i wake up and both amanda and olivia are sleep. olivia is facing me, and i watch as her body rises and falls as she breathes shallow breaths of air. her hair, falling gracefully over her chin, her nose long and slim. her eyelids, inanimate, her mouth thin and crisp. her brows are idle, unmoving. the way she sleeps, the way her hand lays effortlessly on my arm... she's perfect.
i take one last look at olivia before i get up and cook breakfast. well, technically brunch since it's 11 am. amanda follows suit afterwards, getting the coffee ready. not a while later and olivia comes.
"hey let me finish those panckes," she says, grabbing the spatula from me. amanda and i sit on the counter while olivia finishes up with the pancakes. i scroll through my notifications and i see ellie post another video. she's doing good. i watch the video on mute and scroll down on the comments.
few comments are about olivia and ellie, and while some of them are unexpecting, my heart drops when i see this one comment.
i haven't heard from elliv in so long! wonder what's wrong :((
the comment has 25 replies and 82 likes. i was about to open the replies when olivia came to the counter. we ate breakfast and i made sure to tell amanda what i saw.
while eating dad messages me saying he's got another show today. shit, we didn't come to his last one!
"hey do you wanna come to dad's show?" i ask.
"oh yeah yeah yeah yeah," olivia says, "we didn't come to the last one,"
our day was set. after that, olivia hops in her shower and amanda in the other one.
"hey, you gonna wait for me or 'manda?" olivia asks, poking her head out of the door. knowing how long it takes for amanda to get a fucking bath, i tell olivia i'd be waiting for her. she laughs and says, "i was expecting that," and pokes her head back in. a moment later and i hear the water.
i get on my phone and go back to ellie's video and try to look for the comment i saw, but i couldn't find it anywhere anymore. either the comment got flooded or ellie deleted it. i hope the fuck ellie didn't delete that because people are gonna go haywire.
a moment later and olivia steps out of the shower, scrolling through her phone, draped in towels. for a moment she stops by the door, reading something. her bare and flush skin was radiating. i look away.
i get up and get in the shower myself.
the gallery show was held in a public place, and besides dad, a dozen other artists displayed their work too. we wove around a couple dozen displays before going to dad's.
"hey look at this," olivia says, pointing at a cottagecore oil painting. she was looking at the painting intently, tilting her head sideways. amanda was behind us, checking out other works of the same artist who painted the cottagecore painting.
"it's beautiful, no?" she asks me.
it was.
we walk around some more, and olivia finds more paintings she likes. finally we arrive by dad's, and we stay there pretty much for a good two hours. dad had these new paintings out that i was only seeing for the first time, as well as plein air landscapes that he had painted a while back when he was staying at my apartment.
a couple of people noticed us and asked to take photos. few of them even bought some of dad's paintings too.
"have you put up your painting yet?" dad asks olivia, "emma paid that, you know,"
i go flush red. "dad!" i say, and he laughs at me. "i'm sorry, i didn't know,"
obviously he knew. way the go, dad!
"em," olivia faces me, her face all worked up.
"oh don't even start liv," i say, "you were having a rough patch, it was the least least least i could i do for you,"
"yeah out of all the great things you've done for me for the past month! come on," she replies.
"yeah like you wouldn't do that with me if i had to go through what you went through, dummy," i reply back. it was true though, and olivia knew that too. we both knew that she would go to the lengths as i did if ever i had a broken heart.
"hey, what happened? you okay now?" dad asks olivia.
olivia glances at amanda and i for a second before answering him. "yeah, it's just that... ellie and i've broken up," she says. this was the first time olivia had talked about it with other people besides amanda and i.
"oh, what happened?" dad says, with concern flooding through his thick brows.
"i honestly... i don't know," she says, shaking her head, looking down.
"that's okay, we don't have to talk about it," he says, squeezing liv's shoulder. olivia smiles. before we leave olivia asks for my dad's number, saying maybe she'd buy one more.
i stare at olivia the whole time she speaks to dad. she was smiling, and she had this extra step in her walk. it's the best thing to see all day.
amanda's pov
olivia has been way better than ever, and it's only a matter of time before it goes public.
what bothers me is i know something's up with emma. worse, i don't think emma is aware. ah, the pros and cons of being the straight friend.
cons? nothing much. it's great to have friends! yay for pride! pros? i get to sense if they're attracted to someone. and emma is on that track.
and she doesn't know but her body language is saying it all! she's been doing this staring thingy at olivia for the past week, and she's really been extra caring for her. of course i could be wrong about that part, since we do have a brokenhearted friend in our care, but i know for sure i'm right about about the staring part. she's doing it again here, as olivia talks to his dad.
emma's pov
we go back to my apartment, and olivia sits us down. she says that if she can sleep alone, and if she's okay to the point where she can handle it alone ( "not alone alone where you two aren't around," she butts in), then she'll address the breakup.
so tonight, amanda and olivia go home to their apartments and olivia sleeps alone for the first time in a long time.
i lay in my bed, unable to fall asleep. i go on instagram and scroll through my feed.
i scroll down and i see olivia post a photo. it had been a month since it happened. i check the comments. no one is blabbering about it. good.
i go to olivia's instagram and scroll through her photos. not far down and i see her latest post of her and ellie. i also realize this is her last post of them together.
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i suddenly feel this unexplainable pain in the pit of my stomach. it hurts seeing this photo and i don't know why it does.
