Olivia Young

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“GOD. OH MY God.”

Olivia knew that she was the source of the exclamation, but it hardly felt like it was truly her. At the moment, nothing around her felt exactly real. Her world was a series of painful movements, of undulating sounds the vibrations of which felt as if they might actually be hurting her. Something was hurting her, there was no denying that. Even before she opened her eyes she knew that something was wrong. For starters, her eyelids felt like they had been glued shut. Was it possible that somebody had broken into her apartment while she slept and covered them with concrete? Was that the kind of thing people did? Secondly, and this was much worse than the first, she was pretty sure she was dying. Yesterday she had received the best promotion ever and not a full twenty-four hours later she was dying. It was the ultimate proof that life wasn’t fair. She wasn’t dying, of course, but that didn’t make her misery feel any less unfair. It almost made it worse because the pain she was feeling now had been self-inflicted. She groaned and rubbed her eyes, attempting with limited success to free her lashes of the mascara that was gumming her eyes shut. Then she sat up slowly, timidly, waiting with dread to see just how bad of a day she was going to be having on this fine, brisk Saturday. For a moment she thought that it might not be as bad as she had initially thought but after an all-too-brief moment of adjustment her body first recognized and then rejected this new flow of blood. Her head started to pound and behind each eye it felt like somebody had inserted a long, unforgiving needle. She winced and put her head in her hands, then swallowed hard against the rising bile in the back of her throat. With her eyes shut tightly again, it felt like the floor underneath her sore feet was moving. It felt like she was on one of those slowly moving conveyor belts at Disney World, only this one was one she couldn’t climb off of once the rise was done.

“Oh man,” she groaned to herself, her usual cool, put-together exterior temporarily eradicated, “God, I hate being hungover.”

There was nobody in her apartment to talk to, of course, and talking to herself wasn’t making her feel any better. Quite to the contrary, actually. The sound of her voice rattling around her empty apartment made her acutely aware of the fact that nobody ever stepped foot inside of it but her. Hangovers were excellent conduits of self-pity and that was something she was indulging in full force on this miserable morning. Everything on her hurt. It felt like the follicles of her hair were crying out in pain and that wasn’t even possible, at least not when a person was feeling normal. Her body felt like a husk, completely depleted of all liquids and nutrients. All in all, she was a hot mess and although she had only been fully awake for a couple of minutes she already knew without a shadow of a doubt that she was in for a rough, rough day.

The only thing she could think of to make things just a fraction better was a shower. It was one of the only things that ever worked when she was feeling this gross. She knew it didn’t actually help rehydrate her body, in fact, she thought she had read somewhere that it did the opposite, but it made her feel better and at this point that was the only thing she was concerned with. She stripped down, tossing all of her clothes off to one side with a wrinkled nose, and hurried to her massive shower on wobbly legs. She turned the water on and sighed with relief. She stepped in and sighed even deeper, relishing the feel of the lukewarm water running over her in waves. It felt like it was doing more than cleansing her body. It felt like it was taking care of her insides, too. She never felt more of a mess than when she awoke, finding her clothes still on from the night before. It was something that didn’t happen to her all that often anymore, especially now that she spent most of her time devoted to work, work, and more work. Come to think of it, she wasn’t quite sure how she had wound up in her bed, fully clothed, to begin with. She could remember being at Caroline’s place and walking in on her and Abel almost having sex. She could remember that she had thought Nick was being particularly obnoxious and internally bemoaning the fact that she would almost definitely have to see more of him now that Abel and Caroline were officially cohabitating. A couple of bottles of wine were opened, the alcohol and celebration flowing, and–

“Oh! Oh no!”

It hit her all at once and for a minute she was almost certain she was going to pass out right there in the shower. She was so sure that she sat down right there on the tile floor, bending her knees and putting her head between them until the far away feeling began to fade a little. Normally she wasn’t a fan of having parts of her memories disappear completely, but she would have been more than happy for what was now coming back to her to have stayed gone. Vague, disjointed memories of him escorting her to his car came flooding back, memories of her talking incessantly about things that had to have sounded completely stupid to the oh-so clever Nick Oswald. The last thing she could remember was telling him several of the things she thought were wrong with him, after which everything in her mind went dark. That would have been a merciful thing, a blessing, except that the things she could remember made her dread what she might have done during the times when everything was mentally dark. What she was almost certain of was that Nick must have been the one to get her inside of her apartment. Because she couldn’t remember it at all she was sure she must have been out cold by that point, either that or so useless it didn’t make any difference. She had treated him terribly and she had done it with what she considered to be good reason. Even after all of that, he had taken care of her. There was some distant part of her mind that insisted that he had laid her out gently, maybe even kissed her on the forehead, but she rejected that idea immediately. It was too much. She couldn’t reconcile her idea of who he was with a man who would have done those things.

