Behind the mind of Olivia

Beyond the vacant mind of Olivia lives a tumultuous past that she bears no recollection of. She knows her name, birthday, social security number and emergency contact but nothing else is present on her release forms from the hospital. At this moment, lying in a hospital gown, connected to an IV and a plethora of machines, Olivia is strangers with her reflection in the mirror. A reflection that she avoids as the thought of leering at the lifeless figure before her sends a repulsive chill through her borrowed body. Olivia is overwhelmed with the looming question that has flooded her mind since she awakened to the fluorescent lighting of the intensive care unit; how do I live a life that doesn’t belong to me? She hasn’t the slightest memory of life before feeling like an entity taking over another’s soul. How does she pick up where her former self left off? The obvious answer is to leave with her mother, Bethany and endur an awkward car ride with a woman whose eyes remain full of heavy tears on the cusps of falling. Bethany’s failed attempts at getting Olivia to converse in the messy minivan, that reeks of cigarette smoke, only makes Olivia feel less connected to this new life of her’s.

Olivia looks down at the fresh cuts and dark bruises on her slim arms to appear distracted, in hopes of seizing the babbling from Bethany’s lips. She moves her gaze to the bandages that cover up the deep tearing of her flesh. Written on the bandages are the numbers 2202. She doesn’t know what those numbers represent, but for some reason they are on repeat in the back of her mind. What are they? Her locker combination at school? The passcode to her phone? All she knows is that the stab wound on her leg is disturbingly deep. What did she do that prompted that level of rage, distressful enough to inflict this type of violence on her? Her fingers graze over the lifted skin on her knuckles. Whatever was done to her, it is apparent that she fought back. Was she a solid person, who was running on adrenaline to defend herself against this animal of a human or was SHE the savage who provoked her ultimate fate? Either way, it didn’t matter anymore. That person only exists in the memories of the people who loved her.

Bethany turns the corner as they approach a crowded, paint chipped neighborhood infested with cars. As if she wasn't smothered enough by the mere presence of her “mother”, she knew she was in for a long, dreadful experience. Bethany slows her speed as Olivia frighteningly watches the people from the neighborhood moving around the yards and street like scattered ants on a dismantled hill. Although the scene playing through the glass was chaotic, Olivia knew it was nothing unusual to the inhabitants of the block. As the minivan spreads the chaos like the splitting of the red sea, the neighbors begin to gauk in Olivia’s direction. Bethany turns into the cracked driveway of a small, run down duplex.

There is a man sitting on the front porch, eating sunflower seeds and spitting them onto the dead grass. In the adjoining porch there is a woman with crossed arms and pursed lips, glaring in Olivia’s direction. “Don’t cry, Olivia,” says her inner monologue as she observes her new reality, or is it new at all? At this moment, Olivia realizes that who she was, pre-accident, DOES matter. Olivia has no choice but to face the reality of her past and it looks like that time is now.

The idling of the stopped engine plays in the distance as Olivia loses consciousness for a brief moment. What if this woman was the person who did this to her? But why? Olivia closes her eyes as the sudden crack of the car door jerks her back into her body. “Don’t get out of the car. Just wait here, okay. Lock the door when I get out,” Bethany mutters in a concerned tone, only making Olivia’s heart beat rapidly increase. Olivia tries to hold her composure as Bethany approaches the woman on the porch with an aggressively assertive demeanor. As Bethan steps closer, the woman uncrosses her arms and places her hands on her hips but her lips never change shape. Bethany reaches into her crossbody purse and pulls out paperwork in threefold. The man on the porch follows Bethany’s steps and yanks her back by her shoulders before she can get within two feet of the woman. Bethany pulls away and begins to argue with the woman. Olivia, ignorant to what is transpiring through the windshield, is five seconds away from jumping over the center console, putting the car in reverse and booking it. She would rather be anywhere but in this neighborhood, with these people, in this situation. She thinks about getting out of the car to confront the three strangers as her fright shifts to anger. She is livid at the thought that she is fresh out of the hospital and this is what she is supposed to consider home. Although Olivia cannot recall who she was before the accident, her intuition is telling her that the events unfolding in front of her are not something she would ever want to partake in, past or present. Olivia places her shaky fingers on the latch of the passenger door, ready to unleash all of her new found wrath when she witnesses the man screaming obscenities in her mother’s face. The barrier of the minivan muffles the sound but the gestures coming from the man are crystal clear. Olivia jumps out of the minivan and rushes the man with all of her might. He falls to the ground from the unexpected force coming from such a small-framed girl. Olivia doesn’t know where the sudden urge to pounce comes from but a protectiveness intermingled with a feeling of survival kick in. Was this who she was before? This reaction seemed all too natural to not be embedded in who she has always been.

