A/N: Hey everyone! Thanks for sticking with me and with this story. I know it has taken ridiculously long for me to update, and I'm not even going to blame it on the fact that I was traveling for over a month between vacation and work or the global pandemic we're all facing right now, because I did write, I wrote probably a whole new fic worth of pages, but they never fit the story. I should create a fic just with the outtakes of this one! Whoever is reading this, if you also write, you'll understand how, sometimes, we think the story goes a certain way next, and we insist in that approach for a long time, until finally understanding that the characters are not ready for that yet, there's still a lot they need to go through. I was convinced I was writing the final chapter of the story, but El and Liv didn't let me take them further before going through what they had to.
I don't own them; clearly, they own me!
24 - ILLUSIONIST
Her body went limp, she wouldn't have been able to stand up if her life depended on it, but that was fine, because Elliot was right there with her. Olivia felt it when he lay next to her, pulling her to rest on his chest, which still heaved, lifting her head along with it, the sounds of both heartbeats mixing up and competing with the sound of their labored breaths. She heard it as small, involuntary moans came out along with the air she exhaled as the waves of pleasure still ran across her body, like water rippling after being hit with a rock, countless rings until it settles down. She felt weightless, like nothing mattered, like there was no past and no future, like nothing could get to her in this peculiar state of consciousness.
She fell asleep before that feeling went away. It was a quiet sleep at first, for as long as she could hang on to the present, with the unfaltering calm in her body and the sensation of warmth and safety of Elliot's embrace. Eventually, however, everything faded into a blinding white light, then slowly darkened, painting the walls with black mold, the floor with grey concrete, turning the warmth of her bed into the coldness of the thin mattress, and she was back there again, covered in bruises, Eric cleaning and bandaging them.
Falling for a married man? Your partner on the job? How many stop signs do you need in order to allow yourself to fall in love with someone? The only man you've ever really been yourself around, the person who knows you best in the world. Not even him is capable of loving you.
She felt the pain of those words again, the distinct certainty that it was much worse than the pain from the wounds all over her flesh. He just kept saying those things, and it was like having a selection of her worst unconscious fears and traumas displayed in front of her, her eyes forced to stay open, her ears ringing with the deafening sound of the most hurtful lies, the ugliest truths. She knew why he was doing that, she knew about his own pain, she had witnessed it as a victim and studied it as a cop, but it was as if she had been transported back to that moment again, just for the hell of it, as if her mind wanted her to know that life wasn't always sunshine and rainbows, that it wasn't always love and safety. Had she even believed it could be like that for her?
She wanted so badly to see Elliot again, to have him somehow prove it all wrong, or at the very least make it stop, but she remembered the part he'd had to play back there and realized that wasn't the Elliot that she wanted. The Elliot she needed was the one who had barged into her place with a suitcase, unwavering in his resolve to be there for her. But of course, that wasn't the Elliot she got now.
I'm not here to take you home, he said, cold, the words almost as painful as the punch he delivered next, knocking her to the floor.
This wasn't him. The real him had his arm around her, still tethering her to the present. But what present? Because she was lying on that cold floor, bleeding from that punch, and Elliot's arm had been the one to deliver it.
I really didn't think he'd share you with me.
Elliot, she said, between a question and a plea, but either way, she didn't know what she was asking of him, and it was useless anyway. This wasn't her Elliot.
While you're her main character… she's just an extra for you. Someone who's always there, exactly where you expect her to be. Practically a prop. Ready to take shit from you and still always be there, like nothing happened. Isn't that right? Tell her, Elliot. Tell her what she means to you.
Eric pulled her to her feet, but before she could ground herself enough to stand, Elliot slapped her in the face, the gold of his wedding ring making a point to leave a mark on her cheek. Then he pulled her by the hair so she would look at him, and she hated herself for letting him see her cry, for letting him know she was hurting because of him.
She felt the heat of his hand coming towards her cheek again, where he'd just hit her, and she flinched so violently that her whole body jerked; in the limited space, it wasn't enough to avoid his touch, now soothing, cupping her face softly, his thumb outlining her cheekbone where the cut had once been, and it was Eric bandaging her all over again, the added humiliation of having your assailant fix your wounds.
