Chapter One
She is the type of person whose instinct, no matter the pain she's feeling, is always to comfort someone in distress. She doesn't see this as a weakness because it isn't, she can look after herself. Only this time, this time, she's struggling to focus on anything other than her own hurt and anger, which runs through her, snatching and clawing at her sides before it climbs into her chest, nestling there; its weight, its blunt impact, affecting her ability to breathe evenly.
Everything. Hurts.
He looks stunned, like a man who grasps wildly for a hand to save him at the moment he loses his footing on the edge of a rooftop, only to realise as he hurtles downwards that he is all on his own, and that he will not be saved. He'd said goodbye to his son. Nothing could break that fall.
He notices her then and asks how much of his message she's heard. She tells him that she heard enough. His response is to let go of a painful sigh that she guesses he's been holding onto since that night she found out about William. His shoulders sag, something they rarely do, and she can tell that he's barely holding it together. She wants so badly reach out to him but she's all too aware of the closed laptop between them and of the decision he just made. Another life altering decision that he has chosen to make without including her. And so she tells him that they need to talk.
"About a number of things, I suspect," he says wearily.
As she moves closer, she's already imaging how much it will hurt her to slide the ring off her finger, but as soon as she's level with the large dining table, she does it.
"Let's start with…" She turns the ring over once in her fingers before placing it on the table. "…I can't do this."
She meets his eye as she explains how for the sake of his son she tabled how she was feeling about everything, but that now, now, she needs space. He whispers her name as a plea, and as much as she wants to try to understand, to forgive and to be the person he knows she is, she can't. She can't be that person for him, for them, anymore. Something has shifted inside her and she can't do anything but protect herself and watch him unravel some more. And so she continues, she tells him that she knows Samantha placed him in an impossible position, but that he was right – he should have told her.
"Marriage is about inclusion. It's about leaning on your partner when things get complicated. I don't think you know how to do that."
It's when he reaches for his next words, when he forces them into his mouth after summoning them from some place she has never been able to touch that she discerns some other emotion once lurking but now starting to take shape in the set of his jaw and the lost look that softens the blue of his eyes. Eyes that now won't meet hers.
"I'm trying."
But she knows this is not enough. How could it be? Not after everything they've been through. And she knows in that moment what he's thinking – if not now, then one day. She knows that when she leaves him that there will be some part of Oliver that will be relieved. He never stopped waiting for the ground to fall away from under him, at least now he could stop anticipating the reason for the inevitable descent and just concentrate on surviving the landing.
"And now you're sending William away. And I understand why, you know that I do, but once again you have left me out of the decision."
As the last of these words leave her lips, the muscles in her left thigh spasm and she can feel a dull ache in her hip. In an instant, pins and needles run down her shin until they reach her left foot, which jerks forwards against the footrest of the wheelchair. She cannot believe what she is seeing and feeling. Fear and joy mingle in her chest and it's too much to feel all at once. He says something, it might have been her name, but she can't concentrate on that – she has to know. She has to try to get up, despite being more afraid than she's been since their limo was shot through with a million bullets. Still looking down, she takes a deep breath and places her hands on the side of the wheelchair and slowly pushes upwards, supporting her weight. She doesn't really believe what she is seeing; instead she trusts the way it feels as her foot makes contact with the floor. She can feel the leather encasing her foot; she can feel the way her toes are thrust forward because of the heel of the boot, and she can feel the pressure exerted on the balls of her foot as she continues to push herself upright. Her right foot feels slightly numb, but as soon as she is standing, the numbness disappears.
"Oh my god." His exclamation dovetails her own and it's then that she looks at him. He looks back up at her, his mouth slightly open in wonder, and she wants nothing more than to reach for him then, to hold him and be held, to share this joy, but she won't do it. This time she breaks eye contact and slowly turns away from him. Touching one of the supporting beams to momentarily steady herself, she slowly and, still disbelievingly, walks to the front door. She doesn't look back because she knows if she does it will give him hope that she doesn't have to spare.
