Chapter Twenty-Three: Sunday
Olivia
We slept later on Sunday morning than we did on Saturday. Maybe because we both knew we'd need the extra energy to talk about those last two weeks. For once you woke before I did, and this time I decide to join you when I hear the shower running in the other room.
We greet each other almost gingerly, having not entirely lost the tenderness of last night's ecstasy, and knowing that today may be even harder than yesterday was. Watching the water cascade over your arms and legs, I can see that you've gained a little weight in the last two years. It's nothing anyone else would notice, but I like the sight of your bones being fleshed out a little… it gives me something to hold on to as I lick the water that mixes with your juices while I taste the juncture where your legs come together, below slightly thicker hips, and above minutely more muscular thighs. Your hands rinse water through my hair as I feel your walls clutching at my fingers inside of you, my tongue playing with the water as it falls around your clit. You massage my scalp, and then pull me up for a kiss before turning me around so you can wash my hair, then rinse and condition it before stroking my breasts and hips and butt with a soft terry washcloth. Your arms stretch around to my front, softly washing that place where only you can be. The water and soap makes our contact slippery, but sensual, and I can't help but fall in love with the feel of your wet breasts pushing up against my back, of your hair falling wet against my shoulder as you touch me through the washcloth's softness.
When we've both been cleaned… for the second time, you turn off the water and pull the oversized towel off the rack, wrapping it around both of us, as we stand facing each other, dripping wet, but warm together. Back in the bedroom we dress in more comfortable clothes, mindful of the button marks and belt indents we found after falling asleep awkwardly in our clothes yesterday afternoon. This time we sit together on the couch, and I lean against the armrest with my legs spread out in front of me, inviting you to crawl into the v of my thighs. You lean back so that your head rests tipped up towards mine on my shoulder. With my right hand brushing the back of the sofa, I play with your fingers as my left hand strokes absentmindedly at your hair.
"How do you want to do this?" I ask quietly, knowing we can't put off those last two weeks any longer.
"I don't know Olivia." Your voice is equally soft, and tinged with the barest trace of hurt, as you remember our final fights in the days before you were taken from me. "You already know how I felt about it all, because I told you."
"I know. But… I don't know where to start Alex. There are so many mistakes to explain, how do I pick the one that started them all? Can I pick one that started them all?"
"How about the night when Zapata came at me in the interview room?"
I sigh, somehow I knew it would come to this moment. I tilt my head down towards yours and kiss you before taking a deep breath and focusing on the yellows and whites and silvers that stare at me from the kitchen across the way.
Alex
I wanted to start with Zapata. Maybe because he's the reason we're here, and maybe because his was the case that inspired our final fight, the one that kept me from staying with you when I should have. Your sigh is full of pain, and I can almost taste the salt of your coming tears as you lean in to kiss me before you begin,
"I never knew what the word love meant. It didn't make any sense to me growing up, the idea that you could love your parents. The idea that they could love you was even more far-fetched, and the thought of loving another person was just a fairy tale… something that normal kids believed because its what their mothers told them to believe. My mother never told me what to believe about anything. Except about my father that is. About him I was to believe the very worst, and I still do… although now its because I really understand what he did to her… to us. But back then I believed he was the devil just because it's what mom told me. I didn't even hear the word rape until I was nine years old."
"The vase?" I can still remember the look in your eyes when you told me the story for the first time. I could almost see a 9-year-old Olivia sitting at the table trying to glue porcelain back together as her mom screamed at her about being the product of rape.
"The vase." You pause, breathing deeply to postpone your tears. "I had to look it up in the dictionary… rape. Do you know what it says? 'The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.' Of course then I had to look up sexual intercourse, but I thought it was funny, even at nine years old, that the definition of the word didn't assume actual sex. 'Sex acts.' I didn't understand it really meant anyway, but it seemed weird to me. I wondered what kind of acts you had to do to make a kid that nobody wanted."
A few tears escape your eyes and one falls onto my face, rolling down my own cheek and for a minute I'm swept away by the intimate feeling of this sensation: as if my eyes are crying your tears.
You draw a ragged breath, composing yourself, and leaning to brush your second tear from my cheek, your hand shaking almost imperceptibly as your finger slides up from the base of my cheek, gathering back your saltiness before you continue.
"When you came home that night, and told me about Zapata's explosion in the interview room I was terrified. Even though we didn't know the entire scope of his organization, I could tell this case was going to be different. Do you remember me begging you to give it to Donnelly? I wanted to nail Zapata, but I wanted anyone but you in the line of fire. I didn't know how bad it was going to get, or how horrifically it would turn out but I knew I didn't want you fighting this one. Even at the beginning. It was one thing for me to go after someone like that, I'm the one with the badge and the gun. I knew I could hold my own if I had to. But watching you cry that night, clinging to my jacket because you didn't give me a chance to get changed before you grabbed me, I couldn't stand the thought of losing you.
