Rubbing my hands over my face, I walked back to my room and stripped my clothes off before taking a hot shower. The entire time my body and mind were willing me to get back in the car and go to her.

But Olivia was home, and even though I hadn’t seen her, she’d probably heard me. If I left again at eleven at night, I had no doubt she’d be calling me screaming within minutes.

As soon as I was done with my shower I dried off and pulled a pair of shorts on before going back to the kitchen. I stopped midstep and my blood ran cold when I saw Liv sitting on the counter in nothing but a bra and underwear. She was holding one of the cupcakes and sensually licking the frosting off her finger as her eyes bore into mine.

“I’ve missed you, Brody,” she whined, and her lips formed a pout.

“What are you doing, Liv?”

She spread her legs, but I never looked away from her face. “I thought we could have some fun with the cupcakes you brought back for me.”

I didn’t even bother telling her they weren’t for her. That would just make her start screaming sooner.

“Mmm, God, these are so good.”

My stomach turned at her over-the-top moans, and I forced myself to take calming breaths so I wouldn’t get sick.

“You haven’t eaten food off me in a while, baby.”

One of my eyebrows rose at her statement, but before I could say anything she was talking again.

“Is that what these are for?” She placed the cupcake down and reached behind her to unhook her bra before letting it fall to the floor. Grabbing the cupcake back up, she licked at the frosting and then licked her lips.

God, she was about to ruin Kamryn’s cupcakes for me forever. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Liv. I’ve never eaten food off you.”

Her blue eyes widened, and her screech was the only warning I had before she was launching the cupcake at me. I ducked, and the cupcake slammed into the wall behind me.

“What the hell, Olivia?” I shouted and was hit in the chest with another one when I straightened. “Stop throwing shit!” Taking large steps forward, I grabbed the box from next to her and yanked it away before tossing it back on the island where I’d left it.

“Why won’t you?”

“What?”

“Why won’t you eat food off me anymore? Is it because I’m not good enough for you? Is it because of Tate? Because you can’t stand to look at me now?” Each question was shriller than the last, and I fought the urge to cover my ears against the noise.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! I’ve never eaten food off you. You’re obviously mistaking me for someone else!”

“How could you, Brody?” she screamed and got off the counter. “How dare you tell your own wife that she’s no longer good enough for you?!”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open as she stormed past me and ran down the hall, slamming her bedroom door shut.

What in the fuck just happened?

It took a couple minutes to gather myself enough to grab a wet towel to clean up the cupcake on the wall and floor, and as I stood back up from cleaning the last smudges and pieces I felt a naked body press to my back.

“I’m sorry, I love you.”

“Olivia, stop.” I moved away from her and over to the sink to rinse off the towel. When I turned back around, she launched herself at me, pressing her lips to my chest, which was still covered in chocolate frosting. “Olivia, stop!”

“Let me make it better, Brody. I love you. I’ll make it better,” she said as I grabbed her shoulders and held her back. Her hands reached out for my shorts, and I put more distance between us. “Please!”

“We need to talk, and you need to put some clothes on.”

Her blue eyes flashed up to mine, and I instantly recognized the heat in them. “We can talk after. Come on, baby, I want to make you feel good.” She grabbed my wrists and tried to move my hands from her shoulders, but I didn’t let them budge.

“Liv, you need help. Let me get you help.”

The coy smile instantly vanished, and the heat in her eyes was replaced with the anger I was so used to. “Help? Help?! You want to get me help? For what, Brody?!” Her voice was already back to the same octave it had been at before she’d left the kitchen, and it made me grit my teeth.

Keeping my voice calm, I released her shoulders and took another step back. “For your depression, to start. Olivia, you’re bipolar, you need help. Do you not realize you went from trying to seduce me to screaming at me to seducing me again, all within ten minutes?”

“You think I’m depressed? Is that what you want? Maybe I should be! Maybe I will ask Daddy to pay for a goddamn shrink since you can’t afford one! I’ll tell him all about my feelings and about how I’m forced to live with my husband even though he murdered my son!”

“Olivia!” I barked.