"Liv, wake up!" he was saying, shaking her lightly. "You're dreaming again."
Olivia looked around; they were in her bed, still naked, under the covers. Elliot was hovering above her, cupping her face, concern in his eyes. His hand moved to caress her hair lightly, and he stopped talking, just giving her time. She tried to find that clear line between real and fake Elliot, but it was all blurry.
"I'm… I'm fine," she mumbled, nodding her head as convincingly as she could, hoping to dissipate the fog that surrounded her, where dream and reality mixed.
She sat up, suddenly in need of some space. She hunched over, draping the covers around herself to hide her body. Not that he hadn't already seen it, that he hadn't been holding it all night, but she suddenly needed not to be so completely exposed to him, because it felt like he had just knocked her to the floor, and she couldn't be seen naked as she lay defeated, hurt, rejected. The skin's was the only nudity she could hide, but it was pretty much all she could do to protect herself.
"Can I get you anything?" he was asking, a foreign voice, all wrapped up in familiarity. "I'll get you some water."
He left the room and it gave her a chance to take a few deep breaths. When he came back, he gave her a glass of water and sat back down on the bed, even though she could see he was keeping a safe distance. When she finished drinking it all up at once, with Eric uninvitedly telling her to drink slowly in the back of her mind, Elliot took the glass from her and set it down on the nightstand. He sat, waiting, and the silence rang loud in Olivia's ears.
"I'm fine," she insisted, staring at her covered knees, detecting the anger in her own voice. "It's just bad dreams. They'll go away."
"You sure?" he challenged, his voice gravelly.
"I'm sure," she answered with as much conviction as she could feign while she tried to ask herself why. Why now? Her fingers trembled with rage.
"Then how come you can't look me in the eye?" Elliot rasped.
It took her a while, but Olivia gathered all her courage and looked up at him, his true, blue eyes. She had a glimpse at that safety he had made her feel earlier, but his expression was tortured, telling her he wasn't very confident about that himself. He softened his tone when he spoke again.
"I mean... you flinched." He didn't specify, but she knew very well what he was talking about.
"I was asleep," she defended herself, unable to hold his stare for long.
"You were saying Elliot, stop," he insisted.
"What do you want from me?" she raised her voice a little, desperate for him to drop it; he was torturing her yet again. "I just can't… I can't take this anymore. I can't take being such a mess anymore."
It was true. She had felt so safe with Elliot that she had believed the nightmares would stop; it was especially unsettling to have had a dream in which he was the torturer. Why now, that she was getting better? That she had finally allowed herself to start trusting him?
"Hey…" he approached a little, but still didn't touch her; he really seemed intent on keeping a minimal distance, and it bothered her, even though she couldn't close the distance herself, at least not right now. "You've just been through a lot," he continued. "You will get through this. You're the strongest person I know."
Olivia raised her eyes to look at him, his wide, beautiful eyes, where she'd seen so much love earlier. It was still there; this was the real him, she was starting to see it now. She wanted to forget Eric's version of him, and she really hoped he would forget it too. But he just wouldn't let it go.
"We never really talked about it," he said, lower now; maybe he wanted her to know he wasn't trying to pick a fight. "About what I had to say… and do."
"We don't need to talk about it," Olivia said; fight or no fight, she really wanted to forget it, not discuss it. It was enough to have seen it again in her dreams. "I know you didn't mean any of that, I'm over it."
"Clearly, you're not," he said, looking away and visibly disappointed.
It made Olivia feel so lonely. He had been able to read her so well earlier, why couldn't he see what she needed now? Why couldn't she communicate it to him? Her head was too heavy; she cradled it in her hands and never replied.
"Liv," Elliot whispered, and she knew he was just going to say whatever he needed to say, even if she wasn't ready to hear it. "I'm sorry. I would never have done or said any of that in any other circumstance. I was trying to buy us time… I was trying to keep you safe. As stupid as it may sound now..."
