#hedly. not affected. but anyway still felt like writing a fic about fictional characters so then i did ahahha it's just fanfic

[beatricebidelaire]

There was a kind of comfort when she was with him. When she was with him, she could be just herself, and he would be her friend. Unlike with most people, she was a carefully curated mask, aiming to help, aiming to please, but never herself.

Perhaps it was because he understood the constant need to not offend others, to keep others happy, to try to offer help. Olivia was grateful to have him as a friend, could feel her shoulders slowly releasing tension when they were alone instead of having to talk to other people.

It was always weird to have someone genuinely like her as her, like her as a friend, not as a fortune teller or someone who they could gain information from. Sometimes she had the urge to tell him the story of her pre-teen years, when she had yet to join VFD. (Her parents died a little after that, and she was quickly swept in after their death.) She had the urge to tell him that it was always surprising that he would enjoy being friends with her, that anyone would enjoy being friends with her.

She’d known she was a little odd, growing up. Not fitting in. She was always so clueless about what the latest fashion was, about what everyone was talking about. It was okay, so she enjoyed different things, read odd books her classmates didn’t read, was bad at every kind of sport and did not know the popular singers others talked about. She liked her own interests and wouldn’t mind enjoying them on her own, even if it was a little lonely sometimes. But she’d always found solace in the books. Even if other people found her a little odd, she could live with that.

Except in the last two years of elementary school, when she transferred to another school, that she realized it became more than that. Her classmates didn’t just find her odd, they hated her and didn’t bother hiding that. They didn’t simply find her slightly weird - they hated her. She never really found out why - she hadn’t known then, and she still didn’t know now, years later. She did find out why they disliked one of her only friends at that time - because the other girl had hanged out with her.

Looking back, she couldn’t really remember exactly why they’d made her so scared at that time. When she tried to think back, her brain just went blank and refused to delve deeper into anything. It refused to load the memories. She was sure they’d never done anything physical - well, maybe a few threats about what they would do during dodgeball in PE class - but she’d managed to mostly avoid that. Plus, she was petite, that must made it a little harder to aim, right?  She was sure she’d been scared and worried every day, she remembered at least 3 quarters of the class were one big friend group, and they all disliked her. She remembered her friend who stood by her despite making herself a target too - how did she ever deserve such loyalty, she didn’t know. It’d lasted till almost graduation but then suddenly two very prominent members of the gang had a large fight and then they were all taking sides and suddenly lost interest in her.  She’d been thankful for that too, though she never found out what exactly caused the fight between them either. She was just grateful she could take a breath.

She had, in her adult years, tried many times to search her memories what they had done that terrified her preteen self so much, but her brain always refused to cooperate.  She wondered if she’d just been too sensitive and too easily scared and too eager to be like that she couldn’t stand most of her classmates disliking her.  At least they hadn’t done anything physical, she told herself. Maybe I had just been too sensitive, she told herself.

She still couldn’t remember. 

She thought she once remembered more.

In her first few months in VFD, attending all the trainings, she’d been quietly relieved that at least in this new environment she wasn’t universally hated. She was still a little weird, but there were other people with their own rare interests too, and it felt a little safer, a little more comfortable - comparatively, anyway. One of her fellow new recruits at that time liked socializing a lot and somehow became friends with one of her previous classmates that disliked her.

She remembered, to this day, finding out about that and the new recruit wanting to introduce them to meet, and the way she had vehemently said no and burst into tears. She remembered being fucking scared at the thought and the new recruit had quickly agreed to not introducing them and didn’t bring it up again.

That was a memory that stayed.

The sudden panic again, the tears, after finding out about how someone in her current circle knew someone from her past circle who were part of a group that terrified her so much that even the idea of seeing anyone from that group again immediately made her burst into tears.

That was the memory that, whenever she thought back to her preteen years, that came to mind the most. Unlike what exactly happened that made her so miserable and scared back then which her brain always gave her a blank when she tried to remember, the crying of that day, already in VFD and no longer in the same class as those people, was a memory that seemed deeply etched and she didn’t know how to forget.

It didn’t make sense to her, but it was not like she understood much about how memories and brains worked either.

From then on, she did her best to avoid being dislike, did her best to please others. She didn’t need others to like the real her, as long as they didn’t hate her, she would take that. If they liked her - even if it’s her mask and not the real her - she counted that as a win.

If, in the rare case, they liked the real her, and was willing to be friends - like he was - she was always surprised and deeply grateful, in ways she didn’t often know how to articulate.

“Bertrand,” she began. Impulsively. “Could I tell you a story about the school I went to before VFD?”

He raised his head from his book. “Of course.”