A/N: Welp, we made it to part four. I can't believe how fast this fic is going by. I wish I had another 40 more chapters to post after the epilogue. :'/ Good news is the fourth and final cover can now be viewed on AO3 (chief_johnson), Twitter & DeviantArt (crystallinejen, for both). Hope y'all like it. I'm giving this chapter a TW for child sexual abuse and attempted suicide. /TW Looking forward to hearing what you guys think. Happy Monday.


PART IIII: GOD ONLY KNOWS

. . .

CHAPTER 33: The Straight and Narrow

"You want me to what?" Amanda eyed the proffered notebook as if it might be rigged with explosives set to detonate the moment she lifted the front flap.

It was just one of those Composition Books with the black and white marble cover, like she had used throughout high school—"college ruled," this one read; was that supposed to make her feel smarter?—but she had to force herself to reach over and snatch it up. The woman was looking at her like she was crazy. Hell, she probably was. Why else would she have agreed to come here?

For Liv, she reminded herself. Because you would walk through fire to keep her. You'd bare your soul to a complete stranger if that's what it took. And for the kids, because you can't bear for them to look at you the way you looked at your daddy.

She made a good argument.

"I'd like for you to start keeping a journal," the woman repeated. Her name was Alexis Hanover, a real crackerjack psychologist, according to Dr. Lindstrom (not his exact words, but close enough). The most annoying thing about her was that Amanda kind of liked her. She had an easygoing manner and seemed to genuinely listen to the conversation, what little of it there had been so far. She also reminded Amanda of that actress from that TV show—it hadn't clicked just yet.

"You mean a diary? Like I'm twelve?" Amanda asked, and instantly felt a pang of guilt that made her wither against the couch, hugging the notebook to her stomach. She thought of Olivia's journal, voluminous with her faithful scribbling, the words flocking across the page, sharp-beaked and swift-winged. She thought of her own name, alone, abandoned by the group, at the top of an empty page. That would haunt her for a long time to come.

"Try to think of it as more of a talking point for these sessions," said Dr. Hanover. She had returned to the lounge chair, which was positioned too far away from the couch, if you asked Amanda. (It made her feel as though she was on stage.) The doctor leaned forward, elbows on the knees of her pencil skirt. "Or a way to organize your thoughts beforehand."

"So . . . homework?" Amanda tried to laugh it off, but no doubt about it, she was being a little shit. Deflecting, Hanover would probably call it. She couldn't help it. By now, it was a natural reflex, like blinking during a sneeze or ducking from a punch. Just one of the many reasons she needed therapy in the first place.

The doctor had her work cut out for her with Detective Rollins.

"Look, Amanda." Hanover shifted to the edge of her seat, palms flat together and arrowed in front of her, faintly chopping the air as she made her point. "I'm here to help you, but I can't do that if you won't talk to me. This is our second session, and you've told me next to nothing about yourself. So far we've discussed your fiancée, her job, her PTSD, and the children you share with her. I've met Captain Benson, and she's lovely, but I want to know how you feel about those things."

Amanda's leg had started to bounce, the ball of her foot poised on the floor, heel jiggling as frantically as a Morse code operator tapping out a distress signal on a telegraph key. Powerless to stop it, she pressed the notebook against her lap, trying to at least mask some of the quaking. "Do I have to show you what I write?" she asked, inwardly cursing her childish voice and the childish question.

"Only if you choose to. You're free to write candidly and honestly about anything that comes to mind, and no one but you ever needs to read it. If it sparks an idea for something you'd like to talk about and you do decide to bring it along, that works too." Dr. Hanover smiled gently, managing not to look patronizing as she did so. It actually appeared as though she cared. "This can be a safe space for you. It doesn't have to be intimidating or frightening."

Easy for you to say, you're not the one in the hot seat, Amanda thought, even as she forced a smile. Until her relationship with Olivia, she hadn't known what a safe space felt like, or if such a thing existed. Now she knew for certain that it did—and it was in Olivia's arms.

"I gamble," she heard herself blurt, her brain fully unaware of what her mouth planned to say. "Or I used to. I'm in G.A. . . . that's Gamblers—" The doctor nodded her understanding, so Amanda skipped ahead. "I kinda fell off the wagon a few weeks ago. Guess that's why I'm here. Part of it, anyway."