She was surprised to find that she felt reassured upon hearing that. She could hear the pain in his voice and she wanted to soothe him, but right now, she couldn't do much for him. Or for herself. "I know," she said, hoping her tone was final enough, knowing he wouldn't think so.
"I still need to say it… And I think you need to hear it."
Maybe he was right, but that was enough. "Why don't we just forget about all of it?" she risked, making an effort to look at him again.
"Can you?" he said, then looked away; now it seemed like he was the one who couldn't hold her gaze. "'Cause I can't. I'm looking at your face now… and I see the bruises, I see myself hurting you."
"I know you do," Olivia nodded with a sad half-smile.
She couldn't help but remember it had been in the back of the ambulance, staring at her injuries, that he had first told her that he loved her. The second time had been that night, after rescuing her from a bad dream. She couldn't take being so vulnerable anymore, but she wondered if he would even be there at all if she wasn't. The other night they'd spent together, she had been a mess as well, tricked by Eric into doubting her gut feeling, having a hard time to recognize herself in the haze of the drugs in her system. That time, too, she had wondered if Elliot had only stayed because of her fragility, unable to resist a damsel in distress – but that wasn't who she was. It wouldn't last forever.
The blue eyes she avoided now weren't the ones that belonged to Eric's evil version of Elliot, but the sad, guilty eyes who looked at her like a mistake he'd made, a problem he needed to fix. A damsel in distress. How could she tell the difference between that and love anyway? She had never really experienced love, Eric had made sure she confronted and admitted that.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he said, forcing her to look up and see he was narrowing his eyes at her and making her instantly regret having said that out loud.
She hesitated, but she knew she would have to finish. "You're trying… to make up for it. But you don't have to."
Elliot smiled and shook his head. "Unbelievable," he said. He was angry. "You still think it's guilt."
She wanted to apologize; she hated seeing him hurting like this, but she couldn't say anything else. She just looked down, feeling guilty for having had the dream, for having flinched, for having accused him of having slept with her out of guilt. After all, she had believed his love for her, she had seen it. She hadn't had any doubts. It had been like gaining access to a different level of understanding, a privileged perspective, an almost physical insight, that thoughts couldn't reach. Right now, however, she couldn't shake the feeling that, whatever it was, that superior form of herself she'd had a glimpse of just wasn't compatible with reality. Reality was wearing that certainty thin, asking all sorts of questions, and she didn't have any answers.
"If you only knew what my guilt really feels like…" she heard him whisper cryptically, apparently thinking out loud.
Olivia now looked at him; it was safe to do so because he was looking down, ashamed, guilty. She racked her brain looking for something to say to ease his mind, undo everything that had just happened, but it was useless. She wanted to go back to that place of peace she had been right before falling asleep – why couldn't she just go back there? It had seemed so simple, and now it felt completely out of reach.
"What happened in the dream?" Elliot asked softly, still avoiding her eyes and making it clear he wasn't about to let it go this time. He wanted to torture himself over this, torturing her by extension.
"I was back there again," she said, feeling like she had no other choice. "Just… revisiting what happened."
She hoped that was enough of a description for him, because he knew what she had dreamed about, it was clear from his reaction. He said nothing for several minutes; maybe he was revisiting it now, too.
"He played me," he eventually said. "I had read his journals and I tried to come up with a way to connect with him. He made me think he had believed me just so he could make me say you didn't mean anything to me, make me… hurt you. He just… played me."
"I know," Olivia said, but her mind couldn't help wandering off into that night, how she had known there was some truth to what he'd had to say to her back there.
Just like what she had been forced to say to Eric when she was trying to connect with him herself. There was some truth to everything that had been said in that room, and that was the essence of Eric's torture of her, of Elliot, and, she was more and more convinced, of himself. There were lies, and overstatements, and flat-out pretending, but all of those pieces had always been intricately interwoven by an invisible, underlying layer of truth, like the most elaborate illusionist trick; everyone knows it's a trick, but what makes it work, makes it seem like magic, is the truth, what happens right in front of the audience's eyes – and it's so hard not to believe the vision of something presented so realistically, when it's right there, in plain view.
