Note: the opening section in italics is from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
He broke off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers.
"I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past."
"Can't repeat the past?" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!"
He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.
Olivia closes the book and sighs. Getting lost in classical literature usually draws her mind away from her problems. Alcott, Shelley, Dickens- no matter the author or world, the escapism calms her mind and settles her soul.
Tonight, Fitzgerald has made her weary.
For five years, Gatsby grasped onto something that was never real. An image. A dream. He built an entire empire based upon the idealized version of a flawed being. It's sadly beautiful to have that much hope and desperation and want. The need to return to a place of simplicity and safety through the embodiment of another soul.
For ten years, Olivia has done the same. She kept a placeholder for Elliot, defended him, and sabotaged relationships because of her subconscious connection to him. Raised her son with his influence in her mind and heart. Dreamt of him, worried about him, prayed for him, loved him.
What we had was never real is still etched in her mind, whispering in her ear in quiet, vulnerable moments. She knows he didn't mean it- those words were Kathy's- but he wrote them. He was either too tortured, maimed, guilty, or frightened to admit the truth of them- what they were, what they always were. No amount of distance or silence could erase their past.
Her mind drifts to the line in the letter he did mean. That fucking parallel universe.
This was Gatsby's dream: that fucking parallel universe. Elusive and deceitful in its allure and hopefulness. Jay was in love with an image of Daisy, the Daisy he placed on a pedestal, the Daisy that could do no wrong, perfect and pristine and pure.
Olivia's not Daisy Buchanan, but the implications are the same. She knows Elliot loves the Olivia of a decade ago, an image he's managed to freeze in time as if his leaving was nothing more than a blink. He's worshiping their partnership as if it wasn't problematic, romanticizing their friendship as if it wasn't fraught with underlying angst. Perhaps expecting a moment now when they could forget that time, distance, and circumstance kept them from their destiny.
If she's honest with herself, she's done the same thing. Even when he left, when his absence left gaping wounds, she never stopped loving him. Lindstrom was right; she's idealized this all along. However, she hasn't idealized him. She knows he's bruised and broken, grieving for Kathy and immersed in guilt every time he looks at Olivia. She knows he's trying to make amends, to earn her faith in him, in them. God, she wants to let him in.
In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway was right: you can't repeat the past. She's not sure she wants to because the future is right there in front of her, if only she's brave enough to follow her heart. She realizes she hasn't felt hopeful in a long time; she's let the world and its ugliness settle like dust around her edges, leaving her vulnerable and crumbling.
Since Elliot's return, a part of her has exhaled, the part that trusts him implicitly, the part that missed him tremendously. The part she'll let protect her son without a second thought because he's the man that's protected her his entire life, even if it meant leaving her. He'll destroy himself before he ever hurts her again, this she knows, and she's tired of keeping him at arm's length.
They aren't problematic characters in a novel. They're Olivia and Elliot, Benson and Stabler. A story that belongs to them with an ending still unwritten.
It's late. She drives anyway. When he answers the door, his face a mixture of concern and curiosity, she doesn't give him the chance to greet her, launching into her impromptu confession.
"I said I wasn't ready because this is real. It always was. The minute I'm ready, there's no turning back for me. Ever."
"Liv," is all he can murmur before her lips are on his, hungry and cathartic. She takes charge of their narrative, pushing him through the doorway, gripping his biceps, caressing his neck, pulling off her jacket, and letting it tumble to the floor. She reaches for the hem of her sweater, but he stops her with gentle, calloused hands, eyes heavy-lidded with lust and confusion.
"Liv, wait." He smiles, and it's the smile she's been in love with for twenty-four years, reserved just for her. "Are you sure?"
She presses her forehead to his, reminiscent of the first time they were in this position with their hearts on display. "El, I'm scared and nervous and can't imagine my life without you ever again. But you're my best friend, and I want this. I love you."
He responds by replacing her hands with his own, lifting her sweater over her head, and peppering her chest and neck with soft pecks as she sighs under his hypnotic command.
Fitzgerald was wrong: maybe believing in infinite hope wasn't cynical after all.