"Well," said the doctor, sitting back as if she'd been hit with a heavy gust of wind. "That's a pretty big topic to get into this late in the session, but I would definitely like to hear more about it. Can we continue that discussion next week? Or I can schedule something sooner if you feel it's urg—"

"Next week's good." Amanda started to gather her things, then realized all she had was the composition book, already in hand, and her coat, on a hook by the door. She got to her feet, the notebook flapping like an unruly flag at a car dealership as she gestured with it, making a beeline for the coat hook. "I'm going to meetings and I haven't had anymore slips, so it's not an emergency. Just thought I should mention it."

Why, oh why, had she mentioned it?

"I'm glad you did. It sounds like something you're wanting to work on. Amanda, hey." Hanover waited for Amanda to look up from bundling into her coat as if she were FDNY, on her way to a four-alarm fire. "That's a good thing."

By the time the doctor had written out a reminder card for their next appointment, Amanda practically revisited her days on the track team, accepting the card like it was a baton and all but sprinting out the door. Tucked safely inside her Jeep a few moments later, finally able to breathe again, she pinched the business card between her fingers, about to rip it in two.

Then she thought of the text from Olivia that had popped up on her phone screen while she sat in the waiting room outside Dr. Hanover's office:

Proud of you.

She bookmarked the reminder between the notebook pages, set them aside on the passenger seat, and headed towards home.

. . .

1/26/21

I'm supposed to start writing in this thing. No idea what I'm supposed to say. Liv told me to just write whatever I feel, so here it is: this is stupid.

Trying not to use that word anymore. She hates it and I don't want the kids picking it up. But come on. How is writing a bunch of crap down going to help? How is talking about a bunch of crap going to help?

Good news is I've been back to work for a couple weeks, stomach is healed (kind of), and I doubt I'll need therapy very long.

Are you supposed to end these? I don't know.

Over and out.


The theme song to Jeopardy! was playing in Olivia's head. She traded weight to the opposite elbow, keenly aware of the padded arm of the chair sinking in; of the creaky leather beneath her. She was keenly aware of just about everything in the room, but especially the man who stared keenly back at her. He had been doing that for a full forty-five seconds—she'd been leaning on her watch arm, the left, until it started to ache—and all she could think of was that damn quiz show ditty.

Dun duh-dun-dun dun . . . dun . . . dun . . . gong gong!

"I know you think I'm too blinded by love or—" Olivia cast around for another explanation, her eyes landing right back on the watch, the hand wearing it inserted between her knees. " . . . or past abuse to make a rational decision, but that's not true. She's proven herself. She's going to therapy and G.A. meetings, and she's even started to open up a little more with me about the abuse she witnessed during childhood."

Christ, it had been painful to listen to that. After showering together the night of that godawful argument, after several minutes of clinging together on their knees in the bedroom, they had moved the clinging over to the bed, where they held each other and talked until 6 AM. Olivia had called in sick to work, and it wasn't a lie: she was half sick with a hangover—from the wine and the roller-coaster emotions of the previous evening—and a migraine, but even more so from hearing Amanda detail the screaming, the beatings, the aftermath. The fear, the hate, and despite it all, the love she'd still harbored for her father. "Mean Dean," she called him.

The detective barely cried when she spoke about it. Only towards the end, admitting that she'd loved him—admired him, for a time—even after watching him throttle Beth Anne, had she looked up at Olivia with tears in her eyes and asked, "How sick is that?" And then, over and over, weeping until she went limp in Olivia's arms: "I don't wanna be like him, Liv. I just wanna be good like you."

It was no sicker than craving your mother's love and approval after she'd beaten and strangled you, Olivia wanted to tell her. No sicker than being angry that your mother had ruined the one chance for you to speak to your father, her rapist. Daydreaming that he might still have been a loving father to you, regardless of what he was to other women—a monster.

I'm not good, she wanted to tell Amanda. I just do good things to make up for what I really am. A mistake. A monster's child.

But the words had stuck in her throat like flies on a sticky paper strip, and after calling the precinct with Amanda's cell—her earrings and three hundred and fifty dollars fell out of the pockets when she upended the jeans—she had returned to bed to find her fiancée deeply asleep.

"I'm sorry, what?" Olivia asked now, realizing she hadn't heard anything Dr. Lindstrom was saying for the past several moments. She flicked the hair from her shoulders, as if that might clear her mind or at least her ears. He probably thought she was going deaf, as often as she asked him to repeat himself.

