I suck at titles, which is why this has a sucky title. I love the character of Olivia Pope. Two weeks ago, I saw something about Olivia resetting her life. Everyone was up-in-arms assuming it was about that creep-eyed character/"actor" who shall remain nameless, but I thought it meant getting back to who Olivia Pope was. I am probably totally wrong. It isn't the first time and it won't be the last.
I've been itching to write something for fierce Olivia and Kerry Washington, so I guess this is it.
It's been a long, hard road, winding and ragged. There were days her body refused to move from her bed, depression slowly squeezing the life out of her. Sunlight burned her eyes. Mocking voices filled her nights, laughing as she cried.
She tried to eat from time to time to maintain strength, but little stayed in her ever-shrinking stomach. She was withering away, her outside racing to match her soulless inside. Such despair, so much pain and when she wanted to give up, when she had no energy to climb the mountains ahead, it was his voice she heard. Soothing and encouraging, having more faith in her than she had in herself. It was necessary. All of it. She was broken and down, but it allowed her to rebuild her foundation - to find herself.
It's been more than 365 days since the last time she saw him. 363 since she boarded the plane to destination unknown. 362 since she began to refill the shell of the woman she'd become. In the wilderness and away from all the noise that filled her life in DC, she found freedom and acceptance; she discovered the real Olivia Pope.
Swept away in the non-stop chaos that surrounded her old life, she lost her grip on her meticulously crafted image. Like a raging tornado, the father, the mother, the man who tore her down, flung her wildly and uncontrollably like a weightless doll; she no longer knew which was up or down. She could not identify good from bad. The white hat, to which she clung, was badly soiled and no matter how hard she struggled to keep it clean, how hard she scrubbed it to the point of sacrificing her only true desire in the quest of purity, it remained a shade of grey. And that is okay. Now.
Her self-imposed exile, which most would perceive as running, was a necessary part of her personal journey. Her whole life, until that point, had been about pleasing others and being someone else's idea of "perfection", to the point where her entire being was about what everyone else wanted and needed her to be. She had to learn to accept her flaws – to seek her own fulfillment. When the blinders were removed and the silence allowed her to hear; after the months of soul searching, of crying and raging, she came to realize she did not love herself.
For someone as formidable as she, the fixer of problems, the savior of careers and people, the admission was devastating. It was her lowest point, and with each attempt at a cohesive explanation, she found herself crafting an equally persuasive counterargument until she realized the arguments were excuses. As cliché as it sounds, it was the first day of the rest of her life. The beginning of her journey toward forgiveness, but she had to go further back, to dig out the diseased roots of the weeds that were strangling her present, threatening to overtake her future.
She didn't fully appreciate the impact her childhood had her on her. It was the words and actions that slowly caused her unraveling. The whispers from, she can say it now, her abusers, that led her down a path that she never thought she'd travel. The constant push to be better than twice as good, to aim higher, to stick with her own because she, a Princeton and Georgetown educated woman, was nothing more than "the help". The words whose weight should have held no power, peeled away at her until she was nothing more than raw, exposed nerves. Words which were reinforced by the man who choked her, lambasted her for her decisions and told her over and over all the things she was doing wrong. They ground her down into a pile of dust, blew on what was left and watched as the scattered pieces of her soul landed on the ground.
She was good, but not good enough. She was only a "fixer", when she could have held more power. She, who walked the White House hallways with fierce independence and enviable outward confidence, was the maid they called when they needed her to clean up their messes.
The worst, the absolute worst part of it all was the physical abuse. As she recalled the abuse of the recent past, she had to travel back into the most remote corners of her mind to access buried memories of her childhood. The time her father yanked her arm out of its socket for playing a wrong note on the piano. The slap across her face for messing around with that "Johnson boy" who was "so far beneath" her. The ice water baths to toughen her up. Sleep deprivation. Hiding of food because she was getting "too plump around the middle". The signs, they were all there, so when she asked herself why she was so willing to accept abuse without fighting back, she traced it right back to its roots: the father. He had been left behind and she would deal with him later, her first priority was the man who flew out of town with her, in search for his own "light".
