I apologize for not updating for a while, I was busy with school and all. Also, this chapter was somewhat difficult for me to write, so I apologize if it's not what you thought it would be. I tried my best.
Cafe Gitane, 1984
The small cafe seems so much more alive now than it did last night. People walk in and out, most of them being teenagers except for the elderly couple sitting at an umbrella table outside. Through the window I can see my daughter diligently working behind the counter, a broad smile gracing her features as she speaks to a customer. I bite down on the inside of my cheek, looking down at my watch, the face reading 1:04. When I look back up, I find myself staring directly into my daughter's eyes, the only thing diving us being a few inches of glass. Her smile visibly falters and she turns to a young man working on the coffee machine, whispering something into his ear before disappearing through a door. My gaze adverts to my feet as I wait for her to approach me and my mind begins racing a mile a minute, conjuring up possible scenarios for the upcoming conversation.
She'll probably just come out here and scream at me, tell me everything I deserve to hear; I'm a pathetic excuse for a human being, I should rot in hell, I-
"Hey."
I jump when I hear her voice, my head jerking upwards to meet her gaze. She holds a coffee out towards me and I accept it, my hands still visibly shaking from the shock of her sudden appearance. We sit down at one of the tables set up outside, both of us remaining completely silent for what seems like an eternity. I want to say something to ease the tension, but my mind seems to have completely stopped functioning. Olivia, on the other hand, seems to know exactly what she wants to say.
"Do you know how much damage you've done?"
Her voice is calm, but the words feel like a scalding knife being thrust into my heart. I do, I know how much pain I've caused her and her mother, I just can't bring myself to admit it to her. Thankfully, she doesn't seem to want me to answer.
"My mother is an alcoholic. She was drunk the other day, when we were talking on the phone and she... She threw a glass at the wall."
Her eyes are trained on the coffee in front of her and I can see the emotion in those dark irises, the pain and the anger and the sadness all swirling together.
"She's never really hurt me, not physically. She only does that when its really bad, but usually she just yells at me... Tells me that I look just like you."
A humorless, almost bitter laugh slips past her lips and she looks up at me, as if to gage how correct her mother's remark is. I do the same, my eyes examining every single detail, even things as trivial as a single freckle. She does not look like me in the slightest. Everything, from skin color to bone structure, is an obvious contrast to my physical characteristics...
Except for those eyes. The eyes staring back at me are an exact replica of my own and it's a strange feeling, almost as if I'm looking into a mirror... Well, if I was a sixteen year old girl.
"She tried to leave me at Madison Square Garden one time, when I was seven, and that... That was fun."
I blink a few times, my focus turning to the grim conversation afoot. Serena tried to intentionally loose her daughter? Now that's... That's cruel.
"I was upset then, of course, but after she told me about you... Something just clicked, you know? For the first time in my life, I understood why. Why she drinks so much, why she's never so much as hugged me, why we never celebrate my birthday... I get it now, that it's because I'm apart of the worst day of her life."
Her gaze is now fully trained on my eyes, her words causing a heaviness to press down against my chest, almost making it hard to breathe despite the fact that we're outside. The sheer power of her words, the intense hurt and fury packed into them is close to being too much to handle. I can see that her hands are tightly gripping the mug in front of her, that her knuckles have turned sheet white and that her fingernails are nearly digging into the ceramic cup caught in her vice grip.
"But now there's so much more I need to understand, like why did you... How could you? How could you inflict that pain on another human being?" She practically hisses at me. Her demeanor seems to have changed dramatically, the once calm and level headed expression she wore at the start of this conversation now having been all but obliterated. The rage is glittering within her deep brown eyes and she is very obviously glaring at me, waiting for the answer that I cannot even begin to give. But, nonetheless, it must be given.
"I was young, when it happened. I didn't know how to control my rage or my... desire... I had to let it all out on someone, so I'd deliver the food from our company to the colleges and... And I'd follow the students that worked there when they went home-" My voice falters subconsciously, as if my vocal cords are as guilt stricken as the rest of my body is. "I-It happened four times, but the feelings never went away. They only got worse after every time, because of the guilt... I guess it just started to become too much."
I can't look her in the eye when I tell her all of this because I know that if I do, the only thing I'll see is repulsion. I don't blame her though, because that's exactly what I've felt towards myself for the past sixteen years.
"I went to a doctor back in sixty nine, when I was at my worst, and he gave me medication for insomnia and depression... Ever since then, I haven't felt the urges. But I still feel the guilt, and god I hate myself every day for what I did but... When I saw you in that paper, I... I couldn't believe that you were real."
My eyes shift from their hold on the mug and turn upwards to stare directly into her's. The stare before me is blank, completely unreadable, and I begin to wonder how long it took her to perfect that look.
"Being angry at the world doesn't excuse what you did." She says quietly, her eyes seeming to search mine as she speaks, "I'm angry at you, for what you did to my mother, to those other women. And yet..." Her voice tappers off and I can see something shift in her eyes, though I'm not quite sure exactly what it is. "I can't find it in myself to hate you. I've thought about this so many times throughout my life, I planned out exactly what I would say if I ever saw you... But you're here and I... For some reason, I can't say those things." She turns her head down for a moment, her slender fingers raking through her long dark hair before she looks at me again. I can tell she's having trouble with speaking to me, that she's practically stumbling over herself trying to figure out what to do.
"I've wanted a dad for so long, ever since Amy Fitzgerald asked me why I didn't have a daddy back in the first grade... I saw the other girls with their parents... they all looked so... Happy... And my mom, she... She was- is- always so miserable... I know she loves me, I do, but god, I'd give anything to have what those kids have." She whispers tearfully, the pain of being neglected and so thoroughly unloved cracking through the blank facade.
"You just wanted a family."
We both fall silent after the words tumble from my mouth, a mutual understanding seeming to pass between us as we continue to look into each other's eyes. I know exactly how she feels, and it hurts to know that she's had to go through so much in her short life. I have to make it up to her, I have to help her.
"That's all I ever wanted when I was a kid, too. My dad was an alcoholic, he'd beat my mother and I senseless whenever he was drunk. She ended up killing herself and... God I was only eleven, and she left me with that son of a bitch... That's why I did what I did, I was so angry and I had to take it out on someone, but once I got my shit together... Every day I live with the pain my parents caused and the guilt of what I did to those women, but I managed to change my life. I don't want you to turn into me, Olivia. I don't want you to have to change your life like I did."
I can see how hesitant she is and it nearly shatters my heart to realize that at such a young age she is unable to trust anyone. But I can only blame myself, if I hadn't raped Serena Benson and brought this girl into the world, she wouldn't have had to suffer, she wouldn't have to know the violence and depravity that exists in this world. No, I can't think like that. This girl, this beautiful young woman, deserves to have a family and to be happy, no matter how awful her beginning turned out to be. However, I have a feeling she doesn't believe that.
"Please. Please just, let me be in your life. Let me be here for you, I'll do anything just... Please."
"Okay."
Once more, this was extremely hard for me to write and I'm honestly not that happy with it, but I needed to get it up so that I could move on to the next part of the story. Again, I apologize if it isn't what you were hoping for.
IMPORTANT A/N: The next chapter will most likely be set a year after this one, for plot line purposes, and I might write it from Olivia's POV.