By mid-October, Olivia and Fitz had settled into a routine. For them. Normally, routines for Olivia were structured to the minute. This relationship Fitz wasn't that, but it was something.
While he had finished filming his movie, Fitz had made every attempt to spend his free time with her. He would text after a late night and see if she was still up, at first, but when that happened enough times in a row, he started just showing up. He was now what he would consider closely acquainted with Harold, Olivia's doorman. When he would show up at 2:00 in the morning the fifth night in a row, Harold would be holding the door to the elevator for him before he was halfway through the lobby. With the key Olivia had given him, he would let himself in, take a shower and crawl into bed beside his girlfriend.
Olivia was busy most weekdays until at least 5:00, because she coached swimming and liked to stay after to meet with students if they needed her. That left precious time in the evening if Fitz had the night off. Once the filming was over, they would text during the day and decide on a place and time for dinner. Often it was at one of their homes. Occasionally they would meet a neighborhood spot.
On Columbus Day, Olivia had the day off of work, so they started their day at a coffee shop. They had spent the night before drinking wine and playing Scrabble. For both of them, it had been the perfect evening.
"You know what I wanted to do this morning? Confirm that 'zen' is not an allowable Scrabble word," Olivia said as she sipped her espresso.
Fitz looked up from his New York Times. "Isn't any word that is, in fact, a word, allowable?"
Olivia rolled her eyes. "He we go again."
Mornings like this were treasured. Being able to just be together, with no looming meeting or activity to rush them. Olivia loved being with Fitz this way. It was easier than she could have imagined at the beginning. It had only been a few months, but they seemed far away from the worries of the early days. But she was also practical, and she knew this feeling of ease could not last forever.
Fitz knew this, too. He loved being with Olivia in New York. He had a lot of extra time now that the movie had finished, and he had six weeks before he had to start promoting the drama he had filmed last year. It had been good to just be here, and available, whenever she was. But he was starting to feel antsy. Even when he was in the midst of sleep with his arm around Liv's waist, he was picturing his home in Hawaii. He had wanted to redo some of the landscaping around the pool. He missed his meditation coach. He missed the feeling of the cold tile on his feet after a day spent on the sand. So even though he loved being here, it was Olivia that had kept him here for this long. And as much as they talked, and as honest as they were with each other, he hadn't yet figured out a way to tell her that he was feeling the urge to go away. He knew it would sound like he wanted to be away from her, and that wasn't the case. He didn't consider himself a city person, and this city in particular held memories that he preferred to leave in the past.
Lately, Oliver had been everywhere. In the park where he stopped to eat a caramel apple. At the symphony where they used to sneak in as undergrads, except now Fitz was a paying customer. Fitz figured he was feeling Oli more because he was in New York, the last city they had shared.
He mentioned this to his sister Juliette who was in town for a friend's bachelorette party, but had made time to have dinner with her brother before the festivities began. They were eating Indian food in the West Village, again at a place where they had been before with Oliver.
"Do you remember when Oli spilled the pitcher of water all over our food?" Fitz asked as he poured them each a glass.
Juliette smiled. "He was so wasted."
"He was." Fitz paused then. Was that before being wasted had become Oli's status quo? He couldn't remember.
"We all were, remember? We had gone to a festival in Brooklyn or something. I was underage so we had water bottles filled with some vile concoction."
"You're right. Wow, I had forgotten the details of that day."
"It can be hard to remember the good details," she said, looking directly at Fitz the way only a sibling could.
Fitz was thinking about that, about how so few of the good New York details were remembered.
"Penny for your thoughts, sir," she said, setting down her copy of Vogue and looking at him inquisitively.
"It's going to cost you more than a penny," he said, smiling. He was stalling, and they both knew it.
"I'm prepared to pay up."
"You know, I realize I've mentioned this before, but you are incredibly persuasive. And you have a way with words that makes me spill. It's very disarming. I mean, I love it, but it's somewhat terrifying."
She nodded. "Thanks for the compliment, I guess?"
"You're welcome. How do you feel about a swim?"
Fitz had kept the pool clean and warm since he began seeing Liv. Even now, on a chilly October day, a swim would be fun and refreshing.
