3 Olivia
March 26th, 2022
“No, mom, I don’t have any plans for the birthday I had a week and a half ago. If you want to plan something, why don’t you come down here and plan it?”
She released a breath as if I had suggested that she go out in the 100-degree weather and pull weeds. “Sweetheart, you know how hard it is for me to drive long distances.”
We were an hour and a half away from each other on a bad day.
I held up a dress in front of me as I stood in front of the mirror only to shake my head and toss it to the bed. “I told you that I’m not a big birthday person. I don’t need some big event. I don’t need anything.”
It would have been nice if Steven had remembered that I had even had a birthday, but it was fine. 23 wasn’t that big of a deal. He had forgotten my 21st too, but again, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I had already been drinking a little before then, 21 just meant it was legal. He apologized and we planned on doing something later. “Besides, I have work to do.”
Later never came, but it was okay, we both had busy lives, and I completely understood a birthday—a few birthdays slipping through the cracks. It happened.
“Oh, that coffee shop,”
she muttered. “I don’t see why you need to work there. You own a third of the company and you got that inheritance from your great aunt when you turned 18. You don’t have to work for the rest of your life.”
I rolled my eyes. I was also a five-time published author of some really successful psychological thrillers, but she didn’t like to imagine that I had made a name for myself without the ‘Lemont’ family fortune.
“I like to work,”
I defended, heading back to my closet. I also quit that job a while ago, but I hadn’t told anyone about that either.
I had only had the job to keep Steven from questioning where I got my money. He had no idea that I had a few million in my bank account. If he did, I was sure he would figure out a way to get me to give him all of it. And I was stupid enough to let him.
Because of love?
No, something else. Something nameless that made me stay. Something that kept me from starting over from scratch once again. Something that locked me where I was and prevented me from escaping. Maybe I was simply addicted to suffocating.
She released a breath, something she did often that caused the pit in my stomach to grow. “How is your writing going?”
Well, from the two completely opposite reviews I had gotten at The Club, I didn’t think it was going well. Starting over on that book seemed like the best idea at this point. “It’s fine,”
I half lied. “I’m talking to my publisher at the end of the week to renegotiate our deal.”
Three days, actually. Three very short days.
“And you’re still publishing under Abigail Ross?”
“Yes mom, please don’t tell anyone in your book club”
I had to remind her of this at least once a week. She both hated and loathed the fact that I used a pen name. It all depended on the day, the weather, and if she felt fat when she woke up that morning, so I had to cover my bases just in case she decided that today was the day she wanted to be proud of what I had done.
I already had to change my name to get out from under their shadow, I didn’t need the world finding out that I was Abigail Ross. I was sure that once they found that out, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that Abigail was also Olivia Lemont, the daughter of the most successful oil company in America.
We had the biggest oil operation in Texas, it was a seriously prolific company, but I had lived in the spotlight as my parent’s little toy dog for my entire life. I needed to go out and figure out who I was outside of that, which they had said time and time again that they didn’t appreciate. Mainly my mother. She wanted me to be so proud of who I was and where I came from, but I also wanted to figure out who I was without cameras constantly flashing in my eyes. Without her controlling how I looked, what I said, what I ate.
I didn’t deny that having the money, the inheritance, the privilege of growing up in that world had its advantages, but still, it was nice doing this on my own.
Partially on my own, at least.
“Oh, I know, I know. Sweetie, please think about coming to visit soon. We really miss you and I haven’t gotten the chance to meet Steven yet.”
Yeah, because she hadn’t made the effort to come visit me either. It wasn’t a one-way street. If she wanted to meet Steven that badly, she could come down here too, but I didn’t see that happening. Ever. So, she would just have to wait until I had the time. Until Steven felt like making the drive.
I glanced at myself as I headed back for my bed, more dresses in hand. The black eye was a little lighter than it had been yesterday thanks to the ice I had held against it for hours the day before, but it was still angry looking. It would take some time to cover it up. “I’ll try, I promise,”
I told her. Another half lie. “I gotta go, mom. I need to work on my writing.”
“Okay, tell Steven I said hi, plan a trip with him!”
Unlikely. “Okay, tell dad I said hi.”
“Anything you want, sweetie. Toodaloo.”
I rolled my eyes and hung up.
I showered, put on some makeup, changed into a cute little white and pink floral summer dress, grabbed my messenger bag, and pulled on some sandals before finally saying goodbye to Lucy and heading out the door.
I’ve had a writer’s block for a week now and it was starting to become just plain frustrating, but there was nothing like a small café on the corner of a busy city street in the middle of Spring to break a person out of their rut.
Fingers crossed at least.
When I got to the café, I ordered my favorite drink and found a spot right in front of the big bay windows. I plugged my headphones in, playing my favorite playlist and finally pulled up my emails.
I was supposed to get the first chapter of my new book out to my publisher by the end of last week, but I had to ask for an extension. She was going to be angry during the renegotiations if I didn’t have at least something to give her. It might ruin my chances of getting another four-book deal.
Did I even have it in me to write four more books?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Focus. I just needed to start over.