“I’ll tell him all about how you’ve been abusing me. How you tell me I’m not good enough for you!”

“Abusing you? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re gonna start with this shit again? Again, Liv, when have I ever touched you?”

She threw her arms out and screamed, “Good question! When was the last time you touched me, Brody?”

I was so confused. I wasn’t sure I even knew what she was talking about anymore.

“So maybe I had it wrong. Maybe you brought these home so I would get fat so you would have a reason not to touch me!” Taking a step back to the island, she grabbed one of the last two cupcakes and shoved it in her face. “Is this what you want?” she screamed and smashed it in her face again before throwing it on the counter. “You want me fat and ugly, Brody?”

“Jesus Christ, Olivia! This is what I’m talking about. You. Need. Help. Please, let me get you help!”

“I don’t need anything, you selfish bastard!” she yelled, her face and teeth covered in chocolate frosting and cake pieces.

“I can get you—”

“Help!” she screamed louder than before. “Help me! Someone, please! He’s trying to kill me!”

My eyes widened and I grabbed for her shoulders. “Olivia!”

“He has a knife, someone help me, please!”

Taking large strides, I propelled her back until she was pressed against the wall and covered her mouth with my hand. “Olivia, what are you doing? Stop!” I hissed.

She tried yelling against my hand, but the noise didn’t travel far.

“Are you trying to get me arrested? What the hell is wrong with you?”

Her eyes watered before tears were rolling down her cheeks and over my hand, and her body stopped trying to get away from the wall and me. Releasing her mouth, I instantly wished I hadn’t when she opened it. “That’s what you deserve! That’s what murderers deserve! You didn’t have to pay for what you did to Tate! You didn’t care!”

“You think—you think I don’t fucking care? You think I’m not paying for what happened on a daily basis? I feel like I’m dying because of what happened to Tate. I will pay for it, and grieve for him, every day of my life. But you saying this, you using what happened against me, has got to stop, Liv! You are killing me more every time you blame me. I blame myself enough!”

“Until you’re dead too, it will never be enough!” she sobbed. “I wish it’d been you instead of him!”

My arms dropped like deadweight, and she moved away from me seconds before I stumbled back and slid down the wall opposite where I’d had her.

I wish it’d been me too.

My eyes glazed over, and a strangled cry worked its way up my throat. Pulling my knees up, I rested my elbows on them and covered my face as I once again wished for my son to still be here. To be able to hold him one more time.

I was still sitting there sometime later, my head back on the wall, my legs sprawled out on the floor, when Olivia was suddenly sitting on my lap.

“Get. Off. Me.”

“Let me take it all away, Brody. I’ll make it better.”

I grabbed her bare shoulders and pushed her back and to the side until she was off my lap. “All I want that has to do with you is to get you help. You are sick. There is something wrong with you. Let me get you the help you need.”

“I know what will help me.” Her hand snaked out toward my lap, but I stopped her advance.

“You need doctors,” I growled and looked over at her. I was surprised to see her face cleared of the cupcake, not surprised she was still naked. “A shit ton of them. You have to know that, and you have to realize I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t need help,” she said with a confident voice.

“You do.” I stood up and took a couple steps toward my room before looking back at her. “And I’m not stopping until I get it for you.”

11

Brody

June 16, 2015

RESTING MY ELBOWS on the counter, I let my head fall into my hands as I waited for the coffee to finish brewing the next morning. I’d barely gotten any sleep as thoughts of Olivia’s behavior went through my mind over and over again. Something wasn’t adding up, and a part of me was getting ready to just give up on trying to get her help.

Her mood swings were off the charts. I had never thought too much about the fact that she’d always gone back to being her normal self when we were out in public until the night she’d threatened to kill herself. Coming home to find her perfectly fine and telling her father that she was afraid of me was what had me looking deeper into every encounter with her.

No bipolar or depression case was the same, I knew that. But whatever Olivia had been suffering from over the last several years couldn’t be defined as any one thing. What was going on with her was both everything and, at the same time, nothing. Unfortunately, I’d overlooked this paradox until now. And now I was beginning to notice the weird patterns in Olivia’s brand of crazy.