Chapter 18: Olivia
“Do you need any beer money?” I ask as I sidestep a gigantic puddle in the middle of the sidewalk. I don’t even want to know where a puddle that large came from because it hasn’t rained in weeks, so I decide to chalk it up to New York charm.
Charlie scoffs on the other end of the line. “I’m nineteen. You know I can’t drink.”
“We both know that you do anyway.”
I can practically see my brother laughing at my response. “I can’t have you paying for my beer. That money is better spent on a million other things.”
“Like your weed?”
He laughs again. “Like your loans. My loans. Rent. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m sending you some money,” I declare. “And if you try to send it back or put it towards something practical, I’m going to come to St. Louis, buy a round for you and all of your roommates, and show them your baby pictures.”
“Jesus. Corporate life has made you crazy,” he counters lightly. “And what the hell are they paying you? I thought this was an internship.”
“MBA internships aren’t like undergraduate internships. We get paid a ton.”
“Yeah, but you’ve been sending me money like you’re interning as the CEO.”
I arrive outside of Davis’s building and take in the yards of white concrete and reflective glass that cover the sleek exterior. “Well, I can keep it all and spend it on myself if that’s what you want.”
“Sort of?” Charlie answers. “Olivia, you’ve been working to pay for my shit since you were eighteen. At some point, you have to cut yourself a break.”
“At least let me send you money for your trip here. Are you excited for next weekend?”
“Yeah, I can’t wait,” he confirms. “Are you going to take me to all the tourist spots?”
I let out a soft hum. “Seeing as I haven’t been to any of them, I wouldn’t get too excited.”
“None? What the hell have you been doing all summer?”
Trust me, Charlie, you don’t want to know.
“Working,” I lie. Kind of. “But look, I have to go. I’ll text you later. Go have fun tonight—I mean it.”
With a sigh, I end the call and again crane my neck to look up at Davis’s building. I walked over tonight, hoping to clear my head. His reaction to my video and my texts a couple of weeks ago wasn’t what I was expecting. It was downright cold.
I thought that at this point he would have dropped the callous act, but maybe it’s here to stay—maybe this is who Davis has become. Cruel. Self-serving. Dismissive.
I felt like such an idiot, making that video for him. He didn’t even ask for it. I put my body on display because I thought it would delight him. I thought it would soften him to me. On the contrary, all of that just gave him more fuel to remind me that I’m a transaction for him.
With everything that happened last weekend—the snuggling and the breakfast and the piercing—I had hoped that we had turned a corner. All I learned is that I’m delusional.
Like mother like daughter, I guess.
My stepfather used to call my mother absolutely horrendous things. I could hear it through the walls of the mobile home late at night when I was trying to sleep. Idiot. Dumb slut. Bitch. Hag. Cunt. The only thing louder was the sound of her weeping in the bathroom when she thought the shower was loud enough to drown her out. I always wondered why she let him do that to her—why she didn’t throw it back in his face. He wasn’t better than her by any stretch of the imagination. Hell, he was a loser by the lowest of standards. Unemployed. A drunk. Neckbearded. Straight-up stupid, honestly. Tell him what he is. Say it to his face. Drunk. Deadbeat. Pathetic. Dumb as all fuck. It would have been easy for her to come up with a nice long list of things to spit back at him, but she never did it.
I don’t think she ever stopped regretting that, even up to the day that she died.
With a slow, hard exhale, I steel myself for the night ahead.
Tonight is going to be different, I decide. It has to be. I need it to be.
And honestly, I think Davis and I both need it to be different—whether or not he realizes it yet.