Chapter eight: Let me hear it all

O L I V I A

I stormed out of the place, shaking with emotions. I was overflowing with feelings. Not a single thought was rational or arranged. The painful memories from years ago insisted on plaguing my brain. I was haywire with the assault of the feeling of being betrayed, again.

There's only so much an abused, tipsy brain could handle.

"Livvy, wait up!" I heard him. I quickened my pace, wiping under my eyes to clear the evidence of my loss of control. His footsteps seemed closer.

"Leave me the fuck alone, Kai," I screamed.

"No. I have to-"

Have to?

I whipped around furiously. "Stubborn asshole, haven't you done enough!"

He stopped just a few feet in front of me, almost close enough to touch if I wanted to. That did not help my befuddled brain.

Should have kept walking.

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "Will you stop that? Why are you being that way?" 

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I questioned incredulously.

"I'm serious. I thought we were fine . . . "

"What gave you that notion?" I asked in bewilderment.

"I don't know, you didn't throw anything at me when I last showed up at your place."

He cringed the moment those words escaped his mouth, realizing how lame that sounded.

So those visits were intentional.

I had no idea what to make of that deduction or how to feel about it. That made me uneasy.

"I'll remember it in case I ever need that in the future," I snapped.

"I don't know how to make it up to you." His voice took on a desperate note.

"I'll tell you," I said helpfully, "Leave me the fuck alone!"

"Anything but that," he denied firmly.

His gaze was intense and my resolve was weakening. While the tipsy part of my brain had definitely played a role in me talking to him and getting some frustration off my chest, the vulnerability I felt inside at being subjected to the look in his eyes without my guards was unnerving. I wanted it to stop.

"Kaison," I begged in a trembling voice. I wanted to look away from those damned hazel eyes but my body wouldn't obey. "Please."

"Why can't you forgive me?" He beseeched, taking a step forward. "I swear to God, Livvy. Please?"

A small laugh escaped my mouth at that. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and concern.

"You don't get it, do you?" I shook my head.

He looked lost. "Get what?"

His sheer cluelessness uncorked me.

"You bastard. I forgave you a long time ago!" The words exploded out of my mouth all on their own. "Even after all that you did to me, I still forgave you. Because I'm an idiot and I still love you. But you don't understand that.

"I'm mad at myself. I'm angry with myself. I hate myself. This is not about you. This is so not about you. It's about me and my inability to hate you. I hate that I loved you, I hate that you broke me and I hate that I still love you. I hate that I let you render me so weak. I hate how my heart clenches every time I see you with her. I hate that every time I look at you, I still remember what-"

"I love you," he interrupted.

"-we had." I stopped, blinking the tears out of my vision as his words registered. "Don't say words you don't mean," I barked.

"I love you," he repeated, walking even closer. He stopped inches from my face and I had to crane my neck up to see him. I could count every spec of gold and green in his eyes. He was close enough to kiss. So close that I could feel his every breath grazing my hair. "I mean it."

"No, you don't." I let out a choked, cruel laugh, grateful for his words that broke the spell. "That girl in there is a testimony to it."

"She means nothing to me," he said calmly.

"Some things never change, right?" I said bitterly.

"For god's sake, Olivia!" He grabbed my forearms firmly, his grip just strong enough to hold me in place and get my attention, but soft enough to not hurt. His gaze bore holes in mine with their earnestness but I refused to acknowledge it. "Listen to me. I. Love. You. I loved you eight years ago, I love you today, and God help me, I think I will love you forever. Chelsea is just a friend!"

"A friend you fuck at every chance you get." I seethed at the mention of her name, freeing myself of his grasp. I walked back to create distance.

"Friends with benefits," he admitted with a sigh.

"Does she know that?" I asked.

He scratched his head nervously. "She did. We haven't been together since Freshman year, college."

"Yeah, right," I scoffed in disbelief.

"I'm sorry. I should've told you."

"No," I gritted out using every last shred of my willpower. "You don't owe me anything anymore."

He stepped forward again, his eyes shining with genuineness. "Livvy, please."

