[Olivia's POV]

She's moving. I'm frozen in place but I can feel her looking at me.
Silence. Numbing silence, silence that is suffocating me.

"Fuck," I hear her mutter when she finally seems to have realized that I... know.

She sits up and takes my hand. My stomach cramps up, I want to vomit, but I'm completely frozen.

"Olivia?"

I used to like her voice. But now it just sounds shrill, makes my ears hurt.
I can't speak, can't move. Can't cry.
She takes her hand off mine and covers her face.

"I'm so sorry."

She's crying.

"P... please leave."

My voice sounds like it's coming from miles away. It doesn't sound like me.

"Olivia, please," she takes my face into her hands, makes me look at her, "I love you."

A sound escapes my lips, a sound I didn't thing I was able to produce. It's loud, shrill, almost inhumane. I slap her, so hard it makes my hand hurt.
My whole body starts shaking, I crawl off the bed, walking backwards until my back hits the wall.
I want to cry, but my eyes are dry.

All I hear is her crying. Then, I start screaming.

"GET OUT! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"

Tears are now streaming down my face.
She gets off the bed and takes a step towards me. I rush out of the bedroom, into the kitchen, grabbing the biggest knife I own.
She follows me.

"STAY AWAY!", I scream, pointing the knife at her.

She's raising her hands as if to demonstrate she's not going to hurt me.

"I was in a mental hospital for the past five years..."
"Five years? That's all you got?"

My voice is breaking. I'm coughing and gagging from crying so much.

"I'm on a shitton of meds..."
"YOU. KILLED. MY. ENTIRE. FAMILY."

Silence. Her face loses all of its colour.

"No...", she whispers, barely audible.
"MY BROTHER'S FIANCÉE WAS PREGNANT. THEY WENT OUT TO BUY A CRIB FOR THE BABY, A PINK CRIB, IT WAS A GIRL. THEY WERE JUST ABOUT TO PAY WHEN AN EXPLOSION ERRUPED ON THE FLOOR BENATH THEM. MY BROTHER CALLED ME, WITH FEAR IN HIS VOICE, TOLD ME SOMETHING WAS WRONG. I HEARD PEOPLE SCREAMING IN THE BACKGROUND, I HEARD MY BROTHER CALL OUT FOR MY MOM. I HEARD THIS LAUGHTER – YOUR LAUGHTER! I HEARD MY DAD PLEADING FOR HIS FAMILY'S LIFE AND YOU – Do you know what you said?"

She stares at me, slowly shaking her head.

"You said," I swallow, just barely stopping myself from vomiting, "'Fine', is what you said. You shot my father and then told my brother to get my mom and his fiancée and run. And then..."

She covers her ears with her hands, continuing to shake her head.

"Then, as my brother was running, with me still on the phone, as I could hear him cry... you fired the next bomb. And then all I heard was the on-hook signal."
"I'm not this person anymore," she whispers, "Nothing can undo what I've done, but trust me, I've had five years to deeply think about what I've done. I feel deep remorse for every single life I took..."
"I thought they executed you."
"I suffered a miscarriage the day they caught me, the Sheriff took pity on me..."
"Stop talking. Just – Just get out of my life and never return."

She looks at me, not moving.

"I love you," she whispers.

I don't react. She starts sobbing, gets up and grabs her things.

"I love you," she says once more as she's about to leave my apartment.

Then, she's shaken by a crying fit that reminds me of the breakdown I suffered the day my family died. I can still hear her cry after she closes the door behind her.

I stay on the same spot, still grasping the knife, until I can't hear her anymore and quite a while after that. It must've been at least ten minutes that I spent standing there before the knife clatters to the floor.

I can barely make it to the bathroom, where I vomit violently. My throat burns from the stomach acid, but I can't help myself, I scream. I scream until I'm out of air. I cry in silence for a while, before I start screaming again. This goes on for something in between of ten minutes and two hours.

Exhausted, I eventually pass out on the bathroom floor.

~

It's early in the morning when I finally regain consciousness.
My whole body is aching from sleeping on the bathroom floor.
I feel empty. I sit up looking around, hoping for a sign that tells me yesterday was just a horrible, horrible dream. But everything is just as I remember. The bathroom door is open, I can see the knife laying on the floor from where I'm sitting.

Staggering, I get to my feet to brush my teeth. The girl in the mirror looks tired.
After cleaning my face, I open my laptop to write a quick E-Mail to College to announce my absence today. There's no way in hell I'm leaving the house today.
I'm too exhausted and – most importantly, too scared to run into Hannah. Or... whatever her real name is.

With shaking hands I reach for my phones to check for missed calls or texts from her. To my very surprise, not a single notification.
I wonder if she even made it home last night.
No – I don't care. I hope she got run over by a bus. Or even better: Maybe she killed herself.

I can't help but feel sad at that thought. I hate admitting this to myself, but after everything we had... do I really want her dead?
Sighing, I dial a number I didn't think I'd ever dial again.
It rings for way too long.

"Hello?"
"Mr. Taper? It's Olivia."
"Olivia!", he sounds surprised, "Did something happen?"

I can hear voices in the background. He seems to be out somewhere.

"It's complicated," I whisper into the phone, holding back the tears, "Could we talk?"
"You know, I'm out of country right now-"
"I slept with the person who killed my family."

Silence. Then, I hear rustling and muffled voices as he seems to be excusing himself.
After a moment, he picks up the phone again.

"I think I have a little time to talk to you. Now start over, what happened?"

And then I start talking.