"I wanted to tell you so badly. Wanted to pick you up and carry you to the bed and hold you all night, telling you how much I loved you, and how scared I was for you… for us. But I couldn't. Because deep down I still wasn't willing to admit to something I couldn't define. I didn't understand what it meant to love anyone, and I couldn't just throw it out there, even when I knew how much you needed to hear me say it.
"When you get right down to it, I couldn't lie to you. And because I didn't understand what love meant, the word felt like a lie to me. And I swore when I quit drinking that I wouldn't do that to you again. I wouldn't lie."
I'm crying now because listening to you this way is both a pain and a relief, and my emotions stir together until I can't recognize them any more. This is what I needed you to say that night. These are the confessions that I longed for during those two weeks. I didn't need to hear you say I love you, so much as I needed to know why you couldn't. Hearing you talk like this is a release to me, and I try to stay focused on your words as I lie crying in your arms, your fingers stroking the skin under my chin, the palm of your hand catching my tears as they fall.
Olivia
I feel your shoulders start shuddering against my chest, feel tears falling from your chin onto my shoulder, and I wonder what you think of everything I've told you. You feel heavy, and tired leaning deeply against my body, and I can't help but start to cry as I catch your tears in my hand, cupped under your chin.
"Do you want to stop?" I don't want you to think I don't care about your tears, but part of me wants to keep the forward momentum, keep going. I've discovered a taste for confession and I'm desperate to finish, to get to the part where you forgive me.
I feel your head shake on my shoulder, and I look down at you in the crook of my neck, eyes closed, cheeks soaked with tears that you've given up trying to stop. I kiss your forehead, then continue.
By the time I'm done, you've stopped crying… then started again, then stopped, and then started. We've cried together, and separately. Our hands have held onto one-another, and they've lain silent and separate. You've cut in my monologue with questions, and I've answered every one, not feeling the resentment at being quizzed that I once did. It's early evening when we finish, and for a while we stay silent, your body wrapped up in mine. Somewhere towards the end you've shifted on me, and you lie on your side, your head still on my shoulder, but turned towards mine, looking at my profile. In this position I feel as though I'm cradling a child, and the image causes fresh tears to fall from my eyes, trailing down my cheek and off my chin, where they mix with yours.
Last night I would have said that I couldn't possibly have felt closer to you than I did after yesterday, but I was wrong. You know everything now. At least everything about those last two weeks. There is still more to tell you about my life, about growing up, about the time before you were mine, but those stories can wait… and we both know it won't be as difficult for me to tell them when it's time. For now we surrender to our tears, huddling together, arms clutched awkwardly around each other, crying together, holding each other up.
Alex
You feel strong around me, but soft too as I let my tears take over for the last time. We have time to talk about other things later, but for now I know-- finally, what was going on in your head those last two weeks. It doesn't make what happened less painful, but somehow it makes the pain less pervasive. It also reminds me that I made my own share of mistakes that week, mistakes that cost us everything… for a while. I should have looked past my anger, found a way to tell you how frightened I was instead of convincing everyone that I was ok, convincing everyone that my first concern was justice for Lydia. The night we heard the tape, the one with my address, with my mother's address… I could hardly breathe. You immediately offered to drive me home, and I let you, because I knew Elliot would be along, and we wouldn't have to fight through my fears alone.
When you pulled me aside, asked me to stay with you… you'll never know how badly I wanted to say yes. Maybe someday I'll tell you, about how my whole body quaked with the thought of being safe in your arms. But I'm as stubborn as you are, and I let my anger answer instead of my fear. Even after the bomb, after Donovan had been wiped from the world, in my shock and revulsion and terror… I couldn't put it all behind me. I let you take me home… and then I made you leave.
Your words come back to me,
"That's why I was so upset about your attitude towards the case… not just because I was worried about you, but because the moment it started I could see you were going to leave me. I guess I wanted to force you out before someone took the choice out of our hands. I think deep down I thought that if I drove you away it would hurt less when something happened."
"Did it?" It was the last question I asked you tonight, before we released ourselves to each other's arms
"No." Your voice started to break. "No, it made it all that much worse, because when he… when they… when you got shot I died, Alex. I kept kneeling over you, trying to hold your blood back, trying to push it back in, watching it seep through my fingers, watching your eyes glaze over, and the only thing I can remember thinking is how much I wished I just told you that I loved you."
"Me too."
That's when your tears started rolling down, joining mine as they fell from my chin and onto my chest and your shoulder, neither of us caring anymore to try and wipe them away, not willing to let go of the clinging hold we have on each other.
Through your tears you're whispering to me, "i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you, i love you," until I disentangle one of my hands, and use it to draw your head down to mine, tasting our tears on your lips, and answering you in a breath against your mouth,
"I know…"