Chapter Text
Olive opened the hotel door after the third knock.
“You could have just let yourself in, Adam,” she said.
“I returned my keycard,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Looking at him hurt. It was too soon, evident by the fact that she both wanted to jump him and burst into tears. So she turned away and fixed her attention on anything else- the bed, her stupid yellow socks, the view out the window.
“I’m sorry, Olive. I realized I left my flashdrive in the room, and, well, I called, but then I figured I’d save you the trouble and just come get it myself. I didn’t mean to intrude, or surprise you.” Adam felt like a fool now; of course she didn’t want him intruding right back into her life after having just gotten rid of him. She was probably looking forward to some time alone, or with some other guy, since she wasn’t shackled to him anymore.
Adam knew logically–scientifically, that none of that was probably true. He knew that there had been pain in her expression when she ended things, and that the same pain still lingered when she looked at him. But somehow it was easier for Adam to pretend she was all the way gone, instead of acknowledging that maybe, somehow, somewhere, she had wanted him too.
“It’s fine Adam, you just surprised me. I think I remember seeing it by the bed.” Olive knew it was by the bed, and that maybe some part of her had been waiting for him to come back and get it, for him to need her again.
Adam almost audibly sighed with relief when he found the drive. “I would have waited, but I need to email a file from it to one of the Harvard recruiters before our dinner tonight. It’s already late enough as is and…” he cut himself off.
Why was he rambling? It’s not as if he cared about Harvard anymore–Boston didn’t matter if Olive wasn’t there.
“You can send the email from my computer if you want,” Olive blurted out, then immediately cursed herself for it. She was supposed to be pushing Adam away, not creating more opportunities for him to stay!
Olive opened her laptop, realizing moments too late that she hadn’t paused the recording of her talk she had been listening to when Adam knocked on the door. The recording had continued to run silently while her laptop had been on the bed–cheap grad student off brand computer that it was– and when she opened it the voice that poured out wasn’t her own.
It was Tom’s.
Tom’s voice, and his words that she had tried so desperately to forget since the panel. She slammed the laptop shut, heart racing, a sick feeling crawling up her lower back and around her ribs. She stood, sharply. “I think you should leave, Adam.”
Olive saw that Adam was clearly trying to make sense of what he had just heard, but he wasn’t leaving.
“Adam, nothing happened, it’s just the recording of my panel, so I think you should just go.” Her voice didn’t waver, somehow, even as it felt like all the blood in her body was vibrating with the intent of destroying her from the inside.
“I think I should listen to the rest of that recording, Olive.” Adam couldn’t hear himself over the rushing in his ears. He knew he had sounded angry when he saw Olive take a step back, a tremor starting in the slump of her shoulders. As if she thought he was angry at her.
“Olive,” he tried to sound as gentle as possible, as loving as he could manage, when anger and confusion and fear still clouded his mind, “Please? I don’t know what’s going on but I want to understand.” It dawned on him that Tom must have been the reason Olive had been crying after the panel. Tom had questioned her merit on the panel, making her break down. A fresh wave of anger and confusion washed over him but he tried to hide it.
Olive knew she wasn’t going to convince him to leave. She just had to hope he took her side. She nodded, taking her hand off the laptop. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said
He waited to start the recording until she had turned the shower on. That small kindness, that act of understanding, started her tears. Once she was crying, she couldn’t stop. She thought of every terrible, wrong, disgusting thing Tom had said, thought of Adam hearing those words, of Adam believing them. Thought of what would happen if she stopped fighting and started believing them too. If maybe she already had. She sobbed for what she had lost– herself, Adam, her lab, her mother, her trust . But she hadn’t just lost Adam, she’d given him away, and it might have been the greatest mistake of her life. So she sobbed for what she had given away, too. Sobbed because she knew she wasn’t going to report Tom, even with the recording. Because even with it, what if they still didn’t believe her? Worse, what if they agreed with him?
She didn’t know how long she stayed in the shower, water too hot, barely feeling it as it turned her skin pink and raw, until she heard Adam’s voice.
“It’s over.”
Adam was crying. When he had started the recording, pulling it back a few minutes to when Tom had started talking to Olive, rage was his prevailing emotion. But when the audio quieted for a moment between Olive and Tom’s conversation, he could hear a faint sob coming from underneath the sound of the shower. So his rage stayed, settling into his body like a new agonizing layer of skin, a sickening crayl, but grief found a home in him too. It felt impossible that the recording could go on any longer, that it could still be happening, but he forced himself to listen to it, forced himself to feel every moment of pain it caused, because he knew it was nothing compared to what Olive was experiencing. His heart broke as her voice shook in the recording. His fists curled at Tom’s mocking laugh, so cruel it made him want to do violent, violent things. He would do violent, violent things to Tom, but that came second to Olive. Tom had always come second to Olive, something he hoped desperately that she knew.
Finally, finally, the recording ended. Olive forced herself to exit the bathroom, cringing at the cold air on her barely robed body. Adam immediately pulled his sweater off and tossed it to her, turning around as she put it on. She didn’t know what that meant, whether it was a good sign, but she put it on anyway, so long it came down to her knees and she only bothered slipping on underwear beneath it.
It was when she turned back to Adam that she noticed his tears, and his shaking hands, and his mouth, opening and closing without a sound. She had never seen him so uncomposed.
“I know he’s your friend and I’m just a girl you’ve known for a few months–” she started, already wishing she could throw herself back into the shower and away from his wrecked face.
“He is nothing.” His voice was pure rage, a harsh gravelly thing that possessed him for a brief moment but was gone when she blinked. “I am so sorry, Olive, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, repeating it as tears began falling from both their eyes. She couldn’t hold back any longer, practically running across the room and crashing into his body, knocking him onto the bed, jabbing him in the ribs, kicking his shins, hiding her face in his shoulder as he pulled her tight and safe into his arms.
“I’m so sorry, Olive,” he continued whispering into her hair as she shook. She felt fragile and like she was exploding a little bit.
They stayed sheltered on the bed for a long time, until Olive began to shiver and Adam asked when the last time she’d eaten was, and grabbed a chocolate protein bar from where he’d stocked them in the fridge before he left. They sat next to each other on the bed as she ate.
“Olive, I’m going to report Tom.” Saying his voice made Adam feel sick. ”You don’t have to testify, the recording speaks for itself. And you don’t have to hear the recording ever again if you don't want to. I can deal with everything.” He could see a flash of protest in Olive’s face, but she didn't say anything. “They will believe you, Olive. No one is going to take Tom’s side.”
“But what if they think he’s right, that I led him on with my outfit? I knew that dress was too short, but I didn’t have anything else to wear, and I wasn’t trying to suggest anything, but maybe it was still unprofessional,” she trailed off, aware that he had gone still next to her.
“How do I convince you,” he said, slow and dark, “that none of this was your fault? That nothing Tom said was true?”
“I– Adam,” Olive took a breath, prepared herself to protest one final time, a last check before she let herself believe him, but he stopped her.
“No. I don’t agree with him. Don’t you dare let yourself think that, Olive.”
“But, what if–”
“No.” His tone was harsh, his jaw clenched, as if it caused him physical pain to think of Olive believing Tom’s words. She forced herself to look at Adam. Reminded herself that she knew him, knew that he was good and fair and cared about her.
“Okay. We’ll report Tom.” Olive grabbed her laptop and plugged his flash drive in, dropping the recording in and handing the drive back to him. “Can I,” she almost stopped but made herself finish the question, “stay with you tonight? If that’s okay, I mean.”
“Of course,” he said, immediately.