Takes Its Toll

by Kit Graves

  She wasn't friends with him online, didn't even recognize the number texting her, but of course it was him. Olivia's mood had plummeted, falling hard and fast from where it had been a moment before.

  Why now? Why, after years, was he showing up at every turn again? Just when she had Harlan and some happiness again, Tomer appeared like a phantom to terrorize her life. She'd been in such a fugue state when they dated, so depressed and downtrodden, and she could feel that version of herself looking as his words sunk in.

  She didn't respond, but another text came through anyway.

  you're obviously still fucked up in the head Olivia. It was probably a matter of time anyway. No idea why you bother, you clearly went fucking crazy like your dad did.

  And another, right behind that one.

  even for a whore you could do better. It's honestly embarrassing I ever fucked you. I can buy and sell this town, you're too stupid to even slut around for a guy with half his fucking face skinned off, he looks like half a man. lol you deserve each other.

  Olivia sat blindly, staring at her phone without really seeing it anymore. She felt cold all over. She wanted to be mad, indignant on Harlan's behalf, her dad’s, if not her own. But she was just… defeated. Weakened. It seemed like every time she was having a good time, guilt or a stray thought about Rickon pulled her back down, and this time it was Tomer actively clawing her back to the bottom. Her computer went to sleep, ignored, and she pulled it back to life to shut down her session. She packed up her bags in a haze, then left the lab as quickly as she could walk without running.

  She made it home without remembering how she got there, found her bed and retreated into it without answering Winnie’s greeting. Her bed didn’t seem like the place to retreat to, suddenly, having woken up in one that was far warmer, far bigger, far more welcoming. Shit. Harlan was still supposed to pick her up later. She groaned and dig her phone out, afraid of seeing any new texts, but the screen was blessedly clear.

  She didn't have any energy for figuring out what to say, and simply typed out Can't do tonight. before hitting send.

  She could hear Harlan's response, and then another text, and a while later another, but she didn't check them. She just laid back, stared at the ceiling, and let herself sink into tears.

  Chapter 22

  It might have been minutes or hours later when she heard the front door open. The light had disappeared in her bedroom, which made her think it was late, but time had stopped really existing for Olivia. She was stuck, mired in a negative loop of thinking that went from obviously still fucked up in the head to clearly went fucking crazy to no idea why you bother.

  When she heard Harlan’s low rumble answering Winnie’s airy one from the living room, she stirred. He’d come over? She reached for her phone, seeing now that he’d accepted her excuse, then asked if she wanted to reschedule, then asked if she was okay when she hadn’t responded. He’d texted again a few hours later, and apparently her lack of response had freaked him out enough to come over.

  Ugh. She felt ashamed somehow, that he would sense her weakness, that she would even let Tomer get to her. This should have been a great day, and instead she’d worried Harlan, cutting off any post-coital bliss he might have felt. Forget about what Olivia felt - at this point, she didn’t think that was important. She just wanted to wallow in it, that was all.

  There was a knock on her bedroom door, and Olivia stuffed her phone under her pillow before sitting up a little. “Come in.”

  Harlan had to duck a little to get into her bedroom, and her heart lifted to see him. “Olivia. What happened?” He sat on the foot of her bed as gently as he could and reached out, leaving it up to her how close she would get. She wanted to curl up to him, but also wanted to see his eyes, so she reached out to take his hand. He immediately took the hand she’d offered in his other as well, folding it into a warm embrace between his palms.

  “It’s stupid.” She struggled all the way up, sitting facing him. It was tempting, now that he was here, to sink against him and try to use his body to block out her internal monologue. She owed him honesty, though, and reminded herself of words like trust and boyfriend while she gathered her thoughts.

  “Do you… regret things?” His voice was careful, but she could tell what he meant at once, and felt even worse for it.

  “No, Harlan, of course not.” She squeezed his hand, but knew she couldn’t just excuse herself without explaining. “I had a great time last night, I just-”

  “Did you have a panic attack?” Bizarrely, he pulled his hand off of hers to feel her forehead, and she almost laughed at his fluttering concern, but it warmed her too much for mirth. She pulled his hand down, held it again.

