September 1967

Alex Cabot sat in the sand next to her best friend and a transistor radio. It was Labor Day weekend and the two of them were about to start their senior year of high school, so they decided to celebrate by going to the beach. Neither girl had any desire to actually go in the water because they both thought it was dirty and they hated the idea of smelling like ocean water for the rest of the day. Rather, the two of them went to the beach merely to lie on their beach towels and work on their tans, or at least attempt to work on their tans. Alex and her best friend Carol were what their peers liked to call beach bunnies. They were some of the only non-surfing, non-volleyball playing girls on the beach, but they still managed to get their fair share of attention from the boys because staying out of the water and straying from activities enabled them to look flawless as they laid out on their towels.

It wasn't uncommon for Alex and Carol to wear the same bikini in different colors and that day was no different. Alex had decided on wearing a red bikini with a matching red headband and red-framed sunglasses. Her lips and nails were red and even her purse was red. It was Alex's signature color while Carol's was pink. Together, they looked like a Valentine card, but nobody dared tell them that. Alex and Carol were the most popular girls in school and the most popular girls everywhere they went. They were both long-legged blonde bombshells and they knew how to use that to their advantage.

Alex and Carol had boyfriends who were as equally popular as they were. Their boyfriends were great-looking and stars on the football field; the type of guys that every girl at their school daydreamed about, but Alex and Carol had managed to snag them with no hope for their competition. On paper, Alex and her boyfriend Thomas seemed like the perfect, all-American teenage couple, but something didn't feel right for Alex—something she couldn't quite explain. She enjoyed kissing Thomas, but she felt as if she didn't enjoy it as much as he did. When she told Carol this, she responded with, 'boys are supposed to enjoy it more than girls.' Still, Alex had a feeling she didn't even enjoy kissing as much as other girls did. Other girls in her circle of friends were losing their virginity to their boyfriends and Alex still had no desire to go beyond the occasional open-mouthed kiss. She tried to tell herself it was because she was saving herself for the right man, but who was the right man and would he ever come around?

Alex laid on her towel in a daze until she heard her best friend start to sing along with a song that had started playing on her radio.

"Wouldn't you agree, baby you and me got a groovy kind of love."

"Come on, Alex. Sing along with me," Carol insisted. Alex didn't exactly feel like singing along, but she didn't want her best friend knowing she had something on her mind.

"When I'm feeling blue, all I have to do is take a look at you, then I'm not so blue. When I'm in your arms, nothing seems to matter. My whole world could shatter. I—"

The girls' singing was interrupted by a beach ball hitting the sand right next to them. The force that the ball was hit with caused sand to fly at them and stick to their suntan-oiled skin.

"Little help?" Elliot Stabler asked as he looked at Alex and Carol trying to pick little bits of sand from their skin.

"That was rude," Carol said angrily.

"Yeah, watch where you're throwing that next time," Alex added. Instead of throwing the ball back to Elliot, the girls just glared at him as he picked it up himself.

Olivia Benson watched her best friend's encounter with Alex and Carol and she tried her hardest not to laugh.

"Why are they here?" Olivia asked Elliot. "Shouldn't they be in the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard or wherever the preps go during the summer?"

"Maybe they're slummin' it," Elliot responded. "And I thought I was rid of girls like that once I graduated."

"Please don't remind me that you graduated and I have to face the preps without you," Olivia insisted. "It's always the same, Elliot—year after year. Meg and Judy graduated and all it means is that Alex and Carol will be the new homecoming queen and prom queen."

"Maybe it's a good thing I graduated a year before you."

"What makes you say that?" Olivia asked.

"Because without me there, you'll stop being so dependent on me and find yourself a boyfriend," Elliot told her. "When was the last time you went steady with a guy?"

"Never," Olivia said and spiked the ball at him.

"That's my point, Olivia. We were each other's prom date, homecoming date, Sadies date…"

"Okay," Olivia said, frustrated.

"People think we've been going steady for two years now," Elliot pointed out. "It's a good thing my girlfriend goes to another school or else we'd really have some trouble."

Elliot's statement was the end of their conversation and he wouldn't bring it up again if he knew what was good for him. Elliot and Olivia had been best friends since junior high school and, although they spent most of their time together, they had never done so much as kiss each other. The two of them had a lot in common and genuinely enjoyed being with each other regardless of what their peers said about it being impossible for guys and girls to be friends without being attracted to each other.

Olivia loved that Elliot's girlfriend went to another school because that gave her the perfect opportunity to pretend he was her boyfriend when they were at school. Having Elliot around gave her an excuse to turn down the guys who asked her out on dates all the while not having to do anything physical with a guy. Olivia liked guys—or at least she told herself she did. She had kissed a few of them, but she was disappointed when those kisses weren't the way kisses were described in movies or pop songs. She didn't feel herself get weak in the knees—she didn't even feel the desire to kiss them again. The kisses were sloppy and Olivia knew it was only a matter of time before the guys she kissed tried to shove their tongues in her mouth. The moment that happened, Olivia would pull away and insist it was time for her to go home. Olivia knew there was something different about her, but she had no idea what it was or who she could talk to about her feelings. For now, she kept her feelings to herself and lived a lie with Elliot.