Forbidden

Chapter Eighteen

Olivia stared gravely at her reflection in her vanity mirror imagining the dialogue for the conversations she knew were inevitable at school. She wiped the smudged mascara from under her puffy eyes and dabbed some concealer over top of the redness. She ran her shaky hand through her hair to smooth it and stood up and started for the front door.

                As she came down the hallway from her bedroom, she saw Marshall sitting in his black leather chair behind the desk in his office. She breathed a sigh of relief at the familiar sight in front of her and continued towards the stairs. Liz was sitting at the dining room table with her hand covering her forehead, talking quietly into the phone. Olivia quietly opened and shut the door and took a seat in her vehicle before turning the key in the ignition and the motor roared to life.

                She drove away from her house and down the back roads, surpassed the school and before she even realized it, she was sitting in Nick’s driveway. She knew he wouldn’t be home and solitude sounded best. Olivia’s phone vibrated in her back pocket and she retrieved it, pulling up the message she had just gotten.

Mr. Cereno just asked me where u were today. I think he likes you. ;)

                On a normal day, the thought of Nick asking for her would have elated Olivia. But now, she didn’t care. She deleted Kenley’s text and tossed her phone into the passenger seat. She opened the driver’s side door and climbed out and headed towards the backyard. She hoped the tranquil pond and leaves rustling in the wind would bring her some sort of peace. As she made her way down the side of the house, she heard Nick’s dog barking frantically but she continued on. She pushed open the wooden planked side fence, closing it behind her and made her way to the dock.

                She removed her sandals and dipped her toes in the lukewarm water. Olivia guessed it was probably somewhere around twelve thirty and school would be letting out at two-fifteen. There really had been no point in showing up anyway. Olivia kicked her feet gently in an up and down motion, causing the water to ripple around her legs. She closed her eyes and laid back, staring at the blue Georgia sky. She wondered to herself why this had to happen. Was it some kind of evil test that God was forcing them to take?

                Why her father? Why not some unknown drug addict who was killing themselves anyway? Why not a murderer? Why did God pick an undeserving man and his family to endure something of this magnitude?

“Such bullshit,” she whispered as she wiped a stray tear from her cheek.

                She heard Nick’s dog barking in the distance and she lifted herself to a sitting position on the dock. She heard a car door shut and then she saw the side gate swing open where Nick stood motionless. She turned her head back towards the water and wiped away a few more tears before taking a deep breath and standing. Olivia walked towards Nick with her hands tucked in her back pockets.

“Hey, I’m sorry for basically trespassing,” she let out a tired smirk, “I just needed to go somewhere quiet.”

“You get your folks okay?”

                Olivia thought for a moment.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. They’re at home now.”

                Nick nodded.

“Something’s wrong. I knew it when Kenley said she hadn’t heard from you. I don’t know. I just had a feeling.”

                Olivia nodded slowly and felt the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Something is wrong,” she said quietly.

                He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her and she instantly lost all control. She cried the hardest she had ever cried before in her life. She was struggling to breathe and she couldn’t talk. Nick didn’t try to talk to her, either. He just held her firmly in his grip and let her cry into his chest. He rubbed the back of her head in an attempt to comfort and console her. They stood there a handful of minutes before Olivia finally pulled herself away and wiped her face with the backs of her hands.

“I’m such a mess,” she sighed.

“No,” Nick said as he placed his open palm gently against the side of her face, “you’re beautiful, Olivia.”

                She let out a quick laugh, knowing better.

“C’mon, let’s go inside.”

                Nick grabbed Olivia’s hand and she followed him into the house where she plopped down onto the leather loveseat and he knelt on the floor in front of her.

“You left school early?” she asked.

“Yeah. I needed to know you were a’ right.”

                Olivia had no idea where to begin. She needed to tell someone to get it off her chest but did she really want to burden Nick with this kind of problem?

“I don’t wanna suck you into my pity party,” she smiled weakly.

“I want to know, Olivia. Help me help you.”

                She inhaled a few uneven breaths and felt the tears spill over the brims of her eyes. Nick took his thumb and wiped them softly away.

“It’s okay, darlin’,” Nick said, “you can tell me anything.”

                She took another breath.

“My uh—my dad, he—he’s been diagnosed with . . . with . . .”

                She could barely finish the sentence. She didn’t want to hear herself say the words.

“Breathe, Olivia.”

“He’s been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. They just told me today. I had no idea. He’s denied treatment. They told him he had four months to—to—live.”

                She covered her head and sobbed uncontrollably. Nick was right by her side in an instant and wrapped her up into another hug.

“Oh, God,” she heard Nick whisper. “Olivia, I’m so sorry.”

                She choked back her tears to the best of her ability.

“Don’t be. Don’t be. He’ll pull through somehow, right? I mean, he’s a strong man. He’s always been a strong man. He can’t let cancer take him from us, right? He won’t give up.”

                Her fist met the arm rest with a loud thud.

“Why did he stop treatment, Nick? Why? It could help him! So . . . so, what? He doesn’t want to be helped? I can’t even tell if I’m pissed off or devastated right now!”

“Olivia, you can’t be upset with your father for his decision to stop treatment.”

“Why can’t I, Nick? He’s basically choosing to give up. He’s choosing to leave his family behind.”

“Obviously I don’t know the situation all that well, nor do I know your father well enough but I had a friend in college whose mom was diagnosed with the same thing as your dad. She stopped treatment, too. When my friend asked her why she was giving up, she told him that it wasn’t a matter of giving up. She told him that if she knew it would benefit her in some way that she would continue treatment forever. But in her situation, it was too late. She could have continued the treatment but all it would have done was make her sicker for longer.”

                Nick let the words he had just spoken echo through his mind, hoping that he came across in a compassionate way. Olivia didn’t speak, all she could do was cry and Nick knew that all she needed right now was to be embraced. He held onto her as she sobbed until the afternoon light had dissipated into darkness.

“Olivia, you won’t be alone in this. I’ll be right by your side every step of the way."