How could she explain to Elliot that dysfunctional wasn't the same as abusive? His relationship with his father had been abusive. Her relationship with her mother had been dysfunctional.
First of all, Serena had genuinely loved her. Resented her, a little, although Olivia understood why; but loved her, too. They had gotten physical with each other a couple of times and then, apologetic, fallen to tears in each other's arms. There were hours between Serena's first drink and the one that got her drunk when they would talk about everything, anything, meaningful things. She had learned to ignore the beer bottles around her as they did. She'd come home to her room having been cleaned, and that night she, in turn, would clean the empty bottles and used tumblers. Their mornings were spent whispering as her mother was often hungover but it never failed. Her mother always whispered an 'I love you'. She remembered the day she'd gone to school with a bruised jaw. Her mother had a black eye. And, that night, after the tears, they laughed because each had the exact same conversation with a friend. Olivia wouldn't let her mother bring men home if she was drunk beyond reason and Serena took Olivia's car away the time she caught her drinking. Serena hadn't been happy for her when she started dating Brayden, but she'd been on the warpath upon finding out he'd hit Olivia. She had broken the nose of a man who threw her mother into the wall. They were both the parent, they were both the child, it was dysfunction, it was good. Olivia didn't look back on her childhood with regret. How could she put this into words he'd understand? She couldn't, but she had to at least try.
"I grew up with beer bottles and hugs, every night." She stated, carefully.
"What every night? The beer bottles or the hugs?"
"Both. And it wasn't abuse." She shrugged.
"Sounds pretty dysfunctional to me."
"It was."
She didn't think she could make him understand. She keeps walking anyway, leaving his mask of confusion for someone else to see. "Liv?"
"My childhood was far from perfect." She held up a hand as he opened his mouth. "It was hard. I knew my mom was never sure how to feel about me. She loved me but she hated what I reminded her of and that's why she drank. So she could forget the hate. All that left was the love. I spent a lot of time cleaning the house. A lot of time picking up beer bottles. We ran out of Aspirin three times a month because of her hangovers." She took a deep breath. "But my mom was always there for me. As a child, I can count on my hands the number of times she failed to comfort me. I can count on one hand the number of times she hurt me, and every one of those times, I hurt her, too. We didn't do parent teacher conferences but she came to my Graduation stone sober, because it was important to me. When her boyfriend broke up with her, I held her. When I got bullied, she sat with me and held my hand. We were responsible for each other. That's not a parent-child relationship. It's not a normal one. But it's the one we had. And it was okay. I grew up too fast, that's for sure. But I also grew up well and loved and safe. Dysfunctional relationships aren't necessarily abusive."
"All abusive relationships are dysfunctional."
"And all rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles." She looked him dead in the eye, a challenge. He looked away first.
