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OLIVIA SHELBY KNEW EVERYTHING AT FOURTEEN. She knew she wanted to be like Tommy when she grew up, she knew how to knit, that her favorite fruit was oranges, she knew how to write and not smudge the ink across her page, she knew how to count to a number that Finn could not comprehend. Olivia knew a lot, to say the least. Most of what she knew was the perfect amount for a fourteen year old, most of it made her smart for her age. She was the brightest in her class, she was set to be a real Shelby prodigy. Tommy couldn't wait for her to join the family business. And while Tommy reveled in the successes that his company would have in the future with Olivia by his side, it was Polly Gray who had the fear that lined her stomach; the fear that Olivia Shelby knew too much.
She was fourteen, standing outside the kitchen door with her ear pressed up against it, trying her best to listen in on meetings, fourteen and getting in the occasional scrap on the playground. Olivia was fourteen and hiding cigarettes from her Aunt, stealing bottles of whiskey to sip on with her friends, a pocket-knife always carried in the sock of her boot or a razor blade in her pocket. Olivia was fourteen, and already a miniature Thomas Shelby. While Polly admired the girl's intelligence and ambition to be apart of the family business, that fear never seemed to creep away from the Aunt. Polly tried countless times in the past four years to tell Olivia that she didn't need to be like Tommy, she could be smart and herself.
For a while, Polly swore it worked. That while her nephews were away fighting for this country, there was a different side to Olivia. The fourteen year old girl who sat down at the kitchen table every morning and every night to pray that their boys were safe with Polly, who lit candles every Sunday, who shared her oranges with Finn whenever she had one, who made Ada dance when the older girl was totally not in the mood to dance. Polly saw a girl who was herself, a girl without the undying need to impress her older brother, or prove herself as some useful asset to the family business that was apparently going to take "massive strides" in the coming months (Tommy's words, not hers!)
And within just a few days of the boys being home, Polly felt as though she had watched a switch flick within Olivia. The young girl was back to placing her brother on the tallest pedestal possible, smiling at him, oblivious to the blood splattered on his cufflinks or collar. There was so much Olivia neglected simply because he was her brother; the boy who watched the stars with her at night just because she couldn't sleep, the boy who informed her that Finn wasn't 'devils spawn' and was actually her brother, he was Tom and she was Livvie, the girl who was destined to follow in his footsteps - whether she realized the reality of those footsteps or not.
While Olivia's switch may have flipped very soon after her brothers came home, it will not take long for Olivia to realize she does not know everything. She knows nothing about the true man her brother is, she knows nothing about love and worst of all; Olivia Shelby knows nothing about who she is.
