“No. I’m not going to lie to them.” Olivia tries sitting up again and peruses the evidence from this morning and yesterday. I cleaned away her untouched meals but left the empty bottles so she could do a post-hangover analysis. “Oh, how much … no … I don’t think a photo of that will work as alook what I didtoday.”
“Let’s see,” I try to keep my tone light for the sake of her head and pride, linking our fingers together so I can stroke her palm with my thumb. She can do this. “Day one, you canceled what we can now look back on and say would have been a marriage mistake. Day two, yesterday, you arrived at your relationship detox and commenced the healing process. Day three, today has been a self-indulgent party, complete with as much alcohol as your beautiful body can consume.”
“Are you judging me? Because if you are, I don’t need you here.” She snatches back her hand and shoves me back and only my excellent surfer balance keeps me from falling off the bed. Good. My beautiful girl wants to fight instead of wallow.
“No judgment, but do you want some pain meds with that water?”
“I needed time out from thinking.” Liv takes the offered tablets and water, nodding her thanks. She looks surprisingly refreshed and calm and sounds coherent. Hopefully, her exhausted body was able to get some deep sleep. “It’s not like a normal breakup where you can deal with it in private. I can’t just look back and shake off,oh, yeah we broke up and I’m fine.“ She stares at me. “It’s not fine. I’ve lost my fiancé, probably my job, respect from my family and friends, and probably lost most of my friends who will side with Mitch or Lina. And who knows, if Mitch or Lina go to the police about the video, I could end up being charged with revenge porn or something. It was stupid. I was stupid and I’ve never been the stupid one.”
I see the fire beneath her calmness. Good. Olivia Woodgrove is nobody’s victim. Through all the schoolgirl scandals, she’s always been the strong one out of her friends—the one to call out trolling, eating disorders, and mental health issues. Liv has always been the one to encourage intervention before things get out of hand and people get hurt.
When one of her primary school friends fought and lost a short battle with cancer it was Olivia who held the friendship group together. It was Olivia who invited Georgia’s mother to primary school and then high school graduations. Olivia ensured Georgia wasn’t forgotten in the graduation photos.
My beautiful girl demonstrated more strength and compassion as a child than most adults. I need her to find it now, channel it now on herself. Olivia deserves to heal.
“What exactly do you think everybody knows?” I ask, calmly. “Seriously, what is it that you think they know?”
“Well,” she starts calmly, but I can see her eyes well as she processes what happened, again. “Everyone knows I was a fool. He made a fool of me. Lina made a fool out of me. Then, because I was stupid enough to post the video, everybody knows. Everybody saw.”
I hand her more crackers, hoping she’s too distracted talking to reject food. “They saw and know what they want to know. Believe me, other than you and Mitchel—possibly Lina—nobody cares. As much as you’re hurting right now, you two are just another couple that broke up. It hurts like hell now, and you’ve got some shit to clean up if this breakup is real …”
“What do you mean, if it’s real?” she interrupts with a mouth full of crumbs and throws a pillow at my head. I let the pillow bounce off me and offer another bottle of water. Liv eyes me while taking long gulps—looking for my reaction. I squeeze my legs so they don’t shake and rock the bed. I know what I want her to do, but this has to be her decision and as her friend, I can support but not influence her—even if it kills me to stand back and watch her make a mistake by going back to him. “Believe me when I say there’s no way on this earth or in hell that I’m ever going to kiss that man again. I could never trust him. I’m not going to marry him, I don’t want to try again. All I want isfor him to be out of my life and for everyone to forget that it happened.”
“Good, you’ve made a decision.” My body relaxes and it takes all my self-control to keep a blank expression.She’s not going back to him. We have a chance. No. She needs to mourn and heal.“The question is, do you want to deal with Mitchel while you’re relaxing here in paradise? Or, do you want to give your father the satisfaction of dealing with him on your behalf?”
“Daddy would do that for me?” I can’t believe she has to ask.
“Let’s just say your father and I are better friends today than we were a week ago.” I wriggle my eyebrows and smile. “Believe me, he’d like nothing more than to physically remove Mitchel and all of Mitchel’s belongings from your house, change the locks, sort out your severance pay if you want to leave your job, separate any joint investments, and sue him for any financial damage that he can.”
“Daddy’s not mad at me?” Liv collapses back into her pillows as if a weight has been lifted. I underestimated how much her family’s reaction to the canceled wedding means to her.All those tears, have any of them been over Mitchel? No. Don’t go there—let her heal.
“Your father loves you.” I smile, reassuringly. “He hates the man who hurt you. And he’s threatened me with physical harm if I either don’t look after you, or allow anything or anyone to hurt you while we’re here.”
“I can’t talk to Daddy, not yet.” Olivia’s soft voice lacks her earlier energy. My beautiful girl is bouncing through moods like a bloody basketball game. Luckily, I know how to duck and weave.
“I can talk to him. What do you want him to do?”
“I don’t know whether I want to keep the house, but I want Mitchel out of it.”
“Done.”
“I want all furniture from my bedroom donated to a women’s shelter. I want all of his clothes donated to an organization that helps men get jobs, you know the ones where men borrow clothes to go to job interviews?”
“I don’t know whether he’s cleared his stuff out, but we can find out.” I resist the urge to punch the air, keeping my tone light and non-judgmental. I’m not judging Liv, but I’m judging the fuck out of Mitch and his cheating ass.
“He’s had two days to move out his shit, right?” Olivia looks at me and I nod. It’s almost been three days, but who’s counting? “Can you text Mitchel and inform him he has three hours, no he’s got until nine am tomorrow morning. Whatever he hasn’t taken by then will be disposed of on his behalf.”
“Can I tell him we’ll bill him for the disposal?” I can’t wait to send Mitch the text. I still haven’t responded to his earlier question and it must be driving him insane with jealousy.
“What’s with thisweshit?“ Olivia smirks with a flash of humor. “Are you going to organize the disposal and bill him?”
“If you want me to, I’m sure it would only take a couple of phone calls to arrange.” When Olivia rolls onto her side, our noses almost touch. A spare pillow marks the line between us. We could be touching. We could be kissing. Hell, her toes keep twitching in my direction and if she looks down, she’ll see they aren’t the only things twitching. “Um,” I cough, reclaiming my voice and subtly shifting the pillow to hide my body’s muscle memory of Liv laying next to me on a bed, “Your father deserves the right to kick the asshole from the house he paid for. Do you want me to start things now? I can show you the text messages before I hit send.”
Olivia nods. “I don’t want to post a photo today, but I think I should.”
“It’s up to you babe.” I leave her long enough to go and get my phone off the charger. All of the bloody gaming and randomInternet surfing has killed my battery, but there’s enough for this.
Hunter:Olivia’s had a rough day but is pulling through.
