Chapter 2: Deja Vu
The flashbacks are not as bad as they once were.
They had occurred less and less once she had immersed herself in a world outside the chaos of Manhattan. They had been bearable, in a sense, when she met someone.
He had been a distraction despite the frequent flashbacks when she had first moved here ….because she had still been numb, raw and ashamed then.
That was three years ago.
She'd never be one to tell a survivor that their pain would disappear because of someone in their life, but she'd tell them that it helps some people. Including herself. In the sweet inflection of his voice and the shimmering gleam of hazel eyes, she found something…
Not just something but the answer she hadn't wanted to accept at the time. Freedom from a hold she had on herself but wanted to blame on the blue. It was the Hazel glimmer she had let in, the Hazel gleam just like the one she saw this morning in Dominick's eyes.
But Dominick was merely an illusion. Not him.
She'd been in a haze since she had met him and even the most acquired therapist wouldn't second guess her reasons for it. Her heart was in a different place and she no longer had to feel the constant ebb of emotions that flagged her consciousness after that day.
Her frontal cortex was loosening its grip on the memories of being surrounded by the cold concrete and army of shadows that danced around her as she listened to a nightstick clang against the cages.
Now, it's different. They are so different. Her life and the memories. They're a spastic mixture of her old life and her new one, with newer visions, hurt and memories overwhelming her some days. The old memories still linger and pull at her veins like a tether but she reels in the aftermath of that day.
She overcame the largest obstacle, and now she's surviving, because of the life she's built here.
She might have even said she was thriving here at one point in time. South Dakota.
The fresh air of the new state and one of the only men she had ever let get close had slowly pulled her out of the dark hole she had been trapped in.
Brady, the man who walked into her life the week she moved to South Dakota, had walked into her life then, and in all likelihood, would essentially never leave again.
Only months prior to meeting him, her life had changed. The survival mode her mind had grappled with told her the truth. She had to leave New York City.
She had to leave the place she had lived her entire life, she had to leave that comfort of familiarity, the job... Everything. Everyone.
Taking sexual predators off the streets wasn't what was keeping her together anymore, it was what was putting her into her own personal hell. Because, she hadn't kept the predators away. Away from others, maybe. But from herself?
No. She had failed.
Lowell Harris had taken away her fight, her drive, and her conscience.
And what pissed her off the most is that he took away from her when she had prided on the fact that she could keep him from doing so. He was in jail. He was the one behind bars, no longer able to hurt.
But in her mind, he had won and she hates him for it because in the end she still lost her comfort, familiarity, her partner.
He hadn't even raped her but he had taken so much from her emotionally that she knew; she knew only a few months after it all happened that she had to get away. For how long, she had no idea.
Being trapped in that dark, musty basement with nowhere to go, clung in the back of her every thought.
But, she did make it out and she's beginning to realize that again, especially within the last few weeks, months because she's fallen a bit.
She's digressed and through this new numbness she reminds herself that she made it then, and she can make it now. She's currently standing in front of her foggy bathroom mirror, freshly showered and taking in the woman standing before her.
She looks at her reflection. She is Olivia Benson still. Olivia Benson, the daughter of a drunk. Olivia Benson, the daughter of a literary scholar. Olivia Benson, the Siena Grad. Olivia Benson, the nurturer. Olivia Benson, the woman.
One thing she can't seem to make herself out to be still is Olivia Benson, the Detective. The cop.
That is one of the many precious things she feels was stolen from her and the thought makes her angry again. She sees her lips purse in the reflection staring back, her cheeks become rosier and her eyes slant.
She counts to ten, takes a deep breath and shakes her head. She wipes away the lingering moisture on the surface of the mirror, and forces herself to look away from the person staring back at her.
With Brady, she had told him everything. She had confided in him something she had struggled to do before. She had struggled to come to term with the fact she told someone else before she told …. Him.
After it all had come out of her mouth, it was like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. It was easier to breathe. She had spoken truths that had been inside for years.
His words of encouragement held power and he had been everything she had needed to get back on track, at least by her standards.
And in all of that support, comfort and love that she had been just out of reach of back in New York, she finally realized how much she had changed from the cop, to this woman standing before her.
She still sees Brady standing on the sidewalk leading to her porch…. It had only been her third day in South Dakota, still in the process of moving into her new apartment. He had been driving down her street looking for her house. To Olivia's surprise, the college friend who she'd met up with had sent him over.