"I think he played himself," she pondered out loud. "I think... in several moments, he believed it all. I think he really did."
"Maybe…" Elliot said, then made a long pause before speaking again. "Well, it doesn't matter. He's gone, and I couldn't care less what he believed. I care what you believe."
He went silent, and Olivia knew he was waiting for her to look up at him, he wanted to measure it in her eyes; it was her polygraph test. If she lied, he would know. She granted his unspoken request and looked up.
"You gotta believe I would never willingly hurt you," he said, and Olivia saw the glint of tears threatening to form in his eyes.
"I do," she replied vehemently; that was something she had never doubted. There might be a million doubts in her head, but that wasn't one. She reinforced her answer. "I don't believe that, I know that."
As he nodded, relief on his face, Olivia suppressed an urge to hug him, because if she moved, she would either have to let go of the covers or make too much of an effort to stay sheltered under them, and it was suddenly equally awkward to be naked in front of him or to try to hide from him. So she stayed where she was, gripping the covers around her and hoping he wouldn't notice it, but of course he did. She watched him look down, seemingly now bothered by his own state of undress as he turned his body away from her, covering himself with the side of his thigh. Even though she didn't want him to see her either, she felt a pang of rejection at his sudden need for distance.
Olivia lay back down on the pillow, turning around to give him whatever privacy he needed. She felt it when he lay next to her, thankful that he had at least stayed in the room. She turned her head slightly towards him, only enough to see that he was lying on top of the covers, so as not to invade her space under them, not to intrude on her nudity, yet another layer of distance besides his thigh, still protectively positioned. She turned back away from him, feeling tears forming in her eyes.
"You all right?" she heard him ask softly, his head on the pillow next to hers, his voice sounding like it came from a mile away.
"Yeah," she rushed to reply, glad her voice didn't break. But then, she let a request escape unfiltered. "Don't leave, okay?"
He didn't reply at first, making Olivia doubt she had even said it out loud.
"Hey…" he said eventually, and she felt him approach her, a light touch on her arm. "I wasn't going to."
She sought out his hand with hers, and their fingers interlocked, a firm grip. "Good," she whispered, relieved.
Still holding hers, Elliot's hand came to rest on her covered stomach, his arm surrounding her waist and bringing the rest of their bodies closer together. She felt his head now resting on her pillow and his weight pulling at the covers right next to her while he seemed to make an effort to keep his arm as the only point of contact. She rolled backwards a little bit, until her back reached the planes of his chest. He tensed up at first, but then he got the message and welcomed the contact, tightening his grip around her and bringing his face closer to touch the back of her neck, even though he still kept his lower half out of bounds.
She felt it as he nuzzled his way into the crook of her neck and welcomed him with a contented sigh. Eventually, his warm breath against her skin lulled her back to sleep.
They were laughing, but she couldn't make them out; they seemed so distant. Their voices were close, but it was too dark – or too bright? – and she couldn't see much more than their silhouettes. But she was there, no doubt, the feel of the cold concrete through the thin layer of foam. That meant she also knew who they were, standing there so tall, together, opposite her, defeated, barely sitting up. They looked like old friends.
If I had a dime for every time someone told me they didn't believe I'd never fucked her. I like knowing she's there, knowing I can easily make her mine if I want to.
She was meant to be watching. They both wanted her to hear this.
She's my partner, that's it. Nothing should have ever happened. I love my wife, Olivia knows that.
I know, she was saying, but it didn't look like they were paying attention to her, too caught up in their conversation. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Take a good look at him. Her accusing voice, from the other side of the room. How had she gotten in there? Except that it was Olivia who had suddenly gone somewhere else: Queens. Their house. Their home. More guilt. Kathy was holding the baby, the sunlight from the window shining around her like a halo, an aura of sanctity, heartlessly violated by her.
I love my wife, Olivia knows that.
Eric was here now too, whispering in her ear. Do you really think he's going to leave his wife now?
He had brought Elliot along with him, he was talking to him too. She's your toy, whether you want to play with her or not.
