again, rattling on without letting me explain. “You can’t give up, Corey! You can’t let it take over!” The tears are relentless down her cheeks, falling onto her shirt. “You can’t give up! You can’t!”

  I’m able to grab her elbows as all the fight leaves her. My chest aches as I wrap her arms around my waist. I don’t know if it’s from her hits or because she’s so upset and sounds terrified. I slide my arms around her and hold her, my shirt soaking up her tears. When her crying slows down, I swallow hard to find my voice.

  “I didn’t let it take over and I didn’t give up, Olivia,” I whisper. I don’t trust myself to speak too loudly because I’m responsible for her breaking down. Something still isn’t right, though. She shouldn’t have…done that…just because I didn’t answer my door or my phone.

  “What?” She tilts her head back to look at me when I don’t loosen my grip for her to pull away. “But you didn’t answer me last night or at all today, and the key wasn’t under the mat.”

  “The key is wherever you left it. I didn’t answer because I wasn’t home and I forgot my phone.” She squints in confusion, so I continue to explain. “Patrick called me because Luce was on her way to the hospital. I had to go see her and when I left, I forgot my phone on my nightstand. Patrick didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t call you and tell you what was going on. I’ve been with Lucy and them the entire time. I didn’t let it take over and I didn’t give up,” I repeat. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

  With the pads of my thumbs, I wipe her tears away. She’s a mess from crying for God knows how long.

  “Is she okay?”

  “Yeah, she had to get her appendix removed. That’s all. She’s a wuss when it comes to doctors, so we all stayed with her.” Her eyes are still watery. “I’m sorry.” I’m not sure how many times I’ll have to say it before she feels better, before I feel better about triggering this.

  “It’s not your fault. I just…” Three tears spill over back-to-back. “I thought,” she tries, but buries her face in my chest, sobs taking over again. Her iron grip ensures I can’t step even an inch away from her. Not that I want to, but God, what happened?

  Does this have to do with Aaron? Or whoever it is? It has to be.

  “Olivia,” I begin as gently as possible. “You need to talk to me. I was only gone for—” I try to calculate how long it’s been.

  “At least eleven hours and forty-five minutes,” she mumbles against my chest. That means she tried to either text or come over around four in the morning because she’s short two hours.

  “C’mon.” I tug her over to the bed, leaning against the headboard as she crawls in next to me, wrapping her arms tightly around me. With a deep breath, I ask, “Does this have to do with Aaron somehow?”

  Her entire body goes still. She holds her breath for almost a minute and when she exhales, it’s shaky. Just like the day I admitted I needed help, I lay my free arm along my leg, palm up. Olivia hesitates before taking it. “How do you know his name?” she finally whispers.

  Oh, man. I have to tell her. “You talk during your nightmares and you say his name.”

  Every one of her muscles tenses next to me. “What do I say?”

  “‘Please, Aaron. Please, don’t do this.’ The first time I heard you, that’s all you said, but this week, you started saying something else afterwards. ‘Corey, not you too. Please.’” A soft gasp leaves her. I could hear her voice in my head as I said it and I hate it. “You always remembered them, didn’t you?” She nods, admitting to lying to me. “Talk to me, Olivia.”

  “I don’t want to.” Her voice is so low and almost childlike.

  “You need to.” I squeeze her hand and with my other, I rub up and down her back.

  She’s quiet for a few minutes. “Can we lie here for a while first? It hasn’t kicked in that you’re here yet.” As a thought hits her, she props herself up and looks at me. “Unless you need to get back to Lucy?”

  “No, the worst is over, and she’s with my brothers and Grant. She’ll be fine.” Olivia settles back into me. “We’ll lie here for a bit, and then you’re talking.”

  “Okay.” She snuggles closer, falling asleep within two minutes.

  My mind is close to exploding. Aaron is a real person, a person Olivia knew who was depressed. Somehow, he fucked her up bad enough that she flat-out panicked and broke down because she couldn’t get hold of me for eleven hours and forty-five minutes. My stomach rolls and heaves as the anxiety takes the reigns. What am I supposed to do when I know? Will I be able to handle whatever it is she’s going to tell me? What if I end up hurting her as badly too?

  That’s not what I want at all. I wouldn’t be able to stand it if I hurt her because of my problems. Doing that would be worse than having to repeat this past year for the rest of my life. This is what her uncle was talking about. He doesn’t want her to get hurt from helping me. Maybe, in the long run, I’m bad for Olivia. I don’t ever want to cause her to react like this again or do even more damage.

  Damn it. What am I supposed to do now?

  I let her sleep because she probably needs it if she’s been crying all day. Plus, it buys me time to prepare myself for whatever story she’s about to tell me. What was she thinking when she couldn’t get hold of me? That restarted the sobs when she tried to say it.

  When she wakes up two hours later, it’s with a start, but she immediately relaxes when she sees me. I run my hand up her back and into her hair at the base of her neck.

