Atria (Chapter 7)

The years passed and Olivia changed from a cute teenager to a beautiful young woman. She graduated high school and moved in with Natasha in an apartment in suburban Melbourne. Olivia figured that if she was going to university, it would be easier to have a room mate to help pay the bills, and who better than her best friend. Olivia was dating Chris, Corey’s older brother, she and Corey had lasted two weeks and that was all the time it took to assure her that she would never date a guy the same age as her ever again, They were far too immature. She had been dating Chris for just over a year and the two were starting to seriously think about moving in together. He was due to return from his deportment in Iraq on compassion leave because his father had recently been in a car accident and was still in hospital. Olivia was worried, she wasn’t sure how Natasha would take this news and if she would see it as Olivia abandoning her.
Natasha was doing a TAFE course in “English Communication” and she and Olivia rarely found time to talk as it was. Olivia on the other hand still had a passion for soccer and received a scholarship to the best University in Melbourne because of her skills. She was also studying for an Arts degree. Olivia paced around the house, mulling over the situation and contemplating how she was going to tell Natasha that she might be moving out. She glanced over her shoulder at the digital clock on her bedside table. She thought back to her 16th birthday when her great aunt had bought it for her along with a vase that looked like it belonged in the thirties. The bright red numbers on the display screen read five-thirty and Olivia jumped. “DAMNIT” she yelled, her dad was due to pick her up in half an hour to take her to the airport to meet Chris and she was still in her work clothes. When Olivia wasn’t studying, she worked part-time as an air-brush artist at the panel-beaters on Logan Street and was still wearing grey overalls covered in splashes of paint and varnish and god knows what else. She sprinted to her room, peeled off her layers of clothes, chucking them on the floor as she went, and ran, as naked as the day she was born, to the other end of the house where the bathroom was situated, pulling her long black hair out of it’s ponytail as she went. She reached the bathroom and slammed the door shut, completely ignoring Natasha who had just walked through the front door and looked as if she had seen a ghost. She showered quickly, and after nearly getting scalded when Natasha flushed the toilet and twisting her ankle as she fell arse over tip out of the shower door and on the bathroom floor, her coordination was starting to appear more debatable by the minute. She wrapped a towel around herself and with her hair bands in her mouth and her eyebrow pencil over her ear she hopped back through the lounge room to her room where she hastily collapsed on the bed. Natasha pushed the door open. “You alright?” she said, attempting to keep a straight face, but in Olivia’s eye, failing miserably. “Fine” she replied, her face still buried in her pillow. Olivia raised her head and adjusted her towel. “Dad’ll be here in twenty to take me to the airport to get Chris” she said, as if trying to explain her eccentric behavior. “Ooohhh, Chrisy boy is coming home, tell him to say hi to mister Bin Laden for me won’t you?” Natasha replied, having given up trying not to grin. “Ha ha, replied Olivia sarcastically “Grow up” she finished with a slight smile, and with that, she slammed the door in Natasha’s face.1

The rest of the evening went off without a hitch. Her dad picked her up at six and the reached the airport around half past. Chris wasn’t due to land until seven, so Olivia amused herself browsing through the novelties in the duty free shop. There really was quite an interesting array of products, some of which Olivia had difficulty believing would be the slightest bit appealing to even the most eccentric tourist. I mean, who in their right mind would want to drink from a stubby holder with our darling Prime Ministers face on it. Olivia bought one, purely for the pleasure of de-facing it and then contemplating the best way to deliver it to parliament house without getting charged for slander. As religious as her family was, she still seemed to find pleasure, even at the raw age of nineteen, in going against authority and rebelling all she could. She didn’t have to try hard, the look on her fathers face when he saw his precious little soccer girl had got her belly button pierced was reward enough to satisfy her for a while. This was just a little pick me up. She walked back to the chair where her father was waiting and sat down. Her father pointed at the arrivals screen and she could see that Chris’s plane had just landed. After a few more minutes, she saw him. Her stomach did a back flip, but not a good one. He was just as good looking as ever, with dark brown shiny hair in a crew cut and a great body, but something was wrong, Olivia didn’t get the usual churn in her stomach that she always got when she saw him, and at that moment she realized, She had fallen out of love.
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