And Elliot just stood there, listening, agreeing. On Eric's side, not hers. I like knowing she's there. I don't like having that certainty threatened. But then he switched sides; he now stood next to Kathy, an arm circling her shoulder, protective, ensuring the safety of his family. As he should.
It all made sense now: Eric had brought Elliot home, where he belonged. To prove his point.
It's a shame you never found anybody you wanted to have children with. Well, maybe you did, but maybe he already had children. Maybe even five of them
Elliot and Kathy were silent, just watching Eric speak to her while she lay, hurt, abandoned. Guilty. Humiliated.
How about this self-imposed loneliness? The fact that at the same time that you want a relationship, you don't? That you want a family, but you don't? Sure, you assume you want one, because you never had one… And it seems so perfect, so happy.
Perfect like the beautiful baby boy holding hands with his parents, his rosy cheeks, his father's eyes. Twenty happy years and five beautiful children, Kathy reminded her.
Eric gestured towards them. He makes it look so easy, doesn't he?
Olivia shut her eyes really tight, she couldn't take it anymore; everybody needed to shut up. Now. And when she opened her eyes again, she was met with silence. Blissful, peaceful silence. This time she had realized it was a dream, and when she had wanted badly enough to wake up, she had been able to. It didn't make any of the content less real, albeit transported to a surreal setting, but at least she had regained some control over her own mind, probably with Elliot's help. His arm was still around her, his breath still keeping her neck warm and, with sleep, he had relaxed in his struggle to establish boundaries. Their bodies were flush against each other, his leg between hers, contained only by the barricade of covers.
When she considered moving to free herself from his grasp, he started to stir, and reflexively pulled her tighter against him, murmuring something she couldn't understand. As he started writhing, restlessly, she realized he was the one dreaming now. With great effort, she fought his grip and turned to face him, which helped bring him closer to wakefulness.
"Elliot," she called firmly, but trying to sound soothing. "El, wake up."
"Liv," he mumbled, his eyes still closed, his arm searching for her as if it weren't wrapped around her. "You have to believe me…"
"I do," she promised, even not knowing what he was talking about; she put a hand on his shoulder and shook lightly. "You're dreaming," she warned.
His hand found the back of her neck, pulling her closer to him, and before Olivia realized, he was kissing her, passionately, hungrily, and she was caught so off guard that she barely had any time to start overthinking. All that awkwardness and hesitation was suddenly gone as he sifted through the covers to gain access to her body; when his hands started running across every inch of her, she could barely remember what that weirdness had felt like.
"This isn't guilt," he said, moving to kiss her neck, causing goosebumps to break all over her skin.
Olivia was confused; was he still dreaming? He quickly answered her question, shifting to prop himself up on his elbows and knees, trapping her, his eyes open, his expression alert, intense.
"It's not," he reinforced, his face very close to hers. "I know you can feel it," he whispered. "Then a minute later you get in your head and it all goes to hell, but I know that you can feel it…" he leaned in to kiss the crook of her neck, sending chills across her spine that reached her at her core. "...when I touch you."
Does he make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up like this? He knew no one else did.
"El…" she moaned, not sure if it was meant as a protest or as encouragement; he paid no mind either way.
"This isn't guilt," he was insisting as he trailed kisses along her shoulder, her throat. "I know you know."
You know how I feel. You always knew, you had to. He had given her that back there. The real Elliot had been there, too. And he was certainly here now.
He kissed her again, taking a second to frame her face with both hands. Next, he went full throttle again, his fingers trying to cover as much of her body in as little time as possible. He got rid of the covers completely and pulled her legs around him, like he was in a hurry, like they had no time, and when Olivia felt him ready against her entrance, she knew they didn't, that it was urgent, so she grabbed him by the hips, her nails sinking into his skin, helping him reach her sooner, and once he was inside her, there was no time to adjust, no time to savor it.