  “Do you want some water or anything?” She shakes her head. “Have you eaten today?” She shakes a ‘no’ again. “Let’s eat first then.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I don’t care.” And I don’t, because her ass is eating something. I grab her phone off the nightstand and order us a pizza. “I’m going to get my phone, okay? Just in case one of my siblings texts me about Luce.”

  For a brief moment, her arms tighten around me, but she lets go and nods. I hate leaving her, especially after today. The dash across the hall is quick. There are dozens of texts and missed calls and voicemails from Olivia. The longer it went without a reply, the closer together they were. They stopped about two hours before I got here. Olivia is sitting on the couch when I return. God, she’s still in her pajamas. How did I miss that?

  “Want to race until the pizza gets here?” Maybe that will make her feel better until we talk.

  She nods, so I turn on the game before sitting next to her. We race, but there�
��s no cussing. No taunting. No competitive Olivia. I win every single race, feeling like I lost each time. She’s not herself again and I ruined keeping her back-to-normal last night. I’ve already hurt her so much without realizing it. This is all my fault.

  A knock on the door signals the pizza delivery guy, so I go answer. She turns on One Tree Hill from where we last left off as we start to eat. Well, I eat. Olivia nibbles on one slice.

  Finally, we’ve reached the point of no return. I lay my arm, palm up, on her thigh again and she takes it, interlocking our fingers. Olivia takes a deep breath and shifts to sit sideways, so she can look at me.

  “Aaron is an ex-boyfriend from high school.” At this, her gaze drops to our hands, only peeking up here and there as she continues slowly. “I’d known him for forever and we started dating when we were freshmen. We dated almost four years.” Her breathing is slow and controlled. “I knew he had off days, that’s what he always called it, but I didn’t know what it meant exactly.

  “Sometimes, those days turned into a month, but he always went back to being happy again. He eventually told me during our junior year what was going on. His parents were very observant, so he started seeing psychiatrists and therapists. Aaron was excited at first because he thought things would get better quickly and he would be done with it.”

  She takes two quick breaths. “That didn’t happen. He didn’t like that this was going to be a lifetime issue that he would deal with on and off. So, he stopped going to the appointments and stopped taking his meds, all of which were helping him. He stopped talking to me and,” Olivia pauses, “he shut down. He stopped caring. He gave up.”

  A tear falls down on our hands and I pull her against me. “One day, he called me after not speaking to me for three weeks. He had avoided me at all costs, but then, he called on my way to school. He was upset, talking a mile a minute about how he was tired of it, how he didn’t want to fight for the rest of his life, how he couldn’t do it anymore. Then, he said, ‘I love you, but I’m sorry, Olivia’ and hung up.

  “I didn’t know what he was sorry for. I tried to figure it out all day as I sat in my classes. He was sorry,” her voice catches. “He was sorry because after he hung up, he attempted suicide.” Olivia breaks down, her story on pause as she cries. There’s only one word on loop in my head. Attempted. That must be why Olivia was always worried about me. She thought I might do the same thing.

  Swallowing hard, I ask, “Is that what you thought I did today?”

  “I wasn’t sure because I didn’t know if you would, but I didn’t know he would either. I didn’t know if maybe I was being extra crazy from the nightmares or what. I didn’t know what happened to you and it scared me to death because I don’t want anything to happen to you. Nothing can happen to you, Corey. I wouldn’t be able to handle it.” Her trembling, terrified voice cuts me wide open.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Olivia. Finish telling me.”

  She takes a deep breath. “His mom went home to check on him when she got the call he was absent from school. He tried to overdose on some pills he bought from someone. They were able to save him, thankfully, but after that, his parents sent him off somewhere to start treatment again where he would be watched constantly to prevent another attempt. He wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t see me, wouldn’t listen to the messages I passed on through his parents.

  “I thought maybe I was why then, you know? I tried to help him however I could, but it wasn’t good enough. I was so torn up over it all, I went to a therapist myself for about six months. Every year around the time it happened, the nightmares come back.” She takes a second to recollect herself. “I’m always on the phone, begging him not to do it, but he always does. And then,” Olivia looks up at me. “This time, you were there after him. You were going to do it too and I lost you both.”

  A lone tear glides down her cheek. “I needed to get away from there, so I left for college and started new here. I don’t know whatever happened to him because I never saw him and no one tells me any news they’ve heard around town,” she continues. “I guess that’s the whole story.”

  My worries ease a bit because I’m certain this is one way I won’t hurt her. I can handle her past and do my best to keep from hurting her in other ways.

  I cup her face and kiss her once, softly and briefly before resting my forehead against hers. No clue what I’m supposed to say, so I don’t say anything at all.

  I’M QUIET FOR so long that Olivia says, “Well, aren’t you going to say something?”

