Page 66 of Save Us
“Come on, big mouth,” Casey grumbles, but I think Rosie’s just as enamored as her aunt by this tall and handsome man.
I watch them leave all the way until they’re out of sight before I brave it enough to turn back and look at Felicity. To my surprise, she’s still looking rather sorry for herself, something I’d never thought I’d see on someone like her. To be fair, I thought she was as behind me as Oliver is.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I finally voice out loud, thus breaking the stony atmosphere. “You told Chad I was going to the bathroom that evening at Carls’ place. Why?”
“I don’t know…because I hated you,” she shrugs like a moody teenager, “and because he begged me to. I would do anything for Chad, even if he was all kinds of fucked up!” She sighs and begins to play with a loose thread on her top. “I guess we both were.”
“So, what did you want to say to me, Felicity? Oliver is dead so it’s not like I have anything you want anymore,” I say rather bitterly, “not that I wanted him anyway.”
“Look, I was in love with him, ok?” she says rather quietly.
“That was no reason to set me up for an attack. Felicity, that was beyond-“
“Please, Beth, let me explain,” she cuts me off, then gets up and grabs at my wrist before I can leave without her having her say. I can’t help but sneer at where our skin meets, prompting her to immediately let go.
“Chad, Oliver, Jonah, Aria, and I grew up together, we were really close once. When I turned thirteen, I started getting feelings for him, but he just saw me as Jonah’s silly, younger cousin.” She sighs heavily as she walks back to her seat, where she slumps down inside of it. “By the time I was sixteen, I was madly in love with him. Oliver and Jonah were a few years older, getting ready to go to university. Jonah tried to warn me to forget about Oliver, but I was a teenager who was in love with someone who looked like Oliver. I know you hated him, but you have to admit the guy was beautiful.”
I shrug indifferently. Oliver was a handsome man on the outside, but on the inside, he was twisted and ugly, and that’s all that counted to me.
“Jonah told me about Oliver’s weird upbringing. Not to go into too much detail, but his father used to make him watch when he fucked the maids and had orgies with his friends at parties. None of us believed all those encounters would have been consensual either. Words like ‘rape’ didn’t exist in some circles of Mayfield, for they believed it was their right. Given he was only twelve when he saw this kind of shit for the first time, he was pretty messed up, like all of us, I guess. Jonah explained how terrified Oliver felt most of the time, how weak it made him feel to have to watch all of this without being able to say a single word against it. After years of being subjected to this kind of messed up ‘training’, as well as all the brainwashing from men like his father and the Steeles, Oliver lost sight of who he once was.”
I take a moment to think about Riley at that age, and how hard I had tried to protect him from all of this. Oliver had had no one. He could have been who Riley is now, if only he had had someone to save him, but he didn’t. Not after Pru left.
“Of course, I was that typical girl who thought she could save him,” she laughs sadly to herself. “My mother was killed in a car accident when Chad and I were sixteen. On the night after my mother died, he crawled in through my bedroom window, something he used to do when we were kids, when it was only ever innocent. He found me huddled, crying, and began kissing me like I’d always wanted him to. One thing led to another, and I guess I let him take my virginity.”
I slowly sit beside her huddled body, suddenly feeling both sorry and sick for poor Felicity, for I know this doesn’t end in happily ever after for her either. She releases a few tears and I wonder whether I should comfort her. However, I still don’t trust that she won’t slap me.
“Anyway,” she fake smiles through her sobs, “he crept in every night until he left for an out-of-state college, promising me that he wouldn’t forget me, that I was the love of his life. During that first year at college, your grandfather began to take notice of Jonah and Oliver, being as exceptional as they are…were. However, he especially took note of Oliver and took him under his wing. He told him he had a granddaughter, only seven or eight years old, and that she would be the key to his success.”
“Oh my God!” I gasp, placing a hand to my mouth in horror. “You’re telling me he had me in his sights when I was still a child?”
She nods slowly and I have to fight the urge to wretch into the nearest bowl. My Mayfield history just keeps getting more and more twisted.
“He told me he had to think of his future, and as such, he couldn’t be with someone who would stop him from becoming all that he could be. He also said he couldn’t be with someone who had given her virtue away before she was married,” she admits with a blush of embarrassment. “He looked at me like I was some piece of filth he had stepped in, like I disgusted him.” She begins to shudder and soon breaks into full-on crying. I can no longer watch without doing something, so I risk it by throwing my arm around her while she lets it all out. “I was so angry with you but really it was him who was the monster!”
“I’m so sorry, Felicity,” I soothe her, “but I think you had a lucky escape, believe me!”
She nods against me but still cries like she’s been holding it in for so long, and it’s only now she’s finally letting it all out.
“As it happens, a few years later, shortly after he had met you, Aria confided in me about their relationship,” she says bitterly. “As you’re now aware, I wasn’t the only bed he had been visiting. Unfortunately, whereas I became fueled by anger, she became fueled by grief. She always was the type of shy girl who just wanted a happy life with a family she could call her own. She just couldn’t live with the hurt and betrayal any longer. Jonah still blames himself for not having noticed what was happening sooner. Unfortunately, his studies took him away a lot, and by the time he was working with Oliver, Aria had already been coerced into keeping everything a secret.”
“Do you think he ever loved either of you?”
“No,” she says before finally pulling back, “Oliver was obsessive. He wanted people who were vulnerable and dependent on him, even if they didn’t want to be. He wanted to control. It’s probably why he went after you the way he did. As much as he had power over you, you also held power over him; he was more obsessed with you than anyone.”
“That’s not love, Felicity,” I eventually respond after taking a moment or two to let that sink in. “That’s all kinds of wrong from someone who was obviously abused and ended up being mentally unstable. I feel for the little boy inside of Oliver, but it doesn’t make what he did any less fucked up. I really hope your cousin changes things, for I’d hate to think of anyone else going through what I did with someone who also went through abuse themselves.”
“Unfortunately, that’s not just Mayfield, Beth, that kind of thing happens all over the world,” she sighs as she looks me up and down. “You do look beautiful, Beth, and I wish you and your family a wonderful life together.”
“Do you have anyone now?” I ask her.
“Jonah is looking after me,” she smiles, just as he returns with Casey and Rosie in tow, “it was his idea for me to come today. His idea of therapy. But between you and me, I think he also wanted to visit your soon-to-be sister-in-law!”
“Wow, ok, I think I’ll let Xander deal with that one,” I laugh just as the door opens to reveal the driver patiently waiting for us. “Come with us, both of you, as my guests?”
“Really?” Felicity grins, looking genuinely excited, as does Casey, but for totally different reasons. I nod enthusiastically and she beams at her cousin who nods just once. “I’d love that.”
Dad and I are both nervously hanging about by the car while Casey clasps hold of Rosie’s hand and begins walking toward the aisle up ahead. I’m all kinds of anxious and trembling a little bit. Dad laughs softly beside me before putting his arm through mine, looking every bit the proud father. I’m glad I get to call him that again. Having put his gambling mistake firmly behind us, we are back on the road to being what we once were. I crane my neck to see Mum is already crying, whereas Riley is positively drooling over Casey when she approaches the chairs set out on the beach.