I pulled up a new document and took a long drink of my blended mocha with three extra shots. Usually when I had writer’s block, I just wrote about my surroundings. Something interesting that would give me a base in which to start, but I had already written several café scenes in other books, so I needed something new. Something fresh, even if the scene never made it into an actual book, I needed something that would get the inspiration flowing.
I chewed on the corner of my lip, letting the music slide over my skin as I stared at that blank screen.
Park.
Street.
Mall.
Bar.
Club—
I released my lip, my heart stuttering in slight excitement. Perfect. Let’s start with that.
It was always the same bar, the same people. Stale cigar smoke and the scent of alcohol filled the air. It was almost suffocating, but in a comforting kind of way. The kind of way that made you feel like you were invisible and the center of the world all at once.
Today, however, there was something different lingering around me. Something unsettling.
I couldn’t help but look around as I headed for my barstool, trying to put my finger on what was making my hair stand on end. The bartender immediately walked up to me as I took a seat, asking me the same thing he always did. “The usual?”
I nodded, glancing around the room again. A lady of the night was self-medicating with something that would make her forget what she was about to do. There was an old man already passed out in one of the booths, five empty glasses in front of him. I couldn’t help but wonder why the bartender hadn’t picked up the extra glasses yet.
“Here you go, Sophia.”
I stared at the drunken man a second longer before turning back to the bartender. I downed the drink in one painful swallow before tapping the rim, glancing at the man again. It was sad. Did anyone even miss him?
“What are you thinking about?”
I turned back to the bartender, my glass full once again. “I’m wondering how long you’ll wait until you check his pulse,”
I said just as the door opened.
Light flooded across the dimly lit scuffed floor, pulling my attention over to a man I had never seen before.
His eyes flicked to mine as if they had been looking for me for generations. They looked like silver-blue stars, endless and filled with a chilling mystery nobody in this world would ever solve.
Instantly, I felt powerless, a string of words whispering through me on a phantom wind. “He’s going to kill you. You need to run—”
A movement in front of me caused me to jump, eyes jerking up, finding the exact pair I had described now sitting before me, hidden behind that mask, uncaring that the world would think him psychotic for wearing a mask in March.
My heart skipped a beat as I glanced around the room for something I couldn’t identify. Maybe help. Did I need help?
I noticed the baristas whispering and the current customer keeping one eye on the man while she tossed her money onto the counter and quickly skuttled out of the café.
That’s just great. They were going to call the police, and I was going to be labeled an accessory to his psychotics simply because he decided to sit across from me.
When I found his eyes again, he was leaning back in his chair, one leg spread out into the walkway, the other tucked under the table while one hand was wrapped around a coffee sitting on the table.
How long had he been sitting there? And why my table?
I grabbed the top of my laptop screen and folded it towards me, watching him evenly. “Can I help you?”
I asked, pushing one of my headphones back.
He watched me for a second longer before taking a drink, ignoring my question completely.
I frowned, tracking the motion of his cup as he set it back down. Between his fingers, I could see a little black heart that one of the baristas had drawn on the cup for him and I found myself glancing towards the counter again, searching the faces of each one until I landed on a beautiful blonde, shorter than me, glaring right at me.
She hadn’t been among the two whispering about the man moments ago. Probably into the whole ‘mask’ thing. I didn’t care about her cup of tea, I wasn’t interested.
I turned back to my laptop, irritated. This wasn’t my fault.
I shoved my headphone back over my ear and pushed my screen up, not caring to glance at him again before I got back to work.
If he wanted to sit there, fine, it was an allegedly free country, but I didn’t have to entertain him either.
Okay, focus. Where was I? I chewed on my bottom lip again.
My brows furrowed and I quickly turned back to the bartender. “Have you seen him before?”
He shook his head, drying his glass once again. It had to be some sort of instinctive trait bred into people destined to be bartenders, I was sure of it. “Never.”
Or maybe a nervous tick. He was, after all, the bartender of some creepy, hole in the wall bar that only a certain type seemed to attend.
I leaned over the counter and folded my arms around my drink, feeling my muscles stiffen and my breath pick up as I heard his near silent footsteps close in—
“What are you writing?”
The feeling of being interrupted when in the middle of a scene could be compared to walking into traffic only for someone to rip you back to the sidewalk. That sudden, painful jerk back to reality.
I lifted my eyes, making sure he could see how much hatred I felt for him in that moment. Maybe not hatred, that was a strong word to use against someone I didn’t know, but severe frustration at the very least. I opened my mouth to respond but thought better of it and turned back to my writing. I swallowed the anger. If he could ignore me, I could ignore him. Steven was busy today, so it was my best opportunity to get some real writing done before he came back, and I’ll be damned if one of his ‘club friends’ ruined it for me.
…close in on the bar. There were a dozen other free seats in this place, he didn’t have to sit anywhere near me.
He took the spot right next to mine despite that. “Scotch on the rocks.”
I angled myself away from him, those warning bells in my head scre—
“Here’s your refill.”