"I could swim. I could also sip my warm beverage, pay you a penny and hear your thoughts."
This was the time to tell Olivia he had asked his sometimes-assistant to book him a first class ticket to Kauai that departed just after Thanksgiving. It was a little over a month away. Olivia deserved to know. He would do his best to explain it.
"Liv, I want you know," he began, until he heard the same gasp and squeal combination that meant someone had recognized him.
He was polite and took a photograph with the couple who were big fans of his work. By the time it was all over, the moment to tell Olivia had passed. They packed up their things in Olivia's large leather tote and walked hand in hand back to Fitz's home.
Olivia had a bathing suit there, so they changed and spent a few hours relaxing by the pool. Later, as the toweled each off after sharing a shower, it occurred to Olivia that they hadn't finished their earlier conversation.
"Were you thinking about Oli earlier?"
She wanted to scold herself at first. She knew that being this direct about such a sensitive topic would catch Fitz off guard. But she also knew it would get him talking.
"I'm sorry, what?" he asked as he slipped a seafoam t-shirt over his head.
"Well, I asked if you were thinking about Oli earlier. But you should also know you look really good in that shirt," she said, smiling.
"You got it for me," he said, toweling his hair dry.
"Doesn't change anything," she said, buttoning her black jeans. "We have good taste."
He sat down on the edge of his bed.
"I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it."
She walked over and sat next to him on the bed. He turned to face her and grabbed one of her hands, rubbing circles on top with his thumb.
"I'm happier with you than I've been in as long as I can remember. What I'm about to say might make you doubt that, so I just need to put that out there."
"What the hell is going on?" she said, pulling her hand away. Her defense mechanisms were kicking in. Had she been wrong about Fitz just like she had been wrong about so many others?
"Nothing's going on, not really," he said, reaching for her again. "I've been trying to figure out a way to explain this for a few days, but here it is. I'm going to my place in Kauai at the end of November. I usually go there as soon as my business here is done. I'm still having fun here, and I'm happy with you, but I can feel myself getting anxious to be there, instead."
Olivia searched his face as she processed what he had said. She took a breath, trying to be the new her, the Liv that trusted Fitz, that knew his feelings were real, the he didn't want her to be anyone else.
She was just having difficulty reconciling that with the news that he was anxious to be away from her. She said as much.
"Liv, no. I don't want to be away from you. In a perfect world, you would come with me and we would just be together every day. It's this place. I both love and hate it here, you know that."
"I do know that. I'm trying to be sensitive to that. But can you please be sensitive to how I feel in the moment? Which is that I'm already lonely thinking about us being apart?"
He sighed. "I know. You're right. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you before I had my assistant book the tickets. I just knew how it would end so I put it off."
"Oh, so you mean that no matter what I say or do, you're going? This isn't a discussion. This is you telling me how life is and will be. What's best for you is all that matters." She could feel her heart beating faster. She willed her eyes to stay focus and empty of tears.
"It sounds pretty dismal when you put it that way."
She jumped off of the bed and faced him.
"I'm putting it exactly how it is, Fitz. You're anxious, so you're leaving. With little or no regard for how that might affect me, and our relationship."
"I am constantly thinking about how what I say and do will affect you," he said, on the verge of frustration. He felt like a child having a hard time communicating, like he didn't yet have the words to get his message across.
"You have a fucked up way of showing it," she said, walking out his bedroom.
"Liv, come on," he said, following her down the hallway toward the family room. "Other than right now, in the last two months, have I ever said or done anything to make you feel like you weren't the most important person in my life here?"
She analyzed his question. And because she was who she was, she jumped on the one word that she could.
"Your life here. Here. Like you have separate lives. The one here, that you put up with because I make you feel good, and the one there," she said, waving her hands as if to say 'anywhere but here,' "where you're comfortable and not anxious and happier."
"Stop it. That is unfair."
"Unfair? That's rich," she said, grabbing her tote. "Sorry, Fitz. You don't get to be the decider of what is fair or unfair. Fair would be us having a discussion, as adults in relationships tend to do, about how to address how you've been feeling. Fair would be you respecting me enough to do that before you booked your one-way ticket."
