After Fitz told Olivia what she just did was rape, he waited patiently for Olivia to say something, but Olivia was quiet, still lying on top of him.
Even though what Olivia did to Fitz wasn't planned, she knew exactly what she was doing. She didn't want to be the victim anymore. She thought she would gain back some sort of power and control that her rapist took from, but she felt more powerless and miserable than ever before.
She also wanted Fitz to feel how one's body could betray one completely. She wanted Fitz to fathom what she went through, and maybe he would fully understand where she was coming from.
But all she was left with at this very moment were many questions, like; why did she choose Fitz for this particular experiment? Why hasn't she taken her revenge on someone else till now? Why did she desperately want Fitz to understand where she was coming from? Why did she need his validation this much?
Olivia thought long and hard and came to the conclusion she wanted Fitz to love her despite the life she has lived. But the truth of the matter was he could never really love her. She knew how damage she was and how unlovable she was for any man who really gets to know her.
So what she just did to Fitz was pointless. She knew he didn't deserve what she just put him through. And right now she wasn't any different from her rapist.
Olivia closed her eyes and her tears fell on Fitz's chest. "I'm sorry." she voiced out.
Fitz wanted to console her and tell her everything would be OK, but knew Olivia has to face her demons. "Tell me about your mom and the guy who raped you." Fitz ran his hand gently on her back.
Olivia didn't see any point in telling Fitz what happened to her years ago. Her best friend Abby didn't know about this, and she knew Abby loves her in her own way. This was her sin, her possession. Telling him would be giving him too much insight and power over her, and for what good. She knew the only thing going on for them was the lust they felt for each other, and that would be ruined with his pity. She didn't want Fitz to pity her. She couldn't take anymore pity from anyone.
Olivia got up from Fitz's body and started arranging her clothes, definitely avoiding his request.
Fitz got up from the ground too, putting on his belt. "Olivia, the only way for this center to help you is if you tell us your struggles." He said to her.
"There's nothing to tell. He raped me and that was it. I'm not the first person to be raped, neither would I be the last." Olivia said that in a very nonchalant manner as if it wasn't a big deal.
Fitz looked at Olivia a little hurt and in disbelief. The least Olivia could do was to open up to him after what she just did to him some minutes ago. Fitz shook his head and decided not to push her. He cleaned out the dirt from his body walking away from her. He walked a little further and then turned, facing her. "What you did to me minutes ago, your 'I'm sorry' doesn't cut it." He said and left.
Fitz has been avoiding Olivia for days now. Since as she didn't want to open up to him, he made up his mind he wasn't going to chase after her. He wanted her to fight for her recovery for herself. She has to desire to want to be better for herself and no one else, because if not they were all just wasting their time with her. He just noticed since he met Olivia he has given her too much power and control over his emotion and thoughts. And he wanted to gain back control of his life.
He has a group session which Olivia was part of in about an hour and a half time. He decided to spend some time with Chao before heading to his class. He wasn't really looking forward to the session because he was going to see Olivia.
He was in Chao's office and Chao brought up Olivia. "Have you spoken to Olivia lately?" Chao asked Fitz, he knew Fitz has been avoiding Olivia since the day he asked him to chase after her.
"Nope." He answered, not really in the mood to talk about her.
Chao looked at him strangely. "Nope? Like Really?"
"Yes, James, Nope." Fitz repeated his answer louder, irritated already.
"This must be serious. You just called me James. What is going on?" He inquired.
"Isn't your name James Chao Beene, and why do you think something is going on?"
"Okay, if you don't want to talk about it." Chao decided to drop his inquiry. "Olivia and I are having our first meeting in about thirty minute's time."
Fitz opted to lighten up than to be mad at Chao. "I'm having a group session with her in an hour and a half. Do we even know if she wants to get better?" He rolled his eyes.
Chao welcomed his lightened mood, but decided not get into whatever that was going on between him and Olivia. "This is the first time Olivia and I would be sitting together alone since after high school. I'm a little nervous actually." He avoided Fitz question.
Fitz noticed Chao didn't answer his question, but went with his flow. "You guys have a lot of history together. I'm sure the two of you would have plenty to talk about." He was a little jealous he didn't have any history with Olivia.
"Well, we would've had it been I never treated her like a jerk in high school." Chao got up and was arranging a bowl of popcorn on his desk.
Fitz tried to take some of the popcorn, but Chao hit his hand. "Gee, what's your problem?" Fitz shouted.
"That's for Olivia. She loves popcorn."
