“You must’ve been so scared. The doctor mentioned about some complications-”
“Oh, scared I was. But not for me. I was scared about what I was about to do at that time. I was going to kill someone. Someone that did nothing wrong and was only the product of my stupidity.”
I shook my head. “Please don’t blame yourself. You did what you thought was right.”
“I didn’t think it was right. If I had even a slightest idea that you and Tristan wouldn’t object to the baby or criticize me for it, I wouldn’t have done it.” I could feel her regret rolling off of her in waved.
“You’ve got to know that I would never criticize you for something like this. I don’t know about Tristan but I would never.”
She looked at me with sad eyes. She didn’t say anything so I asked because I had so many questions.
“Why did you trust Heather with this? Weren’t you scared she’d be mad at us?”
“No, I felt like I could trust her. She’s so strong. I needed someone like her to help me. I begged her to not tell Tristan. She wanted to but she kept her promise. She didn’t tell him. I’m grateful for that. She’s really nice. She helped me get through the abortion. If it weren’t for her, I would’ve induced a miscarriage upon myself. I would’ve gone to such an extreme length. I probably wouldn’t have been able to have children after that if I had done that. But I talked to her and she guided me. She set up an appointment with a doctor specializing in surgical abortion – the doctor that just came to check up on me, that’s him. She planned the girls’? day out and told Amelia to keep you distracted. She was so encouraging and comforting. She held my hand before I went for the abortion and told me that I’d be okay, that it’d be all okay. She paid my bills and I promised her that I’ll pay her back and I will. I’m so thankful to her and her support.”
“I’m glad she was there for you when I wasn’t.” Her words made me regret how I thought about Heather. She had always wanted what was best for everyone around her. “I’m sorry.”
Hearing her talk about Heather made me feel grateful to the woman. She was strong, helpful and a beautiful person. I felt guilty for hating her when she tried to keep me away from Ethan but I understood her reasons. She was a great person and I feel like I’d be indebted to her for ever for the kindness she continued to show to Olivia and I.
Olivia had a wistful look on her face. She was deep in thought and by her expressions I knew those weren’t pleasant thoughts. “It would’ve been so much better if I hadn’t pushed you to pretend. I feel like a gold-digger. I just wanted to experience what being rich felt like, with no worries. I wanted to feel how getting spoiled felt like, for once.”
I felt bad for her. Her family wasn’t really into adoring their kids. They just wanted to pop out children who would follow in their footsteps and continue the family legacy of lawyers. Her household was strict and there was no choice for her to do what she loved. So she had to rebel which only resulted in her getting cut off from the family. They disowned her because she didn’t want to do what they wanted her to do.
“I was so selfish. I guess that was karma. I forced you to do something you didn’t want to and in return I got unhappiness. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. They wouldn’t have let us go anyway.”
We didn’t say anything for a long time. I think she just needed time and space to think about everything that had happened to her. But she had been alone for so long, always pushing me away that I thought that she must have had enough time now to come to terms with reality.
“Only if you hadn’t sent us together that night.” She said quietly.? “You should’ve known better than to send two drunk people with feelings for each other together.” Her lower lip trembled as she spoke.
“What?”
“Don’t you see that all that has happened is all your fault?”
“Wait a minute, what? How is it my fault?”
“You sent us away from the party together. You knew we were drunk and you knew we liked each other. Didn’t it ever occur to you that something like that might happen between us?”
“No,” I snapped. “The only thing that? occurred? to me was to get you two to safety at home so that you wouldn’t embarrass yourself or puke over someone important or confess about us in your drunken state. Maybe you should’ve watched your alcohol consumption. Wasn’t that what landed us here in the first place?”
Olivia scoffed. “Don’t act innocent. This all started because of you. I got pregnant because of you. I had to abort the baby because of you. You’re the one responsible for all this mess and then you have the audacity to be a hypocrite and start dating Ethan and then you say you’re not at fault here?”
My anger flared. I had come here to comfort here and tell her that she wasn’t alone but she was blaming it all on me now?
“Look, I admit I was wrong to start dating Ethan and going against my words. But that was my only fault. None of the other is mine. I wasn’t responsible for you getting pregnant and aborting the baby. I wasn’t even aware this shit was going down!”
“I can’t believe after all I’ve been through to obey what you told me, you won’t even admit it.”