"Where did you go just now?" Lindstrom circled the air with the tip of his pen, indicating the space above her head.

Or maybe he just thought she was losing it.

"I, um— I was thinking about the awful things Amanda saw and overheard as a child." Olivia cleared her throat and glanced at the mug of water on the side table. She was extremely thirsty, but she didn't reach for it. Somehow, it felt weak to need water in front of him—or any man.

"And?" Lindstrom's eyes had followed hers to the mug, then sprang back up like a yo-yo as he asked the question. Why did he have to be so damn observant?

Olivia crossed her legs in the opposite direction, leaning away from the table, the water. "And I don't want to make it about me. It's her trauma, not mine. She's been dealing with mine for the past year, it's time to focus on hers."

"It affects you as well, though, doesn't it? The recent troubles you had in your relationship were related to her trauma, yes?"

"Some of it," Olivia said measuredly, and caught herself leaning farther back from the doctor, though there was a distance of at least five feet between them already. The man had helped her through some of her darkest moments and knew more of her secrets than anyone else, except Amanda, and she was treating him as if he were a nosy coworker.

Fine, he wanted the full story? It was the same one she'd been telling for years.

"But it was because of me, too. My trauma. If I had been a little more trusting about the bank account thing, instead of worrying I was . . . I don't know, losing my independence, then maybe none of the other things would have happened. Amanda wouldn't have gotten shot, I wouldn't have contacted her mother, and Beth Anne wouldn't have been around to stir things up for both of us . . . "

"What is it that she stirred up for you in particular?"

Oh God, he was really going to make her say it again.

"Memories of my own mother," she sighed, letting both hands drop heavily into her lap. She sought out the watch with her fingers, avoiding a peek down at it, and nudged it side to side on her wrist. She imagined she could feel the inscriptions on the back, two of them now, warm as breath against her skin. "How she mistreated me. How much she— she hated me."

Lindstrom tipped his head, a gesture that might indicate sympathy, but could just as easily have been an unconscious twitch. Hopefully the latter. "I don't believe your mother hated you, Olivia."

"Well, she sure as hell didn't love me. And that's just as bad. You try explaining to a four-year-old why her mother won't hold her, or tell a seven-year-old that she had to find her way home from school by herself because mommy loves her but forgot to pick her up. Tell a twelve-year-old who has to hide her bruises at school that her mother didn't mean to hurt her. Tell a fourteen-year-old who wakes up in the middle of the night with the guy her mother brought home to screw standing over top of—"

Shit. Olivia had entirely blocked out that last memory until it was tumbling from her lips. She grasped her knees so hard her knuckles blanched, lungs likewise grasping at air. The guy hadn't done anything; hadn't gotten the chance. She was frozen beneath the covers, pretending to be asleep while his hand crept up her thigh ("Hey, little cutie, I know you're awake under there," he whispered), when Serena burst in with a baseball bat. He wasn't the first of her mother's drunken one-nighters to look sideways at Olivia, nor would he be the last.

You try explaining to a child that her mother was too drunk to protect her from the predators she invited into their home.

"You've never mentioned this before," said Lindstrom, frowning and setting aside his legal pad, as if she had startled him out of note taking. All these years, and she could still surprise him. "What did the man do to you?"

A question for the ages.

"He didn't do anything. My mother . . . " Olivia gave a vague flit of her hand. "Chased him away before he got the chance. And before you say that proves she cared, she also accused me of trying to steal her 'boyfriends' whenever something like that happened."

"That happened to you more than once, then?"

Had she said that? Dammit. The conversation had gotten away from her. She preferred to be in control of these therapy sessions, deciding which and how much information to divulge, not recovering memories by a slip of the tongue. If she had buried that, what else was there waiting for her beneath the surface?

"Not that precisely, no," she said, choosing each word with caution. She trapped her hands between her thighs to prevent them from doing the talking for her. "But a lot of the guys she brought home were just strangers she met in a bar. Some of them were more interested in me than in her, and she blamed me for it."

