A/N: Back from vacation and ready to give this story and Amanda some much needed time to heal.
A quick reminder that Amanda's parents do not live in Georgia anymore. They live in New York and her sister is (probably) still locked up. So she's not back to see them.
And, I don't normally do this, but I have to say something because this story is super personal to me, so I struggled to let this go.
To the person commenting that a happy ending would be forced and that I'm only promising it to avoid offending my readers: The whole point of this story has been to show how their relationship grew over the years while enduring a lot of trauma and hurt on both sides, culminating with what happened in the last chapter. How they always came back because they depend on each other so much. But Amanda was hurt long before they even met (as was Liv, but this is mainly an Amanda focused fic), and this is how I choose to write her healing; And that includes her doing it partly on her own.
People and relationships can survive the worst of hardships if both parties are willing to put in the work. I know this firsthand, so no, I do not agree with you about a happy ending being forced here. I don't want to spoil anything, but a "happy ending" can be many things, and remember: I never promised it would be easy and all rainbows and sunshine.
There's a reason why I gave this story several warnings, it was never meant to be a lighthearted Rolivia fic. So if you don't like it, then that's totally fine, no one is forcing you to finish it. But keep in mind that trauma survivors are reading your reviews, too. We all heal and recover differently, and that's ok.
So, I'll leave it at that.
TW: ED + PTSD.
Christina Perri – Arms
Lily Kershaw – As It Seems
The Hereafter – Back Where I Was
CHAPTER 32 – JANUARY 2022
Amanda isn't exactly sure how long she's been sitting outside the house, but it's getting kind of uncomfortable in the car because of the heat, so she figures it might've been a while. She keeps dropping her phone from one hand to the other, like she's weighing her options, like the device is somehow going to tell her what to do.
Stay. Go outside. Knock.
Leave. Never come back.
Right now, option B is definitely the most tempting, and most likely. And it would be so easy, too. Pretend that she never came here. Turn the car around and go home to Sienna and the girls, pretend it's just another slow and uneventful day here in Loganville.
But Amanda is here for a reason.
It didn't make any sense when she first made the decision. But when that Georgia air greeted her and filled her lungs, somehow welcoming and unsettling at the same time, she knew why she had come back, and why she had broken several hearts in the process. She didn't leave everything behind in New York, she didn't leave the fucking love of her life, to just sit around and drink iced tea all day. She knew this the moment she got off that plane three weeks ago. She is here for a reason.
It's the fourth time she has done this. Parked her car on the side of this familiar road, and waited. And Amanda is still waiting. For what, she's not quite sure. Courage, probably.
Just like all the other times, the only sound breaking the silence, is the sound of her steady breaths, and the occasional car passing by. The street is otherwise quiet, not like it used to be.
The first thing that makes her flinch, is the phone giving off a short buzz in her hand.
"You will not believe what happened to me at work today."
She smiles while reading the text from Olivia, happy that she's finally back to work, happy that they can text each other like this now. Because all of it had seemed impossible just two weeks ago.
"Try me."
"I got peed on."
"By a dog? Please say it was a dog."
"It was not a dog."
"I have so many questions."
"I'll tell you all about it tonight. What are you doing?"
"Sitting in a car."
"You're back?"
"Yup."
"Any progress?"
"Nope."
"You'll get there, Amanda. And if not, then that's ok, too."
"I love you. Even if you smell like pee."
"I know."
It had been a mess. And in many ways, it still is. But at least it's a mess they have somewhat figured out how to navigate their way through. The random texts throughout the day, the multiple, countless I love you's, the FaceTime calls late at night. It's far from enough though, and she knows that.
They both know that.
At first, they didn't talk at all, except for the tiny exchange of hearts, as if just letting each other know that they were still alive was the only form of communication they were capable of at the time.
But then one night, while sitting outside on the terrace of the Airbnb house she was currently renting, Sienna's playlist had unexpectedly given her the words she didn't know that she needed.
I never thought that you would be the one to hold my heart.
But you came around, and you knocked me off the ground from the start.
You put your arms around me, and I believe that it's easier for you to let me go.
You put your arms around me and I'm home.
How many times will let you me change my mind and turn around.
I can't decide if I'll let you save my life or if I'll drown.
I hope that you see right through my walls.
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling.
