Olivia

I heard the knocking at the door. The pounding, really.

Momma just couldn’t leave me alone. Of course not.

“I’m coming!” I yelled, pulling on a robe. Damn that woman to hell. For once, I wanted to marinate in my misery.

“Leave me alone, Momma!” I said as I swung the door open.

Xavier stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets.

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

Finally, my voice returned. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to see you,” he said.

I’d never heard a man sound more miserable in my life. I might sound that miserable, but I’d never heard it on a man.

My mouth opened again, and I didn’t know what to say. I could feel my fingers grip the doorknob tightly. I wanted him to go away. I wanted him to come in.

If he came in, he’d just convince me to ignore it—until the next time.

If he went away, he’d never come back.

Both made me want to scream.

“Come in,” I said.

He glanced over his shoulder, giving the nod, then stepped past me. I could see a car at the curb, and a man getting into the driver’s seat.

He hadn’t been sure he’d be welcomed.

He was so considerate. Now I wanted to cry.

I was going crazy. That’s what this felt like—insanity. Nothing made sense, and everything was upside down.

Including me. Most of all me.

I walked around him and headed for the kitchen. If I had to be up, I needed coffee. I could feel him behind me. He had a physical presence even though I couldn’t see him.

The coffee pot sat clean and ready. I remembered that I’d cleaned the house up before leaving, so that I could come home to a neat place, secure in the wonderful weekend I’d just had.

Which meant I had coffee ready to go. I checked, and sure enough, the coffee was in the filter already.

I started it, and then turned around, leaning on the counter, and crossed my arms.

“Okay.”

“A text?” His hands were still in his pockets.

“I…” I looked down. I didn’t know what to say. It was shabby. I knew it. “It was cowardly of me. I know. I just didn’t know how else to tell you.”

“You didn’t even ask me what happened.”

I could hear the anger and the hurt in his voice.

“It didn’t matter. This isn’t you, Xavier! This is me, don’t you see?” I threw up my hands and turned to grab coffee cups, so I didn’t have to see the hurt I’d caused.

“You’re you,” I said to the cabinet, “and this sort of thing will probably happen to you until you die. I don’t blame you—I don’t think you want to be with them. I figure if you didn’t want to be with me, you’d just tell me. There’s no reason for anything else.”

“Right. So what made you text and leave?”

Did he always sound so cold? Or was I just sensitive?

Probably, along with a healthy dose of guilty.

I faced him. “Because I can’t do it. I want to, I want to make this work, Xavier. But my heart fell to my stomach when I saw that picture. I can’t live like that—waiting for the next stomach drop. It will make me a hard, hateful woman. I’ve had some hard and hateful thoughts. I didn’t like it, didn’t like what I saw when I was honest with myself.”

I crossed my arms again, looking at my feet. “I felt horrible. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person who brings all that anger and shit into your life, into my life.” I looked up at him then.

“We both deserve better, Xavier. It’s not your job to manage me and my issues.” I kept my gaze steady.

“We can work through this together.” He didn’t look away either.

“But it’s not something for us to work on,” I said. “This is my thing. You’re not at fault here. It’s all on me.”

He didn’t speak right away.

Xavier

I watched her. She was upset, and I could tell that me being there rattled her. “Olivia,” I said carefully. “Livvie, I…” I took a breath. “I love you. I know it’s way too soon, and I sound crazy, but I’m not. I love you. I’ve been trying to ignore it since practically the minute we met, but it doesn’t go away. It only gets stronger. Whatever you’re afraid of, we can get through this together.” I reached for her hands.

She tucked them under her arms.

Shit.

On a stick.

I backed away. “Don’t push me out, don’t push me away.”

Her head dropped, and she didn’t respond.

When she looked up, her face was shining with tears. “I am not what you deserve,” she started.

That pissed me off. “How do you know what I deserve? I can tell you, I am pretty damn happy with you!”

“When I get crazy, and jealous, and yell and scream at you because some drunk woman grabs at you? Or when people ignore me and pretend you’re available? You want to be around me when I’m dealing with that?”

“Yes! I want to be around you, period! Everyone’s got shit they deal with, Livvie. I sure as hell do. I don’t want any other guys anywhere near you. I’m more possessive than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t like it. That was the shit my mom’s asshole boyfriends used to say right before they beat the shit out of her! They did it because they loved her so much, they couldn’t stand to see her in the same zip code with another man! So they beat her for her own good!” I threw up my hands and walked away, too frustrated and upset to be still.

“You think that doesn’t scare the hell out of me? To hear shit in my head that sounds exactly like the abusive assholes I spent my childhood hiding from? You’d be wrong if you thought anything else!”

I looked at her then, her eyes wide. I could see how hurt she was for me, in addition to everything else.

I wasn’t making this better.

Without warning, I heard the voice of one of the counselors I’d had at the Y when I was in high school, and I’d been suspended for fighting again.

“You cannot be anything for anyone, much less yourself, until you deal with your demons, Xavier. You have to deal with all the negative things that piled up inside of you before you can deal with anything else. Until you do, that anger, and all the other negative feelings will get in the way of every single thing you do, forever.”

I’d scoffed at him, but later that year, I started seeing him every week, because my anger had reached a point where I wanted to hit someone until my own hurt went away. No matter how many fights I had, the hurt never went away.

It had taken some time, but I’d finally listened to him.

Looking at Olivia, I knew she needed to deal with her hurt. I loved her, and I thought she loved me, but until she got through her own shit, she couldn’t be with me. Or with anyone else, I thought with some satisfaction.

No one else would do for her but me, but even if she tried, all her negative stuff, as my counselor had said, would still be piled up inside, getting in the way. Until she dealt with it and got through it, she’d never get better. No matter what.

“Listen,” I said.

She could hear the difference in my tone and watched me carefully.

“I get it. You have things you need to handle. I understand. So I’m going to go now. I wanted you to know I love you. I wanted to tell you that I’m here if things change. My door is always open. I can’t promise you how I will feel….but…” I looked down because I could feel tears in my eyes, “No matter what, if things change, come see me. Please, Livvie.”

I almost held my hand out to her and stopped myself.

“I’m just going to go call my car, okay?”

She nodded one small, tight nod. Her whole being was wrapped as tightly as she wrapped her arms around herself.

This was killing me, but it was the right thing. She’d need to come back on her terms, with her own issues handled. I wanted to fight whatever dragons she had going on in her head, but I couldn’t. Those were up to her.

I walked out to the front of the house, wanting to hear footsteps behind me as she changed her mind.

The house was silent.

When the car arrived ten minutes later, I opened the door and looked back toward the kitchen. I couldn’t hear a thing, and she wasn’t coming out.

I shut it behind me and hurried to the car before I broke down.