Olivia knew the next question without the doctor even asking; she had heard it so many times—from Lindstrom, from nurses eyeing her with concern, from countless eerily perceptive criminals, from Amanda—it barely made her flinch anymore. Barely. "None of them raped me. One came after me, I got away. Another . . . fondled my breasts. One guy said some dirty things. But that's not whu—" Her throat sealed up suddenly with a harsh glottal stop, forcing her to reach for the mug of water. Weakness or not, lukewarm or not, she gulped several mouthfuls.

"That's not what I'm here to discuss," she said levelly, when she found her voice again. She placed the mug aside before her hands could start fiddling with it and end up dousing her lap. A mate to the mug—from a set of four, each sporting a realistic tropical fish decal on the side—sat on the end table next to Lindstrom. He had the clown triggerfish, she the French angelfish. She focused on her fish, noteworthy for its neon yellow markings against midnight-blue, and spoke as if she were addressing it, instead of the doctor. "I've dealt with all that . . . "

Liar, she thought, feeling almost guilty with the fish staring back, bug-eyed and maloccluded. So maybe she hadn't dealt with it, but she had survived much worse, had been treated for much worse, and she could work through those long-forgotten childhood upsets in a snap. There were other more pressing matters to resolve.

"Or I will. But I came here to talk about my relationship with Amanda. I need to hear that it's going to be all right. That she and I can make it through anything together, and I'm not rushing into a marriage that won't last." Olivia gestured at Lindstrom like a mugger demanding the cash be handed over faster. "So. Tell me."

The doctor had the audacity to chuckle, as if he thought her facetious. He was one of a select few who could get away with playing the calm, reasonable sage while Olivia fretted over things beyond her control; the other one was Amanda. "You know I can't tell you that, Olivia," he said, taking such a brief sip from the clown triggerfish, it was a wonder he got anything besides air. "No one can. And we've discussed how difficult relationships can be when both sides experience a significant amount of trauma, as you and Amanda have since childhood. Even one trauma survivor in a relationship can sometimes be too much for a partner to handle."

Olivia let her vision drift out of focus, until the yellow flecks on her angelfish elongated and blurred, becoming a constellation of distant golden stars. Far out of reach. "Yes . . . " She hadn't heard anything she didn't already know, but her heart and her shoulders felt twice as heavy. Arms sagging at her sides, she nodded blankly. She would always be too much for anyone to handle.

"But by the same token, it also makes you uniquely suited to one another. You and she share some very similar experiences. You understand each other's feelings, your needs and limitations, better than most people could." Lindstrom shifted the notes back into his lap, but rolled the pen between his fingers instead of writing with it. He wasn't a nervous tapper, just a twirler, as if the wheels in his brain were spinning on the outside. "I think it's a good sign that you're both willing to work on your issues by seeking treatment. That shows commitment, strength of character, maturity . . . all qualities that contribute to a healthy, balanced relationship. You clearly care very deeply for each other, and you've made it through insurmountable odds together before. Numerous times."

The angelfish constellation started to look a little more like a glimmer of hope, and Olivia brought her eyes back into focus, this time on Lindstrom. "We've definitely done that," she said, more to herself than the doctor. Her smile, though faint, was also directed inward.

"It is still important to take time for yourself and not put each other's recovery before your own," he said in a serious tone, ducking his gaze slightly, as if he were a teacher who suspected her of not paying attention in class. "And to remember that there may be moments when you're both struggling with your pasts, which can make it difficult to be supportive and nurturing, even when you want to be."

Yes, well. That warning would have been far more helpful a few weeks earlier, while Olivia and Amanda were in a downward spiral of PTSD, depression, and addiction. She nodded anyway, to show she was listening. Unpleasant as some of his advice could be to hear, he seldom steered her wrong and she truly did value his opinion.

But if he had cautioned her against marrying Amanda, she would have ignored him completely, that much she knew. This visit was merely a way to air out the doubts that she couldn't express elsewhere—the doubts she'd had in nearly every relationship she'd been in. Unlike those relationships, she was prepared to do whatever it took to make this one last.

"It looks like our time is almost up," said Lindstrom, with a glance at his watch. "Was there anything else you were hoping to discuss?"

She hadn't told him every detail about the fight: the hair pulling, the angry sex, how it aroused her when Amanda got rough. And she hadn't brought up the drinking or double-dosing of her anxiety meds, but that could wait till next time. The wine rack at home had been empty since that night—she didn't even pick up a fresh bottle for New Year's—and if it came down to it, she would ask Amanda to monitor the pills. But it wouldn't. Olivia knew when to quit.