I'll never let a love get so close.
You put your arms around me and I'm home.
The world is coming down on me, and I can't find a reason to be loved.
I never wanna leave you, but I can't make you bleed if I'm alone.
You put your arms around me, and I believe that it's easier for you to let me go.
I hope that you see right through my walls.
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling.
I'll never let a love get so close.
You put your arms around me and I'm home.
I tried my best to never let you in to see the truth.
And I've never opened up, I've never truly loved 'till you put your arms around me.
And I believe that it's easier for you to let me go.
I hope that you see right through my walls.
I hope that you catch me, 'cause I'm already falling.
I'll never let a love get so close.
You put your arms around me and I'm home.
You put your arms around me and I'm home.
"This" She had simply texted with the link attached.
"I love you, Amanda. Never stopped. Always will." The reply came ten minutes later, making her cry silently while mouthing "it's ok" when Sienna turned to look at her with worried eyes.
And so, the navigating had begun, sometimes giving her a sense of hope, sometimes made so excruciatingly complicated by the nearly nine hundred miles that separated them.
The second thing that makes her flinch, is the gentle but sudden voice coming from next to her rolled down window.
"Listen, honey, If you wanna stalk someone, you might wanna be a bit more subtle."
"I'm so sorry." Amanda apologizes with a hand on her chest, willing her heart to slow down. "I'm not stalking you. I'm-"
"Wait… I know who you are."
Please don't, please don't say it.
Her picture had been all over the news when she went missing, and all though definitely worse back home in New York, she can still get the feeling that people are staring, recognizing her from somewhere they can't quite place.
"You're Mandy!"
Confusion immediately replaces her anxiety. "Wh- How do you know who I am?" The scorching sun makes her squint and she steps out of the car to get a better look at this woman who somehow knows her old nickname.
"Come on, let me show you." The woman grabs her arm then and starts walking towards the house.
Amanda roughly pulls her arm back and out of the stranger's hold. "No!" She is fully aware of the fact that her little outburst is uncalled for, but except for her girls, no one has touched her since Olivia clung to her at the airport.
"Sorry. I'm sorry." The blonde says, suddenly feeling winded and completely out of balance.
The woman staring back at her folds her arms and smiles sadly, seemingly unfazed by Amanda's abrupt recoil. "Something happened to you in this house, didn't it?"
Something happened to me everywhere.
"I just… I don't know if I'm ready to go inside."
"Then how about the porch? Think you can do that? And I can explain how I know who you are?"
The porch. Baby steps.
"Ok." Amanda nods, looking from the house and back to the stranger in front of her. "I can do that."
The blonde's right leg is bouncing up and down, matching the pace of her fidgeting hands, while she waits for the woman to come back outside. "Here." She says as she hands her a cup of coffee. "Now don't get too excited, it's decaf. With the way you're twitching I figured caffeine would make you sprint off like Usain Bolt or something."
"Thanks." Amanda smiles, and as anxious as she is, the smile is genuine. She likes this woman. She's forward, blunt, but inviting. It kind of reminds her of someone she knows.
"The entire house was cleaned out when I moved in a couple of years ago, but I found this taped to the inside of one of the closets."
Amanda slowly places the mug on the small coffee table between the two chairs, while her brain works to process what she's looking at. "Oh my god." She whispers, as tears instantly well up in her eyes.
Looking back at her, are two young girls; One dressed as a ladybug, one as a ghost. The ladybug, the eldest of the two, has a forced smile on her face, and a distant look in her eyes. The ghost is grinning from ear to ear.
She knows what she'll see when she turns the old photograph around.
"Mandy and Kimmy, Halloween 1992"
"Ok, girls, big smiles for mama! Come on, Mandy, you can do better than that."
"Can't we just go?"
"Are you in a hurry or something? Meeting your boyfriend later?"
"I don't have a boyfriend."
"And you probably never will with that attitude. Come on, smile a little, like your sister. Look at you Kimmy, my little ghost!"
Amanda didn't want to go trick or treating that Halloween. She didn't know when or why but at some point the boys, and sometimes, too often, the men in her neighborhood had started treated her differently. And she hated it. The way they stared at her, followed her around, called out names and words she was too young to understand but understood nonetheless.