Time was of the essence, and as much as Olivia knew rationally that there was no need to rush, no imminent danger, she found herself encouraging him to move faster, harder, finding out she desperately needed the evidence he was in such haste to give her. The other times, they had been focused on connecting, exploring, touching; this time, they were both headed for the goal, and they couldn't get there fast enough. Olivia felt him hitting her hard, deep, each thrust taking her closer to the edge, and when it came, it was explosive, it painted colors inside her eyelids, shone lights across her skin, played sounds into her ears, and she heard her own voice ripped from inside her chest, calling his name, trying to tell him she knew.
He collapsed on top of her, mumbling unintelligible things, and she cradled him in her chest.
"I know," she promised. "I know." He looked up into her eyes, and she repeated it. "I know."
And she did. They were right back there again, at that place of connection where she did know. She didn't know yet how she was supposed to bring that into reality with all of its challenges, but that was a problem for later, because the beauty of this place was exactly that, in there, later didn't matter. She didn't know how long she would get to stay there this time, maybe until the next nightmare, maybe until the precise moment their bodies disconnected. She tried with all her might to hang on to it.
When their heartbeats and breaths were a little less erratic, he lay on his back and pulled her to lie on his arm, wrapping her up in him and in the covers, making her feel so safe that it scared her to death.
This was temporary, Olivia bargained with herself as she lay awake, staring at the strips of light and shadow the sun cast on the wall and realizing how stronger she felt as compared to the previous day. She hadn't had any nightmares since that last one she had managed to wake up from on her own, even though she was still trying to decipher the messages in it.
It didn't feel like it, but less than twenty-four hours had gone by since Elliot had showed up at her door, and she smiled now, thinking about how she hadn't even planned on letting him in, let alone sleep on the same bed after making love – twice –, but she knew now that his stay wouldn't have happened in any other way, just as much as she knew that she couldn't ask him to leave. She needed him, this night had been proof. She admitted that much to herself.
At least to help her get back on her feet after everything she'd been through, she negotiated. Her need to go back to work the very next day after being rescued had always been her need for him, not for routine, not for familiarity. And as much as she had thought or wished that the right thing for them was to go back to being just partners and friends, she knew that there was no going back there. Him and her was this now, as undefined and messy as it might be, and walking away from it would mean walking away from him completely. Right now, she couldn't do that. She didn't have the strength. She wondered if she ever would.
Not that she would want to. She was in love with him, there was no denying it to herself or anyone anymore – she had even confessed it to him. The problem was reality; she knew things weren't that simple out there. Strong as their feelings and their connection might be, there were other, much more down-to-earth things that would demand his attention and his presence. Too many people depended on him, and he wouldn't leave them just because of that transcending connection with her.
He still felt like he owed her for what he'd put her through, so fixing her was his priority now. While seeing the guilt in his eyes was unbearable, Olivia feared that it was the only thing keeping him there, that he would stay only for as long as he felt responsible for her, for putting her back together again. Maybe the stronger she got, the less responsible he would feel, allowing reality to slowly hit him with all the practical questions that heightened states of consciousness and deep, meaningful connections couldn't answer.
Olivia carefully freed herself from Elliot's grip; a disapproving grunt came out as feedback, but he never woke up; he was tired – and so was she, even though her mind had nudged her into waking up before her body would have wanted to. She took a quick shower that helped reactivate her body, even though her muscles felt heavy and begged for her to go back to bed. She considered it, but when she walked back into the bedroom, the bed was empty, making her ask herself for a second if she had dreamed it all up.
It was that fragile. So much so that, in a matter of seconds, her mind was able to conjure dozens of scenarios to explain how he had never really been there at all or how he had waited for her to get into the shower to disappear, ashamed, guilty. Regretful. He was gone from her sight, and she found it too hard not to believe her eyes. The illusionist trick all over again, making her believe only what her eyes could – or could not see. Like a little baby when his mother goes into the other room and he's certain she's gone for good.
It was the most contradictory feeling: to at the same time trust and not trust someone so completely not to let her down. To know and not know that he would be there for her. She didn't want to count on it, she couldn't. If she did and he failed her, she wouldn't be able to take it.