  “No, I just had a text from my old boyfriend.” She saw his face twist in confusion, so she sighed, pulling her phone out of hiding. “Here.”

  Harlan was quiet while he scrolled, and to calm her nerves, Olivia watched his hair slide slowly down his shoulder as he read. She could tell when he'd finished just from the way his shoulder set, and when she looked back at his face, his expression had set too. She'd expected him to react the way he had to everything so far, with calm and understanding and maybe some kisses.

  So it shocked her when his body language changed entirely. He sat up, anger vibrating off of him in a physical wave. She was suddenly unsure. There hadn’t been any real sign that Harlan had an angry side - maybe when she’d first told him about Tomer, maybe a little when they’d talked about his dad... and this was something that she wished she could be angry about instead of broken up over, but. Harlan’s mood shift had pulled the air out of the room. He stood, sat down, stood again and tossed the phone down onto the bed next to her. He started pacing, and Olivia pulled her knees up to her chest, watching him fearfully.

  “Harlan?”

  He shook his head, dark hair whipping around as he filled the room with his anger. His size was suddenly overwhelming, and Olivia fought panic as she watched him. He turned toward her, looking despairing, as she met his gaze.

  He opened his mouth as though to speak, but shut it again, turning away and punching the wall instead. Olivia couldn’t help it - she shrieked - so taken aback by the booming sound and his sudden anger. There was a sound outside the room like someone had dropped something, and Winnie came running into the room.

  “What happen- get out.” She rounded on Harlan once she saw the hole in the wall, Olivia curled up on the bed. “Go, get the fuck out.”

  “I-” Harlan looked from Winnie to Olivia, the despairing expression back on his face. He looked as broken as Olivia now, hangdog and self-hating. She wanted to go to him, but he was already moving to obey Winnie’s fiery demands. She was even shepherding him with her much smaller body, boxing him out of the room like a defensive basketball player.

  “Out!” He went, and Olivia started to cry. Winnie came back in a moment later, and a moment after that, she could hear the roar of Harlan’s motorcycle starting up. It stayed on, though, as though he were sitting in the parking lot. Winnie swore at the wall. “Are you okay? I’m so sorry, Olivia, I let him in because we were both worried about you, but was he why-”

  Olivia shook her head. She tossed Winnie her phone now and went to the window. Harlan was sitting on his bike, head down, hands in his hair. Her heart broke to see him like that, seemingly near tears, totally out of control. But she was unsure too. The hole in her wall gaped like a missing tooth, drawing her eye back to it even as she tried to see Harlan’s expression.

  Winnie swore under her breath. “Okay, I get it now. Is this seriously how he talked to you, Olivia? Goddamnit, I had no clue. We should have taken him out when we saw him.”

  Olivia shrugged, still staring out the window. Harlan had turned the bike off, and seemed to be arguing with himself. While she watched, he pulled his phone out, put it away, pulled it back out again.

  “I would have punched the wall, too,” Winnie admitted. “Here.”

  She handed the phone back just as
it lit with a message, but it was from Thom. New boyfriend? Care to bring him to dinner with the old dad?

  Olivia wiped tears off her face roughly, wondering if she’d just ruined everything, if Harlan had. She didn’t want to tell her dad her new boyfriend had just punched a wall and been kicked out of her apartment. It would make her look like she only picked abusers, like she was a stupid idiot and Harlan was something he… wasn’t? Now she wasn’t sure. Winnie’s words comforted her, though, and she looked back out the window. She had half a mind to go down and speak to Harlan now that he’d cooled off a little. Surely they could talk it out, the way they had everything.

  But there was a rip and a roar, and when she looked back out the window, he was gone.