He broke me. I stopped resisting. I didn't know how, I didn't know why. Maybe I had had enough. Maybe I didn't have it in me anymore. Maybe I was tired or maybe I had just lost all sense of self-preservation. The fight went out of me in a whoosh.

"What happened to you?" I asked heavily, plopping down on the sand. A few tears escaped my eyes and I buried my face in my hands, resting my elbows on my knees. I felt completely and utterly spent.

"You won't believe me if I told you," he said, sitting down as well. This time he kept his distance, giving me the space I so badly needed.

"Try me," I challenged, my voice coming out broken and muffled. I sniffled, inhaling noisily. I felt his figure bend towards me and I turned to him to see he was offering me his handkerchief. Out of options and clearly out of control, I accepted it without a fight. I wiped my cheeks to clear the rest of the tears and looked up ahead at the sea.

"I was at this party when it all started," he said after a beat, lost in thought. "I was a stupid kid and I made a mistake. I'm still paying the price."

"Hmm," I hummed, interested. The high tide had kicked in. "What did you do?"

"I got insecure and acted on wrong advice," he replied.

"What made you insecure?" I asked curiously. He had everything- grades, popularity, an arm candy, and a harmonious, supportive family. What more could he have asked for?

"It's stupid." He sighed.

I hid my disappointment. "Um-hmm."

"All in due time, Livvy," he said, surprising me. He could still read me like a book even after years of being apart. Even Griff and Sam often fell for my act. In that moment, the urge to kiss him was too strong.

"Don't call me that," I answered to hide my abrupt burst of affection. The breeze blew by gently, making my hair fly all over the place. I tucked a few strands behind my ear deliberately as I spoke.

"I missed calling you that," he breathed. And I missed hearing you call me that. I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of the waves crashing on the shore.

"You need a filter," I mumbled. He chuckled lowly.

"I've been told that before," he admitted.

"I know." It slipped before I could stop it.

You need one too, hypocrite, my subconscious mocked me.

His chuckles ceased and the silence blanketed us again. Peculiarly enough, it was comfortable.

"Remember the summer before our Junior year?" He asked after a while.

An olive branch.

"You mean the Summer you finally learned to surf?" I asked, accepting it.

"No," he denied.

I frowned, trying to recall any significant event but failing. "Then?"

"It was our first summer together as a couple," he reminisced. It had been. We'd had so much fun that year. I remembered being afraid that it would all be over after summer. I was scared it was just a summer fling. It wasn't. We dated for almost three years. And then-

"Kai," I cautioned gently, staring at the sand beside my feet. I did not want to lose control again.

"It's true," he said.

"Need I remind you that your girlfriend is waiting upstairs for you?" I asked, more sharply than I intended. I might be willing to act civil, but I was still bitter about a lot of things. It would take an eternity for me to get over that.

"She's not my girlfriend." I looked up at the denial to see his face twisted in a scowl. "Never really was."

"So the tabloids were lying?" I raised an eyebrow.

His lips quirked up at that. "You followed my news?"

Trust him to twist an accusation into a compliment.

"Kaison." I glared at him.

"Okay." He chuckled. "I never said she was my girlfriend, Livvy."

"Right," I derided, dragging the word out.

"Go read them when you get back to your room today," he told me. "It was always Chelsea who said she was my girlfriend. I never confirmed it."

"Even if so, you never denied it either," I pointed out.

"That's because they are all vultures waiting for a snack and would not have left me alone if ever stepped up to give a statement. I would have been dragged into a huge mess."

"So you let the world believe a lie?" I asked incredulously.

"I don't really care what more than ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of them think," he stated airily.

"Awesome."

He was the same Kai alright. He had just changed a little here and there. Who doesn't?

"What happened to you?" He asked me.

Finally an easy question with a straight answer to it.

"I washed up at the doors of Berkeley and they kindly took me in. I graduated and got a job offer in InfoTech in NYC. I've been living there ever since."

He nodded. "So same as the plan."

My heart twisted.

"Same, and yet so different," I muttered.

No long-distance boyfriend, no late-night calls, no I love yous. It was lonelier than I was imagining. More lonely than I'd ever have been before. There was no one whose facetime I looked forward to. No one I wanted to talk to about my day. No one to rant to.

