Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Dick Wolf. C'est la vie.
It's a Wednesday, and it's raining. I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of pretending to be brave. This time, I really have to be.
She keeps her hand on my arm, and if anyone else saw the two of us together, they would think it's a protective gesture, but really it's a possessive one. Her nails dig into my arm, leaving little crescent moons imprinted in my flesh, but I don't dare to pull away.
The umbrella is really big enough for both of us, but she keeps it to herself, at her height. She's shorter than me by a few inches, even though she's two years older. At first, I didn't mind the age difference, but now I wonder if it was a mistake. If maybe things would have been different if I were with someone my own age.
Maybe.
My hair is damp, and I can't wait to get to her house, although I know what comes next, and what I have to do. I've made up my mind that it has to be today. It has to be. I can't let her hurt me anymore. I have to be strong.
How ironic. No boy ever hurt me, but she did. Maybe my mother was right, that it is a sin for us to do what we do, and that's why I must be punished, and I deserve it. So I will be a good girl and stop myself now, go back to the safety I may find in the arms of a boy my own age, although there will be nothing more there. I am me, and nothing can change that on the inside, but on the outside I can protect myself. And God – and my mother – will never know the truth. They will think I was just questioning my identity, as teenage girls do, but now I am normal again, and I'm okay.
It must be this way. It must be.
We reach her house. My heart is pounding as she unlocks the door and lets us in. She makes herself a cup of hot chocolate, but doesn't offer any to me. Which is fine, I suppose, because I'm too keyed up to drink some anyway. Still, it might have been nice.
She glances pointedly at the ground, expecting me to kneel for her as I always have before, but not today. This ends today. It has to. "No," I say, then brace myself for the slap; for speaking out of turn, for saying no; hell, for just being there.
Her face contorts. She reels back and hits me hard, but I'm expecting it, and though it hurts, I still don't get to my knees. I stare right back at her, unflinching. I won't lower myself, not this time, not today. Never again.
She smacks me again, and I blink back the tears in my eyes. I won't let her see me cry.
"You're going to be punished," she says coldly.
No. I already hurt too much. My ribs from where she kicked me this morning. My back from where she belted me the other day. My face where she's just slapped me. My legs, my neck, my breasts, my inner thighs. Everywhere.
"No," I say again, and I stand my ground. The word sounds good on my tongue, a word I haven't used in what seems like an eternity, especially not to her.
This time, I'm ready for the slap, and when her arm extends, I grab it and twist it behind her back. She's stronger than me, but I've surprised her. I've never fought back before.
"We're over," I tell her, and I don't look back.
When I get home that day and tell her, my mother bursts into tears of relief. "You're young," she says. "Only fifteen. You can start a whole new life for yourself. You're not a lesbian. Not my Alexandra."
She kneels beside my bed and pulls me down with her, even though my knees scream with pain. I had to kneel on rice a few days ago, and my knees still hurt, but I can't tell my mother that. I don't want to hear her say, I told you so.
My mother prays for God to forgive me for my sin. Me, I pray for my broken body, and my broken soul.
Fifteen years later
It's been a tough case. Who am I kidding? It's always a tough case. Maybe that's why I do it, to punish myself as she once punished me. Every case I lose cuts through me like the kiss of her whip, and all I can do is try my best. I try to separate the cases from my former self, but I can't. It's too hard, and when I completely detach myself, I lose every case. So I've built up my walls. I am the Ice Princess, and no one sees past the façade.
Except Olivia. God, it would be so easy to fall into her open arms, to tell her all about the pain I still carry with me every second of every day. She's done it so many times, asked me if something was wrong, asked me out for coffee, for lunch, for dinner. Every single time, I've said no, to protect myself. I know she won't hurt me, but I know that it would be too easy to fall back into my old ways, and if I do, she will hurt me. Because it's wrong. The way I feel is so, so wrong, and I will never act on my feelings again. Let it never be said that Alex Cabot doesn't learn from her mistakes.
"Alex."
I jump, then relax when I realize it's just Olivia, standing in the doorway. Just Olivia. That would be minimizing her importance to this team. Who am I kidding? Her importance to me.
She offers me a sheepish smile, and I melt inside. She has the most beautiful smile in the whole world.
No. It's wrong to think this way. I can't, I can't, I can't. I can't.
"Alex?"
I realize she's said something, but I haven't heard. "Sorry?"
I can't deny the feelings I've had for her since day one. I know what I am, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it. That doesn't mean I have to act on it.
She examines me more closely with those huge brown eyes that I've drowned in from the start. "Alex, are you okay?"
I nod. "Fine." But I don't think I'll ever be fine again.
"I know this case has been tough for you. It's been tough for me, too. If you ever need to talk . . ."
"I know." She's said this before, but I never take her up on the offer. I can't.
She sighs. "I asked if you wanted to come out for a drink with us."
I do. God, I do. But I don't, and moreover I can't. "Not tonight, Liv. I have plans."
She quirks an eyebrow, and it takes me a minute before I realize: I've called her Liv. I've never done that before. It's too intimate a gesture.
"Sorry," I say quietly, although whether it's for my refusal or for calling her Liv is anyone's guess.
"Someone to get home to?"
"Stop fishing," I snap, then wince. I shouldn't be taking my own self-loathing out on her. She's just being a friend. She is nothing like that girl who hurt me so many years ago. Even if I'm attracted to her, that doesn't mean she is to me. She's just a normal person who wants to be my friend, whom I can't let in because I've been hurt before by people who pretended to care about me. It's not her; it's me. It's all me. It always was. I was bad, and she had to punish me. I deserved to be punished. And if I go back to my old ways, I still do.
"Alex," Olivia says quietly, pulling me out of my reverie. "Are you sure you're okay?"
No, I don't say. To her, I respond in the affirmative, because this new Alex Cabot, the Ice Princess, always has to be okay.
She has to be.
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