A/N: Just fair warning, this is probably the shortest chapter of the story thus far. Originally it was twice this length, but I noticed a mistake in the second half and wanted to fix it before posting, without interrupting today's update. So here's the half with (hopefully) no mistakes, and I'll try to get the other part patched up and posted soon. Also, wanted to touch on RoliviaIsLife's question over on AO3... there were a couple times while writing this one that I thought it might end up being the last installment of the Devilishverse, but I have so many other ideas for places I want to take the series. I didn't want to leave the ladies on such a dark note, either. I'd at least like to do a few more recovery and healing stories before I wrap anything up—probably nothing of this length again, mind you lol. As long as the interest is still there with y'all readers, I'm good to keep going with this universe for a while more. Also, to the anon who commented about the email notifications issue: I'll let you know if I figure it out, but yeah, right now it's not looking too promising. :/
Chapter 55.
The Devil's Belt
. . .
The tower was relatively short—only forty-seven-feet high, although Amanda was no lighthouse expert, so maybe that was average. But it looked small compared to the lighthouses she envisioned in her head, when she thought of such things, and certainly compared with the architecture of New York City. Nevertheless, she hoped that, in spite of its diminutive stature, Olivia would find it as charming and meaningful as she had the day she discovered it, quite by accident. She knew there were lighthouses in the area, of course, but this one had practically leapt out at her after a wrong turn during an early morning run.
Plainer now, without the dazzling rays of an August sunrise tinging it in gold, it still managed to draw the eye. The squat white foundation and dark blue gallery matched the sky, but only to a point, like a slant rhyme in the landscape. And surrounding the rhyme was the Sound, deeply blue and stretching out for miles, though it was only a fraction of the ocean beyond. (The colonials had dubbed the waterway The Devil's Belt, back before Long Island was ever known by that name; Amanda had read that tidbit online, and loved it, but she chose not to share it with Olivia, for a number of reasons.) There was a sense of containment here that Amanda had never found in the City. Somehow it reminded her of being in her grandmama's garden, feeling encased from the rest of the world. Like you were part of the miniaturized scene inside a snow globe.
She just hoped Olivia felt that way about it, and not trapped. The walk seemed to have helped. They held hands along the full mile-long breakwater, from Seaside Park to the Black Rock Harbor Light, periodically cautioning each other to watch their step on the large, flat rocks below, even when neither had lost her balance. It was the idea of the thing—that they were assisting each other on rocky terrain, getting their partner to sturdy ground. Safety. Olivia certainly didn't look like she felt trapped when they reached the lighthouse and she stood at the base, gazing up like she was taking in a skyscraper.
"Pretty," she said, reaching out to stroke the weathered white stone, as if it were the leg of a massive animal she was addressing. An animal she didn't fear, for she left her hand there and turned to Amanda with tears in her eyes, but not the weeping kind. She looked almost elated. "How did you find this? It's perfect."
"Think I was meant to," Amanda said, her own emotions getting the better of her, making her sound mildly congested. She cleared her throat and squinted under the visor of one hand, though the sun was behind her and she could see all the way up to the cupola just fine. "It's like it was waiting here for me this whole time. For us." She rummaged under the collar of her t-shirt and brought out the little lighthouse charm that hung from the thread of silver chain around her neck. When Olivia started gifting her with more jewelry, she had taken to wearing the necklace only for special occasions—she didn't want to wear it out, after all—but she'd gone straight back to Dana's and put it on the day she discovered Black Rock. Hadn't taken it off since. "Remember?"
Olivia pursed her lips into that cute little crooked heart shape they made when she held back tears. She touched Amanda below the chin with just her fingertips, the same way she had the very first time she clasped the chain in place and stood back to admire it, the sea glass gleaming turquoise in the restaurant candlelight. "Of course I remember. I was lost, and you showed me the way back home. You always do."
"And I always will."