When his hands first made contact with her, pushing her down on the ground so hard she bounced before banging her head against a nearby table, she excused it. They were, after all, tousling and accidents happen. When he used her as a human shield, she chalked it up to the heat of the moment when actions sometimes occur before the brain has a chance to catch up. Choking her was out of anger because of something she did. Calling her out in front of her friends for using sex to get what she wanted from him was because his feelings were hurt. She turned his behavior inward, accepting responsibility for actions that were entirely his.
But on the plane, as she thought about the man whom she didn't love, whose face she could barely stand and whose whiny voice was a constant, gnawing headache in the back of her head, she acknowledged she was just like the women in the shelters where she volunteered in college. She was Abby, whose sharp tongue, wit and toughness masked a woman who was nearly beaten to death by her husband. She was a survivor of domestic violence.
She turned to him long before they landed and said in a very calm and clear voice, one she did not recognize as her own, "When we land, you'd better run fast and far because you will be hunted down and killed." She watched his face drop, and just as quickly, the corners of his lips turned up.
"Stop joking, Olivia. It's going to be you and me-"
"There is no you and me. And I meant what I said." She returned her attention to her iPad as his eyes remained focused her on her. He unbuckled his seatbelt and moved close. Unsure of what would come next, she flinched and turned her body into herself, making his target as small as she could. Her mind raced and she looked around frantically, for a weapon, for help. Finding just enough space between them to get to the cockpit, she raced past him and knocked on the door. As it opened, she released the breath she'd been holding and plastered a smile on her face. "Do you mind if I sit up here with you?"
After charming small talk and friendly banter, her tone turned all business. She forcefully instructed the pilot to divert the plane to dispose of the other passenger. He protested at first, but she listed all the reasons he should do as she's instructed, the most important of which was her status as Rowan Pope's daughter. She watched the fear cross his face and stay, and when she was sure he was listening, she told him where to land.
She remembered the village from her teenage years when she and her father took "vacations". To some extent they were just that, time for the remaining Popes to get away and bond, but it wasn't until she was much older that she became aware that some of his most destructive business was conducted in the secret caverns beneath their second home.
There was an older man, a caretaker, who maintained their house. As a child she called him Mr. Candy because of his ability to make her favorite treats fall out of her clothing; she has never figured out how he did it. On her last visit, when she was 18, he slipped her his contact information. It was their secret, but his meaning was clear: if she needed anything, anything at all, she was to contact him.
She needed something. She needed Jake gone so she was free of him and other women would not suffer abuse at his hands. So she e-mailed Mr. Candy, and as they approached the hidden landing strip, she saw the older man waving his cane up at her.
She was finally safe and that's something she hadn't felt in a very long time. She exited the cockpit and debarked the plane, with Jake right on her heels asking question after question, none of which she answered. She stopped right in front of the old man and he bent down to embrace her. He whispered, "Is that him?" She nodded subtly in response.
She introduced the two men with a false smile, the one on Mr. Candy's face mirrored her own. She turned then, with a swing of her hair and waved goodbye over her shoulder. Her spine was straighter as she ignored the pleas coming from behind her.
Hours later, she received a two word e-mail from Mr. Candy, "It's handled."
All of that is in her past and now, as she stands in the middle of her new bedroom eyeing her chosen outfit for the day one last time, she can't help smiling as she thinks of how far she's come. She is whole now, but not complete.
She never believed people when they said, "Everything happens for a reason." There were some things that defied all reason, but looking at the woman she's become, the journey was worth it. Everything in her life has led her to him.
If she had not left, there would have been no progress, only the constant cycle of love and loss, painful breakups, incredible lovemaking. She loved, that much is true, but she did not love well. She loved the best way she knew how which was so much less than he deserved; so much less than she wanted to give. She was afraid of letting him see her, of giving too much because he was married and the guilt, the guilt was so heavy. But she couldn't stay away and it became a cruel game with only losers. No one saw her then, not even Olivia. When she looked in the mirror all duct taped together, it was the idea of Olivia Pope, magical and strong, reflected back at her.
