Chapter : 21 Alex

I hate you right now and I swear to God, I'm never speaking to you again. Yes. I've said that before but I really mean that this time. Pure raw embarrassment is oozing out of every pore in my body and you're sitting here next to me in the emergency room at nearly two o'clock in the morning with that god damn smirk on your face.

It's so obvious that this is entirely amusing to you. With that damn smirk, you might as well stand up and give a dramatic interpretation of the events that got us here. That look, the cocky half smile, usually makes me swoon for you, but if you don't knock it off right now I'm going to slap it off your face.

We were having a romantic night in, the first in recent memory. Both of us had begged for the same night to be together, at home. No distractions but each other and our wonderfully soft bed. But this is us and when has a great night with us ever remained uneventful?

We're on the second hour of waiting here for someone to acknowledge our presence. I'm tapping my foot impatiently on the tiled floor, holding ice on my aching face. Our wait's not surprising since this is Manhattan and my obviously broken nose is at the bottom of the list when it comes to major trauma tonight.

You've had plenty of time to cycle through your emotions. First you were concerned, my eyes were tearing and blood was pouring out of my nose. Then on the way here, you drove through your guilt, apologizing so many times that I wanted to kill you for that.

But now?

Now you're totally amused and working on slowly driving me insane. And you're so goddamn proud of yourself. I was worried, for what time I had to even think about this, that you'd beat yourself up forever, but then, I was pretty sure you had managed to get past the guilt when you actually suggested that I write the phrase "traumatic sex injury" on the intake form.

I keep catching you looking at me out of the corner of your eye, and then the smirk gets to almost be a snicker and you look away quickly. At least you're trying not to laugh at me, which I appreciate since I think that would drive me right over the edge of sanity. You tell me it's okay and that you're sure that this isn't really that bad. Sure, my eyes'll probably bruise, but now we have a story to tell our grandchildren. I tell you that if you ever tell anyone about this, especially our grandchildren, I will have you killed, and I know people, I could really do it. You smile at me and tell me that I should consider myself lucky that my sex life is so adventurous.

"Fuck you," I mutter under my breath.

"See, that's how you got yourself into this mess in the first place," you counter.

"Olivia Benson, you shut your mouth."

"Wanna shut it for me?" you ask, wagging your eyebrow at me.

I roll my eyes at you and look away. You're so not sorry. I hear my name and at the same moment we both jump up. "You stay here," I growl at you, knowing that your amusement will lead to the retelling of the gory details of your pelvic bone thrusting into my nose as you screamed my name.

You give me hurt and pleading eyes and tell me you want to be with me. I acquiesce, reluctantly, pleading with you silently in my head to not tell the story. The nurse looks at you questioningly and you smile and say, "Friend."

I sigh. "She's my girlfriend," I correct you, feeling my pulse go faster. What's the point in lying? Not after we tell them how this happened. I feel your hand suddenly on my back and even though I can't see it, I can feel your smile. The nurse, of course, doesn't say a word, but smiles at you as she shows us a small room. She looks at my nose and sees the bruises starting to form. She asks me what happened, and just for a second I hesitate. "It's a long story," I say. My pause, though, is just long enough for you to pipe in with: "She walked into a door." Walked into a door? That's not a long story. Damn.

She's going to think you hit me.

She looks at me suspiciously, but smiles, as she looks at the now crooked line of my nose and tells me that the doctor will be right in. I wait for her to leave and I look at you like you've finally lost it. "I walked into a door? Are you insane?"

"What?" you ask.

"They're going to think you assaulted me."

"They are not." You say, casually.

"Olivia. We walked in here, looking like we were about to kill each other. You tell her I walked into a door? No one walks into doors."

"People do. I mean, what'd you want me to say? Did you want me to tell her the whole story? I'm sure you're not the first one to have this happen, well, the way it happened," you say, your smirk threatening again to get out of control. I pout at you and you rock into me. "We could offer to reenact it for him." You offer.

"Olivia!"

You start to laugh, until you see the doctor stride in the door accompanied by the security guard. The guard looks at you and accesses his risk in asking you to step outside before he actually asks you to go. The doctor, who is approximately 14 years old, starts asking me about whether or not I've ever been abused. And what exactly happened to my nose. I can feel myself blushing a deep crimson as I explain to him quietly just exactly how my nose got like this. He looks just about as embarrassed as I am.

This just can't get worse. It's not possible. It's just not possible.