At water's edge, though, Olivia's confidence began to wane. She lagged behind a step or two, glancing over her shoulder at the handful of other sightseers they shared the tiny scrap of island with. A family, two separate couples, a group of old ladies in culottes and not an ounce of melanin among them. Her eyes lingered on the men especially, but she must have been satisfied that no one was staring at her, because she turned back to the shoreline and stood for a moment with her eyes closed. Then she opened them and surveyed the shimmering blue horizon as if it had just materialized in front of her. Exhaling deeply, she reached into her pocket and withdrew a plastic container the size of a Zippo lighter.
It sounded like a baby rattle when she shook it, agitating the tablets inside. They couldn't find any yellow ones, and the orange ones were too noticeable, according to Olivia, so they had settled on all white. The color didn't really matter, Amanda had reasoned, when the gesture was largely symbolic anyway. Now, Olivia looked doubtfully at the Tic Tacs, at the water, at Amanda. "This feels sort of ridiculous," she said, her eyes darting toward some unseen movement past Amanda's shoulder. They did that now. At least she hadn't flinched. "Maybe you should just give these to the kids over there. No sense in wasting them."
"It ain't wasting them." Amanda folded Olivia's fingers around the candy balanced hopefully on her palm. "And it's not ridiculous. You and I both know how important it is to get closure any way you can. First step was turning in the pills. This is just . . . a way to make it real. Final."
The CVS drop box, while convenient, was an anticlimactic method of discarding the Valium. Something that had nearly ended Olivia's life required a much bigger send-off than just chucking the bottle into a receptacle that put Amanda in mind of the old USPS mailboxes which once stood on every major corner. It should be at least as memorable as feeding freshmint to marine life if it were to have enough impact for them to put it behind them, otherwise it might creep back into their lives. Slither right on up into the bathtub with Olivia again, slow and insidious.
Amanda was determined not to let that happen, even if it meant doing something that felt a bit silly. Such as sprinkling candy into an estuary on a bright August day, after your wife attempted suicide.
"Like a funeral," Olivia provided with none of the implied humor.
Swallowing dryly, Amanda nodded. "Yeah. Somethin' like that."
Surprise registered on Olivia's face at the honest reply, but it must have been the boost she needed; a moment more of contemplation, and she popped the tab on the Tic Tac lid with her thumb, shook some of the mints onto her palm, and counted out six. The extras she nudged back into their clear container. She extended her arm, fist parallel to the water and reflected in it. But after several seconds, she still hadn't let go. "Should I . . . I don't know, say something? An elegy or—?"
"That's up to you, baby," Amanda said softly, letting her captain set the tone. She was there for moral support and would be every step of the way, but ultimately, it had to be Olivia who decided how to move on. "Just do or say whatever feels right."
Hypocrite, Amanda thought. Late last year, Hanover had given her the same advice about having it out with Serena Benson—or rather, her headstone—and Amanda had wanted to tell the therapist to shove her fruity Oda-Mae-Brown-inspired solution where the sun don't shine. And now, here she was, passing it on to her wife like some mantra-spouting yogi to her sunrise class.
Funny thing was, it worked.
Facing the Sound again, Olivia took a deep breath and gazed into the distance. Then she began: "You made me think I wanted to die, but it's you who are dead. You killed yourselves by trying to kill me. My spirit, my dignity, my— my self. You took it all, and what did it get you? You're there, and I'm here, and I get to go on with my life. I get to reclaim everything you stole from me. Today was bad, but I'm going to be okay. I know how to survive. That's something no one can ever take from me."
One by one she let the white pellets drop from her suspended fist, pinging the surface of the water like tiny bits of hail. No words were spoken as she did this, but Amanda was almost certain she had listed the name of each rapist in her head before each makeshift pill fell. It didn't end there, as Amanda thought it might, however. When her hand was empty, Olivia filled it with six more of the Tic Tacs, releasing them one at a time onto the gently rolling waves. She paused between each offering, saying nothing, and the worst part was, Amanda knew at least six more names were being added to the compendium of violators. She stopped counting after that, afraid to discover any more
(was she among them?)
though the ceremony went on for several minutes, Olivia discarding the mints like flower petals.
Loves me . . . loves me not . . . love . . . not . . .