Even so, she knew she couldn’t let this go without saying something to him. Paying him a visit was the last thing she wanted to do, especially when she was feeling as gross as she did today, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she chose to do anything other than that. Her stomach continued to flip-flop uncomfortably as she hurried the rest of what had originally been meant as a restorative shower. She dressed quickly, methodically, then spent more time than she would care to have admitted peering into the mirror and getting every part of her makeup just right. After a quick search, she retrieved Nick’s address and set out grimly to do the only thing she really could do in a situation like this one.

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OLIVIA FOUND NICK’S building easily. It was one of the classiest, most prominent high-rise apartment buildings in town. She rolled her eyes after parking outside of the massive structure. Of course he would choose to live in a place like this. It was the kind of place that all of the upwardly mobile, wealthy bachelor type people wanted to live. Olivia felt the bile rise up in her throat again at even the idea of having to go thank him for taking care of her but she was going to do it nonetheless. There was no way she was going to slink away in embarrassment, letting him have the upper hand every time the two of them were around each other for the foreseeable future. That, and she couldn’t get that forehead kiss out of her head. She was almost sure she had made it up because it made no sense for him to do something sweet like that, but she still couldn’t get it out of her head. The need to thank him was so overwhelming it felt like a compulsion and she wouldn’t be able to feel okay with herself again until she did so.

She spent the whole walk from her car to the front walk of the high-rise psyching herself up for the conversation that would take place between the two of them. She had always been the kind of person who needed to feel prepared for something before she did it and this conversation was no exception. In her head, she went through every possible scenario, from him being a perfect gentleman to being pissed off and telling her exactly what he thought about her. What she didn’t prepare for and what made her sick stomach feel all the more wounded, was to practically greet him coming out of the front door with a beautiful woman hanging on his arm. Nick and the model-thin blonde were laughing and the woman was leaning in to him suggestively. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that if she hadn’t slept with him yet, it was definitely on the menu. Olivia stopped in her tracks. There was nowhere for her to go. It was too late for her to slink back to her car without being totally humiliated. Nick had clearly seen her. He was looking right at her, for Christ’s sake. There was nothing for her to do but stand her ground to meet him and hope to get this thing over with as quickly as humanly possible.

“Olivia!” Nick laughed, disentangling his arm from the blonde’s and stepping forward, “Gotta say, you’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“Yeah,” she answered slowly, her tongue feeling like it had turned to lead inside of her head, “it’s sort of a surprise to me, too.”

“Well, what can I do for you? I’m on my way out, but–”

“I can see that. If you need to go, please, don’t let me stop you.”

“No, no, that’s alright.” He turned to the blonde, kissed her firmly and with enough gusto that it made Olivia want to look at anything else on the planet but the two of them. He whispered something to her, probably something about how he wouldn’t be long with the crazy, sick-looking woman, and then headed towards Olivia. He took her by the arm instead, surprising her so much that she didn’t try to free herself, and led her several paces away from his waiting date.

“What’s going on? What brings you to my neck of the woods?”

“I wanted to talk to you about last night.”

“You aren’t coming to accuse me of anything, are you? Because that would be bad form after everything that went down.”

“No!” she answered quickly, her voice full of genuine surprise, “Nothing like that. I just –”

“Because you weren’t exactly a bed of roses, you know? I mean, you were tough on me! I don’t recall any other woman ever jabbing at me quite that way in my life other than my mother. So you’ve got that going for you.”

Nick was grinning at her, a twinkle in his eyes, but that did nothing to stop the spread of cold inside of her. She had come here to thank him, really, just to thank him for being a gentleman. Before she had even gotten the chance to do that, he had started making fun of her. He was standing here and making fun of her for being such an idiot, and chances were good that once she left he would fill the blonde in on all of the details so that the two of them could have a good laugh at her expense. She folded her arms in front of her and took a step back, all of the uncomfortable good feelings she had been on the verge of developing dashed right then and there.

“Right. Good to know.”

“Hey, don’t be pissed, I–”

“Was just messing around, right?”

“Well, yes, actually.”

“Sure. Of course. No problem, right? I just came here to thank you. So thank you. That’s all. Enjoy your date. Looks like you won’t have too much trouble there.”

She delivered the words in what she hoped was an adequately caustic voice and spun on her heel, hurrying back towards the safety of her car. She did her best to ignore the sting of tears threatening behind her eyes just as she ignored the sound of his voice calling for her to come back. She wasn’t sure what she had wanted, what she had expected coming here, but it had all blown up in the most fantastic way.