A/N: We have a slight plan again! This wasn't where I intended to go with this chapter but it's a good setup for what I hope will be the next. Thanks for all the words of encouragement. I haven't felt very creative for quite a few years and this story has kind of reignited my excitement for writing again. I want to actually finish it, so I hope we can get it there. Reviews are always loved and craved. I like to hear your thoughts!
It had been about four days of misery but Olivia and Chelsea were finally over the Stabler stomach bug as Olivia had been calling it in her head.
Mark, of course, stayed at a hotel to avoid catching it. His excuse was that someone needed to be healthy in case there was an emergency. There hadn't been one, and Olivia knew getting sick would have been just another interruption to him. Something he couldn't be bothered with.
She spent that four-day span doing a lot of thinking. She tried to remember what it was she saw in Mark in the first place. What had attracted her to him?
Olivia had been at Sienna College for a few months now and she found it to be much easier than being at home, something that had been unsettling since the first day of class. The coursework actually seemed easier than her high school assignments, but she wondered if it was because she actually had the time and patience to focus and study without cleaning up after her mother's many messes.
College algebra was basically a blow off class for her. It was a requirement for all freshmen but somehow she seemed to be in a remedial group. She was the only one who could do the work and it was baffling to her how everyone else found this so hard. She'd aced every assignment and test she'd taken so far with minimal studying. One morning the week before Christmas break, she got to class earlier than usual. She intended to finish reading a novel for a different class, maybe even during the final review they were having today because she knew she didn't need it. She expected to be alone, but when she got there the teaching assistant, Mark Messer, was sitting at his desk grading papers.
Olivia thought about turning around and heading to the library instead, but he saw her before she could make an exit.
"Well, if it isn't our star student," Mark said smiling as Olivia walked in.
"I wouldn't say that," she said.
"I would," he said. "You sure you don't want to teach today. You could probably do it with your hands tied and blindfolded. But the other kids still wouldn't understand."
Olivia chuckled. She hadn't really gotten to know Mark that well. He was four years older than her, in his first year of an MBA program at Sienna and working as a teaching assistant for tuition credit. He wasn't bad looking, in a clean cut sort of way. Wavy sandy colored hair, hazel eyes, about six foot. He wasn't Olivia's usual type, which she hated to admit was a little closer to bad boy, or at least something a bit more dangerous, but she could still appreciate a decent looking man in any form.
"I mean I took this same class in high school so it's not really a challenge," she said. "But it is a requirement so what can you do?"
"Are you going into a math or science field?" Mark asked, seeming genuinely interested. This was new to Olivia. Nobody ever really took an interest in her. Her roommate would make small talk with her, her mother was either drunk or critical, and nobody else really paid her much mind. But Mark was actually looking at her, paying attention to her, and seemed interested in what she'd say next.
"I'm undeclared right now," Olivia said. "My real interest is literature, but I can't see myself majoring in that. I want a job with a little bit of action or unpredictability."
"Working in a library can be very unpredictable," Mark said with a chuckle. "Especially a public library in New York City."
They both laughed and Olivia found herself enjoying the conversation. Most of the boys she'd met in her life and on campus so far never bothered to have a conversation that went more than two sentences before they brought up sex. And it was fine, if that's what she was after, but it was nice that someone seemed more interested in her mind than her body for once.
She and Mark talked for a while before other students started filtering in. She figured that was the end of things until he passed back the review packets and there was a sticky note stuck to hers that read "After Friday I'll no longer be your teaching assistant, but I'd like to know you better. Dinner Saturday at Joe Villa's, 8 p.m.?"
Olivia had been stunned, but flattered. She did want to get to know Mark better. They'd gone to dinner and had a good time. He kissed her on the cheek when he walked her back to her dorm and didn't try to make excuses to come up. They'd gone on quite a few dates before she finally decided to make the first move and kiss him, and that was the first time she realized he had control hang ups.
"I was going to wait two more dates," he said, flummoxed when she pulled away.
"Well, I got tired of waiting," she said.
"But that wasn't part of the plan," he said. He wasn't agitated exactly, more upset.
"What plan?" Olivia asked.
"My plan for how to handle our relationship," he said. "Ask you out before the end of the semester, go on eight dates, then kiss you, then ask you if you'd like to be exclusive. Then, if you said yes, it would be time to make a new plan."
"Do we really need to plan every aspect of our relationship?" Olivia asked. "Isn't it sometimes good to be spontaneous and go where the moment takes you?"
"But if you prepare for it, you can make the moment as special as possible," Mark said. "I like routine. I like structure. I don't like surprises."
Olivia found it odd, but who didn't have their quirks? She did like Mark, enjoyed that he was a gentleman, and truly she did enjoy having some structure in her life since he'd been around. She could surely stand to be sympathetic to his need for order.
"If I'd known I wouldn't have sped things up," she said. "But from now on, I have to know the plan so I can follow it, okay?"
