Whole

She steps out of the reception hall and the bitter wind whips around her legs and stings her face, causing her tears to finally fall. Her tears are not from the cold. She quickly hails a cab for fear that her absence will be discovered and they will force her to go back in. They will tell her she is being a coward and that she is better than this and she will believe them, and go back in. She will watch him dance with his wife, and the pain of realizing, once again, that she wasn’t good enough for him will tear her apart.

So, she decides to be a coward, because she doesn’t want to be brave and strong. She doesn’t want to be an adult about this. She wants the cold, dark isolation of her apartment. She wants to cry until the pain goes away. She wants to escape it all.

She wants to run.

She decides to run.

From the rejection.

From the pain.

From the love she’s afraid she will never know again. Well, the love she thought she knew.

The cab arrives at her apartment and she quickly pays him before heading upstairs to the solitude of her apartment; tonight it is her sanctuary. She kicks off her heels and turns off her phone, then makes the rounds around her apartment, unplugging her phones. She’s off duty, and frankly she could care less about the job right now, she could use a night to herself. Cragen knows this. He understands the situation, and after seven years of dedicated service she believes she’s entitled to this one night alone. She finally settles on her couch and cries. She succumbs to the pain that has been resonating inside her heart for months, but seems so much longer, and cries.

She is beyond broken, she has been shattered. Even if she were to find a way to glue the pieces of herself back together, which she knows she will eventually do, she will never be the same. Like a mirror that has been pieced back together, the cracks will still remain. She finally admits it to herself, that no matter what changes she makes in her life, she will forever have the scars of a broken heart. And so, more tears come. They rain and pour down her face, and attempt to wash away that which can only be healed with time. If ever at all.

For the first time since it all happened she allows herself to go over everything.

That weekend.

She remembers feeling like the only girl in the world. She remembers him telling her that she was beautiful, and being surprised by his confession. She remembers their first kiss. The feel of his scruff against her face. His smooth skin under her hands. His lips against hers. His tongue in her mouth. She remembers being afraid and him telling her that he needed her. She remembers brushing away her fears and making love to him. She remembers him asking her to let him be her heart. And letting him. She remembers admitting her feelings to him after he asked her to make him stronger.

She will always regret the fact that she made him strong enough to leave her and return to his wife.

She will never forget that he told her he loved her.

She thinks that it’s funny, because he asked to be her heart, but she’s pretty sure her heart’s broken and he is not. She’s pretty sure he will make love to his wife tonight, and all thoughts of her will leave his mind.

He will never leave hers.

Great sobs rack her body and attempt to choke her until she finds herself rushing to the bathroom and emptying the meager dinner she had at the reception into the toilet. She flushes the chunks of rice pilaf and rosemary herbed chicken down the toilet. She rinses her mouth then sits on the cold bathroom floor and continues to reminisce. For the past three months she’s been so wrapped up in him, and the pain of losing his love. She wonders if she ever really had it at all. She carries on with her job day to day, monotonously going through the motions like a robot on autopilot. She realizes she’s forgotten her life and who she is. She has forgotten herself. She looks around her apartment and sees that every room is a mess. There is dust all over her living room. Mold on the plates in her sink. Her laundry is over flowing, and she can’t even remember the last time she made her bed. Today was the first time she shaved her legs and she can’t even remember the last time she got her-

She rushes to the calendar hanging on her bathroom wall and realizes that the red dots seem to be misplaced. She flips through and counts back over and over in her head and tries desperately to remember the last time she got her period. She quickly grabs the extra pregnancy test from under the sink and begins going through the motions. She had bought them when she had realized they had gone unprotected. She had secretly hoped that there would be a piece of him that she would forever get to hold and love and claim as her own. A little someone that would forever love her and remind her of the love and happiness she felt during those three little days. Those dreams had been crushed when the previous tests had quickly come up negative; this one appears to be their opposite as she stares down at the plus sign. She pulls out the second test stick from the box and quickly takes the second test.

Positive.

She sinks to the floor as more tears trickle down her flushed cheeks, completely at a loss. She wonders what the large amounts of alcohol she had used to drown out her sorrow has done to this child. She wonders if she should keep it. If its too late not to. Yes, she did want a child, his child, but how was this supposed to work when he has already remarried and moved on with his former ex-wife? What kind of life could she give this child without him as its father? She wonders if she should tell him, then quickly decides not to. She walks into her bedroom and gazes at herself in the mirror. She lifts her blouse and touches her stomach, hardened to protect the life within. Her other hand joins its partner and she decides that this life is hers. It is the only good that has come from their union and she decides that if a baby really is growing inside her then it is hers and hers alone, and she will fight like hell to keep it that way.

*

For the third time Elliot’s phone call goes directly to voicemail and he sighs. Her words still ring in his head.

“Why are you avoiding me?”

“Because I still love you.”

It was never his intention for her to get hurt. He did love her that night, and he still does. But sadly, it was only after sleeping with her that he realized that he didn’t love her as much as he loved his wife. His family. He needed them back in his life more than he needed her. She had made him strong enough to put aside his pride and beg for his life back, but he knows she will never understand.

He hears his wife in the bathroom and quickly turns off his phone and places it on the table beside him. As his wife emerges in a long silk ivory nightgown, he prays that one day Olivia will forgive him, and then he makes love to his wife.