A/N: Happy Sunday, y'all. I hope everyone's had a good weekend. Unfortunately, Rolivia hasn't. I'm sorry, I know it's hard seeing them like this, and it makes me sad too (seriously, like, every sad song I listen to right now reminds me of them. I have an entire playlist for chapters 21 & 22 just by themselves, lol), but that was a big damn argument, so... it's gonna take some time. I wanted to respond to the comment about why Liv called Alex, too: A) She's drunk and not thinking clearly. B) She's emotionally wrecked and severely triggered, and Amanda—the person she wants to turn to—is gone. For good, as far as Liv knows. Amanda isn't even answering her calls. So, she's just been left alone (like she was constantly by her mother) and shut out completely by the person she loves (the way Elliot left her). C) She turns to the worst possible solution when she's left with nothing else (e.g. getting engaged to her statutory rapist to escape her mother. Also, Brian Cassidy). She has no real self-preservation skills when it comes to relationships, arguments, etc. Serena took that away from her. D) And I don't think this one is a conscious decision on Olivia's part at all, so blame my warped little brain, but it's kind of payback. Amanda just hurt her deeply, and Alex is the best way to retaliate. Phew, okay, sorry. Hope that clears things up. Oh, and I'm not sure it's needed but just to be on the safe side tw: purging.

CHAPTER 24: Fruit of the Poisonous Tree

. . .

"Whoa, Liv, take it easy," Alex said, when Olivia drained the rest of her wine in a single swig. The younger woman held her half-empty glass aside and rescued the other before it could be filled again. "You're going to make yourself sick."

"I'm already sick, Al." Olivia smiled wanly at the nickname that her lips had produced of their own volition. Right then, she didn't really care what Alex called her in return—Ollie, Liv, Livvy, lousy drunk, stupid little bitch, monster. Any of them would do. "I was born that way."

Swiveling at the waist, Alex placed the crystal on the end table without turning the rest of her body away from Olivia. The twisting pulled at the loose neck of her blouse, offering a glimpse at the snowy white plains of her upper chest. Years ago Olivia had been fascinated by the delicate bone structure there, the faint ripples beneath the flesh that were often visible in the scoop neck tops Alex once favored. It still looked the same—just this side of frail—and Olivia caught herself staring, wondering at her friend's slight build that somehow reminded her of bone china. A teacup poised at prim lips, a saucer cradled by an elegant hand.

She averted her eyes quickly, wishing she hadn't guzzled the wine so fast, because now there was nothing in her lap to look at but her own two hands. The longer she studied them, the more disproportionate they seemed, until they looked like a stranger's hands. Their only identifiable feature was the engagement ring, and that just reminded her of Amanda. She drew her knees up onto the couch, ankles crossed behind her, and tucked both hands between her thighs.

Taking the new posture as an invite, Alex turned to the side as well, facing Olivia head on, one leg hooked over a purple suede pump. Her knee pressed against Olivia's, a long and slender arm draping across the back of the couch, as graceful as the neck of a swan. "There is nothing wrong with you, Liv," she said rather fiercely, her tone soft but heated. "And if she's telling you there is, then she needs her head examined. You're an amazing woman, and you deserve someone who sees that and makes sure you do too."

"She does." Olivia felt her defenses going up, even though the other woman was on her side. She didn't want to be told how amazing she was, or how good. Neither of those things were true, and she hated being lied to. Alex's eagerness to blame Amanda for all their troubles bothered Olivia as well. She was just as much to blame herself, if not more so. She'd pushed Amanda to the edge—and then over—with her constant need. "Amanda is not the problem here. She's a better person than you give her credit for. Everything that's happened this past year . . . hell, the past six or seven years, she's been there for me through all of it. No one else was. No one has ever loved me like she does."