No one felt right.

Sitting there with him, that wave of loneliness that usually surrounded me disappeared. I knew I had retracted into my shell and I knew I was closed off, but the extent of it was unknown to me till I sat beside the guy I have somehow been consistently in love with for over eight years.

He didn't even have to do anything to get me to feel so liberated. All he had to do was coexist. Maybe that's why I stopped kicking him out when he would show up drunk. I could sleep without tossing and turning even with the little knowledge that he was near. I would sleep like the dead just as I used to in his arms when he used to sneak in-

"I can relate," he exhaled, thankfully breaking my chain of thoughts. I shook myself internally.

"Shocker." I rolled my eyes, focusing back on reality. I dabbed the renewed moisture in my eyes as discreetly as I could.

"I know you've forgiven me, so I have another favor to ask," he said. "Can I?"

I sighed, wary. "Okay. No promises, though."

"Good enough for me. Do you think you can give me another chance?" He asked me.

"She might not be your girlfriend, but she's still here with you, Kai," I reproached disapprovingly.

"What if she wasn't?" He asked.

"Maybe we can be friends," I breathed out. "I'm tired of fighting. It took a lot out of me."

"You've never been the type to hold a grudge." He chuckled. "I'm surprised you held this one so long."

"You'd be surprised what a person is capable of doing to hold onto their self-respect," I said passively.

Another silence settled over us as that sentence sunk in.

"What happened to your arm?" I asked in an attempt to ease the awkwardness.

"It's a rotator cuff tear." He exhaled deeply, sounding tired himself. "I'm not supposed to move it."

"Oh." I frowned. "Does it hurt?"

"No, they gave me painkillers for it." He smiled.

"How long will it take to heal?" I asked, ignoring the kaleidoscope of butterflies in my belly.

"Depends," he answered. "It could take a few weeks if I'm careful and don't move my arm around or it might even take surgery. It's a minor tear so hopefully, I'll recover soon."

"Is that why you're here?" I questioned. "Because you're injured?"

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on coming." His voice lowered as he faced the sea.

"Football is demanding, hun?" I chuckled.

He hummed absent-mindedly.

"Kaison." I narrowed my eyes at him.

He turned back to me at the change in my tone. "Yeah?"

"Why weren't you wearing the sling the night you came?" I demanded.

"I was," he said.

"No. No, you weren't."

"I wa- ohhh!" He laughed softly to himself. "I removed it for like an hour. I didn't want to meet you guys for the first time in six years wearing a sling. It's nothing."

"You're an idiot." I sighed. "How many times have we gone over this? You are not invincible. Why can't you be more careful?"

He laughed softly. "Sorry." 

My heart constricted at the sudden realization of the familiarity of our conversation. I shook myself mentally. I could not go there. I just couldn't. We could be friends after that maybe, but what we were before? No. He cheated on me. I refused.

"I'm just going to go." I got up quickly and dusted the sand off of my dress. Despite the temptation to keep it, I held out his handkerchief back to him. "Thanks."

"See you around?" He asked hopefully, not commenting on my sudden urge to depart as he accepted it back.

"We'll see," I answered and trudged back, leaving him behind.

Getting everything off my chest felt good. I had kept it all bottled up in me for almost six years. Saying it out loud to the person I wanted to hear it all was relieving. It was like I could finally breathe again. I felt strangely calm and suddenly at peace. The internal turmoil that had been ever-present since that eventful day had finally ceased.

Who knew that a little liquid encouragement could go a long way?

Now I understood why my friends wanted me to talk and what they meant by getting closure.

Looks like I have a few people whom I owe apologies to.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N:-

Ohh, the long-awaited Olivia and Kaison showdown. I hope it at least lived up to your expectations if nothing more.

QOTD: How'd you come across this book? Was it a rec (highly doubtful lol), a reading list (again, >.<), the rankings (god, I sure do dream a lot, don't I?), or perhaps your home feed?

Take care, you guys. Keep your loved ones close and remember, there's no time like the present! For all we know, the world might be ending, no?

Anyhoo, that's all for today! See ya tomorrow!!

All my love,
xoxo.