"Okay. We need to hit pause here. I want to address what you're saying, everything you're saying, but I need a minute to think. Please put your bag down. Please. Just give me one minute."
His eyes were pleading with her. She wanted to reach out and embrace him, and that instinct shocked her. Even as she stood infuriated and ready to bail, she wanted to hold him. It was that feeling that made it easier for her to set her bag on the coffee table and sit down on the couch.
He flopped next to her and grabbed her hand. He brought it to his mouth and kissed it softly.
"I have always had separate lives. My career, and then the rest. I function best when it is compartmentalized. You are absolutely right about that."
She waited. He still held her hand in his lap.
He nodded, as if he had been thinking in his head and decided to continue. "I do need to figure out what it means to have a partner in this. The last time I ever had to really think about another person…" he trailed off, and turned his face from her.
When he turned his face back toward her, his eyes were rimmed in red and he was fighting back tears.
"The last time I ever had to really think about another person, it was all-consuming, and I failed. And I get that it was my brother, so it's not technically the same thing, but that's what it feels like. I put so much effort into trying to save him. To keep him. And I lost him. Here. In this place. So there," he said, waving his hand to reference the place where he felt like he could breathe, "has just been safer for me."
She wet her lips and opened her mouth to respond, but he stopped her by continuing.
"It is not fair to you that I just made this decision and expected that we would work around it. You're right. I'm truly sorry. I just did what I always do. That's not an excuse, it's just what happened. I'm sorry that it comes across as me not respecting you, because that is the farthest thing from the truth."
He turned his whole body toward her. He rested his elbow on the top of the couch, and his head on his hand. In his mind, and in his heart, he knew he had to just press onward, even if it had only been two months. Even if it was all going to end because of who he was at his core.
"The truth, Liv, is what I said in the bedroom. I am happier than I have been in years. That is not an exaggeration. Years. I know I have a long way to go when it comes to sharing my life with someone, but what you're getting is more than anyone has gotten. Because it's what you deserve. And it's what I want to give. You're incredibly special to me. I don't want to lose you."
She matched his pose and smiled the faintest of smiles.
"What are we going to do?" she asked. It's what she was thinking. He had just said a lot of sweet things, and she knew he meant them. But it didn't change his plans. She was there with him, which is more than the pre-Fitz Olivia would have done. She wasn't ready to return his sentiments, at least out loud.
He played with one her curls, still wet from the shower.
"I don't know."
It wasn't lost on either of them that he wasn't offering to change his plans.
"Maybe we need to hit pause, like you said. Maybe we should both think about what a long-distance relationship looks and feels like." She sat up straight, hoping a power posture would make look much more confident than she felt.
"Is that what you want?"
She looked him straight in the eyes. "Does it matter?"
He crossed his arms. "Now who's being unfair? Of course it matters."
She sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry. And I know you're sorry. I'm just processing this. I don't know what to do."
"I do not want to hit pause. I want to figure this out."
"From Kauai."
"It's temporary."
"How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know. Let's decide together."
"When do you have business here?"
"I have to be in LA the second week of January. New York the following week."
She did the math. "So, seven weeks, give or take. And work is what will bring you back."
"Work. And you," he said, reaching for her. She pulled away.
"Almost two months apart is only the amount of time we've been together."
They both sat quietly after her statement.
"Look, Fitz," she said, sliding back to be sitting right next to him. "I don't generally respond well to not having control of a situation. This is really hard for me. And trying to be with you when you aren't here will be really hard for me. For us. We've had this conversation once before. We said we would try. But it's really our only good option, right? The alternative is we don't try. I'm willing to try."
"I'm sorry I put us in this position. I wish the timing were better. Or different."
"For the record," she said, resting her cheek on his chest, "there will never be a better time for you to be away. I like you here."
It was the most she could offer him. She wished she had enough faith in the future to tell him the she reciprocated his feelings. That he was special to her, too. That what they were building felt real and different. That, two months in, he was her favorite person. But she couldn't. She was willing to try to make it work, but she wasn't willing to give him her heart. And sadly, she knew that was because she didn't fully trust him not to break it.