bitter (michael gray.)

EIGHT.

♛

Tommy knew how to treat a girl. The large, sparkling blue sapphire hung around Grace's neck as she talked with utter enthusiasm to whoever it was on the receiving end. Her smile was gleaming. Tommy though, had disappeared. Too busy having a chat with a priest in the concert hall. Olivia didn't quite understand, but knew when to keep her mouth shut.

"How are ya?" Finn came up behind Liv and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"I wanna go home Finn." She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Something's not right."

"Calm down. We just eat some poncy food and chat up some toffs then we go home." Finn tried to reassure her.

"Something bigger than that. It feels like...it feels-" Olivia struggled to finish her sentence.

"Like what? Come on Liv this could be important talk to me." He spun her around to face him, hands on her shoulders. Finn had suddenly grown, at a very large rate so he now towered over the girl that once picked on him.

"It feels like the feeling I had when I found out." Her voice dropped so that people in nearby earshot couldn't hear.

"I promise you, nothing will go wrong. It's a charity dinner, worst comes to worse everyone gets ill from the food." He tried to laugh the situation off, but Olivia wasn't having it.

"No Finn. I know. I can feel it." Olivia looked around the room.

Nothing suspicious stood out, except Tommy had now returned and was talking to a woman Liv hadn't seen before, with Grace by his side.

"Have we ever let you down before?" Finn asked cheekily.

"Actually yes, on many occasions. Starting when I was 9-" Olivia teased with a small smile.

"Shut up. Go and talk to Michael, he's staring at us." Finn laughed and pushed her away.

He wasn't lying. Michael was stood next to a vase of flowers, watching the pair of them intensely. He could sense that Olivia wasn't her normal, sarcastic self. She hadn't had any sharp comebacks to his remarks, she just took them on the chin and went along with it all. Walking up to him, her face was stone cold and her nails were nervously tapping on the edge of her glass.

"You're staring." She said monotonously.

"Yes. You look lovely." He smiled at her. Michael wondered if he'd taken the whole 'playing the arsehole' bit too far, so complimented her by way of apology.

"Fuck off." She scoffed.

"That was genuine." He sighed.

"Don't care." Olivia shrugged.

"Look, I don't know what's up with you tonight, but don't take it out on me, alright?" He took a step closer to her, arms folded.

"I'm not in the mood Michael. I feel like something's going to go wrong." She covered her face with her hands, sick with worry.

"And how do you know?" Michael laughed off her claims.

"Because I've felt like this before." She snapped, lifting her face to meet his. The anger inside her was bubbling, why was everyone dismissing her?