Author's Comments: Sadist—[sey-dist], noun, a person who enjoys being cruel. Yep, that's me when it comes to my favorite characters.

Too Close

Chapter Five

Part 1.

The weekend passed by Olivia's motionless body as she sat in a chair, staring out the window at the unchanging scene of skyscrapers in the distance. Getting up only to use the restroom and lay down on her bed, the chair was her prison, and the weight of her emotions her cell.

It was not that she didn't want to move. But she would will herself to get up—to eat, or maybe go for a walk, and then an hour later she would still be sitting in the same spot, amazed by how much time had passed. Her arms and legs were like paperweights, and a medicine ball sat in the pit of her stomach.

It might be okay, if her thoughts were at least productive. But even that part of her physiology would not work, her mind drawing a blank much of the time. It was as if Elliot had shut down her entire system with that one unexpected blow. In her rare moments of awareness, she noticed that her wounds no longer hurt, at least not while she sat still. But she thought about the bottle of pain killers Amanda had given her nonetheless.

Try as hard as she might, Olivia could not see a decent future ahead. What she wanted more than anything was to have a happy life, a meaningful career, and a loving relationship with the man who had eluded her for the twelve years they were partnered together. Yet her PTSD kept her from performing her job effectively, the flashbacks keeping her anxiety level high. She might never feel completely comfortable in her own skin after the invisible wounds Lewis had left. And worst of all, she couldn't find comfort in Elliot—even if he was repentant. She knew from nearly fifteen years of working with domestic violence victims that she would be a fool to go back to a man who hit a woman even once.

The day turned into night, and then back into day, and no amount of staring at the moon blotted out by the rising sun could provide Olivia with the picture of a fulfilling existence.

Part 2.

Elliot spent the entire weekend kicking his own ass. He had figured out why he had been such a jerk lately—although he had thought that he was over Kathy, he had never recovered from her sudden change of heart when she left him. He recalled the night clearly—coming home at 3 a.m. from his job as a bouncer, walking through the bedroom door to find her naked and in bed with a man. Elliot wasn't supposed to come home for another hour, and Kathy had taken advantage of his work schedule.

He didn't know which he resented more—that she was cheating, or that she had the nerve to do it in their home, while the kids were there. They probably never figured it out, but it was an insulting challenge to his dominion. So it was no big revelation that Olivia's affair triggered him.

What surprised him the most was that his anger had been so out-of-control. He had a temper, yes. But he drew the line at hitting women—at least his conscious mind did. There was nothing but animal up in his head the night he went after Olivia, though, and he no longer trusted himself to live up to his own moral standards.

All weekend, he called her, wanting to at least try to convince her that he felt real remorse, even if she could never forgive him. All weekend, he hung up the phone when her voicemail greeting played. He could not say anything in a message—she needed to hear the sincerity in his voice firsthand. Sunday evening, he lay in bed alone, phone in his hand after trying to call her five times in the last two hours. His fingers wrapped around the lifeline as if he knew she would have a change of heart and contact him.

Part 3.

Olivia threw a pillow over her head to avoid the sun hitting her eyes like an alarm clock. As consciousness grew within her, she snatched the pillow away from her eyes to check the time on her phone. She was running late, and she had lost the will to move herself out of the bed.

She dialed Cragan's number and rolled over. "Liv?" he said. "We're getting ready to discuss Hoffman, where are you?"

"Captain," she said in the weakest voice she could muster. It was not much of an exaggeration, actually. "I'm feeling horrible this morning. I think I came down with some kind of stomach flu. Think you guys can manage without me?"

"Well, of course," he said. "You sure you're okay? You need someone to check in on you?"

"No, I'm fine. But thanks," she said.

She wished the words were true. If only she could care about anything at all . . .

Half the day passed by before she decided it was time to force herself to move. She thought a hot bath might pick up her mood, and she used all her might to sit up, and then propel her top half to teeter on top of wobbly legs. She made it into the tub, but the hot water made no impact on her unfeeling skin.

Wearing only a towel, she got out and went straight for her purse, needing to find something to fix her throbbing head. Digging out the painkillers, she read the label—"Hydroco 375/10." She had no idea what it meant, but if it would help her aching head, she didn't care. After shuffling to the mini-fridge, she opened it to get a bottle of water and scanned the drinks inside, including several tiny bottles of liquor.

Olivia froze, her arm outstretched. Her hand changed course, bypassing the water and grabbing a bottle of vodka instead. As she untwisted the lid from the pill bottle, it occurred to her that combining the two intoxicating substances might magnify their effects. It would be dangerous to mix the two, and she even risked never waking up.

Chills ran down her skin as the magnitude of the realization struck her. She emptied two pills into her hand and chased them with the vodka. Then she sat down at the tiny round table near the window and stared at the still-open pill bottle. Willing herself not to think about it, she emptied the pills in large chunks into her mouth, downing them a wad at a time with the alcohol.

She had no idea how many pills there were—she had not counted. Hastily, she removed every bottle of liquor in the fridge and set them on the table. Over the next half-hour, she mindlessly swallowed every bit of it, exhaling the burning vapors after each swig. She closed her eyes, but then opened them when the darkness made her head swirl until she felt like vomiting.

Her hands began to tremble, and her pulse pounded in her neck at a frightening rate. She gulped repeatedly, trying to convince herself to call someone, even if it was a complete stranger. The suicide hotline number came into her mind, having memorized it after referring so many others to it. She stared down at her cell phone, and then hurled it with all her might against the wall, smashing it to pieces. Then she lumbered over the table and picked up the hotel phone, slamming it down onto the table until it burst apart.