1
OLIVIA
Someone was behind me with a hammer. They swung their arm, and that quick, the blunt end came down on the back of my head, a pulsating throb branching along my skull.
I sucked in a big breath and squeezed my eyes shut against the pain, only to open them a second later and be reminded that no one was actually behind me at all.
That feeling, that achingly sharp twinge, was not inflicted by another human being, but my own body. With my back pressed against the wall, I inhaled deeply for a second time in an attempt to give my body something that would make it feel better.
Giving it oxygen didn’t work.
The headache that had taken over—I was more inclined to think it was a migraine at this point—was merciless, sucking all the life and energy out of me as I stood there and looked out at the celebration that was taking place in one of the oversized conference rooms of Taylors Security.
The extra-large space was lined with tables full of mouth-watering finger foods brought in by a catering service. Thewalls were decorated with banners and streamers. Not too far from where I stood was a collage of pictures, moments and memories of Lennon with staff over the years.
I looked down at the cup in my hand. I wasn’t able to stomach much more than the water that filled it. Even then, nausea would take root when I took too big of a sip.
It was nothing new. I often struggled to keep anything down when a headache this bad rolled in. They were getting more consistent as of late, but I knew it was because of the stress—this one triggered by the pressure of the week and the lead-up to tonight.
I didn’t want to be here celebrating Lennon’s birthday. Not really, but my coworker, Ava, convinced me that it wouldn’t be so bad and that she would stay by my side most of the evening. She was the only one who knew what I was going through with Lennon. And even then, she didn’t know all the details. Just that things were strained between us.
Every day, I tried to come from a place of forgiveness. I wasn’t the kind of person who acted out of spite or sought revenge when something was done to me. Instead, I tried to look at it from a perspective of logic. That, and I knew people made mistakes. That they were ingrained within us and inevitable. Those with the biggest hearts in the world were bound to fall victim to them. That’s how life worked.
There were very few people in the world who could knock me off axis enough to make me revert to malice. Lennon, my boyfriend of just over a year, wasn’t one of them.
I looked around for Ava. Despite her promising to stay close, she took off at the first sight of Ben, who worked in the installations department. I had to admit, he did look handsome in those forest green slacks he wore. It didn’t help that Ava was a sucker for a man in glasses who rolled his sleevesto his elbows. She was a fool for his inky black hair and the tattoos he had scripted on his forearms.
When a growing discomfort pricked behind my eyes, I closed them as softly as I could and tried to block out the noise. There was so much of it.
It danced across the room, stopped to pirouette right in front of me, then twirled away just to do it all over again in the next second. Most of the commotion came from a cacophony of voices, nonstop talking circling me. It was relentless, though the one positive of the night was that Lennon hadn’t hired a DJ like he originally wanted to. I told him it would be too much for a simple birthday party with staff. The room, while big, wasn’t spacious enough for something like that. Even if he did move the conference table against the wall to create a walking path and a makeshift dance floor.
I opened my eyes a second later and searched the crowded room for the birthday boy. Lennon was the complete opposite of that three-letter word. He was all man. A beautiful specimen who charmed the pants right off of me with that wide smile and generous heart.
It took less than a week for him to shmooze his way in and get a date out of me when he first took notice of me. That same night, I ended up back at his place, our clothes stripped and spread across his bachelor-pad floor.
His dark blond hair was combed back and styled. Like every other day he was in the office before he went out for installations, only tonight there was a little more of a flare to it. His eyes, the same color as a blue raspberry Jolly Rancher, twinkled from all the affection he was getting. It was only fair. He was the one celebrating his big three-oh.
My attention dropped to the feminine hand on his forearm. They were pretty far away, but the cherry red nail polishon those nails made it seem like they were directly in front of me. They sparkled under the overhead lighting and soured my stomach like any other cherry-flavored dessert did.
I brought my cup up to my lips, standing on the outskirts while everyone from the office talked and celebrated. One of the guys from the marketing department had his phone out, one of his playlists belting out a melody. The girls around him danced to the song. It was familiar, a catchy song by Lola Young, if I wasn’t mistaken.
I glanced down at the small clutch I gripped. It was easy to carry around but only big enough for my badge and keys, work and personal. Because of it, I had to leave my phone in my car. It wasn’t like I needed it, anyway.
My focus swiveled back to that hand, those nails, and the person they belonged to. Mine were almost colorless in comparison. A drab nude that I wore regularly because it matched almost anything, including my dark brown hair and green eyes.
I shifted my gaze, my focus climbing Lennon’s arm and roving over the midnight blue shirt that was there until I found his neck. I went up, up, up, and stopped at his full lips. His face was clean-shaven, but that was fine. He wore the whole no beard thing well.
He was attractive in that all-consuming way that made me imagine him riding surfboards when he was attending college. Or maybe that was because he told me he did that to pass the time when he wasn’t busy with academics.
There were so many nights Lennon and I would stay up and talk instead of going to sleep. We would lie there, looking into each other’s eyes and talk about the dumbest topics. The most mundane things. Thesilliestthings.
And then that all ended when I walked in on him with Little Miss Cherry Red Nail Polish nearly two months ago.They weren’t having sex, weren’t kissing, but caught doing something far worse. Lennon was consoling her in his office. With tears wetting her cheeks and makeup smeared down her face, she was on his lap—my boyfriend’s lap—while his arm was anchored around her waist.
Out of all the people in the world, it was him who she thought would be the best person to confide in. And I understood that, to an extent, because Lennon was that kind of person. He was easy to talk to. But he was also supposed to bemine.
When it happened, I slowly backed out of his office with that persistent pulse of betrayal twisting my guts. Later that evening, he admitted to me how it wasn’t the first time she’d gone to him over things happening in her personal life.
While part of me might have been proud of the fact that Lennon was trying to be there for her, the other part of me—the side that always firmly believed that emotional cheating was just as bad as the physical kind—had a hard time being okay with it.