  This was something big, and I know that for her to truly believe what I’m about to say, I need to pull my own weight and share something with her. I want to not only make sure she believes me, but show her that I am actually willing to talk to her too without her pushing me first.

  “Olivia, I am not, nor have I ever been, suicidal,” I begin slowly. “That is not something you need to worry about with me, I promise.” My thumb wipes another tear. “Remember I told you my parents are dead?” She nods and I take a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment. “I was ten. My brothers and I were staying with my grandparents. Luce was sick, so she was home with them. We can talk about it more later, but for now, long story short, gang members broke into our house and murdered them while Luce was hiding in the closet.

  “I saw what that did to her, to my brothers, and to my entire family. I know what it did to me. I can’t—” I stop as an ache emerges in my throat. “A death of any kind is so ugly and so hard to deal with. It scares the hell out of me, Olivia. There’s nothing in this world bad enough for me to do that. I’d rather suffer every day than knock on death’s door, and there’s no way I could leave my siblings.” Swallowing hard with my pause, I softly add, “Or you. I couldn’t leave you either.”

  Her eyes carefully watch me before she throws her arms around me. “Promise?” she whispers in my ear.

  “Promise,” I echo. I hold her for a second before deciding I’ll talk some more. I’m on a roll, why stop now? “I’m sorry about last night. I was being an ass, but I just…don’t want all the easy conversations to go back to my hard ones. We don’t need to talk about my problems every day, I don’t want to do that. Sometimes, I want my only concern to be you, making you happy, and playing video games or doing yoga. I ignored this shit for so long while it consumed my life anyway. I don’t want to let that happen when I’m with you. I’ll be open and talk to you as much as I can. You can’t make it our focus, though, or I’m going to keep being an ass because I’m not going to talk about it all the time.”

  That last sentence makes her laugh. “Okay, I understand.” Olivia pulls out of our hug, cuddling against me. “Thanks for talking to me, Corey.”

  “Thank you for talking to me,” I reply. We’re quiet for a few more minutes, watching TV before I ask, “Do you want to go out tonight?”

  “No, let’s just stay here.”

  She eats another slice of pizza a while later. I like kicking back and relaxing with her, especially now that our world is right side up again.

  “You’re going home for spring break, right?”

  “Yeah, during the week, I am. I haven’t decided on three or four days yet. Maybe two. I don’t know,” she sighs. “I’ll figure it out later.”

  This is the perfect time. “Do you want to go with me next weekend? I’ll make it one big date weekend.”

  Olivia lifts her head and looks at me, eyes wide and lips parted. “A date weekend?” she repeats. “You’re asking me out. For a date.” A slow smile begins to form and I chuckle. “I’d love to, Corey.”

  “Good.” I kiss her and then we watch TV until we fall asleep on the couch.

  WE WENT TO the movies on Sunday. Afterwards, I cooked us supper. She stayed with me that night, but has since gone back to her apartment for the most part. I’ve done yoga with her every night after work. Sometimes we play video games, sometimes we watch One Tree Hill. This morning, I’m coming into work early with Hank since I have my therapy appo
intment and an appointment with Dr. Stewart this afternoon.

  Hank is always talking, explaining in detail whatever it is we’re doing. There are a few tasks I’ve mastered and am allowed to do alone, but mostly, I’m his sidekick. His words from our lunch are on repeat. It’s all I can think about. We’re marking measurements when I blurt out what I want to tell him.

  “Olivia told me.”

  He stops and stands upright, so I follow his lead. “It’s around that time, I thought she might. Ben told me she stayed with you all last week.”

  I nod. “She did. She was having nightmares.”

  His shoulders slump as if he was hoping I wouldn’t tell him that. “How was she? Doing better now? That’s one thing she refuses to talk about anymore, but the nightmares weren’t that bad last year, if I remember correctly.”

  Clearing my throat, I say, “Might be because I was in them too. She’s fine now, though. I have my issues, but I just wanted to say that she won’t get hurt like that from me.”

  He eyes me for a moment before nodding his head. “Let’s get back to work.”

  I let myself get lost in the sounds of power tools, boots walking back and forth on the wood floor, and the small talk. It’s one of the best work days ever. I wish my dad could see me now. It’s all I can think about as I walk into Dr. Stewart’s office. Shaking my head, I throw those thoughts away. There’s no need for them.

  “How’s it going, Corey?” he asks as I sit down.

  “Better. Work’s good, Olivia’s good, I’m good.”

  He laughs. “Sounds like everything is all figured out and going as planned, then. Any trouble sleeping?” I shake my head. “Any more-than-normal irritability?”

  This time, I laugh. “Nope.” I must be having a really good day if he can make me laugh.

  He smiles. “You’re feeling good with the meds too? No side effects we should be concerned about? Are they working well enough?”

  “No problems so far. Um,” I stop myself from asking a question that was on the tip of my tongue. “Never mind.”