Olivia // l.t.

Chapter 16

I squeezed my eyes shut, I really was selfish. Maybe that's why I created Lola to be so harsh, she was everything I wanted to be. Strong, confident, and well perfect.

"Don't be like me Olivia." Her tone was suddenly stern. "Don't pretend that you're okay, it is okay, to not be okay."

Then I watched my mother cover her face with her hands and weep. "Mom?" I asked, and she just cried.

"Mom?" I said a little louder this time, slightly panicky.

Carol Rhea does not cry, she didn't even cry at my grandmothers funeral.

"I am a terrible mother, you've become just like me, so closed off, and bitter." She sobbed, and I felt confused.

"No, you're not a terrible mother, a little insensitive at times but who isn't?" I feel like I was repeating something Cails had once told me, but she was better at this stuff.

"And I'm getting better about being closed off and bitter, Zayn hurt me mom, you were right about him." She nodded, crying or not she liked to be right.

"Louis is helping." I whispered, and her eyes met mine. Her mascara must have been waterproof, because other than red puffiness around her eyes you wouldn't even know she had cried.

"Listen, I know you are afraid." She took my hands in hers, this was probably the closest I've ever felt to my mom.

"But that boy makes you smile," she squeezed my fingers. I nodded. "When your father and I divorced, I did exactly what you're doing Olivia."

She removed her hand jabbing a slender finger at my chest. "Now look at me, I'm going to grow old alone." I slouched my shoulders,

"Oh Mother don't—"Interrupting is rude Olivia." She pulled her hands away and I knew our special moment was gone.

"I don't care, I don't need a man, I have you." It sounded nice on paper, but in this moment, I really felt sorry for her.

"Zayn was your first love, he was a terrible choice, but he was your first, and three years was a long time ago." She made sure to keep eye contact.

"Don't lose your happiness, worrying about someone, who probably doesn't even give you a moment of their thoughts."

I nodded. She was right, painfully so. Zayn had left such a bitter aftertaste, and it branded me as wounded, and as I was learning insecure.

I was dangerously insecure, however, no one would ever know by looking at me. Fake it until you make it they say.

Lola may be a confident, as Caileigh would say "love guru."

However, Olivia Rhea, she was still that clueless twenty one year old girl watching her perfectly crafted future walk out the door, just to chase after someone who was better than her in his eyes.

"Just because someone didn't make you a priority, does not mean that you have to prove to them, or to anyone that you are." My mother continued to preach to the choir.

"Because the right one, he knows." She pulled me in for a stiff hug. "He knows you are hurting, and he doesn't care. The right one he'll do anything to mend it."

***

Louis did in fact pick me up at seven from my apartment.

Before he could even get in the door I slapped his arm, and yelled at him for not saying a word when I asked him about being my boyfriend.

He just laughed, and handed me a small bouquet of wildflowers, complaining that I was impatient.

"I can't believe you asked me, before I could ask you." Louis grumbled as we walked around the nearly empty observatory.