Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Five (section)

===Olivia's Realization===


Remilia ran her hands over each other and looked down at her scars.  “He went into my mind and helped me remember all the things that had ever made me hurt myself, but all the things that I couldn’t think about when I was doing it too.  Like when I won that,” she said, jerking her head at one of the many trophies and certificates on the wall over her bed.

“He also did some stuff with my spirit…I don’t even begin to understand it, but I felt better within an hour,” she said.  “That stuff scares me, but it worked, whatever it was.  So I got all fired up and went to confront Dad about…everything.  And Dad…confessed that he was a bad father, and that he thought he was making me stronger, and all those things he said…” she trailed off, hugging her ravaged arms to her breasts as the painful memories came back.  Olivia stared, saddened but unable to help.

“And when he said he was trying to make me see for myself why it wasn’t a good idea in the long run, I just lost it.  I said he should have helped a little, like a father would, and I went straight to Freya.”

“Why Freya?” Olivia asked tremulously.

“Because she’s the one who figured it out on her own, but also…” Remilia sniffed through her budding smile.  “Because she’s a sister to me, Mom, she’s been there whether or not I wanted her to be, every single time I was hurt or sad or lonely.”  She hung her head, closing her eyes as a tear worked its way free.  “Where would I be without her?” she whispered.

Olivia squeezed her daughter’s shoulder as Remilia wiped her tears away.  “Well, she set me up for a few days and talked to me for a bit…and she invited me on the road trip, too,” she remembered.  “And then there was a little get-together, at her place.  Venus, Faith, Freya, and their boyfriends, and me.  And I asked Jake, Venus’ boyfriend, to help me figure shit out.  Before you ask,” she said, anticipating her mother’s question, “it’s because I…well.  I sort of envied Venus her relationship with him.  She used to hate going to school sometimes, you know,” Remilia said.  “People made fun of her, or got scared of her, because of how she looks, and the fact that she likes to spend time alone in her basement all the time.”

“And Jake changed that somehow?” Olivia asked.

“What?  No, no,” Remilia said, shaking her head.  “But she started to look forward to coming to school when she met him, and they’re practically joined at the hip now.  So, I asked him to give me a new perspective.”  She screwed her face up.  “And I came off like a complete bitch, too, but hey.  He explained some stuff, and he helped me figure out why I felt like I needed to get away from home for a while.”

“And why was that?” Olivia asked.

Remilia turned to look at her.  Her mother looked a lot like her, coincidentally enough.  She was tall, too, only where Remilia was lanky but trim, her mother was just thin.  At that moment, Olivia’s narrow face was pinched further yet, by sadness and regret that Remilia didn’t like seeing.

“Because, Mom, Dad loves me but has no clue how to show it, and you love me but you’re never home,” Remilia said simply.  “And neither of you ever stopped to explain to me why Dad hurt himself too…or why he stopped.”

Olivia just stared at her daughter, before she emitted a single sob.  “I’m sorry, Remilia, I was wrong,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Remilia nodded and reached out to hug her mother around the shoulders.  Olivia sobbed again, holding her daughter tight.  “I can’t remember the last time I actually told you I love you,” Olivia wept.

Remilia closed her eyes.  Her eidetic memory could provide her with an exact answer, and it did.  It had been a long time.  “Well…I know it’s true, so we’ll go from there,” she mumbled.

At length, she let go of her mother and leaned back.  “Can I keep going?” she asked.

“Sure, baby, go on,” Olivia said, wiping her eyes.

“Anyway…when it was time to go, I immediately looked for things to do on the ship, as you might expect,” Remilia said.  She peered over at her mother.  “Mom, I want you to swear something to me, okay?”

“What is it?” Olivia asked, drying her eyes on her hankie.

Remilia straightened up on the bed.  “Swear to me that you won’t go after the guy I was with on the ship.  I mean it.”

Olivia blinked, but she nodded.  “I promise.”

“Good.”  Remilia lay flat on the bed and looked up at the ceiling, where the faint outlines of little plastic stars could be seen, before she had been too ‘mature’ to want them there any longer and had had them scraped off.

“After we came back from Nocturne, which I’ll describe later, I decided I wanted to get to know the funny, mouth-wateringly cute bartender, Chuck, from the ship’s O-Club, and, well…that happened.”  She smiled at the ceiling.  “He was a balm.  I don’t think I’ve ever really had a friend I could just unload on like that, not outside the family or the football team.”

Olivia winced, displaying an entirely understandable dislike of discussing her daughter’s sex life, but Remilia plowed on.  “He was so adorable, too…and he was always smiling when he was around me.  It was so rewarding,” she said dreamily.  “Just to be acknowledged like that.  He told me flat-out that I was the best thing that had happened to him since he got conscripted.”

“Well, that’s good…I guess…” Olivia said.  “And…just to be sure, you were safe, weren’t you?”

“Naturally,” Remilia sighed.

“Good…”  Olivia trailed off, looking away.  “You were saying?”

“Well, that was it, really.  He told me a lot about life as a conscript, what he was going to do after his tour…that’s it.”  Remilia sat up and resumed her unpacking.  “I did get these on Nocturne, though, for…oh shit!” she said, extracting the jewelry she had picked for Alpharia and Omegan.  “I meant to hand these off to the Twins at the party.  Damn.  I’ll have to have someone send them,” she chided herself.

“On Nocturne, you say?” Olivia said.  “Those are pretty.”

“Yeah, I bought them in a market in Skarokk,” Remilia said.  She dropped them onto a side table for later.  “Well…I guess that’s it about Chuck, really,” she said.  She looked up at her mother.  “Want to stay and listen to some of the other stuff that happened?”

Olivia hesitated and sat back down.  “Sure, I’d love to.”