Alex sighed heavily and jabbed at the back of the couch with her fingertip, impressing her point. "But that doesn't give her license to mistreat you when she's had a bad day. Or to refuse to talk about why she's angry, then turn right around and take it out on you. That's emotionally abusive—"

"She got shot four weeks ago, Alex." Olivia finally looked back to her friend, prying a hand from the inside of her thighs and flinging it outward, palm turned up in an exasperated gesture. "She could have died. And like an idiot, I called her mother, who ended up staying with us until Christmas. That woman is awful. Amanda warned me, but I didn't listen. By the time she left, I wanted to hit someone too."

"Wait," Alex said, signaling Olivia to halt, go back, elaborate. "Are you telling me Amanda hit you? Because if that's the case, I'm not leaving you here with her."

Now it was Olivia's turn to sigh, and she did so with every bit of breath she could muster, dropping her head back the way Amanda did when particularly frustrated. She righted abruptly, a bout of dizziness overtaking her at that angle. It felt like all the wine she had consumed was sloshing around inside her skull. "Oh my God, stop. I've told you my fiancée does not abuse me. It was her mother who slapped me across the face. And Amanda kicked her out for it, right after."

"Why the hell did her mother slap you?" Alex demanded, mystified. She looked as if she had stumbled upon an episode of The Jerry Springer Show and couldn't quite determine who had wronged whom.

For a moment, it was almost amusing. But the memory of that slap was still too raw for Olivia to find humor in it. She had trouble downplaying it like she used to with her own mother. That had been a survival tactic, a way to absolve Serena, who had already suffered enough by bringing Olivia into the world. She couldn't find a satisfactory excuse for Beth Anne's behavior. It hurt Amanda and the children, and that was unacceptable.

"Because she hates me and thinks I'm using Amanda for . . . I dunno, sex. My ego. As a fucking power trip. Or maybe just because the woman's a homophobic cunt." Olivia flitted her hand about sarcastically while she listed the reasons, but she lost a bit of steam after the last one. Even with all the alcohol churning in her stomach and her bloodstream, she couldn't in good conscience use the term "cunt" to describe another woman. Not after she had been reduced to such vulgar epithets herself, too many times to count.

"She thinks Amanda and Jesse would be better off with some nice, stable man providing for them," Olivia added dully, eyes lighting on the bottle of Nero d'Avola for the briefest moment. "And hell, she's probably right . . . "

Alex clucked her tongue, her hand shifting from the back of the couch to Olivia's shoulder. "That is preposterous. There is literally no one more qualified to be a spouse and mother than you. You're the most maternal person I've ever met. You always made me feel safe and cared for."

And look how easy it was for you to walk away, Olivia thought, but still had enough wits about her not to repeat it out loud. Alex was being supportive; it wouldn't be fair to throw the past in her face like that, especially when she'd had no control over leaving—at least not the first time.

"Well, you were easy," said Olivia, a wan smile touching her lips again. She reached up to lay a hand on top of the one Alex was resting on her shoulder. "You didn't give me nearly as much guff as Amanda does. Or push me away nearly as hard. And before you ask, I mean that figuratively. Not literal pushing."

There had been some of the literal kind tonight too, but Olivia had given as good as she got. Alex didn't need to know about it, though. She wouldn't understand and it would only fuel her belief that Amanda was abusive in some way or another. Olivia couldn't stand the thought of listening to her old friend defame her fiancée once again, not right now. There was far too much of that going around lately, and it wouldn't be right with Amanda not even being present to defend herself. Besides that, Olivia had had her fill of fighting for the evening.

"Oh sure, because all those times I took out my frustration over a case on you and Stabler were such a walk in the park." Alex gave a light sniff of laughter, her gaze drifting askance, landing on the back of Olivia's hand with the weightlessness of a feather on the breeze. "Or did you mean when I almost got assassinated right in front of you and let you believe I'd died in your arms? At least for a little while."

Olivia feigned thinking it over, head tilted slightly to one side, eyes turned heavenward. "Well, when you put it like that, you were kind of a pain in my ass. Guess I'm just blinded by nostalgia . . . and age-related memory loss."