"I think we covered everything," she said, and took one last sip from the French angelfish.

. . .

January 28, 2021

I'm lying to my therapist again. That always ends well for me. Ha. But it's not so much a lie as . . . being selective with the truth. And it's a truth I'm just figuring out for myself, so I need a little time to process. I hadn't forgotten that she tried to commit suicide, but I had forgotten about the men.

Let me back up a bit. You see, when I was growing up, my mother brought home a lot of strange men for sex. I don't fault her for that—she had her reasons, namely a whopping case of untreated RTS, during a time when no one knew how to counsel rape victims or cared to try. The hospital staff was nasty to her when she gave birth to me, because unwed mothers were bad enough, but a girl who had gotten herself raped must be an even bigger whore. (She told me that story over our first glass of wine together.)

I was already seven or eight by the time courts began to acknowledge marital rape as a crime—Jesus Christ, I was twenty-five and a rookie before it was criminalized in every state. We didn't know how to treat victims by then, either. Sometimes we still don't.

What I'm trying to say is, she had it rough. Part of me can understand why she did the things she did. And another part never will. So: the men.

Some of them were nice. Unfortunately, the nice ones didn't hang around as long as the bad ones (and by that, I mean hours, occasionally into the next morning, but seldom longer). What I told Lindstrom was true—none of them raped me. I was eleven when one of them tried.

He came back to the apartment after I got out of school. Serena must have mentioned I was a latchkey kid. I let him in, as kids back then tended to do. I can't remember his excuse for returning, how he convinced me to sit in his lap, or how I got free when he held me down and tried to take off my pants. I just remember kicking him in the balls like Serena taught me and running next door to Mrs. Brewster, the elderly widow who babysat me until Serena saw how close we'd gotten and wouldn't let me stay with her anymore. But that's another story.

He was gone by the time she got home from work and dragged me by the arm to our apartment. I never told her about what he'd done—what he tried to do—and he never came back. I never told her about any of them, except the ones she found out by herself.

The guy who fondled my breasts doesn't have a face. At least not when I try to picture it. He's just hands, the fingers creeping up my shirt like spiders. I had developed enough to wear a bra by then, so I must have been around . . . thirteen? Fourteen? I guess he got all he wanted, because the memory ends there.

The worst one was not long after she choked me. She went on a bender and I didn't see her for two full days, until she came stumbling in with him, yelled at me for watching MTV ("That will rot your brain," as if her liver wasn't rotting by the glassful), and told me to get my ass to bed. I was in my pajamas, and he must have liked what he saw. He cornered me when I came out of my room a while later for a drink of water. She'd fallen asleep without finishing him off, he said. Would I mind doing the rest?

"You're a sexy little thing. Way better than that old drunk. Cooze is as stretched out as a used rubber. You never heard that before? Cooze? It means pussy. Bet yours is real pretty, just like your mouth. You wanna suck on it? How old are you, honey?"

What I didn't remember until therapy yesterday was that he had exposed himself, grabbed my hand, and rubbed it up and down his dick while he said all that to me. I was half-asleep and my voice was hoarse from the choking, so I couldn't really scream. I think my hand was still on his penis when she caught us; I know I was crying. I expected her to go crazy, maybe kill both of us. I at least expected her to yell at him and throw him out, the way she did with the guy I saw her fellating . . .

You know what she did instead?

She said, "Thanks for warming him up for me, hon," and led him away to the bedroom. I went back to bed and told myself it was all a dream, and it worked so well, I'm only now realizing the extent of what happened; only now making the connection to what happened next.

I got home from school the following day and there was a note from her on the table:

Olivia,

I'm sorry. You deserved a better mother. You're a good girl. Don't blame yourself for any of this.

S.B.

She was unconscious in the tub when I found her, an empty bottle of sleeping pills bobbing around in the water, a glass of wine on the floor beside her. I guess she wanted to go out in style, and a bottle of Smirnoff didn't quite fit the image of the sophisticated, tragic professor, dead at thirty-nine. God, thirty-nine. A baby.

I don't think she ever forgave me for saving her that day. There were a lot of things she never forgave me for.

I haven't decided when or if I'll tell Lindstrom that story, but I'm going to tell Amanda. She should know that suicidal tendencies run on both sides of my family. I would never do that to her or the kids. But she should know.

. . .