1-2-3 Years...
Author's Note: There are few bookmarks throughout the chapter. They are mostly for picture illustrations for that particular scene composite by the talented Ms. Marisol. If you click on the picture you'll be back at the point of story where you were reading. The bookmarks will also reveal some background facts about where I got the idea from. I hope you enjoy the little perks that I have added for the reader in my webpage.
Chapter Eleven
Initially when Gina had started to log the meetings between Olivia and Jena, she had wrongly presumed that it would give her enough to fire up Alex against her old friend. But her hunch completely fizzled out as after every time Olivia ambushed Jena, Jena threw her out. Yet, she didn't completely shut Olivia out. She never once asked Olivia to give back the keys or ever refuse to see her at her office. Rather she always let Olivia in just to throw her out again and again. Like she was playing a game with Olivia. A game that Gina liked. Since the game's only goal was to hurt Olivia. What Jena was doing, was exactly what Gina wanted. So Gina took the cue. She decided to play Jena's game. And unaware Jena was going to help her do it.
That was when Gina dug up Olivia's paper history where she hit a jackpot. Olivia's name though joint to many of Jena's business ventures at one time, were all legally severed couple of months after their break up. But it remained in one establishment. Olivia was still the co-owner of the Black Swan Inn of Weehawken, NJ. Why Olivia was still the co-owner? Gina didn't know and didn't care. But she didn't need to wonder about the significance of the Inn the moment she read the little story on the brochure and the advertisement of their prized room. Jena sure was a business woman, if her little story was going to sell the room she was going to use it. And Gina found her perfect venue. Then remained the little glitch of finding the perfect timing. And as fate had it, it also presented itself to her when Alex waltzed into her office wondering about making their half-year anniversary special. Then all she had to do was make sure all the key players ran into each other and everything else fell right on their places. A chain reaction that she initiated ended exactly the way she planned.
On Monday afternoon, immediately after the planned weekend Alex called her. Alex needed help to move out of Olivia's apartment.
Gina stood by her kitchen door sipping water as she watched the dim light illuminating her blonde house guest's beautiful face as she peered into her file trying her best to work in the dead of the night. Alex had not been able to sleep since the day she left Olivia and came to her.
"Go to sleep Alex." Gina yelled from the doorway as she walked inside.
"I can't sleep." Alex admitted.
"And you can't work." Gina was standing right in front of her study desk that Alex had hijacked ever since she temporarily moved in. And closed the file. "You are not working. You are just staring at the pages."
Alex remained silent. Gina remained silent too.
"You know what keeps flashing before my eyes?"
The answer was Olivia. Gina knew it. But she didn't answer.
"It's Olivia but not when she didn't answer me in the precinct. I even understand that. You know why?" Another rhetorical question, one of many that Alex had been playing and replaying and answering herself. "Because I know her. I know that if you push her she will not give in. And at that moment, in that room, with everyone wanting her to answer me. With me wanting her to answer me. She wasn't turning away from me. She was just being Olivia." Olivia that Alex truly believed she knew was the one she was understanding and defending. "But the face that flashes before my eyes is of Olivia when she was in the room. When she was checking the message on our answering machine. She was listening and her face changed. Like she became someone I didn't know. She lit up a cigarette and concentrated on the message. At that moment I thought may be it was about a case. But when I came home after fleeing from the precinct. Before I called you. I switched on the machine to just check. And then I heard the message. It was the message from Elliot telling her about Eve coming in for the questioning." Alex paused. But she wasn't finished. "Eve brings out something in her that is completely not her. I mean, we are talking about Olivia, who is great with kids and is the first pick in her unit to talk to any children victims. But when it comes to Eve.... She gleams with happiness one moment and then she complete retracts back."
"Alex, you told me yourself that Eve was the reason they broke up. So, may be Liv still blames Eve. Or whenever she sees her may be it reminds her of the betrayal that she had to go through." Gina who had done nothing to find out about Eve only speculated just like Alex had been doing.
"Yeah, that can be the reason. Because Eve is just an adorable child she can't help but be the caring self as she is and then she is everything that broke her heart. But I wish she would actually tell me these things. You know rather than me coming up with excuses for her every time. Its almost like she is hiding something from me. Not even that, like she is scared to tell me."
"May be she is scared because she hasn't let go of Jena. Think about it Alex, if she is still blaming Eve, if she is can even dislike a child, an innocent child. You can just imagine how deep her feelings for Jena might be."
"G! Please don't say that. I know things look really bad now, but I also know that she loves me...."
"That was before all this. Before Eve. You said it yourself that she didn't even touch you when Eve was in the house." Gina was not about to let Alex talk herself into giving Olivia another chance. Every little detail that Alex had confided in her as a friend, she was going to use it. "Even after that, you said things never went back to normal....that is because she had been secretly stalking Jena...how would things go back to normal."
"May be but the weekend ... we ..."
"Yes, tell me Alex. Tell me about the weekend, was it everything you planned or hoped for?" Gina asked glad that Alex was the one who brought up the weekend. The weekend which would be the last nail that Gina herself had orchestrated.
Alex remained silent. How had the weekend been? It had been good, in the sense that they certainly had managed to make love more times than they had done in the entire past couple of months. But yet again something about the weekend still wasn't as perfect as Alex wanted to believe. Through out Olivia seemed to be making an effort, like she was struggling within or like she was trying to do what she was doing and it wasn't coming from her heart.
"You didn't answer me Alex." Gina repeated her question. She knew that no matter how much Olivia might have tried to act oblivious to the venue, Alex must have picked up something to make her worry.
"It was good." Alex answered.
'Great' was the word that Alex had used more than once to describe the weekend, every time Gina had asked earlier. But finally now, Gina was able to make Alex rethink and re-evaluate everything. The last nail was hammered.
Gina kept her stare steady on Alex as she turned away. Once again hurt filled her heart with pain that even thoughts became unbearable. She had no excuse for Olivia. She had no excuse for her heart.
Just then the phone rang. Before she could take it, Gina's hand snatched her cell phone.
"It's Olivia." Gina said holding up the phone just out of reach from Alex. "You don't want to answer it."
She put the phone back on the desk within Alex's reach. Alex's fingers approached the cell and picked it up. She watched the small illuminated screen that read 'HOME' in all capital letters.
"DON'T." Gina warned glaring at her friend.
Gina extended her hand.
Olivia listened carefully on her phone. She waited and she waited. Then the ringing tone stopped. The phone hung up before it was even picked up. She put down the phone and stared at the file that remained closed in Olivia's dining table. She poured herself another drink.
'Alcohol only accelerates your emotions.' Jena's words reverberated in the room, but with every gulp she defied Jena's words. And now with that file all prepared she was going to defy Jena big time or she was going to give Jena exactly what she wanted. Regardless, Olivia was now ready for it.
She kept her eyes glaring on the file as she picked up the phone and dialed the number again. She needed to talk to Alex. She needed to tell Alex the truth.
The phone rang once again. Gina simply pressed the end button once again. This time she pressed it longer so that the power would go off. Alex watched her phone shut off with tears in her eyes.
"You know this is best for you." Gina said. "Now go to sleep Alex."
Gina walked out of the room with Alex's phone in her hand. Gina was shut out Olivia's heart, just like Olivia had crushed Chris' dream 14 years ago.