I pressed two fingers to my temple and massaged it. This was giving me a headache. I sighed heavily. “I think you’re tired because your brain is clearly not functioning properly.”
“You told me to not date Tristan so I didn’t. But you sent us together when we were clearly not thinking straight. So yes, me ending up pregnant was your fault. I decided to abort the baby because I was scared you’d scold me and be disappointed with me and this baby might’ve risked us two. But you go around on dates with Ethan and didn’t even tell me it was okay for me too.”
“Maybe you could have said something about what was going on with you. I don’t have psychic abilities to predict it.” I retorted. I knew arguing with her wasn’t the best thing to do right now considering the situation she was in but I was seeing red. The one thing I absolutely hated was to hear that it was my fault when something went wrong when it clearly wasn’t because of me.
“I told you my reasons for not telling you.”
“You’re sounding ridiculous right now. I refuse to acknowledge it’s my fault because it really isn’t and you’re just looking to blame someone else for what you’ve done that you obviously are regretting now.”
I think I hit a nerve because Olivia’s face dropped. Her hand subconsciously moved to her stomach where once a new life was developing.
I realized that I shouldn’t have let anger rein over the words that poured out of my mouth. This was a delicate time for her. She could be slipping into depression due to the guilt and my behavior towards her right now was unacceptable. I needed to be considerate of what she had gone through, even if it meant that she’d blame me for something I obviously didn’t do. Maybe I played a small part in making it happen but if I had even the slightest idea that it would lead to this, I would’ve done everything I could to prevent it.
“Olivia, I’m sorry.” I said, forcing down my anger and whispering to her in a gentle voice.
“Yes, Julie. I’m regretting what I did but given a second chance I would’ve still done the same thing because this was the right decision for me. But it’s killing me from the inside. I killed my own baby. I took a life. I’m a murderer.”
I shook my head at her. “Don’t say that. It’s not like that.”
“Why? Why did it have to be me who had to go through this? I see you and you’re living your best life and I’m not. I’m a killer and I killed the one good thing that happened to me. It’s just that the timing was wrong.”
“You’re overthinking. I think you need rest. Go to sleep, I’ll wake you up for dinner.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t. I shouldn’t. I won’t eat dinner.”
“You’ve got to get healthy. Look at you. You’ve turned so skinny. It’s not good for you.”
“I don’t care. I don’t want to eat anything. I just want to be alone.”
“Good luck with that because I’m not planning on leaving you alone from now on, well except when you really need some space because in that case, I’ll understand.”
“God, Julie. Don’t make this difficult for me. Go to Ethan. I’ll be fine on my own.”
“I’m not the kind of person to leave her best friend alone in a situation like this. You should know me better than that.”
She sighed, visibly frustrated with my presence.
“When are you planning on telling Tristan?”
“I said I won’t.”
“I too don’t want to tell Ethan the truth about me but I will so Olivia I think you should do the same.”
“When are you telling him?”
“After the business party that is a few days later.”
“Aren’t you scared how he’ll react. He’d be so upset. He’ll feel betrayed. Would he accept you still? Would he still like you even when he’ll get to know that half of the things that he saw were all lies? Will he forgive you for your mistakes?”
I had a feeling we weren’t talking about my situation anymore.
I wrapped my hand around her hand which was resting on her stomach. “I’d be alright. In the end, Olivia, everything will work out and we’ll be fine.”
I didn’t know for sure but I could feel it. Our problems weren’t as big as we were making it out to be. It was just our natural tendency to see it as big obstacles when in reality, when handled correctly, it could turn out the way we wanted to. We just needed to have a little bit of faith in ourselves.
“Should I? Should I tell him?” She asked hesitantly.
I nodded encouragingly. “When the time is right, do it. It’s the right thing to do. He deserves to know what he had and what he lost.”
She nodded meekly. “I need some time.”
“Of course. I’m not pressuring you. Take your time.”
“Thanks, Julie.”
Just then there was a crushing sound that startled us both and our eyes shot to the door. Olivia’s eyes clouded with fear over the possibility that someone must have overheard our conversation while all I could think was if it was Ethan and that I wouldn’t get the few days till the party to be with him until all hell broke loose, which was pretty selfish of me.
I stood up and moved to the door, pulling it open.
On the ground was a shattered painting that was knocked off a wall and next to it, a panting Tristan grasping the ends of a table so hard that it looked like that was the only thing that could hold him up.