There was a knock on Chao's door, when he opened it was Olivia. "Hello Olivia, you are very early."
Olivia apologized. "Sorry, I can come back later." She hasn't notice Fitz's presence yet.
Chao didn't want her to go back. "No, Fitz was just leaving."
Olivia's heart skipped a million times when she noticed Fitz was with Chao.
Fitz rolled his eyes at James' statement about him leaving. He got up and took his coat. "Yes, I was." Fitz said, walking toward Olivia who was standing at the door.
"Hi." Olivia greeted him nervously.
Fitz intentionally didn't answer her. He just walked pass her like she was a stranger. Olivia fought back tears. She knew Fitz wanted her to open up to him about her past. But she just couldn't give him that much power and knowledge over her life, knowing nothing good was going to come out from it. Notwithstanding, Fitz acting as if he didn't know her or cared about her was more than painful for her to take.
Chao could see the hurt in Olivia's face. He could see her fighting back tears. "Hey." He said to Olivia.
"Hey" Olivia answered and pretended as if she wasn't affected by Fitz's reaction.
"You can have a seat."
"Thank you." Olivia saw the popcorn and smiled, knowing he did that for her.
Chao was very pleased to see a smile on her face. "Oh, that smile." Chao said.
"What smile?" Olivia asked him.
Chao chuckled. "When you saw the popcorn."
Olivia smiled again. "You remembered."
"How can I forget that?"
They were both quiet and didn't know what to say to each other. Chao spoke first. "I'm sorry how I treated you in high…"
Cyrus wanted them to be friends as part of not suspending Fitz. Olivia didn't want to mess that up. She cut him off, "It's OK, that was a long time ago."
Chao studied her for some time. "Are you just saying that because you told Cyrus you'd forgive me just so he wouldn't suspend Fitz?"
Olivia rolled her eyes playfully. "Cyrus wants us to get along. Take what you can get, JC."
Chao smiled widely and welcomed her playful mood. "No one has called me JC for years now. I'm hardly ever calls James these days."
"Sorry." She said, and had an epiphany she has been saying the word sorry all her life.
"No, I miss it actually. I miss you."
Olivia wasn't ready to let him off easily. "I'm sure you miss Sam the football player more."
"Liv, you won't make this easy for me, no?"
Olivia smiled. "Sorry. I am not mad at you. Not anymore. Though I wished I wasn't your patient, but this is life."
"Me too, I wished you weren't a patient. And we would get there someday."
Olivia shrugged indifferently. "That's why I'm here. So you all fine doctors and therapists can help me."
"us fine doctors and therapists? Does this include Fitz?" Chao knew he was pushing a little.
Olivia was completely caught off guard. "What?"
Chao smiled, "You need to see your face right now. What is going on with you two?"
"What do you mean what's going on?" She asked not ready to open up to him.
Chao saw her defense and gave up. "I see you two don't want to talk about it."
Olivia got alerted and curious. "What do you mean, did he say something?"
"Nothing." He answered, trying not to get into their drama in order not to ruin the little progress they just made as old time buddies.
Olivia and Chao talked for some time and recalled many old stories of theirs and laughed over it. They didn't talk about Olivia's treatment at all and Olivia was grateful for that. She hasn't felt this alive in ages. She realized she did miss Chao too. But she needed some closure from him.
"Why did you dump our friendship and became friends with Sam?" Olivia asked him.
"Oh, Olivia. You had no clue I was gay and that I was into Sam." Chao confessed.
"Not everyone has the gay vibes to detect those who are gay, you know."
"I know, and that was wrong on my part. I was still in the closet and trying to come to terms with it."
"You should have told me."
"I know. You were really annoying though. Every hot guy in the school wanted you, but you didn't give them the time of the day, and it hurts because I just wanted them to look my way for once. And since as you hurt Sam's feelings with your rejection, I decided to use that to my advantage and be close to him. I'm sorry about that."
"It's OK now, it hurts for a long time because I didn't know why, but we were teenagers. It's wrong for me to hold that against you now."
James smiled and recalled his past. "It turned out Sam was the worst friend ever. The things I did to please him. And he never got to know I was gay, because I couldn't tell his homophobic ass." He shook his head.
"Good, that's what you get." Olivia teased him.
They both laughed and Chao realized they had been talking for a long time. "Look at the time. Your group session with Fitz started ten minutes ago."
Olivia sighed. "Ugh! I am not really looking forward to it."
"Olivia, it's part of your…." Chao was about to say recovery.