And booze. Don't forget the booze.

That got an outright laugh from Alex, who nudged Olivia's shoulder playfully, rocking her back a little in her seat. "Hey, lady, you're not that much older than I am. Watch it."

They shared genuine smiles then, the gloom momentarily lifting from Olivia's troubled mind. She had always enjoyed making Alex laugh, seeing the lawyer's somewhat austere and upper-crust exterior melt away to reveal the giddy, giggling blonde that resided underneath. Alex could be quite a cut-up once you got her going—or at least she used to be, before time and life-altering trauma took their toll. Her mood changed abruptly now, the twinkle in her eye extinguished at a blink, sadness and shadow replacing the warm glow of amusement.

"I don't know if I ever told you, and I know it's much too late now, but I am sorry I put you through that," Alex said, a small hitch in her voice. Her expression was so solemn behind the dark frames, it looked as if she were informing Olivia she only had months to live, a hand on her shoulder for moral support. "And I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you after William Lewis. And the Mangler. Jesus, I haven't been a very good friend to you, have I?"

Hearing the pseudonyms of her attackers in quick succession felt like a one-two punch to the gut, but if there was anything Olivia knew how to do well, it was take a hit and keep going. She patted Alex's hand a few times, then gave the slender wrist a reassuring squeeze. "You've got your own life, Alex. I don't expect you to drop everything and come running whenever I have a crisis. Those things are behind me, anyway. You're here now, and that's what matters."

It was complete bullcrap, and Alex probably knew it too. Each time Olivia thought she had made progress at leaving Lewis in the past, leaving him dead in the ground of potter's field where his unclaimed body was buried, something—or more often, someone—brought him screaming back to vivid, blood-red life in her memory and her subconscious. Calvin and Amelia were the worst of it, and difficult to recover from in their own right. Orion, while frightening, hadn't been nearly as insidious, but opened up all the old wounds that were.

And that wasn't even counting the day to day triggers Olivia grappled with: loud, unexpected sounds; a stranger with a smile like his; the whiff of cigarette smoke inside a cab; her fiancée groping her breasts and unbuckling her belt from behind. There wasn't a day that went by without at least a passing thought of Lewis, it seemed.

Yeah, she was totally over it.

"Well, then you're a hell of a lot stronger than I am," Alex said with thinly veiled admiration. She slipped off her glasses, folding them into her lap with the one hand, the opposite arm draped half along the back of the couch, half around Olivia's shoulder. "Sometimes I still duck for cover when a car backfires. And I can't seem to break the habit of not telling people my real name. Some guy hit on me at the airport bar, and I told him my name was Emily. He called me 'Em' the entire flight here."

"Oh God." Olivia wrinkled her nose in disgust. If she had a nickel for every time a complete stranger thought he had permission to call her "Liv," or the shortened version of whatever fake name she had given him, she would be a wealthy woman. "But that's not a sign of weakness, you know. It's actually smart not giving your real name. The car thing gets me too, though. Are you seeing a therapist?"

Alex ducked her head just enough that the twitch in her lips was almost indiscernible, but Olivia caught the faintest glimpse and immediately felt foolish. Amanda laughed off the idea of therapy too. "I'm sorry, that's none of my business," said Olivia, shaking her head and untucking her legs as if she meant to stand. "I shouldn't have asked. I know people think therapy is just paying someone to listen to your problems, but it's been helpful to me, that's all I—"

"Liv, it's okay."

The hand in Alex's lap switched to Olivia's knee, gently discouraging her from moving away. They were very close now, the body heat Alex emanated making the warmth inside Olivia's turtleneck unbearable. She tugged uncomfortably at the collar, tempted to flap it until she cooled off. Why did she drink so much damn wine?

"You didn't offend me," Alex said, and tapped Olivia's shoulder to gain her full attention. "I don't feel that way about therapy. I've gone off and on since I was a teenager, and it's helped me too. I was just reacting to you being . . . you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Olivia asked sharply. Or what sounded sharp in her head, but came out muffled and dull, like throwing a punch at a pillow. Not only was she unbearably hot, she was also dead tired and her lips felt thick and rubbery.