Looking at that picture now, she knows the reason why she had picked that particular costume. She wanted to let the world know that she was still just a kid. She was just a twelve-year-old girl, and not a "hot piece of ass".
But that night, Amanda wasn't the only one being put in harm's way.
"Kim! Come back here!" Her heart was racing and tears had gathered in her eyes when she finally spotted her little sister in the dark and bustling street. There she was, walking, or rather skipping away, hand in hand with a tall stranger.
Amanda ran towards them, ignoring the voice in her head that told her to call out for help. Because her needing help to save Kim was equivalent to her being a bad sister. A bad person.
"Stop!"
Kim finally turned around and looked at her, smiling brightly while using her free hand to proudly hold out the big bag of candy that had appeared out of nowhere. All though, Amanda had a vague idea of where it came from.
"This your sister, Kimmy? She's as sweet as you are."
"Kim, come here. We're going home." Her voice was trembling but she was determined not to cry in front of her little sister, and the man grinning down at her.
"I thought ladybugs were supposed to bring luck." His poor attempt at a joke was followed by a wink and it made Amanda's skin crawl. She was just about to grab Kim's hand when she noticed it. He was swaying. He's drunk, she thought. Unsteady.
Without thinking, she grabbed the bag in her sister's hand, threw the candy at him before kicking him right between his legs. And then, she grabbed her sister's arm. "Kim, run!"
At some point, tears had started to pour out and she was still crying when she opened the front door to their house. Not completely sure if it was because of how scared she had been, or because she was terrified that Kim would talk about what had happened, leading to their parents blaming her, yelling at her for not paying attention. For being stupid.
But her worry had been futile, because she quickly recognized the sound of her father's fist against the table and the sound of glass breaking as soon as she closed the door behind them. Their parents were busy tonight. Too busy to be worried about Kim. Too busy to be mad at her.
"Come on, Kim. Let's go upstairs, ok? We can watch a movie and eat our candy in my room."
"But I don't have any!" Kim said with an accusing voice and a quivering chin. "You threw it away!"
Amanda got down on her knees then, removed her backpack and handed it to Kim while forcing a smile. "You can have mine, ok? All of it." She flinched when the sound of another fist pierced through the air. "Let's just go upstairs."
Weeks later when she got home from school one day, she found that picture hanging on the fridge.
At first she hated it and intended to rip it apart when she moved it away from the magnet. But then it fell to the floor, landing upside down. And that's when she saw what her mother had scribbled on the back.
So ordinary. Like normal parents did. Like they actually cared.
So Amanda kept it, to have something to look at when she wanted to pretend that everything was fine. When she wanted to pretend that she didn't hate her own parents. And that she didn't hate the home that was supposed to protect her from the world outside.
Her mother never asked what happened to the picture. And Amanda never told her parents about saving her sister.
"Do you mind if… If I go inside by myself?" She's about to add that she won't steal anything, that she's a cop. But stops herself when she realizes that she can't say that. Not because she has officially lost or quit her job, but she just doesn't feel like a cop anymore. "I won't touch anything, I promise."
"Oh, I'm not worried about that. The only thing of personal value in that house is an ashtray shaped like a hedgehog that I got from my grandpa. If you take that, honey, you're so troubled you'd deserve it." The response makes the blonde laugh, and it feels like a much needed breather before she finally steps inside.
Even with all the changes made around the house, it still feels like entering a living scrapbook full of memories. Except, scrapbooks are usually filled with happy times, funny moments and love. The complete opposite to what she just walked into.
She wraps her arms around herself as she hesitantly moves towards the kitchen.
"Mandy, if you're gonna eat like that, you'll never find a husband."
Amanda was fourteen. She had missed lunch and was starving when she got home from school. Just to spite her mother, she kept eating, and eating and eating and eating. It felt good for a moment, watching the woman glaring at her, getting visibly more and more annoyed by her daughter's behavior. But, the panic and the discomfort came shortly after.
She walks upstairs, slowly climbing the steps with a heavy heart. She peers through the door to the bathroom, the small one that she had shared with Kim for years. It's like she can see herself curled up on the floor, holding her stomach like it was about to burst, right before she lifted herself up and made herself sick for the first time, unknowingly kick-starting years of self-destruction.