"I know, I know." Olivia got up.
Fitz looked at his watch when he saw Olivia entering his class. "You are 12 minutes late." He said to Olivia, thereby interrupting Frank, who went down on Olivia some months ago in the parking lot, he was sharing his story with the group.
Olivia could see Fitz was angry. "I am Sorry." She said, looking for a seat.
Fitz was so done with her saying sorry all the time. "I am sorry loses its value when it's been thrown around without its worth of regret." He knew he took it a little too far and the look on Olivia's face confirmed it.
And just like that, Olivia's good time with Chao disappeared. She was about to say something when Fitz brushed her off and asked Frank who was talking before Olivia interrupted to continue with his tale.
It just so happened Frank has been telling the class how he became an addict, and it all started when he was raped by a woman. Olivia wanted somebody to shoot her at that very instant.
Frank continued with his story. "It's kind of interesting in an abstract kind of way that your body can be aroused even though your rational mind is trying to find a way out of the situation. I didn't want it, and yet I had an erection because it's not something you can consciously control….."
Olivia and Fitz looked at each other after Frank said that and Olivia felt like disappearing into thin air due to what she did to Fitz some days ago. She was wondering whether she would be able to sit through Frank's tale.
"….I repeatedly told her no, but that didn't matter. She was like a maniac, and if I even tried to restrain her a little I would have bruised her or something else. So I decided to just laid there. I felt so defeated and I let her do whatever she wanted…"
Olivia's breathing became abnormal. She tried to block-out Frank's voice from her head but couldn't.
Fitz tried his best not to look at Olivia as Frank continued with his story. He was wondering what was going through Olivia's head, but hoping and praying it didn't have a negative effect on her instead.
"…I was disconnected, not in sync with my body, but my brain was in overdrive mode, so it did its own thing and we both came. I did not want her or the intimacy. I went to the police and they didn't even investigate, saying since as it was a girl doing it to a guy it wasn't rape because I had an erection and even came in it all, and it should be something I should be proud of. My friends made fun of me so much that I attempted to commit suicide. There's this myth that a guy can't be rape by a woman. If a woman says no and you go ahead anyway, whether you are married or unmarried, it's rape, but if a man says no and the woman forces him it isn't? And they expect you as a man not to be traumatized by the experience because only women are allowed to do that?" Frank ranted, and then laid more emphasis on his following statement, "IT DESTROYED ME….. "
Olivia closed her eyes, bent down her head and covered her face with her palms. Frank just described exactly what she put Fitz through, and he may be traumatized because of her. She desperately needed some air to breathe.
Frank kept on talking. "…This is what got me addicted to sex. I sex every woman as if I'm paying them back for what she did to me. You guys should have seen her. It seems she was really tempting me to fight back or hit her. Can you imagine trying to be a gentleman in a situation like that? It took all my strength and will power to allow myself to be raped by her."
Fitz could see Olivia was suffocating, and he couldn't take it. He checked his phone as if he just got a text message. He later on made an excuse for Olivia to leave the class. "Olivia, I think James wants to see you now."
Olivia was so grateful. She left the class in a hurry and went outside to breathe. She later on learned Chao wasn't looking for her and that was Fitz liberating her at that moment.
Olivia knew Fitz was still mad at her and it was eating her up badly. He might have saved her in the class, but that didn't mean he has forgiven her. The thought of Fitz really hating her was something she couldn't take. She went to Fitz's office to talk to him.
Olivia entered Fitz's office. "How may I help you today?" He asked her without even a glance at her.
Olivia desperately wanted Fitz to just look at her. She folded her hands together, trying to hold herself from crumbling. "Thanks for letting me out for some air in your class earlier." She spoke in a very soft and apologetic voice.
"There's nothing to thank me for. I was just doing my job. I saw a patient needed air to breathe and I asked her to get it." Fitz answered, concentrating on whatever he was writing as if her soft apologetic voice wasn't breaking his heart.
"I know my sorry has no meaning anymore, but I am truly sorry for what I did to you in the forest the other day."
Fitz told himself to be strong, and the only way for him to do that was not to look at her. "I've heard you, you can go now." He dismissed her, still without a glance.
Olivia's heart shattered. The tears that were building behind her eyes came running down her face. She walked closer to his desk. "Please don't be like this, you're killing me. I don't know why, but I really can't take you shutting me out. Please!" She begged.
