Working.

chapter three

For the next couple of months, Ollie was riddled with tears and depression, which affected her performance at work and relationships with people. She went from being a happy-go-lucky, reliable and well-respected figure, to being someone who oozed of self-doubt and a lack of desire to carry on with life, really. Eventually, her employers were tasked with the decision to let her go. They had all been aware of her break-up, heck, even the new hires! In this light, they had given her the grace to get back on to her feet. It took much longer than they had anticipated, however, and she had become a liability to her company, which pleased no one.

Having saved enough and owned her own apartment, Ollie figured that she’d spend her days healing from this. Days, however, turned to weeks, and weeks into months, as Ollie spent most of her time making a prominent and uncomfortable dent in her favorite love seat, relying on whatever her friends brought over for her sustenance and binge watching shows she never had the time to when she was working full-time. Ollie did anything to keep herself from thinking about it; stopping herself from fully processing how she felt. She knew it was in no way helpful, and she knew she had to face it eventually, but she couldn’t bear to think about it.

She had felt like her teen self all again. The same way she swore off listening to the music of her favorite girl group after they disbanded to not be reminded of it, was the same way she had avoided actually working forward from her breakup. The hurt still lingered, though, no matter how far she tried to push it to the back of her mind; and ever so often, her mind would begin to wonder.

“Ollie! Don’t tell me you’re still thinking about it!” a friend of hers chastised, making her snap out of her rumination.

Ollie blinked multiple times with an empty expression, unsure if she was ready to answer, the words lodged somewhere deep in her throat.

She had intended to refute it, but instead she sighed and slumped further into her seat.

“It’s literally been 10 months, Ollie. You can’t- “she was cut off by a dry response from her barely existing friend.

“A little over a year now, actually.” she muttered out, pulling her covers higher up on her body and raising the tv remote to turn up the volume.

“Like that makes it any better?”

“Yeah. Get your facts straight, and then you talk to me” Ollie snarked, half-assed. She angrily shoved her hand in her shirt, brushing off food crumbs from the snacks they had all eaten earlier.

As her friend was about to respond, another one interjected, coming out of the kitchen with a glass dish of macaroni and cheese.

“Wendy. Go easy on her, man. She is grieving” she said, setting a towel on the center table in front of where Ollie was sprawled out. The same Ollie in question jutted her chin out in pride. Wendy glared at her.

“Didn’t we hear the same thing? It has been almost a year, Amara. I know she is grieving, but she really needs to get a grip. For how long will we let her treat her life like this?” Wendy responded, clearly frustrated with all the pampering and coddling Ollie was being served with on a daily basis. “Also, you know you're lactose intolerant, right?”

Amara rolled her eyes at Wendy’s words, slamming the hot dish on the coffee table a little too aggressively.

“I agree with Wendy actually. It really gets to a point…” the third of her close friends walks through the kitchen door, plates in hand. She set the four plates on the table and sat on the floor, and the two other ladies asides from her visiting followed suit.

“Look; I'm totally fine. It was just a passing thought. I was mostly thinking about how grateful I am to have you guys, you know?” the friend in question said with an overly sweet tone. She swallowed the gag that came with those words.

They all scoffed at what she said, shaking their heads.

Amara plopped onto the floor to sniff the glorious food she had prepared, which earned her a smack on her head from Wendy.

“Please can you help us with spoons, water and some cups?” Amara requested. They all turned to look at Ollie, who jerked an eyebrow in question.

“Who? Me?” she asked. She had no intention of doing so, and it was rather evident. She had finally nestled herself in just the right spot for the first time in hours, one leg dangling off an arm of the chair and the other in an obtuse angle with the dangling leg.

Her friends glared at her, most especially Amara. They had been close friends ever since their university days, and so they knew every trick in the book. Ollie would certainly not be playing that off, they unanimously agreed subconsciously.

Amara's chocolate irises were locked in a death stare with Ollie’s, and it was a clear sign that messing that up would mean that they’d pack up the food and leave with no hesitation. Ollie could practically taste the hunger she’d have to experience, and although she didn’t want to admit how helpful their occasional visits wee, she definitely didn't want tp risk it. Ollie wasted no time in getting up after this discovery.

As she jumped up from her seat, a half-opened bag of chips dropped from her lap from underneath the covers and poured on the floor. She frowned over-exaggeratedly. That had been her breakfast, and she had lost it halfway through one of the first few episodes of the show she was watching. Wendy’s face contorted in disgust at this, and the two other women say on the floor cackled at this. Ollie scowled right back at her and flipped her off, her back facing them.

Wendy gasped with mock hurt. “Ollie! -“she began to exclaim, but was cut off by the sound of the kitchen door being slammed and Ollie cackling into the evening air.