Olivia sighed, staring out the window and meeting Alexander’s eyes. She was glad he looked exactly how she felt. Empty. Broken. Shattered. “Well, I guess I should start at the beginning.” She got up and made her way to the couch, Cam joining her. She immediately lay down and placed her bare feet in his lap.
The familiarity he felt with her made him grin. “That’s a pretty good place to start.” He grabbed some lotion and began rubbing her feet, hoping that the comforting gesture would help her be forthcoming. It worked.
Over the next several hours, Olivia proceeded to tell Cam everything she could think of, even if he already knew some of it. How her parents were killed in a car accident when she was six. How she had nightmares about the crash nearly every night. How the dreams became more vivid once she met Alexander. How she dreamed that her father made it out of the car alive. How, in her dreams, she overheard a conversation between her father and uncle saying that they needed to fake both of their deaths. How she was raised by her uncle. How the man she thought was her uncle was really Alexander’s father. How Alexander and she were childhood friends. And how Alexander knew her true identity back in August, but never told her. He had lied to her since then, in the guise of trying to protect her from some unknown threat.
“So, if most of your dreams were true, do you know if your father is still alive?”
That hadn’t even crossed her mind. She was so upset with Alexander lying to her that she never even thought about anything else. “I don’t know. It was just a dream.”
“Was it, though?” he asked urgently. “Our brains try to protect us, Olivia. You were in an accident that, apparently, caused you to suffer from memory loss. Usually, after such an event, you’d be surrounded by people from your past and you’d eventually come to remember everything again, but that didn’t happen. You were taken away from everyone and went to boarding school with sporadic contact from a family friend you were made to believe was your uncle. You never had the chance to regain your memory. But those memories were still there in your brain somewhere, desperately wanting to get out. Once you saw Alexander years later, your brain was trying to tell you something and help you remember.”
“Do you think my father could still be alive?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it’s a question you need to ask him.”
She looked at Cam, wide-eyed at the suggestion that she speak to Alexander.
“Libby, I’m not stupid. As much as I would love for you to forget all about him, I know that won’t ever happen. You’ll never love anyone like you love him. I know that now.”
Olivia processed his words before grabbing her iPad, searching through her music library.
“What are you doing?” Cam asked, a quizzical look on his face.
“That just reminds me of a song,” she explained, finding the tune she was looking for and streaming it to her speakers.
“You’re too much.” He shook his head and listened to the soulful blues song reverberating throughout Olivia’s home. “But seriously, Libby. You need to talk to him at some point. He holds all the answers to your questions. You need to give him a chance to explain everything. You need closure, and he’s the only way you’ll get it.”
She sighed, her eyes still glued to the iPad in front of her while she looked up chord progressions online. “I just need time. I’m not ready yet. Part of me doesn’t want to know because, if my dreams are true, then Alexander knew my life was in danger and he kept me in the dark about everything.”
“I’ll give you time. But you need to do this.”
“I know,” she agreed before looking into Cam's kind eyes…eyes that never lied to her. “Will you stay just a little longer? Please? I don’t want you to leave me just yet.” She reached across the couch and grabbed his hand. “You’re the only person I feel I can talk to who will give me a straight answer.”
“What about Kiera and Mo?”
“I love them both dearly, and they’re good about calling my bullshit, but there’s something about talking to you that I don’t get when I talk to them.”
A smile crossed Cam’s face, his dimples popping. “I’ll stay for as long as you want me to, Libby.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his hand.
That night, as she lounged on the couch with Cam, she glanced outside, tears welling in her eyes when she noticed Alexander sitting in the driver’s seat of the SUV. Slowly getting up from the couch, she grabbed her glass of wine and sat in the window. She stared at Alexander for nearly two hours, tears falling down both of their faces. She wanted him to come up to her door and say something…anything. But he didn’t.
~~~~~~~~~~
“TAKE ME TO MISS Adler’s,” Alexander slurred after climbing into his SUV the following Wednesday evening. He had just had more than a few drinks with his brother, finally telling Tyler the whole story about what happened between him and Olivia. Of course, he left out a few details, like her father still being alive. No one could know that.
“Yes, sir,” Martin said.
As the SUV pulled up in front of the brownstone on Commonwealth Avenue, he saw Olivia and Cam through the window snuggled up on the couch together. He was infuriated to still see him there with her after over a week had passed. His blood spiked with anger at the thought of someone else being there to comfort his Olivia. Grabbing his cell phone in a moment of weakness, he dialed her number, knowing that it probably wasn’t the best idea for him to call her in his inebriated state. He watched with furrowed brows to see if she would answer her cell phone.
Inside her house, Olivia heard her phone ring. She slowly raised herself off the couch and made her way over to the kitchen island, a sad expression on her face when she glanced down at her phone. Her lower lip began to tremble when she saw those green eyes staring back at her from the screen. Every night that he sat outside her house and simply stared at her, she felt her heart break a little bit more. She was shattered, and each day that passed was another reminder of his inability to tell her the truth.
Answering the phone, there was no response on the other end. She sat down in the bay window with the phone glued to her ear, willing Alexander to say something. Apart from his gentle breathing, the line was eerily quiet.
“I learned a new song today, Alex,” she said, cutting through the thick silence. “It reminds me of you. And me. All songs seem to remind me of you in some way. Mama always said that music is the best solution to any problem.” She lowered her voice. “But you probably already know that. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing…locking myself away in my music room, playing music. Mostly blues because that’s how I feel without you.