Two were left when Olivia snapped the lid shut. She'd rid herself of all thirty-six Valium—the last one was wishful thinking—she had stashed away for the ultimate escape. Amanda exhaled shakily, only now realizing she had held her breath through every sextet. She gathered the air to speak, but Olivia beat her to it, unfolding a slip of paper from her back pocket. There were splotches on the page, a few of which Amanda initially thought were blood, before identifying them as drips of red wine. She also recognized Olivia's handwriting woven between the stains and the lines, though it was far less legible than her usual print, which was succinct and unadorned, from years of jotting down statements in precinct notepads.
Spotting her own name at the top of the letter, Amanda realized what it must be, and looked away quickly, not wanting to get caught reading Olivia's private thoughts once again. She did hope Olivia might read the note out loud, giving some deeper insight as to how she had reached the point of suicide, but Amanda wasn't going to push for it. Still, she winced her disappointment when Olivia folded the paper in half and tore it down the middle of that.
"All it says is how much you and the kids mean to me," Olivia said, as if she had read Amanda's thoughts. Or maybe her facial expressions. "How much I love you." She ripped the paper into several smaller pieces and, with a single glance around to see that no one was watching her litter, scattered the squares like confetti into the Long Island Sound. They drifted away on the slow-moving current in the vague shape of a diamond, carrying her secrets with them. "And I intend to be here every day to tell you that myself."
Throat tight with emotion, Amanda could only nod at first. "Good," she said, and had to repeat it because it came out soundless. "Good. I'd be lost without you, Liv. We all would. Don't you ever go thinking otherwise. And if you do ever start to doubt it, you gotta come to me and tell me so I can remind you how important you are." She stepped up beside Olivia and slid an arm around her waist, trying not to notice it was the smallest she'd ever felt it. One psychological battle at a time, Rollins. "Got it?"
"Yeah, I do. I will." The reply was soft, but not uncertain, same as the expression on her wife's pretty face when she turned it to Amanda. There was a resolution in her dark eyes, a steadiness that hadn't been there for the past three months. Silly or not, the ritual at the water's edge really had freed her of something burdensome, something hard and tenebrous that couldn't be detected by the naked eye. With any luck, the thing was drifting its way to the bottom of the Devil's Belt right then, alongside however many Tic Tacs had escaped the mouths of hungry, clamoring fish.
Even though the change was encouraging—maybe the most progress they had made since the attack—Amanda didn't quite trust it, not yet. Olivia was still much too fragile. A breath of wind could probably knock down the tiny bit of resolve, fought for so hard it took almost killing herself to win, that Amanda had caught sight of. One poorly chosen word or a flashback triggered by something totally innocuous, like the smell of fresh-baked bagels or one of the objects stowed in Amanda's pocket.
They weren't really innocuous, she supposed. Certainly not to her, and probably not to Olivia, either, if she were to recognize them. A few of them she definitely would, but Amanda wasn't so sure about the one she reached in and closed her fist around. Olivia had been too freshly traumatized to place it last time she saw it, and there was no telling how much of it she had seen, let alone processed, during the assaults. Amanda wondered if it might be better to leave it in her pocket for now, returning sometime later—on her own—to pitch it in the water.
But the more she thought about waiting, the hotter and heavier it grew in her hand, until she half-expected it to scorch a hole in her palm and through the lining of her Nike track shorts. She had to do it now. In this exact spot. She got the feeling that if her offering didn't immediately follow Olivia's, it would haunt her forever, like a displaced spirit always in search of peace, of home. One thing she and her wife didn't need more of was ghosts. "I, uh, I got a couple things to add," she said, suddenly feeling awkward and slightly inept in the spotlight. With a hasty throwaway motion, she indicated that she was referring to the Sound, not an oration she planned to deliver. Olivia was the one who was good at pretty words and meaningful gestures.
"What is it?" Olivia asked, peering at the tight fist Amanda withdrew, thwarting the attempt to sneak its contents past her, unspecified. And why wouldn't she? Her sins had just been trotted out in full view, one by one, all thirty-six of them—plus the note. Only a hypocrite would expect her to go through that, without anteing up themselves.
Amanda Rollins-Benson was no hypocrite.
. . .