"Nothing bad. I meant that it's you who's in distress here, yet you're trying to make me feel better." Alex offered a fond smile and a squeeze on the knee as an apology. "Same old Liv. You're the one constant in my life, you know. I can always count on you to be there, helping me find my way back from—"

From what, Olivia never got to hear, because Alex stopped short at the sight of the tears streaming down her cheeks. It had been the comment about being a constant in Alex's life that did it. For Olivia, that person was Amanda Rollins. The one who brought her back from all those dark places that she feared would swallow her up sooner or later. Her beautiful lighthouse in the storm. And now the storm itself.

"Oh, Liv. Oh, honey." Alex brought her hands to either side of Olivia's head, cupping them around the heavy curtain of hair that covered both ears. She looked thoroughly dismayed to find her old friend—the so-called strong one—openly weeping, and she drew Olivia forward, pressing a desperate kiss to her forehead. "Don't cry. I didn't mean to upset you. Shh, don't cry."

But the damn had broken, and Olivia only cried harder as Alex went on soothing her, first with words and then with more kisses, these to her closed eyelids. She hated how freely the tears fell now. At a young age, she'd discovered her talent for turning on the waterworks at the slightest provocation, but it seldom got her anywhere with Serena—except in trouble. Eventually she became just as practiced at turning her emotions off entirely.

It was that control which had earned her some plum undercover gigs as a rookie detective, the higher-ups impressed by her ability to play the (sobbing) frightened young Russian immigrant or the (also sobbing) hooker with a heart of gold. Her colleagues had no idea what went into each performance, what she was drawing on to attain those delicious, dramatic tears they praised like theatre critics. And how delightful that she could switch them off just as readily! After all, no one liked a hysterical woman, especially if she was a cop.

Back then, it had been so easy. But somewhere along the way—probably around the time she went undercover in Sealview Correctional and learned that there were certain scenarios no amount of crying or screaming could stop—Olivia lost a little of that control. Then a little more and a little more after that . . .

Lately she was lucky if she could make it to an empty interrogation room or stairwell before breaking down in tears on the worst days of the job. And with Alex cradling her face and murmuring the same things Amanda said to her when she cried, Olivia couldn't hold back. It was almost like having Amanda there with her, so the kiss on the lips felt natural at first. She didn't return it, but her reflexes—slowed by wine and emotion—didn't kick in right away, either. By the time she realized what was happening, Alex's hands were sliding down to her neck, thumbs stroking along her jawline as the other woman tried to deepen the kiss.

"Hm-mm." Olivia's eyes shot open and she took hold of Alex's wrists, pulling back from her parted lips. She used to daydream about that moment, Alex's half-lidded, blue bonnet eyes and warm, sweet mouth, which spoke of poetry and truth and justice, inches from hers. But now it simply made her ache: for Amanda. "Alex, no. We can't. I- I can't. I'm engaged. It isn't right."

"Don't marry her," Alex whispered fervently, resting her forehead against Olivia's, as gently as another kiss. "I know how loyal you are, how determined to finish what you start. But she's not the only one who— she's just . . . she's not right for you, Liv. You deserve more."

Olivia lowered her hands into her lap, still holding Alex's wrists. She left their foreheads pressed together, though she had to look away, their close proximity giving her vertigo when she tried to study her friend's downcast eyes. "And who's going to give it to me? You? We had our chance and we let it pass us by. I love you, Alex—I always will—but I'm in love with Amanda. I can't change that. I don't want to."