Luckily, she had come out of the door, struggling with her mattress just as he was driving by for the third or fourth time, and finally stopped. Her apartment had only been a single story ranch in the heart of town then. She smiles at the simplicity of it all. It had been so easy to accept her friends scheme to introduce them, it had been too easy to move all her things thousands of miles of away, and it had been too easy to let him in.
And that was the hardest part, accepting that she'd done it so easily when she wanted to tighten that tether to Manhattan for safe keeping.
His dark hair, wide smile, beautifully deep voice and tan cowboy hat, had immediately caught her attention. He was built from solid muscle, all six feet of him and she could never forget the way he felt against her palms as she helped him push and pull her belongings into the house.
In all the swirling haze of a life involving Brady, she hadn't had any vivid flashbacks of the prison for a little over two years…. until moments ago. She had been washing her hair when she remembered the prison showers and the bright orange jumpsuit that had been laid out for her. She gasped, dropping her body wash and wash cloth on the floor.
Random pieces of that memory flit through her mind always, and just enough of them linger there to remind her that it was a big stamp in her history, her story.
Looking back to her reflection in the mirror, the mid-morning sun gleams through the white blinds of the small bathroom window, casting bright white and yellow rays across the white walls, with crème rose border around the large bathroom. She pushes a wet strand of dark brown hair from her lips and tightly wraps her green, fluffy towel around her body.
Taking a deep breath, she steps away from the mirror and heads toward her bedroom across the hall. Small puddles of water collect on the hardwood floor as she tiptoes with damp feet across the surface and imagines how the wood has sustained so much in this old house.
Brady hated that the wood floors weren't in prime condition.
It had been his intention to replace the floors after they moved in and always cursed at the water damage each time he saw it because the previous owner had failed to have it fixed after a bad storm one year.
She had never minded it.
As she enters her bedroom, she's still glancing back at the wet footprints when the silence around her is crashed by a distinct clang in the distance.
Oh my God, she whispers to herself.
Bells. Extremely large bells, she realizes. As she remembers that very sound from a handful of years ago, she closes her eyes and envisions a peculiar place. Church bells. Even though she lives a mile from town, through the silence and space of the open landscape around her, the distinct sound travels all the way to her bedroom.
She turns around, still clad in a towel, and sits on the edge of her bed letting the sound stir up a vivid memory of the day she first heard them...
"Hurry, you're getting all wet!" Brady exclaims standing on the sidewalk underneath the large awning set outside the church.
"I'm moving as fast as I can," she laughs as she lightly jogs from her position beside his car toward the awning in front of the church. "I'm beginning to regret trading in boots for these heels," she chides back at him instantly picking up the irony of her own words. She used to run in heels, boots, but heels.
The rain comes down in steady slants and her long, light pink dress clings to her legs as she holds a stack of newspaper over her head as shelter from the downpour.
"I'd have brought an umbrella, but it wasn't supposed to rain today," he offers as a peace offering.
Trying a new approach, she dips her head and rushes toward where he's standing, "This is useless," she laughs, shrugging the soggy paper in front of her. "It's not the rain that gets me, it's the mess I look like now. You could have told me it was okay to dress casual," she jokingly chastises.
"I didn't want to ruin your excitement," he grins.
She drops the paper from above her head and steps under the awning next to him. It'd be hard to not notice that he's soaked too but he stands next to her happy to have her there with him in the rain, on a Sunday morning at a small town church.
It's enough to make her reach for his face, gently caress his cheek before nodding toward the entrance.
She watches as he smiles down at her, and she can feel the wet hair sticking to her face and knowing how she must look. He gently brushes it away with his index finger. She looks up to him as his smile falters a small bit.
"This is going real well," he jokes. "Dates seem to flee after the first time, so maybe this is a sign?" he smiles cheekily.
She narrows her eyes at him and then smiles. "Date? I knew it," she states in small triumph. Her smile for him falters when his eyes become intense.
Clearing his throat he steps closer to her. His movement causes her back to straighten and heart to quicken. "I uh, know this is going to sound …. I don't know… I just really wanted to hang out. But, the rain..." he lifts his shoulders and tilts head.
Looking into his bright, hazel eyes, she turns her head away and smirks at his nervousness.