  Chapter 23

  Winnie made tea and they curled up in her bed to drink it so they didn’t have to stare at the gaping hole in the drywall in Olivia’s room. Winnie and Tiffany’s room was white and comfortably plush, pillows everywhere and each wall crowded with art and photos of their life together. Olivia stared absently at a photo of the two of them atop the London Eye, faces split by identical grins. Would that ever be her, happy in love and traveling the world? She’d thought, for a moment, that it might be. But.

  Tiffany came home and joined them in bed, curling up without asking for an explanation. Winnie whispered to her for a moment, and she nodded, but to Olivia their voices were like static. She was lost in swirling thoughts, doubts, sadness. The presence of her friends was comforting, though, and she was grateful to them for sharing their space. After a while Winnie went to get more tea and some cookies, and Tiffany started brushing out Olivia’s hair wordlessly. It felt good, comforting, and Olivia let her eyes drift shut.

  She must have fallen asleep, because she woke up to the sound of hammering. It took a moment to recognize the room she was in, as Tiff and Winnie had left her tucked into their bed. She scrubbed her hands over her face, pushed her hair back, and padded into the living room.

  The sight there was the last thing she’d expected.

  Harlan was kneeling on the carpet, surrounded by her roommates. He was showing Laurel something in his hand, which she peered carefully at before nodding. He set it down and she recognized Laurel’s grandmother’s jewelry box, which Laurel had broken by accident and been distraught about for weeks. Around him on the floor were more things: their wobbliest chair, set on its side, a toolbox, a mug of tea.

  Olivia slipped into her bedroom before they saw her. She pulled a warm sweater over her head and inspected her wall. Harlan, she assumed, had been in there: it was patched and smoothed over, the hole nearly invisible now. She ran her hand down it, wondering what had happened while she slept.

  Tiffany’s soft laughter echoed from the living room, followed by Harlan’s tentative chuckle. Olivia took a deep breath and went back in.

  “Hey, Olivia,” Winnie said mildly, seeing her. Harlan looked over his shoulder at her and jumped to his feet, the frame he’d been looking at now clattering to the floor.

  “Hey!” Laurel protested.

  “It was broken anyway, that’s the point,” Winnie pointed out. Tiffany laughed again, lightly, but peered at Olivia. Harlan was looking at her too: his eyes burned with the intensity of it. Olivia wrapped her arms around herself and nodded to the floor. “What’s going on?”

  “I came back to apologize and fix your wall,” he said, voice low, as though it were only meant for her. Her roommates were blatantly listening in, though. “I had to go get my tools, and then when I came back…”

  “We made him fix everything,” Winnie finished, looking smug.

  “I can see that.” Olivia was amused, despite herself. She was glad the other girls had set him to making amends, because she didn't think she had the energy to. It was exhausting even thinking about the talk they had ahead. As if on cue, the other girls remembered things they had to do in their rooms, leaving Olivia and Harlan facing one another across the living room.

  She crossed her arms and waited for him to speak. He seemed not to know what to do or say, but she could see that he was struggling to put the words in place.

  “I'm sorry,” he started, finally. “I truly am. I acted horribly and there's no excuse for my actions.”

  “Okay...” Olivia wasn't really accustomed to receiving apologies from the men who'd hurt her, and now, she'd had two in a month. She'd forgiven her father out of a longstanding familial love, out of necessity since he was half of her remaining family. Thom, she knew, had deserved that forgiveness, as he'd only hurt her accidentally and out of his own pain. As for Harlan, she wasn't sure yet what had cause him to lash out so horribly. Her roommates seemed to have forgiven him, but Olivia had just named herself his girlfriend, and she needed to know more before she could feel comfortable again with the title that had so thrilled her that morning. God, had it only been that morning? “So there's no excuse. But what's your excuse?”

  She worried the sleeves of her sweater, curling the cuffs into her palms. She wanted to reach for him, cross the living room, but she was wary. Maybe he wasn't someone she could go to for comfort. Maybe he was just another danger.

  Harlan sighed, low and long. He sat on the couch, resting his elbows on his knees and staring up at her. “I told you I've seen some shit. And I've told you about my dad. I think it goes without saying that my mom didn't do much to protect me from him. Most of the time, it felt like she was protecting him instead.”