This time it was Alex who moved away, easing her hands from Olivia's grasp and into the safety of her own lap, turning her head aside and retreating slowly. She blinked several times, moisture clinging to doe-brown lashes, and swiped her fingertips discreetly across her flushed cheeks. "I knew you'd say that. I wouldn't have expected anything less from you," she said in a quavering voice Olivia had heard only a handful of times over the years. Ironically, Alex cried far less often than she did. "But I had to try. Otherwise I would always wonder . . . "

Olivia knew all about wondering. She had spent most of her forties wondering if she'd missed out on her chance to have a family, a fulfilling relationship, a home—and for what? The job, the man who would never love her in return? That wondering had resulted in a string of romances doomed from the start, the hasty decision to move in with Brian Cassidy of all people, and too many sleepless nights to count. She wanted to save Alex that heartache, if she could. Her friend at least deserved the closure she herself had never gotten from Elliot Stabler.

"It's okay," she said softly, wiping the tears from her cheeks and chin with the cuff of her sweater. A few had escaped beneath her turtleneck, and she rubbed at the damp collar in discomfort. It was like stepping on a wet spot while wearing warm, dry socks. "I understand. And maybe a few years ago, if you had said something . . . if— if I had said something . . . "

It wasn't coming out right. She couldn't quite get her lips and tongue, numb and saturated with wine as they were, to convey what her fuzzy brain was thinking. She had no regrets about falling for Amanda or choosing her over Alex; she did, however, have some serious regrets about how much wine she'd consumed. "But we'll never know," she concluded lamely, and pinched hard at the bridge of her nose, trying to force herself wider awake. "I'm sorry, Alex. You should find someone who wants the same things you want. Someone who'll make you happier than I ever could."

"Oh sure, let me just go out there and find her right—" Alex paused in the middle of a broad gesture to the windows and the city that lay beyond; the wide world full of people she hadn't known for twenty-odd years and hadn't (according to Amanda) resurrected herself for. She squinted at Olivia, then put her glasses back on and squinted some more. "What is that?"

"Huh?"

"Your neck. What the hell is that?"

"Oh. Oh, it's—" Olivia's hands flew to her turtleneck, which was folded down too far on one side, either from her own fidgeting or from Alex's yearning touch a moment ago. She was terrible at coming up with lies on the spot, at least when she lied to someone she cared about, but it was too late anyway. Alex had already brushed Olivia's hands aside, crooked a finger into the collar, and pulled it down for a closer look.

"Jesus, Liv. What did she do to you? Those look like . . . " Alex broke out in blood red splotches on her own neck, chest, and face, but not from embarrassment. Even her scalp went pink beneath the pale roots as she fumed, turning the rest of her hair into a white flame. "Is she biting you or just outright choking you?"

"For Christ's sake," Olivia snarled, unhooking Alex's finger from her collar and tossing it away. It returned quickly, bringing reinforcements to encircle Olivia's wrists and peel back her sleeves one at a time, presumably checking for more bruises. Jerking free of the inspection, Olivia got to her feet as abruptly as she dared and took several steps back from the couch and the woman sitting on it. She wrapped her arms protectively around herself. "My mother does not choke me. Fuck! I mean Amanda. Amanda doesn't— she would never do something like that. She's not a goddamn monster."

That slip, that stupid dead giveaway Olivia had spent half her teen years training to prevent, hadn't gone unnoticed. Alex's brow furrowed for a moment, but luckily she was too caught up in demonizing Amanda to pursue that line of questioning. "But she bites you? I've seen marks like that before, Liv. And so have you. That is not normal intimate partner contact, not to that extent. Are you afraid of her? I can—"

"I wanted her to do it," Olivia said evenly, and though she was just trying to shut Alex up, she discovered it to be true. She could have stopped Amanda from devouring her neck until it was raw and tender, just as she could have stopped any of the physical parts of their confrontation. But Amanda had been challenging her, expecting her to fall apart, cry, use the safeword, retreat into her traumatized little shell. Olivia wanted to prove her fiancée wrong. And hadn't she ever.

"You don't have to lie for her. Not to me. I know you, Olivia—there's no way you wanted that." Alex shook her blonde head adamantly, refusing to believe the alternative explanation.