When she finally reaches her old bedroom, young Amanda isn't fourteen anymore. She's seven. Terrified and alone. She can hear her parents scream at each other and she wants to run downstairs because Kim, only a few months old, is crying. And she wants to protect her. But she doesn't know how, because she's only seven.
"If young Amanda was sitting in front of you right now, what would you tell her?" Dr. Hanover had asked during one of their first online sessions after she arrived in Georgia. She had shut down completely then, caught off guard and unable to form a single sentence.
But the seven year old is sitting right in front of her now, curled up on the bed, her eyes glossy from tears, her cheeks flushed from crying. She's biting down on her lip, a nervous habit that left her lips constantly chapped.
You were only seven, Amanda. You were just a child.
It wasn't your fault, any of it. It wasn't your fault that you had terrible parents that didn't know how to love. You were just trying to survive. You did what you had to do, to survive. You were Jesse's age for christ's sake. Would you blame her like you've been blaming yourself?
It's ok. You're safe now. And you did good, kid.
I'm so proud of you.
At some point while moving around the room, she has ended up on the bed, clinging to a pillow as if she's hugging herself, comforting herself.
She had expected to feel suffocating anger. That these walls would close in on her and make her blood boil. That her heart would be pounding wild and free in her chest while she, with her jaw tightly clenched, would find only hate in this haunted house.
Instead, she feels a sense of deep, overwhelming grief. And hunched over on the bed, clinging to that pillow, she grieves her own childhood and all the pain that followed. But, there's something else there, too. Something that feels a lot like love. The kind of love that she feels for her children and for Olivia.
It's fleeting, but it's there.
"How was it?" The woman asks when Amanda eventually steps outside. Her voice is almost a little stern, but her eyes are kind and even though they just met, the blonde feels a strange sense of safety in her presence.
"Hard." She admits as she sits back down in the rocking chair. "But necessary."
"That's usually how it is. Dealing with our demons."
Amanda nods in agreement. Because yes, she has most definitely dealt with some pretty big demons today.
For a while, they just sit there, and the silence is oddly comfortable. The kind of silence that is usually reserved for close friends or family members. "You're not from here?" Amanda eventually asks.
"Moved down here from Minnesota after getting out of a bad marriage. Georgia seemed like as good as place as any, far away, and warm."
"So you're alone?"
A somber but peaceful expression settles on the other woman's face. "Safe at last."
They share a look then, both of them silently and wordlessly acknowledging each other stories without even knowing what those stories are. But knowing that it definitely has something, or rather everything, to do with demons.
Later, when she's walking towards her car, she stops and turns around. "I just realized I never even got your name."
"It's Vivian, honey. But friends just calls me Viv."
An unexpected chuckle rumbles up from the blonde's chest. "Of course they do." She laughs again, suddenly feeling lighter than she has in months.
"And it's Amanda, by the way." She says, holding up the picture from 1992. "Not Mandy."
"You look tired." Olivia comments after listening to Amanda tell her about what had happened earlier in the day.
"I am." She admits with a shrug. "Today was rough. Good, but rough."
"I'm so proud of you."
Amanda gives her a grateful smile before moving to get a bit more comfortable on the bed. "So you're all cleaned up now, huh?"
"Only took three showers."
"I miss your shower. I miss you in your shower."
"Can I call you on my lunchbreak tomorrow?" The brunette asks. "I want to see the girls."
"We'll be here." She turns on her side then and places her phone against the lamp on her bedside table. "Can you just stay on the phone with me, for a little while?"
"Until you fall asleep."
Amanda closes her eyes, feeling oddly protected knowing that Olivia is watching her, even though they're separated by several state lines. But her nightly anxiety is stubborn and refuses to let go. "Liv?"
"Hm?"
"Are we ok?" The question comes out as a coy mumble.
"We will be."
She lets her tears fall, mostly from exhaustion, but also from a mix of emotions she's just too tired to make sense of tonight.
"I need time. You need time. But we will be." Olivia adds.
"Promise?"
The brunette gives her a soft smile then. "I promise."
Tonight, for the first time since she left Olivia in that airport, nine hundred miles doesn't feel that far away.
A/N: Hope?
Can I just add that if you're currently dealing with trauma/working through stuff; I'm so proud of you. I know it's draining and painful and can feel like a never-ending process, but as long as you're working your way through it, you're doing great.
