Chapter 7 – “making the bed” - Olivia Rodrigo
VICE
“MAKING THE BED” - OLIVIA RODRIGO
Well, fuck.
I stare at the bottles sprawled across the counter in front of me. The liquor I’ve been hoarding for months, thinking nobody would notice.
It’s not like I drink all the time. Just whenever a spiral takes me down a particularly dark path.
Or before I meet up with a stranger from the internet because I’m craving human connection—and that’s usually paired with guilt-drinking, since my family doesn’t know about my online hook-ups.
They think I joined a writer’s group that I meet with at the library once a week.
The lying makes me sick to my stomach, so I take a shot or two to dull the nausea.
So, I don’t drink all the time, only when I really need to, which might be damn near every day. But it’s not like I’m getting shit-faced. If I were that bad, it wouldn’t have taken so long for anyone to notice…right?
The look on my brothers’ faces tells me they won’t believe my excuses.
“How long, Lena?” Leo asks.
“The drinking or the fucking strangers?”
My twin tilts his head back, groaning.
Honestly, I don’t know why I fell back into these habits.
In New York, it was so easy. I met a few fellow writers through recommendations from my agent, and when I went out drinking with them six days a week, I found it incredibly easy to forget the way my life crashed down around me, what a terrible person I am, and how achingly lonely I was.
I missed every deadline, I lost all of my deals, and my savings plummeted.
I’m fairly certain I spent an entire year without being sober for a single moment.
Once I hit that rock bottom, I figured it best to just stay there.
It made the most sense—it felt like what I deserved.
I lived off credit cards and moved from my cute Washington Square apartment to a shoebox in Greenpoint, barely scraping by.
At that point, the depression wasn’t from trauma, wasn’t from the horrible things I’d done to the people I loved, or the guilt that ate me alive day-by-day.
By then, I was depressed because I was unemployed, poor, and drunk.
That’s a lot harder to do in a small town.
A hometown where everyone knows you, knows your past and your mistakes and your tragedies.
At first, I didn’t have the urge to drink or fuck strangers, but it was like I wasn’t just sad because I’m pathetic; I was sad because I was grieving again.
I couldn’t carry the weight of both at once, and I feel lighter when my head is buzzed and my body is touched.
“Around the holidays, I guess,” I finally answer.
The timeline is somewhat accurate, though the trigger may not be, but I’m not ready to address that with myself, let alone with Leo.
Late afternoon casts a shadow over the house, but I’m having my first coffee of the day. I tried my hardest to avoid the conversation I knew I’d have to have with Everett after last night. I think I’ll avoid thinking about last night for the rest of my life.
I don’t want to think about Elliot, about how stupid I am. I used to be careful. Met up only in public places, always took the guy back to my apartment so I could maintain control. I used to trust my intuition and would bail on anyone who gave me cause for concern.
Elliot was a walking red flag, but I’d already been drinking, and I didn’t want to go home, so I pushed past the discomfort. When he slipped his hand between my legs, every alarm bell in my mind set off.
If he was willing to do that in public without my consent, how far would he go in private?
I’d braced my hand on his arm, attempting to push him away, and he pinched my thigh, gritting his teeth and snapping that I was a tease, and that I should’ve been expecting it.
There was a fury in his eyes, and I think it’s written into the biology of all women to recognize that look of fury when they see it in a man.
I don’t know why I clammed up or why I froze.
I used to have teeth too. I used to consider myself a predator when it came to men like him.
Instead, I cowered. I pretended I was fine, convinced him I was just cold and preferred to wait until we were alone. He wasn’t happy with my response, but it got his hand out from between my legs. Though, that doesn’t change the fact that I can still feel his touch there, even now.
I don’t know why I didn’t text one of my brothers or call my parents.
I guess I hoped I’d be able to get out of the situation unscathed, that they’d never find out, though I should’ve prioritized my safety over my humiliation.
I don’t know why I walked into Boardwalk Tattoo when I saw the lights were still on.
I didn’t even know if August would be there, but it was like some sense of knowing or guiding wind told me to step inside, told me I’d be safe there.