Turning back toward him, she offers him an out.
"Hang out? We are like forty," she grins. "It's okay, Brady. Church is a good place to start," she offers sincerely. Despite her own reservations with organized religion, she knows her place within and tries to make him feel better. "For the record, you can't control Mother Nature. She's going to do whatever she pleases," she jokes as she squeezes his upper arm.
He nods with a new confidence and as they start to walk up the short sidewalk, the loud clang of the overhead church bell startles them both and stops them in their tracks.
"Uh, guess we're late, huh?" he laughs as they stand and wait for the bell to stop ringing. On the tenth ring, he touches the small her of her back, leading her toward the entrance. The light pressure of his touch sends a shockwave through her and she focuses her eyes forward, but she can feel his eyes on her wet face.
She knows he doesn't realize what's happened. She's remembering. It's as simple a gesture as was the day she remembers the last time someone touched her in such an innocently comforting way.
Except this isn't during a case. It isn't.
A small sad smile transpires as quickly as it fades across her lips and she shakes the memory and image. She turns slightly, grasping his floating hand and he interlocks their fingers before guiding her into the beautifully lit auditorium of the church.
The people are warm and welcoming when the service ends and as the church goers slowly disperse from the auditorium, she still sits quietly next to Brady who has his head bowed next to her.
She imagines he's saying last minute thanks and prayers and it feels familiar and she knows exactly why, but doesn't think too much of it. As he continues to bow, she looks up to the lavishly painted windows high on the walls of the auditorium. The intricately shaped windows and colored panes send speckles of colors across the many surfaces of the room.
The podium where the priest had spoken sits abandoned now on the small stage in front of the many pews. It's all set up very beautifully and religious beliefs or not, she feels safe here and immediately understands why people get married in places like these.
She's not one to believe in fancy, religious oriented ceremonies and her own faith has been shaken in the past, but she has faith in this place.
She looks back at Brady and he sits up straight. He looks over to her and smiles as he arches his back. "You ready, Miss Olivia?"
"Always," she says quietly with a small smile.
"Okay," he nods, then slowly stands, "how about lunch and then I can take you home? That alright?" he asks cautiously.
"That's sounds great. I've always heard that Sundays are the Lord's Day, I wouldn't want to take up too much of your time," she offers.
"Don't worry," he laughs offering her his hand. She takes it and as he leads her outside she is immediately greeted with the magnificent shade of blue in the sky as the noon sun appears from behind the array of gray clouds from the earlier rain.
He helps her into the front seat of his jeep and quickly jumps into the driver's side, pulling out of the church parking lot and into the open dust roads that are now a slush mud and rock.
They had headed off into what had turned out to be the first of many Sundays together.
Her eyes slide open begrudgingly as she remembers a time when it was all so new. Her heart thumps wildly at the memory and she can't help but let go of a tear filled smile. As she unwraps her towel from around her now dry body, she sits naked on her bed and stares ahead at the fading memory.
She slowly stands up and walks over to her white dresser to pull out some fresh clothes for the day. She's not sure why, but she's feeling lace is a must and the thought of it under her clothes sends a surprising flutter of excitement.
The thought quickly floats through her mind as she feels the air surround her bare body, causing gooseflesh to form on her sensitized skin. After opening the top drawer, her hand stops midair when she sees a familiar item resting neatly atop her underclothes inside.
She picks up the silver picture frame and holds it with both hands in front of her chest.
As she looks down at the faces peering at her from behind the glass, she can't help but smile. His arms are wrapped around her shoulders in the photo as she sits between his legs on her front porch. He had his signature cowboy hat on too and her hair is long and wavy but it's the bright smile she's sporting that reminds her of the past.
That picture was taken two years ago, almost a year into their relationship…. and she's been living here for only a few months and the thought that this is the only picture of him on the property is almost more than she can take.
It had been great timing for them to move in together. They'd been with each other essentially the past two years, ever since that day at church.
With that thought, she carefully sits the frame back down on-top of the dresser and reaches into her top drawer to gather her clothing in an immediate need to get dressed.
It's amazing how much can change in such a short period of time, and how memories can be so vivid years later, the good and the bad ones. Yet, she recounts to herself sadly, it's the good ones that never seem to last forever she realizes as she pulls a light summer dress over her head and a lone tear slides down her rosy cheek.
Tbc.