  She ached for sad, hurting baby Harlan, face newly maimed and no one on his side. But she stayed silent.

  “I was an angry kid: real angry. I became a pretty angry man. I'm glad you didn't know me then, honestly: it was all blackouts and bar fights. I finally joined the military to support myself, channel that rage. And it worked, for a while. But then I was out and I was still so angry and now I'd seen things, things that horrified me. War gave me these horrible feelings, moods. It was hard to deal with the dreams.”

  “Post-traumatic stress disorder,” she guessed. He nodded.

  “I didn't want to believe the diagnosis, but I was definitely worse. That's when I started seeing Dr. Brannan.”

  She gave him a look like who? and he answered the unspoken question.

  “He's my counselor. I got a VA referral but he's here in town. He's helped me, so much. He's the one who suggested I channel my energy into workouts. In a way he's responsible for my entire post-military career.” He cleared his throat. This was the longest speech she'd ever heard from him, but still she waited for more, even as all the pieces slotted into place. “I called him just now, because I left when you needed me most, just because I couldn’t handle you being spoken to that way and hated remembering how people see me and hate what you've been through and I took it out on you. I don't want to be that guy anymore, I thought I wasn't-” Despite clearing his throat a moment ago, his voice sounded rough again, and she realized with growing horror that he was choking back tears. She took a step toward him without realizing, still hugging herself tight. “I'm so fucking sorry.”

  Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think. She had to admit that his story made sense. It was a sad story, but it rang true. If he hadn't just scared her so badly, she would have accepted his word without another question. His next words, though, startled her into speech.

  “I'd like you to come see him with me, if you can forgive me.” His eyes met hers, steady as silver.

  “What?” She unwrapped her arms from her body, unsure. She'd tried therapy, had hated it, had felt it was like ripping open deep wounds instead of letting them scab over. You didn't have anything to fight for then, though her traitorous mind whispered. You didn't care about being better or even alive. She thought back to the hills and the stars, to her own confessions to Harlan and to the stupid wish that he would have his own demons to live next to hers. As much as she didn't want to be the broken person in their relationship, the realities of dealing with both of their baggage was beginning to make itself clear. “So… therapy?”


  He nodded. “For me. For you. For both of us. I don't want to rage quit on you again. I don't want you to shut me out when you're upset again. That's what I want, what do you want?” And he was still as stone.

  Olivia considered, rocking back on her heels. She did want those things, and they didn't seem like they would come easily. If Harlan had been seeing this Dr. Brannan for years and gone from the anger she'd seen being constant to the sweet, kind man she'd been getting to know - at least most of the time - then perhaps he was worth seeing. So she took a deep, steadying breath and said, “Okay. But you have to go to dinner with my dad.”

  A smile broke across his face like sunrise in snow. “Deal.”

  Carefully, slowly, he slid off of the couch and onto his knees. She finally let herself do what she'd wanted to and stepped into him, his arms coming around her waist. He was so tall that his face was still level with her breasts, and he pressed his face into her sternum, inhaling. She wrapped her arms around him, gripping tight. They stayed like that, wavering slightly, each the other’s life raft.

  She kissed his head, inhaling the forest and marveling at having this powerful man prostrated in front of her. He had only hurt her out of his own pain, and she wouldn't stand for it again, but she thought she understood. Thought she could forgive.

  “Harlan,” she whispered, and his head popped up. His eyes were wide and suspiciously bright, his hair a rumpled mess from being pressed against her. “Take me home.”

  Chapter 24

  Walking into Harlan's house felt a thousand times different than the night before. The pizza stone in the sink seemed like it was from a hundred years ago, and the unmade bed seemed unfamiliar, even though Olivia had played her part in rumpling it. She felt heavier now, no longer walking on air but settled, decided. The idea of their relationship had gone from that, an idea, to a reality that was altering her vision and her future alike.