Olivia bit down on her lower lip, dragging it roughly from between her teeth, practically drawing blood. She understood the need to bite into something; to bite so hard it hurt. "You don't know me at all, Alex. Not anymore. And we never slept together, so you couldn't possibly know what I like in bed. That's between me and Amanda, and it's none of your business. Get your own relationship and stay the hell out of mine."

The wounded expression on her friend's face hurt almost as much as the fingernails Olivia dug into her palms, the teeth she continued to scrape across her lip and the flesh underneath. She stood her ground though, hands balled into fists below her breasts. She was so intent on staring Alex down, in calming her heaving chest and rapid pulse, she nearly leapt out of her skin when a scruffy little voice behind her asked, "Mommy?"

She turned too fast, bumping into Jesse, who was half asleep and stumbling directly towards her. The child fell back a step, but remained unfazed by the roadblock; she often walked into walls and furniture during her nightly travels. In fact, Olivia had tripped over the girl half a dozen times before while she was sleepwalking, her tendency to creep up on her mothers undetected a bit unsettling—especially in dark hallways. But none of that mattered now. What mattered was that Olivia was drunk and she easily could have harmed one of her children.

"Oh my God," she gasped, and clapped a hand over her mouth. She really had become Serena, that staggering, slurring mess of a woman who endangered her child for the sake of just one more glass. Something crumbled inside of Olivia then, and she with it, dropping to her knees in front of Jesse and gathering the little girl into her arms. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? Mommy didn't hurt you, did she?"

Blinking heavily, Jesse gazed around in confusion and squinted at Olivia as if she didn't recognize her. "Why are you hugging me, Mommy? I'm a'sposed to be asleep. Who's that lady? Why is she crying?"

"That's . . . that's Mommy's friend. She's not crying, love." Olivia didn't check to see if it was true or not. At least that way she could pretend she wasn't lying to her daughter. She didn't allow herself to consider why she hadn't used Alex's name. It just hadn't come up, that was all. Children didn't need adults' full names like cops and suspicious fiancées did.

"Yes, she is. So're you." Jesse rested her hands on Olivia's shoulders with a sober look, cutting her eyes—so like Amanda's—at Alex for a moment. "Did she make you cry, Mommy?"

Under different circumstances, Olivia would have laughed at Jesse's dead-on impression of Amanda, right down to the way she puffed out her tiny chest, ready to take on someone three or four times her size. But instead of laughter, she found only more tears. "No, baby, she didn't make me cry. We just watched a sad movie and got all choked up. Isn't that silly?"

"Yeah." Jesse gave Alex another skeptical glance, but when Olivia stood and scooped her up, she smiled drowsily and found a shoulder to rest her fair head upon. She didn't mind being cuddled while she was sleepy.

"I should go," Alex said. She was already on her feet by the time Olivia turned, and it was true—she had been crying again. Moisture glistened in the bottom rims of her glasses and she batted the remaining drops off her cheeks with one finger. She cast a hopeful look at Olivia, asking for something that couldn't be given.

"That's probably best," Olivia replied softly, stroking Jesse's back through the polyester of her pink Trolls nightgown. She normally relied on Gigi for the comfort it brought her, not wanting to use her kids as a calming technique, but this time she would make an exception. Jesse was dozing, and Olivia was watching the one-time woman of her dreams walk out the door. Again. "I'm sorry, Al— I'm sorry."

"Me too." Alex took her coat from the closet and folded it over her arm. A sad smile crossed her lips when she took one last look back at Olivia, sleeping child in her arms, cheek nestled against soft blonde hair. "I'll see you around, Liv."

And then she was gone. Just like old times.

After locking the front door, Olivia drifted down the hall to her daughters' bedroom. She lingered there for at least twenty minutes, swaying Jesse side to side, patting and stroking her back in turn, whispering love and apologies, and watching Matilda sleep so peacefully it was almost a healing experience. When she was finally satisfied that her little girls were okay, she tucked Jesse back into her rainbow print sheets and forced herself to leave the room. There was work to be done.