I looked up, watching as that blonde barista poured black coffee into his now open cup. He was either a fast drinker or I was a terribly slow writer. I’d rather admit to the former.
His eyes remained locked on mine, and I almost felt bad for the woman. She was doing her best to let him know that she was interested, and he couldn’t have cared less.
This was ridiculous. I wasn’t going to get anything done here. It was nice enough outside, maybe I could just go to the park for a while.
I made sure I saved my document while the woman tried getting his number, gathered my things, and headed for the door.
If I could just have a couple of uninterrupted hours, I knew that I could get my publisher a half decent chapter that would hold her over long enough to get her something better.
I jogged across the street and headed for the park I ran through with Lucy every morning just a couple of blocks away. It was filled with trees and had a beautiful bridge overlooking a river. I loved it because there were secret picnic benches hidden within alcoves people couldn’t find unless they followed the trail all the way around. More often than not, they were empty.
I adjusted my bag and headed down one of the trails, hoping at least one of them was empty.
The first two were not, but the third—the one that sat in a canopy of willows, surrounded by wild roses with a stream running through it—that one was.
I set up my things on the stone bench covered in patches of green moss, the air cool enough to send shivers down my legs—and I set up my laptop once again.
I fell into a rhythm after a few minutes. The words began to flow, the ideas blooming as my fingers flew across the keys. A serial killer, a girl down on her luck, and some enemies they made along the way.
Maybe it was a little predictable at first, but this was only the rough draft—
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, ripping me from my writing only for a gasp to tear from my lips when I met the stranger’s eyes again.
The man was watching me from across the table. His eyes were cold and unforgiving as my heart slammed against my ribs in panic. What the Hell was happening?
Had he followed me here? Why? I tore my headphones off, sliding them around my neck. “What are you doing here?”
I asked, the fear dripping down my spine. I glanced behind me towards the entrance, straining my hearing, but there was nothing. This place was too secluded, and it was stupid of me to come here of all places after he had showed up in that café. Stupid! What had I been thinking?
I hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem. I hadn’t thought about it at all.
He angled his head when I turned back to face him. “You start twitching when you get into your writing,”
he noted. “Your whole body. Like a dog kicking in its sleep.”
I was too terrified to glare, to feel anger, to do anything but sit there and sputter like an idiot.
When I didn’t do anything but sputter, his eyes narrowed behind that mask of his. “I suppose you’d have to be stupid to be living the life you are.”
A pause. “Hmm.”
My eyes widened. Was he…was he following me? No, no, that was crazy. That was a preposterous idea. It had to be.
I shut my laptop, grabbed my bag, and stumbled off the bench, almost eating shit before catching myself. “Leave me alone,”
I panted, clutching my things to my chest. “Just leave me alone.”
He stood from the table and shook his head. “No.”
And it was so simple, as if he were stating something so obvious that I was stupid to have ever requested it at all.
I walked backwards a few more steps before spinning around and jogging back down the path, scrambling for my phone as I did. Who was this guy? What was he trying to prove?
I pulled my headphones back on and called Steven, trying to shove my laptop in my bag as best I could while I willed my sandals to not trip me and pushed myself to run faster.
Steven answered after the fifth ring, his breathing labored. “What?”
he snapped angrily.
Don’t look back. Everyone always looks back in the movies, and they always fall. “Someone is following me,”
I told him in a rush. “A guy from The Club the other day.”
“Okay, and?”
My eyes widened. “And? Some guy is following me, Steven. From The Club you get beat in.”
He grunted, and the sound of shuffling met my ears before the slam of a door rang through. “Nobody is following you,”
he snarled under his breath. “You’re acting crazy, Olivia. All of that time you spend reading those books of yours. It’s gotten in your head. Come back to reality and don’t call me again unless it’s a real emergency.”
Click.
I slowed, my eyes widening as I lifted my phone just to confirm that he had in fact hung up.
“What the fuck?”
I breathed out as my eyes lifted to find that I was now in the more public area of the park. I slowed to a walk and glanced back down the trail, people running by, a couple playing frisbee not far from me, kids playing at the playground, and absolutely no masked man following me.
I stopped and stared at the trail, waiting, my heart pounding.
Nobody came. Not one person followed me out of those trees.
I turned back to the park, my mind racing. Had I…had I really imagined that? I saw some creepy guy at a club and now I was seeing him everywhere?
Was Steven right?
I shoved my phone away and shook my head. No, no. I saw him. I was sure of it. He had been there.
I was sure of it.
I glanced back towards the trail again, and again found nothing. The tightness in my chest grew. He was right, wasn’t he? He was always right.
Nobody was following me, that was ridiculous. Why would anyone want to follow me anyway? I was nobody to this world, at least as Olivia Rose I was nobody.
Maybe Steven was right about my books too.
Too many hours writing stories about the same scenario…
I was just tired, I rationalized. After a good night’s sleep I wouldn’t see him again, I was sure of it.
Determined, I lifted my chin and started home. I’d gotten enough done today; my exhausted brain needed a break. Maybe an actual romcom to palette cleanse these irrational delusions.