Chapter Text
Olivia had never kept a journal, despite what she claimed at Munch’s retirement party. She’d occasionally managed a record of moments of importance in a yearly planner, or in a photo album, next to a picture that was meaningful to her. But a proper journal, no, she hadn’t.
It probably stemmed from her time as a child, with her mother. Other girls in her school proudly flaunted pink little books, decorated with pearls and hearts, sealed with tiny locks; pages darkened with stories about their latest crush, their latest vacation and how enamored they’d been with a young waiter at some sunny resort.
But Olivia didn’t want to keep a record of her life back then. It was too tough to put it on paper, and she didn’t need a reminder for things that kept happening anyway. Sure, she had crushes and fantasies, and hopes, but most of them she kept locked in her mind, where they could expand into better dreams, limitless in their possibilities.
When Noah came around, she got into the habit of recording his milestones, in a little beige diary with a drawing of a teddy bear on the front. She added pictures too, and simple notes like “another proud smile today”, or “lifting himself up on his own against the sofa”. However, she never delved into her feelings about it, how consumed with pride and worry she’d been at the time, the notes were merely fact-based, almost as dry as a police report.
Lewis had been confined within the four walls of her therapist’s office – thankfully – and beyond that, the occasional crushes, hookups and relationships she’d experienced had no place in a journal. She was way too old for this nonsense.
Somehow, it all changed when Elliot came back into her life after his 10-year disappearance. At first, the shock, mixed with anger and relief had taken her by surprise, and she gradually found herself gravitating towards a very hidden folder on her personal computer, where she’d kept the odd digitalized memories of her time with her partner. She had kept some pictures and some of his belongings in a shoebox tucked deep in a cupboard, but on her computer, she had scanned copies of DD5s bruised with his wonky handwriting. There were some screengrabs from newspapers too, and some cherished emails she had spent hours rereading in the first year without him.
So, she started writing. At first, she kept it straight, professional, the way she would describe a crime scene, but as time passed and Elliot became more and more involved in her life again, she started inserting some feelings, some thoughts, analyzing the why and the how, to a point of mental exhaustion at times.
In a way, it kept her afloat when Elliot went through hell, when he lost himself after Kathy’s death, when he went on one quest after another, how he became someone else for a while with the Albanians.
She wrote it all down, the way she understood his pursuit of the truth, her frustration at not being able to reconnect with her friend the way it used to be. She forgave in writing, for no one else to see. Even her therapist didn’t know about it. It was her dirty little secret. Cute and pathetic, just the way her high-school friends had daydreamed about Chad in 12th grade. Except she was a 50 something woman with a decades-long crush, so pathetic didn’t even cover it. She was glad nobody knew about it and had convinced herself it was helping Elliot as much as it was helping her.
The day after the night in her kitchen, when she desperately looked for sugar and ended up with her tears on the fridge, she wrote the longest entry she ever had. She tried as much as she could to untangle the knots in her brain, to organize her thoughts, to predict Elliot’s next step. And it did help. Nothing was resolved but she felt lighter, slightly more in control. And when she saw him again, a few weeks later, under the watchful eyes of the two lions, she knew she was more at ease and more hopeful.
After Ohio, and the necklace, her writing became genuinely dirty. Among her thoughts and narration of recent events, she started adding her fantasies. Elliot was no longer the friend, the old partner, he’d become a potential lover. The secret folder was soon filled with descriptions of his body, their bodies together, what he would do to her and what she was keen to experiment with him. The anticipation almost became too much to bear. Alone, at night, sitting in bed with her computer in her lap she let her fantasies go wild. She set no limits and explored the kinkiest parts of her imagination.
Meanwhile, a real life was lived with the motions of work and parenting Noah. She was in touch with Elliot, probably more than they ever had since his return, but from what she’d gathered, she assumed he was busy with work and his family, for their interactions remained elusive. There was the occasional text message when she could probably detect some flirting on his part, a daring word that made her feel warm and took her mind back to her secret folder. But the connections were mostly friendly; he shared his concerns about his mother, Eli and his family in general. He touched on his job, the drama and the frustrations, but the personal remained mostly hidden.
She knew it was partly her fault. He had opened his heart to her, and she’d shut a glass door in his face. She felt so ambivalent about her behavior. Was she genuinely afraid that if their relationship didn’t work out, she would lose him again? Or was it that she would be so consumed in them that she would lose her sense of self?
The night after Carisi was taken hostage in the bodega, she sat in bed and opened some of her early writing, back when Elliot was gradually becoming himself again. She read her naïve and hopeful thoughts that somehow, she held onto the belief that they could reconnect in a more meaningful way.
Ironically – and she was well-aware of it – she kept telling anyone who would listen how healed she was. How her new therapist had worked her magic on her.
And in some ways, it was true. She handled her job in a more confident way, knew what she wanted professionally, and had reconnected with her body in a way she hadn’t experienced in years. But if her “dirty” writing was proof of anything, some areas of her life remained unsolved.
She’d never truly worried about aging. Sure, sometimes she would look at herself in a mirror and notice the marks of time, but the fact that she had outlived her mother long before the natural order of life, had somehow made her feel invincible. Is that why she thought she and Elliot still had plenty of time to open that door, the door to something she’d never thought possible?
And then, she had witnessed Carisi and Amanda hugging so desperately, and she was reminded time wasn’t just about aging, or lost opportunities. Time was also lost to bad luck, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, making a bad decision.
That night, she shut her laptop with a sigh, tears welling at the thought of her friends nearly losing each other – and sadness, too, for herself and Elliot. How long could she go on like this, pushing and pulling? How long until it was too late?
She turned off the bedside light, pulled her comforter up to her neck and closed her eyes. Journaling had carried her this far. Now, it was time to step beyond the page.