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human_veilhere are some hastily written, jumbled thoughts re: liv's feelings in light of the letter reveal. literary references (you don't need to know them but context if you want it): song of myself, 51 by walt whitman, anna karenina by leo tolstoy, and little women by louisa may alcott.
the last shred of truth in the lost myth of true love
law & order svu | liv-centric eo | 1.4k | teen
The end keeps getting away from her.
There is an ending, she knows, to everything. Here, she’d thought, years ago, in a darkened room with her body doubled over, It must be here.
But she was wrong. She knows that now.
The end, she thinks, was not there. The end is written in little block letters, scrawled in Elliot’s familiar penmanship. The end is stark and unexpected and cannibalistic; it swallows the beginning and the middle whole.
The end, she thinks, is this: What we were to each other was never real.
But she is wrong about this, too. There is another line, tucked into the bottom of the page, that negates the sentiment. There is another line that her fingers trace, a nail catching on the dip of a y, her hand unsteady and trembling. There is another line that makes her stand, the letter shoved into her coat pocket as she heads for the cafe’s exit, her coffee left almost untouched at her table.
The end, she thinks, keeps getting away from her.
(In a parallel universe, it says, it will always be you and I.)
I want to talk, he says, and then he walks away from her.
Back off, he says, but then he follows it with, Liv, you mean the world to me.
I didn’t ask you to be here, he says, and then he says, I love you.
She leaves most of their meetings with a headache, wondering if there is a version of her, somewhere in his parallel universe, who gets one without the other. Who gets I love you, you mean the world to me, it will always be you and I, without a suffix attached.
She thinks there must be. Somewhere, a version of her has it easy.
She tries not to be too resentful.
(It is written at the bottom, below where he’s already signed his name. It stands out, like that—curiously different from the rest of it.)
They are contradictory statements, Olivia thinks. If what they were was never real, then there is no you and I, not in this universe or any of the others.
She is reminded, strangely, of her very first year at SVU, when Munch had appeared behind her, one arm in his coat and a grin on his face as he’d said, Who has done his day’s work? Who will soonest be through with his supper? She’d looked up in time to catch Elliot sling his arm around John’s shoulders and finish, Who wishes to walk with me? He’d smiled at her after, big and bright and, she’d thought, proud. It wasn’t until Munch and Monique had left that he’d explained: Maureen did some big project on Walt Whitman last year, he’d said. The dramatic readings still haunt me. She remembers laughing, her smile almost cheeky when she responded, Who knew you contained multitudes?
It’s a strange memory, wrapped up in melancholy. She wonders if he still remembers it. She wonders if his daughter’s voice had been in his ear as he sealed the letter shut.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
(Even his handwriting is closer to what she remembers. That quick, messy scrawl, burned in her mind’s eye after years of shared paperwork.)
It would have been easier, she thinks, in the dim light of her bedroom, to the tune of a buzzing phone, if he’d let it end in that interrogation room. She could have lived with it, she thinks. She’d learnt to.
(The rest of it is neat—careful. She wonders what that means.)
Read it, he had said. Don’t read it. Throw it away. It was not advice, she knows, but there are still times where she wishes she’d listened. Crumpled the damn thing in her hand and threw it, saved them both the trouble.
But curiosity killed the cat, she thinks. That’s what her mother used to say. Not reading it was never an option and she knows it; she knows that Elliot had known it, too. Probably.
The Elliot in her memory would have, she thinks.
(It is strange, she thinks, but can never quite place why.)
There is a moment where she has to stop. There is a moment where she lets the letter fall, the page folding in on itself. If there is a man in your life, it had said, I hope he’s the kind, faithful, and devoted man that you deserve.
There is a bitter taste in her mouth that has nothing to do with the coffee she’d ordered. She feels strangely sick, as if her stomach is eating itself, the nausea sharp and acidic. This is not the man she remembers. This is… This is respect, she thinks, but respect as Leo Tolstoy wrote it. Invented to cover the empty place where love should be. She swallows against the bile in her throat and shuts her eyes, her head resting in her hands. She remembers what Anna had said next—she remembers being fourteen and sitting with her mother, Serena half a bottle in when she asked her what her thoughts were. She remembers biting her tongue, lest she let the truth slip out. (I think it reminds me of you.) She remembers fumbling through a response, knowing no answer she gave would be good enough. She remembers trying her best, anyway.
If you don’t love me, is what Anna had said, it would be better and more honest to say so.
She breathes, long and slow, and opens her eyes to look at where the letter sits, Dear Olivia peeking out between its open edges.
It’s a long time before she opens it again.
(It gives her hope.)
The tangibility of it makes her angry: it is the antithesis of everything they ever were. (Not real.) It is a strange thing to feel betrayed by, she thinks—a ridiculous thing to feel betrayed by—but he has broken their unspoken accord, and done so by saying that that agreement, that understanding, did not exist. That it was only in her head. A story she told herself to feel better. To feel justified.
She can’t help it; betrayal sits wrapped around her heart like barbed wire, every beat and breath driving the hurt home.
(Despite her best efforts, it gives her hope.)
She leaves it in the bottom drawer of her bedside table, tucked beneath the book she keeps telling herself she’ll make time to read. It is not hidden, is what else she tells herself. I am not hiding. But it feels strangely like a secret, something incriminating—the piece of evidence that cracks the case. It is not something she wants anyone else to see.
Noah catches her, once, his eyes curiously bright as he asks, What’s that? But he’s come to ask about a snack, and it’s easy to divert his attention; she follows him out into the kitchen and makes him laugh while she pours his juice, and it’s there that she thinks that maybe Elliot was right. It’s there that she looks at her son and thinks, This is where I need to be.
This is who I needed to be.
She’s just not sure Elliot needed to leave for her to arrive here.
(It gives her hope, right up until a three month radio silence shatters it.)
Here, she thinks. This is where the end is. But it is not the one she’d been expecting. This is not the end of them, she thinks. This is the end of something else.
I wrote that, Elliot says, and Olivia understands what it really means. I wrote that, meaning, The rest of it was a lie, and it is a good thing, she thinks, after, that he was drugged, because she thinks she might’ve kissed him otherwise, and she’s sure she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she had.
I slipped it in there before sealing the envelope, he says, and it is a distant, far away version of her that thinks, This is the end of doubt.
This is, she thinks, the end of what was, and the start of what could be. It is reinvention, she thinks, as Elliot falls to his knees, and then she thinks that it was Alcott, wasn’t it, who wrote, I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. And then she thinks that her mother must be laughing at her, somewhere, for relating literature to a boy. And then she remembers that Serena probably doesn’t care, either way.
And then Elliot’s hand cups her face, and even that distant, far away version of her is incapable of thought.