And he'd agreed. And from there he shared all of his short-and-long-term schedules and plans with her about life. He wanted to be married soon after he graduated his MBA, and Olivia realized if they stayed together, she wouldn't even be halfway done with college yet by that time. But she tried not to think about it. Surely he'd extend that deadline if he really wanted to be with her.
It wasn't too much of a surprise the night he proposed. They'd gone to dinner and he'd alluded to it being a big night. She knew he wanted to be engaged for at least six months before they got married and the timing all added up. After dinner he took her to the classroom where they first met and proposed at what used to be her desk. It was sweet, but not particularly romantic because it was predictable. They'd gone back to his apartment and slept together to celebrate. And then Olivia had some questions.
"I know what your marriage plan is, Mark," she said. "But what about your family plans? When you get pregnant isn't always an exact science. I don't know if I can conjure up a child on demand."
Mark had gotten quiet and it took a bit of prodding to get it out of him.
"When I was in my teens, I had testicular cancer," he said. "I'm healed now, but the doctor said there's a limited chance I can have children now. I'm not totally sterile, but he said it might not happen for me. So I've never planned for kids."
Olivia felt like she'd been hit in the gut with a baseball bat. She wasn't ready to be a mother tomorrow, but she'd always assumed somewhere down the line, in her late 20s or early 30s, that she would be married and be a mother. And here was the man she was engaged to, telling her that may never happen for them. And it wasn't his fault. Wasn't that he didn't want children, but a cruel twist of fate had nearly taken away his options.
"I think someday we could talk about adoption," Mark said. "If you really need kids in your life. We could plan for that."
It soothed her a little bit. She knew there were many children out there who wanted and needed loving homes, and she could make one for them. But there was still a pang knowing she'd probably never experience pregnancy, the joy of waiting and wishing and wondering for nine months of who her child would turn out to be.
The next night was the night she'd gone driving and met the man in the rain. She'd felt guilty for weeks after, so much so that it was manifesting into physical symptoms of stress. She was tired all the time and throwing up every morning.
"Livvy, you really should go to the doctor," Mark told her one morning after she emerged from her 8:22 a.m. excursion. "You shouldn't be so stressed over your classes that you're making yourself sick."
She knew of course, that it wasn't her classes making her heave, but she hadn't even suspected pregnancy. She thought it was guilt. But she made an appointment anyway and thought at minimum the doctor could recommend a psychologist for her to speak with about her issues. The positive pregnancy test had been a surprise and she had no idea how she was going to tell Mark. Especially because this did not fit the plan.
She prepared a nice dinner for him at his apartment, dressed up nice, and thought she'd let him down easy, give back the ring. But he didn't even suspect infidelity.
"This is our miracle," Mark said, as he scrambled up from the table and pulled Olivia into an unexpected hug. "I know the timing isn't right but I'm so glad we're going to have a little person that's part you and part me. Especially if this was our once in a lifetime chance. We can plan for this. Now that we know. We can move up the wedding date, and start looking for a house sooner. I'll adjust the schedule and everything will work out just fine. I should have known with such routine puking spells that you were carrying my kid in there."
It was all Olivia could do not to laugh and cry at the same time. So she decided this was better. Mark was happy, excited, and her child would have a father. They'd be a family and she'd have the things she always wanted.
But eight years later, Olivia wasn't so sure this was what she wanted. An emotionally detached husband that couldn't handle change. Children were unpredictable. Life was unpredictable. She was unpredictable. But she was also in too deep now. The amount of people she'd hurt if they knew the truth, the fallout would be catastrophic. Mark's name was on Chelsea's birth certificate, not Elliot's.
Yet, Mark couldn't even bother to stay home and take care of her, of either of them, when they were sick. But Elliot did. On Sunday evening, Chelsea had been sleeping in Olivia's lap on the couch while she watched a sitcom with the volume low when there was a knock at the door. She'd extracted Chelsea, got her down on the couch and went to the door, but nobody was there, just a few bags of groceries.
When she pulled everything out, there'd been gatorade, soup, crackers, and bread. There was also a stuffed dog and a dozen purple roses, and a card that said "Get Well Soon." She'd thought it was Mark and she'd texted him to thank him, but he didn't know anything about it. There was nobody else that would have known they were sick. Except for one person.
"Random care package showed up at my door this evening, you know anything about it?" she texted Elliot.
"Who me?" he responded. "Just some stuff you'll need. Hope Mark is taking as good of care of you two as you did for us. See you back at work soon."
She didn't have the heart to tell Elliot that Mark wasn't even around, and for some reason it made her cry. Because everything was backwards and everything was wrong. Mark was her husband and Elliot had a wife. And she couldn't keep playing house with him off the job like this. It would hurt too much to know everything that they could have had if they'd just met under different circumstances. Or maybe what she wouldn't even know if they hadn't met at all.
Everything was a mess, and she had no idea how to fix it.