At first, she couldn't stick them in far enough. Even with all that wine to soften the edges of memory, the idea of anything invading her mouth—whether or not it was two of her own fingers—made her stomach churn violently. That should have been helpful for this endeavor, but four attempts later, she was still only gagging and spitting clear saliva into the toilet. "Cunt," she whispered viciously, scrubbing away the sweat that trickled from her brow, the tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes. She slapped the side of the porcelain bowl hard with an open palm, sat back on her heels, and tore off the turtleneck as if it had just ignited into flames.

Down to her bra and leggings, she bent over the toilet with renewed determination, clamping her hand onto the rim of the bowl. Her engagement ring uttered a tiny clink. "Come on," she growled, rocking her body like she was preparing to take a running leap from the rooftop of one building to the next. "Stupid fucking cunt. Come on."

She leapt, jamming her index and middle fingers deeply down the back of her throat ("I can go for hours with a ripe little cunt like you"), pushing beyond the gag reflex, into soft, moist tissue that puckered around her fingertips like greedy, suckling lips ("Mmm, better than red velvet"). All at once, her stomach heaved its contents upward so violently she barely had time to remove the fingers from her mouth. Still, she only expelled part of it the first time. The second time was involuntary and less powerful, like an orgasm following closely on the heels of its predecessor, but it emptied her belly completely, leaving only a light, pleasant nothingness in place of the heavy, shameful wine.

The dry heaves continued for several moments more, until Olivia finally sagged down beside the toilet, letting the porcelain cool her feverish skin. She had never made herself vomit before, and it took awhile for her sluggish brain to process what she'd done. She didn't feel guilty about it. Much of the alcohol had already been absorbed into her bloodstream, but she had at least rid herself of that last glass or two. She didn't care if it counteracted how drunk she already was or not—she wanted it out of her.

"Stupid," she muttered, eventually slogging to her feet and flushing the burgundy muck inside the toilet. Her mouth watered dangerously at the sight of it, and she almost threw the seat back for another round of useless retching, but the feeling passed after a few deep breaths and some more whispered curses. ("Cunt bitch.") She picked up her sweater and tidied the rest of the bathroom as best she could, refusing to check her appearance in the medicine cabinet mirror.

In the kitchen, hands trembling so badly she dropped the glass, shattering it in the sink, she poured out Alex's leftover wine, then dumped the entire bottle of Nero d'Avola in after it. Fifty bucks down the drain, and she didn't bat an eyelash. There was beer in the fridge, bourbon and a few other choice spirits (no vodka, no Jack Daniels) in the cupboard above it, but those could stay. They didn't call out to her like the red wine.

When she tossed the empty bottle into the wastebasket under the sink, it clanked against the Merlot she had drained earlier. Sounds of her childhood. She was tempted to walk the sack to the garbage chute in the outside hall, but she was shirtless—somewhere between here and the bathroom she must have dropped the sweater—and didn't want to leave her sleeping children alone, even for a minute. It could wait till morning. Everything could wait till morning.

Everything except Amanda. "Please pick up," Olivia murmured to her phone, repeating the words like a mantra with each ring. It kicked over to voicemail on the fourth, and she gave a silent, shuddering sob before ending the call.

"Hey, you've reached Amanda Rollins-Benson. I'm unavailable right now—"

Olivia threw her cell phone at the corner of her bedroom wall. It hit the baseboard molding, splitting in two its plastic case with the NO MORE logo on it, both pieces popping off in separate directions. Frannie went over to sniff the wreckage, but bounded back towards the bed like a wild, bucking deer when summoned; Gigi never left, her worried face resting on the edge of the mattress, huge brown eyes intent on her master. Both dogs jumped aboard immediately when given the go ahead, and Olivia tugged the covers up to her chin, shivering now in just her bra and leggings.

She huddled down beneath the comforter and waited for sleep to take her.

. . .