Chapter 9

The drive home felt never ending for Olivia. Her thoughts were jumbled up. How could she be so heart broken when they'd only been together for such a short amount of time? She couldn't help but feel she was to blame for the way she was feeling. Olivia never really trusted people and she found it hard to open up to people. The only person she's ever felt close to in her life was Elliot. And now she'd finally let someone else in, too quickly and they betrayed her.

Olivia was so consumed in her thoughts she didn't realise she was already near the city. The hours driving had flown by and she felt no better. It was already extremely late but she couldn't make herself go home. She took the next exit and headed to Elliot's house. Hoping Elliot or Kathy would be still awake.

The knock on the door snapped both Kathy and Elliot out of their slumber. They were still downstairs, having fallen asleep whilst watching a film. Curious as to who would be knocking on the door at this hour, Elliot wearily made his way to the door. Upon opening the door he was shocked to see his partner and best friend, looking completely and utterly heartbroken. Without a seconds thought he took her in his arms and led the way to the sitting room where Kathy was now awake and waiting to see who was here.

Kathy and Olivia had grown close over the years, she was extremely wary of Olivia for a while. She was convinced Olivia was after Elliot, and that Elliot returned her feelings. Then one day when they were both out on the porch having a drink and the kids were all away for the night she confronted them both. After accusing them both of having an affair the pair looked at each other, then at Kathy and outright laughed in her face. It was then they told Kathy that Olivia was in fact gay, and that she was in no way attracted to Elliot. From that day on Kathy learnt to accept Olivia into the family, and as well as a close relationship Olivia has with their children, her and Kathy formed an extremely close friendship.

"Oh my god Olivia what's wrong?" Kathy was the first to ask her close friend the question as she pulled Olivia to sit next to her on the couch. Through the mumbles of Olivia's voice they got the jest of things before Olivia finally broke down and allowed Kathy to hug her whilst Elliot went to get some drinks and some extra blankets. There was no way they were letting Olivia leave tonight.

The following day Olivia thanked the both Elliot and Kathy, refusing their offers to stay longer and spend some time with the kids when they got back. She drove home and unpacked her stuff. She had more than a few missed calls of Alex, so diverted any future calls from her to voicemail. After showering and eating Olivia picked up her phone which she'd turned on vibrate and noticed she had more than a few voicemails. Not wanting to listen to them knowing they'd probably all be off Alex she put her phone back down on her coffee table. An hour later and she couldn't wait any longer she picked up her phone, placed it on loud speaker and listened to her messages.

"Liv...please, I, I need to, just please can you answer the phone" Olivia could hear the pain in Alex's voice, but she was in no way compelled to ring her back. The following messages were pretty much the same up to the last one where it was just mumbled words from Alex broken up by the sounds of her sobs. Hearing Alex hurting nearly tore at her heart. But then her heart was already broken and Olivia knew the only way to let it heal was to cut some ties. She wouldn't let herself be hurt again.

The train journey home was long, allowing Alex to think over the last week and manly the last week and mainly the last 36 hours. She had been on the train for 5 hours, and all she could think about was how hurt Olivia looked when she saw her with Jessie. She still couldn't understand why she let it happen. A few glasses of wine was not an excuse. She wasn't so drunk that she couldn't comprehend what was going on. She'd spoken to Jessie this afternoon before she left. She'd told her that she had no feeling for her anymore, and that the kiss was just that. A kiss. A reminder of what they had but not of what were to come. A blast from the past that she momentarily got caught up in. Now all she had to do was try and explain to Olivia that it meant nothing, and if anything made her realise how much she was already in love with her. It wasn't going to be easy.

After getting off the train and still not hearing from Olivia, Alex took a cab to Olivia's apartment building. She made her way upstairs; the apartments elevator currently out of order. She struggled with her bags and considered leaving them downstairs in the lobby but there was no doorman in this apartment building. When she made her way to Olivia's door she could hear moving around from inside and knew Olivia was in.

"Liv open up please, we, I need to talk to you, please let me in" From the other side of the door Olivia looked towards the front door from her kitchen, slightly surprised Alex would show up here so soon. But she had no intention of speaking to her now. She heard Alex knock quite a few more times before someone came out from another apartment and told her a baby was sleeping and she was making too much noise. Realising she wasn't going to get anywhere anytime soon she sighed heavily and turned around and made her way to the stairwell again, but not before slipping something under Olivia's door.

Olivia could hear her neighbour complain to Alex, and heard Alex apologise. She could hear something slide under her door before Alex turned around and left. Waiting a good five minutes to make sure Alex was indeed gone, Olivia made her way to the front door. Bending down she saw that the paper was indeed a picture. It was taken at the beach and was of herself, Alex and little Lexi, sitting near the bbq stuffing their faces with a hotdog and laughing. The picture brought a tear to Olivia's eye, and she couldn't help but chuckle a little when she remembered the moment. She walked to her couch and dropped down and put the picture face down next to her. She was about to pick up her probably now cold tea when she noticed writing on the back of the picture.

I fell in love with you this day, please let me explain, I love you and need you, Alex x