Fitz stood up from his desk, mad as hell now and fighting back tears. "And you think I can take you shutting me out? Or being used just like your sex toy that you can play with when you need to be scratched? Olivia, I lo... I care about you, but you won't open up to me so we can help you, I am fad up. I can't keep pleasing you any longer. So if you don't mind... "
Give him that much power over you or let him be mad at you? Olivia contemplated with herself and came to the realization she couldn't take the later. "My rapist did the same thing I did to you in the forest." Olivia said and Fitz stopped talking.
"It was exactly what I did to you in the forest. He was one of my mom's boyfriends. I was sixteen." She placed her palm on her forehead due to a sudden headache. "I struggled with him, but later on giving in and even asked him to keep going until I had an orgasm." She was struggling to control her sobbing, she decided to sit down on a chair not far from her.
Still crying, she continued, "I can't forgive myself for it. I've tried, but I just can't. I did that to you because I didn't want to be a victim anymore. I was trying to take back power, to feel empowered, but I'm more miserable than ever before. I haven't been able to sleep since that day in the forest because I know you're mad at me, which you have every right to be. But how do I make things right with you?" She looked at Fitz with watery face.
Fitz walked toward her, but stopped because she started talking again.
"I can't forgive my rapist, how do I expect you to forgive me? And you know what is really sick and diabolic about me?" She decided to bear it all out for Fitz. She looked him straight in the eyes. "When I'm really down and low, I sometimes craved the high I felt from the rape. I mean, who does that?" She covered her face with her hands, crying out, ashamed admitting that out loud.
Fitz couldn't keep from breaking down too. He felt her pain and at that very moment he fully comprehended how damage Olivia was. He wiped the tears running down on his face, and then asked her. "How did your mom react when she found out?"
Olivia was a little relieve Fitz didn't concentrate on her last statement. She uncovered her face, but seemed to be far away in another universe. "She never loved me. I know that, but for her to hit me and blamed me for it was something I never expected."
Fitz ran his hands through his hair in astonishment. "Oh, baby!" He voiced out sorrowfully in tears, but felt like punching the wall. He walked close to the wall and just pressed his knuckles hard against the wall, trying not to explode.
Olivia's state of mind was still in another universe. "I told her I was sorry, that I didn't mean for it to happen, but she blamed me for everything, for my dad leaving, for my dad's other family, for her suffering and everything. No matter what I did she kept saying I can't do anything right. She's right about all those things too. I've tried to kill myself many times, but even that I couldn't do right too. I know I didn't try hard enough to please her. I never should've wrapped my legs around him when he asked me to, and maybe I never would've had an orgasm with him. But what would've changed? I keep asking myself this and I still don't know the answer."
Fitz then recalled Olivia's panic attack was triggered when he asked her to wrap her legs around him when they were making love, because her rapist asked her to wrap her legs around him when he was raping her.
He cleaned the tears on his face as much as he could, then walked to her and knelt down where she was seated. "Baby, it's not your fault. I really hope you get to believe everything that happened to you wasn't your fault. You have to understand this fast or else it's going to destroy you more than what you've already been through, you'd never find peace."
Olivia stared at Fitz for a long time, not being able to control her sobbing spasm. But she forced herself to speak. "My mom... is always mad at me... and... it hurts, but you...you being mad at me... hurt...hurt a lot more." She wiped the tears from her eyes. "Pleaseee... don't be... mad at me anymore. I...I...I really can't... take it. I'm begging you. I need you... to... forgive me. Please!" She broke down in tears again.
Fitz closed the gap between them and hugged her tight. They were both in tears now. "I wasn't really mad at you." He said to her on his arm. "You've been controlling my every thought since I met you. I was just trying to gain back control, my reason for acting mad. The truth of my matter is I've already forgiven you for whatever thing you can do to me now and in the future."
Fitz forced Olivia to look at him. He wiped away her tears, and held her head with both hands. "I need you to understand this, these past few days that I have been avoiding you, I've craved the pleasure I felt when you were on top of me in the forest. That doesn't mean what you did wasn't wrong nor does it make a diabolical person because I craved that high in a situation like that, it just mean I am merely human. There are things we can't control. So what happened with your rapist or the thought after that isn't your fault nor does it make you a monster. You hear me?" He asked her, but Olivia didn't answer him. He repeated himself, "You hear me?"
Olivia shook her head.
I HOPE THIS CHAPTER WAS SATISFYING.
PS: I AM NOT THAT BAD AS MY BRAIN. I JUST CAN'T CONTROL WHAT GOES ON IN THERE. WHY AM I EXPLAINING THIS? I HAVE NO IDEA. LOL