That was how she had felt the morning after their first night together, and that was exactly where she found herself again now. It was like a broken record, like a damaged tape: the movie would play until it reached a certain point and then stop, never coming to a close, the mystery never solved, the answers never found, the ending left to the imagination at best.
She noticed a part of her was relieved he was gone; if it had to end, she'd rather it ended now, sooner rather than later. In this quick moment of panic, she wanted to go back, pleading to undo her previous choice: the immediate heartache, the death she could control, that's what she wanted. She wanted to choose when to suffer, she wanted to know when to expect the blow, and she was so sorry, she had chosen wrong and she needed to go back, please.
It occurred to her to check if he had taken his suitcase with him – or even brought it at all in the first place –, so she took a few hasty strides towards the living room to find the couch still covered in the sheets she'd lent him, his suitcase lying open on the floor, his work clothes clumsily dropped on top of it. She let out the breath she'd been holding, relief washing over her. He had been there, she hadn't dreamed it up, it hadn't been a magic trick. And if he had left, at least he had left his stuff behind, a strong indicator that he'd be coming back. But then the wind got knocked out of her yet again.
"Liv?" she heard from behind her, and she spun so quickly towards the sound of his voice that she felt momentarily dizzy. Or maybe it was the sight of him, casually standing in her kitchen, in his t-shirt and boxers, a steaming mug in hand. Only then did her brain register the smell of coffee.
"El..." she breathed. "There you are."
He seemed a little embarrassed; she noticed he couldn't quite keep his eyes on hers for very long. "There's coffee," he mentioned casually, as if trying to remove the attention from him.
Like in that moment in the middle of the night, there was definitely something off about him and the way he was talking to her, sort of distant, and yet, he had made coffee, like he was used to being there, waking up naked there, operating the kitchen there. She was too overwhelmed to say anything. He set down his mug on the counter and walked towards her, slowly – hesitantly?
"Good morning," he said, with a small smile and looking full in her eyes for a second. Olivia noticed that he had stopped walking when he was standing a few feet away from her, as if there was a force field there that he couldn't trespass. "How are you feeling?"
"Better," she replied truthfully, trying to smile lightheartedly. "Much better."
Do you really think he's going to leave his wife now? Eric. How could the specific tone and pitch of his voice still sound so clear in her mind? Even awake. It was almost as if he was right there with her, an invisible force driving her thoughts, contributing to the inner confusion, arguing the side that said the tape wasn't damaged, there simply was nothing after that, that no matter how many nights she and Elliot came to spend together, they would never be able to have anything more than that, that a relationship between them just wasn't in the cards, not even for a card trick.
It was as if she was preparing herself for the explosion, squinting with fear until hearing him say it was over, that he had finally realized he was making a mistake, that he was sorry, but he had a family to go back to. He was bound to realize that sooner or later. He had told her he loved her, and after that night, no words from her mind, in the ugliest of scenarios, could keep her from believing him, but she knew him well enough to know that his feelings represented only one, and not even the most important, among so many variables he needed to consider before making a decision of such magnitude.
Kathy had told her – and him – that it was over, but she, too, was bound to come to her senses and realize that what they had was way more important than an error in his judgment. They were parents, and they would always put their children first. Even if being together was no longer what they wanted, they would always base their decisions on whatever was best for their kids; Olivia wouldn't expect anything less from them, not after watching the ups and downs in their relationship from the front row for a decade.
"How are you feeling?" she asked cautiously.
"Good," he said, that smile on his face that he used when he was trying to conceal bad news.
She nodded, a sense to flee the scene attacking her overwhelmingly and making her rush past him, respecting the force field's boundaries, and go to the kitchen with the excuse of getting the coffee he had offered her. Her hand shook as it wrapped around the pot's handle; it got worse as she felt him slowly approaching. She turned around with her coffee mug and saw it as he stopped by the counter, keeping it as a safe dividing line between them.
Every time he opened his mouth was a potential end to this. She wanted the explosion now, sooner, rather than later. She prayed to whatever God was up there for him not to say it.
"Liv…" he started, and her stomach dropped, this was it; he couldn't even wait for her to get some coffee in her system. "I think we should talk."