The woman stands, back up against the wall of the duplex, in a state of shock as Olivia’s eyes meet her’s. Olivia looks over at Bethany and shakes her head in confusion. “What happened?” The woman steps away from the door as her demeanor changes. “Well, I guess you thought that you were gonna come over here and I was just going to hand over the notebook,” the woman says, unbothered. Olivia tries hard to search the depths of her mind in hopes of regaining access to the lost memories of her past. Bethany side-steps next to Olivia, looks at her quickly, then up at the woman. “You know that Henry’s estate was to go to Olivia. What you are doing right now is illegal. Those were his writings in those notebooks and they were not to be published by anyone but himself or Olivia. You do not have the right to steal someone’s life work and publish them as if you are the author. Especially when Henry left them to his daughter. We know it was you who did this to Olivia. Not only did you take what’s rightfully hers but you also stole every memory that she has ever had of her father. We are not leaving until you hand over the last little, black notebook that was inherited by Olivia.” The woman smirks, shakes her head and sarcastically responds to Bethany. “I’m gonna do whatever I wanna do with my late husband’s property. The only reason I haven’t published the last story is because for some reason, it has a lock on it. But I will figure it out or I will rip it to shreds because whatever he wrote in that notebook must be good enough to lock up.”

Olivia feels her mind working in overdrive to process all of the details received in the last thirty seconds. She cannot fathom that the entirety of this horrible situation was over the inheritance of her father’s writings. She fills her lungs with air as her breaths become deeper and longer. She is once again buried in her subconscious as the world around her slows down and her eyesight blurs. The light of day dims as an image of a middle aged man sits on a floral reading chair, holding on to a black notebook with a combination lock. He pushes up his reading glasses as they balance at the bridge of his nose. Olivia can picture the room as if she is seeing it in the present time. The reading chair is placed in the corner of the room, in front of a window as the sun glitters the floor. The room she is picturing belongs to her; not the room at her mother’s home but the room she has at her father’s residence. This is her floral chair in front of her room, inside this duplex. She watches as her father fiddles with the combination lock on the notebook. “This is my favorite story about you, Olivia. Not just because I wrote it, but because this story will one day pay for your college. So, I am going to make the combination something only you know.” 2202. The combination is 2202, Olivia screams from the inside out. As she reconnects with her physical being, she turns to look at her mother and darts up the steps of the duplex. She pushes the woman out of the way with enough force to make her lose her step and fall to the ground. Olivia throws the door open and makes a B-line to the back room of the duplex, making a right. The black notebook is sitting on the seat of the floral chair collecting all of the glitter from the sun. She hears the chaos ensuing on the porch, unlocks the window and pushes up with all of her strength. The window is stuck. The multitude of footsteps coming down the hall fill the room with a blast of background noise. She bears down in a squatting position and pushes up, harder on the window once again. The window opens up in a grinding motion, just enough for her to slip her frail body through, when she sees the woman and the man rush into the room. Olivia bolts around the duplex and jumps into the driver’s seat of the minivan as Bethany hurries down the steps of the porch. Whatever happened in the hallway between her mother and the others, for some reason Bethany felt the intuition to go back to the front yard. As the woman and the man race out the front door, Bethany throws herself into the passenger seat and the minivan is backed out of the driveway before the door shuts. The street is eerily filled with neighbors walking towards the minivan as it once again splits them like the red sea.

When Olivia turns the corner and they are free of the street’s presence, she hands Bethany the little, black notebook. “The combination is 2202.” Bewildered by her knowledge and awareness of the situation, Bethany begins to word a phrase when Olivia stops her, “Don’t ask, just open it.” Bethan turns the dials of the lock. Two...Two...Zero...Two. She pulls down on the lock and cracks the book open. Bethany gasps in disbelief. Olivia, pulls into a parking lot, slams on the break and looks over at the little, black notebook sitting on her mother’s lap. It’s not a story at all. It’s a check for twenty thousand dollars from the estate of Henry B. Martin with a note that says, “Olivia, you are my favorite story. Always remember me when it’s hard to remember who you are.”