The practised click of the loft door almost covers the sound of the shaky breath she lets out. She has walked maybe ten steps in total and is completely exhausted. The elevator looks so far away. She rests, breathes, and rests some more before moving again. In the end, it's the fear that Oliver will leave the loft to come look for her that motivates her to walk the final few steps and hit the button to call the elevator. It arrives just in time. Stumbling inside, she bursts into tears that start off happy because she can walk again but which quickly turn angry and painfully desperate.
Because of course it was about the lie. Not his son. It was the months of being so close to him that she felt him everywhere she went. It was the broad, open smile that lit his eyes and softened his all-too present frown when she told him about her day overseeing Palmer Tech. It was the slow-kissing mornings and the urgent wonderful nights. It was the ring that felt at home on her finger. It was the way he carried her to bed. It was his patience. It was his belief in her. It was the way he delighted in discovering any new tiny thing about her. It was the way he marvelled at all the ways she loved him.
It was them. It was working. It was.
But now it was all about the LIE and what it signified. This poisonous thing that tore through what they shared, because if he couldn't share this truth with her then, despite everything, he didn't trust her. He wouldn't or couldn't lean on her when he needed her the most and knowing that was what convinced her that she needed to put space between them. He had seen her at her lowest. She hadn't hidden what she had become after the shooting. And when her father blew into town, only to disappoint her all over again, she had shared her pain with Oliver. He had seen her raw, vulnerable and bewildered, but he was not prepared to let her see him the same way.
Taking in a steadying breath as the elevator comes to a stop, she mentally tries to prepare herself for the walk across the lobby to the large glass entranceway. She makes it outside of the apartment building in twenty-three slow steps but finds that the street is full of people all moving much quicker than her and so she flattens herself against the wall and reaches inside her coat pocket for her ever-present cell phone, to call for a ride - traversing the lobby was one thing, walking ten blocks over to Palmer Tech is quite another. As her fingers close around the slim rectangle in her pocket, she pauses for a moment and tilts her face toward the late afternoon sun and, despite her whole body aching with the effort of simply standing again, the light and warmth energise her. She needs this. She needs to feel warm inside and out. She needs the light. She needs to be some place else.
~O~
He understands pain. He understands helplessness. He knows what these two things combined feel like. But as he sits at the table in their home, alone, he knows what sounds in his head and his heart is something worse. It is desperation, and he knows it will be endless. He won't move or maybe it's that he can't and so he continues to stare at the closed door; tears falling steadily now, hands fisted so hard that the resulting tension shoots needles of pain into his elbows, and desperation fills him up. He doesn't want to survive her; because he knows what will be left of him after won't be worth holding onto.
There had been no point reaching for her while she was still within touching distance, but still, his fingers ached all the same. There was no point rehashing the ashamedly few words that fell from his lips and wondering if he ought to have chosen better ones. Just as there was no point looking for where he'd gone wrong because he knew. The lie. The lie he'd told months ago and clung to even though all he wanted to do was rid himself of its burden. The lie was how he broke her heart and put tears in her eyes. The lie was how he lost her.
As the minutes then hours tick by, his thoughts, as they so often do, turn to Lian Yu. He wishes he were there, miles and miles from another living soul. He understands that kind of alone. This is something new. Something else. He looks away from the door at all the empty space she has left behind. Everything looks wrong. Everything looks too bright. He finally gets up from the chair, his lower back and the muscles in his legs protesting at this new shape he's formed, and walks over to the wall of glass that affords a million-dollar view of Star City. He looks at the buildings opposite and those that occupy the distance and imagines all the people inside. How is he going to do this without her? Catching a glimpse of his reflection in the glass, he immediately spins back around and makes for the door. He pulls on the handle so hard that the aluminium doorframe groans. Kicking the door shut behind him, he runs for the stairs and races down the twenty flights, desperate to feel the night on his skin and desperate for the darkness, so he can hide.
Thanks to ProfJMarie for her beta help. And thanks for reading.