Today, it is the authentic Olivia Pope she sees. The woman with strength and vulnerabilities; love to give and open to receiving; intelligence; fierceness; a woman who isn't trying to be all things to all people.
Olivia Pope.
She slips into her new thong. She used to hate them and opted for more modest underwear, but he loved them. Thongs had given them so much naughty pleasure; she blushes just thinking about it. There were times when they were so overcome with desire for one another, he would simply slide them to the side and enter her, enjoying the friction the soft fabric created. The way they moved against each other with their own perfect, frantic rhythm, as though they would be caught at any moment, left her wanting him again and again. She fans herself briefly, the mere thought of their bodies re-connecting already having an affect.
She slowly slides on her hold ups, something he loved doing for her. There were few things more erotic than watching his fingers dance along her skin at an agonizingly slow pace. His lips would follow, kissing her exposed skin right before it disappeared beneath the nylon. Somehow his face always ended up between her thighs, followed by his tongue, darting in and out of his mouth, in and out of her body, sucking, licking, biting until she could no longer form a coherent thought. He could stay down there for hours, but she always pushed him away with what little strength she had left, and playfully admonished him for "making her late". Yet, she never told him to stop; he never would.
It's the little things she's missed most about him. As she fastens her bra, she remembers how many he ripped from her body. The way his hands massaged her breasts, tweaked her nipples. How his breath tickled her neck as he "adjusted" her.
She's chosen red undergarments today. It's his favorite color on her. While the rest of the world saw the buttoned up Olivia Pope, he saw the beautiful, sexy woman who belonged only to him.
She looks at the navy colored suit one last time before pulling the skirt from its hanger. It lands just above her knee with a bit of a side split. It's professional, yet sexy. As she zips it up, she runs her hands along the material, smoothing invisible wrinkles. She stares at herself in the full-length mirror and turns from side to side, tugging at the hem.
It's been too long since she's worn a skirt. In her professional capacity, pantsuits were always preferred. She had to be the toughest in the room and exude a certain amount of confidence and invulnerability, pants set the right tone. Today, she needs to feel confident and feminine.
She takes her time buttoning a light blue and white striped blouse, leaving one button unfastened, then two, then three as she debates how much skin to show; what message should she send?
Her shirts often serve as an additional layer of armor, protecting her from what the day would bring. As she yanks the shirt from her body, she realizes she doesn't need protection from him, because he doesn't hurt her. He loves…loved…her. She sniffles, hoping he loves her still, not prepared if he no longer does.
She quickly wiggles out of the skirt, and heads to her closet filled with her newly purchased, colorful wardrobe. Her eyes scan all of the possibilities, the reds, the blues, the oranges and greens. She is drawn to a particular coral dress. The simple, yet elegant sleeveless, asymmetric, crepe-jersey dress is the perfect choice that shows just enough skin, accentuates her curves while allowing her to show off her newly defined muscles.
As she takes it off the hanger, and looks it over, she realizes there is no other choice. It fits more perfectly than when she first purchased it. In the back of her mind, she knows the affect the color will have. She finishes her look with a pair of nude heels and gold accessories, all purchased by him.
Today, she leaves her curly hair in its natural state, something she rarely does. The world sees her hair straightened and unthreatening, but he loved it when she wore it wild and free for him. He would bury his nose in its softness, inhaling her coconut scent. She looks in the mirror again and this time, she smiles. Her hands trace the edges of her hair as she tucks a few uncontrolled strands behind her ear. She stares at the woman and frowns. Something is missing.
Her eyes dart around her bedroom and land on the bouquet of white peonies on her nightstand. She quickly grabs one, cuts the stem and adds a simple flower to her hair. He will have no choice but to love her again.
She gives herself a final look in the mirror. This is Olivia Pope. Broken down and built back up. Real. She grabs her keys and purse, and heads toward her front door. She stops and places a hand on the door, focusing on her breathing. She fought for herself and won. Now, she has to fight for them. She slowly opens the door. Sans gladiator armor and a strut that is all her own, she is not magical or a fixer or a savior of careers and people, she is just a woman prepared to do battle for her only love.