Chapter 31
Olivia
She stumbled wet and panting out of the field and into the miracle of Phelps’s backyard, her shoes covered in mud, her cheeks
stinging with tiny cuts from her flight through the corn stalks. Her nose was dripping, her toes frozen. But she was out.
“God,” she gasped, tilting her head up to the sky. Not a prayer, but something close.
The moon was pale, with clouds like ragged gray tulle blowing over it. The same moon she’d seen from the cornfield. A sky
that watched without saving. A point of reference so distant it couldn’t actually help you find your way home.
And yet here she was, by a chance of right and left turns. By coincidence or haphazard choice or divine guidance. Back to
where she started, with all the same hurts and baggage—but not the same woman who had entered that cornfield.
There was a light on in the Dog House, but Olivia turned toward the deck and the glowing light of the kitchen. She needed
a bathroom.
What time was it? How long had she been lost in the field?
It wasn’t until she was deep in the corn that she realized what she’d done—plunged thoughtlessly, recklessly, into a maze
she might never find her way out of. When she finally stopped running and looked up at the sky and thought, What am I doing? she realized she actually needed to answer that. Not just for tonight, but for her life.
She stood there for a long time, in the lonely silence, with only the whispering stalks and the cold glow of the moon as company.
Something had happened when she shrieked on the deck. A wall had come down, and on the other side, the waiting tidal wave
had been too much to handle. A wave of pain and loneliness, a wave made up of all the stories she hadn’t told, and all the
people who hadn’t heard them. But now the water was settling, and lo and behold Olivia hadn’t drowned, and things were bobbing
to the surface.
Questions.
Was she so afraid to face the truth that, instead, she had kept herself lost for years?
What was the truth worth—not in general, but to her?
Was she brave enough to fight for her story?
Even if no one believed her? Even if she lost everyone in the process?
When she’d seen Bennett and Phelps coming toward her, ambling through the yard looking at something on Bennett’s phone like
co-conspirators, like they were on a team and Olivia was left out, that was hard enough. And then, to realize they had talked
about her behind her back, decided she was crazy, and now they were going to rewrite the story, her story—her husband who she trusted, coming in with the “real story,” fully convinced because Phelps got to him first and he
was going to believe his oldest friend over Olivia.
Nothing happened.
It was hearing Bennett say those words that sent her over the edge. It was instantaneous, a trigger, like a firework exploding
inside her mind, inside her body, bursting everything into agonizing nonsense. The narrative she’d so painfully managed to
finally build, the truth about what happened, was being shot to pieces. They’d agreed together, Bennett and Phelps—without her—on a different story. A story in which her assailant was guiltless and Olivia was unhinged.
So she ran.
Into the tall cornfield that should have been harvested in the summer.
All that work for the corn to grow, painfully pushing up through soil and air to reach its full potential—painfully striving
upward to complete its story, its reason for being, its purpose—now abandoned, tall and dry. A waste. Useless for anything
except getting lost in.
She stood there in the corn with her burden and her questions, and realized she couldn’t move, could not physically take another
step, until she answered them.
Tears streamed down her face.
It felt like her body had turned inside out, and now her heart was pulsing outside her chest, alive and hurting and exposed.
Yes, she was afraid to face her victimhood.
Yes, she had preferred the other narratives, even the ones that made her guilty, because being powerless was scarier than
being guilty.
What was the truth worth? She was starting to fear it might be worth everything.
No—she was starting to hope.
She must be brave enough to own her own story, because if the truth didn’t matter, then her pain and trauma didn’t matter either,
and Olivia didn’t want to live in a world where her hurt didn’t matter. That was hell. She’d spent enough time there.
Could she make a different world for herself? Even if no one cared about the truth but her? Even if no one listened?
She felt lighter, even though these thoughts were still heavy, even though nothing was solved, nothing guaranteed.
Somehow, already it was easier to breathe, even though she was still lost, still standing there in the mud and the wet, still sad and angry and scared.
She closed her eyes and breathed in slices of air and asked the last question to the sky, her head flung back, her chin pointed up.
Even if I lose Bennett?
The stars winked like silent witnesses, sealing her decision.
Yes.
She would forge her own path, alone. She would step through the glass with her heart held outside her body—even if there was
no one to protect it. Even if she didn’t know where her path was leading. She couldn’t depend on anyone else—their responses,
their agreement, their consensus. Her truth had to have value on its own, in some fundamental, lonely, necessary way.
If she found help, empathy, understanding? Good. But she would not wait for those things to move forward.
She took a step, feeling the crunch of hard ground followed by the softness of dirt underneath. Then another.
She was walking. This time more slowly, this time using her arms to protect her face from the stalks. She was lost, but she
was walking, and that meant she might not be lost forever.
Now, back in Phelps’s yard, it felt like she had returned from another planet. She ascended the deck where she’d smoked with
Ted. She slid open the glass door and stepped into the warm inside, her skin stinging from the temperature change. The first
thing that hit her was the silence. Where was everyone?
The second thing that hit her was a sudden nausea. She leaned on the kitchen counter. Ugh. She didn’t want to throw up. If
only she hadn’t shared Ted’s joint . . . A sound came from the living room. “Hello?” she called out. The front door slammed.
Was the party over? Was that the last person leaving?
She managed to walk into the living room. What . . . what had happened here? Had someone punched the wall? Were those blood spots?
She needed to talk to Bennett. Surely he hadn’t left . . . She made it to the hall with the bathroom and bedrooms.
“Bennett?”
Nothing.
She was finally at the bathroom, but Allie was occupying it . . . and to Olivia’s annoyance, she didn’t seem close to done.
The situation was urgent, her stomach turning over on itself . . . Wasn’t there a bathroom in the basement?
She stumbled downstairs. This house was falling apart. Her life was falling apart, and however valuable the truth was, it
still hurt, oh, it hurt. Why had she agreed to come here? Why had she thought she could live through this party unscathed?
“Stupid,” she muttered to herself as tears spilled down her cheeks. Despite her grand conclusions about truth, she felt about
as small and alone as she ever had. “Stupid, stupid, stupid Olivia—”
Near the bottom of the stairs, she lost her footing and fell down the rest of the way.
“God.” Why couldn’t she do anything right—anything? Handling the truth—walking down a set of stairs—
At least she’d found the light bulb. She pulled the string and the basement flickered into view before her.
She yelped. Her hand. It was red. Wet. Covered in blood.
Feet, sticking out from behind the couch. And a trail of blood, leading the way there.
Elton John sang in the soundtrack of her head.
Olivia rounded the corner.
Not Bennett—not Bennett—
Not Bennett.
Jenn. Lying on her back, her legs slightly splayed, her brown eyes wide open, and blood all over her face, her torso, the floor.
“Help! Oh, my God, someone help!”
She should see if Jenn still had a pulse . . . but there was blood everywhere, so much blood.
Olivia leaned over and threw up.