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the fear, but facing him was the aspect of the evening I’d been least prepared for.
After we got off the Ferris wheel and began down the pier and back toward the boardwalk, my skin was buzzing with need to escape—to seek safety.
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was searching for.
I was only driven by the compulsion to get away from Elliott, but when I spotted Boardwalk Tattoo, it felt like a light clicked on. A beacon.
Even without confirmation of his presence, when I saw the illuminated sign of his shop, an aching familiarity surged in the pit of my stomach.
The same feeling I can still recall from my youth—when I’d seek him out in the halls at school or sneak into his room after a fight with Zach.
It’s something settling, the casual intimacy of his eyes meeting mine, the soft smile of deep understanding, the warm touch of comfort.
I hadn’t felt it in years. I don’t know if it was hope or fear or some innate sense of knowing when he’s near, but my feet led me straight to him.
For all the familiarity my body seemed to feel, there was so much about him that was anything but.
It’s like…I know what he looks like. I spent the best days of my life staring at his face.
I’ve spent hours cataloging his features: emerald eyes, roman nose, pillow-like lips, the faintest hint of freckles that dot his cheeks—only visible if you stare closely enough.
I’ve soaked in his touch and slept on his skin.
I’ve loved him so deeply and fiercely, that description of the sensation doesn’t exist, because nobody’s ever garnered words for it.
I used to think his face was the reason I felt so compelled to write love stories—always searching for some way to express how he felt to me.
So, I know what he looks like, but last night, the face staring back at me was a stranger’s, and while I would consider myself an expert in heartbreak, that devastation was something new.
He had more tattoos on his arms, a new piercing on his eyebrow, and if I’m not mistaken, his tongue is pierced now too.
He was wearing a different pair of glasses than the last time I saw him.
Black browline frames with gold wiring. I’ve still never met a man who pulls them off quite the way he does.
I saw him at Leo’s wedding, briefly and from across the aisle, but it wasn’t enough to study those tiny changes—to realize all that I’ve missed.
I lay in bed all night replaying his words to me when he took me home.
You fucking destroyed me.
Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Replaying every interaction I’ve ever had with August on a loop. All of the best days of my life. All my favorite moments.
“Violets are my favorite.”
“That’s because you’re a violet too.”
“You’re my person.”
“You’ve always seen me with the utmost clarity.”
“I’ve waited an eternity to have you like this, and I don’t want to let it go.”
“So don’t.”
“Why are you doing this to yourself, Lele?” Everett asks, breaking me from my reveries. “All we want to do is help you. We can’t do that if we don’t know what’s wrong. What’s causing this.”
I sigh into my coffee mug, because I ask myself the same damn question every day. Depression doesn’t run in our family, it’s never been something I’ve struggled with before, at least not chronically. Not outside the week per month that my uterus decides I’m its worst enemy.
I wonder if guilt can cut that deeply, or if this self-hatred was always swimming beneath the surface of my skin, and all it took was the right amount of regret to slice me open and allow that hate to begin seeping out.
I know grief moves in stages, and I know it’s something the human spirit is meant to overcome.
I was one person before that day, and I became someone else after, but I refuse to blame all of my mess on that.
I refuse to acknowledge that I may have ruined myself over someone who, when it came down to it, didn’t truly love me.
If the roles were reversed, I don’t think that he’d be in my position all these years later.
He’d have moved on; he’d have been okay.
Sometimes, I hate him for that. Then, I hate myself more because how can you loathe someone who died? What kind of person does that make me?
Enough time has passed that I can compartmentalize those thoughts.
The grief and the guilt. They’re not eating at me every second, not an active parasite attached to my skin the way it once was.
They say time heals all wounds, and maybe that’s true, but for me time is nothing but a bandage. I’m still bleeding beneath the fabric.
And it’s that blood loss that causes the bone-deep exhaustion I’m not capable of escaping.
I am so fucking tired.
I’m not so sad I can’t get out of bed. I don’t cry over him anymore. I may live in a perpetual state of self-deprecation, but even that active hatred—those final words I spewed at him—doesn’t echo through my mind the way it used to. I’m just exhausted.