Love In Moments (Love Distilled #2) - Scarlett Cole Page 0,14
to diminish it. But it was the minority. And I think they’ve crept back into whatever hole they crawled from. Our social media has been pretty clean for the last few months.”
What Emerson said made logical sense. But as Olivia’s therapist had reminded her, she didn’t always respond from a place of logic. More often than not, fear still led her decision-making. And Emerson’s minimized description sat uncomfortably in her gut. Expressing why she found the comments hurtful was hard. Olivia knew her voice would go up half an octave. That she would sound irrational. That in the big picture, what had happened to her had been small. But depression and anxiety were almost impossible to explain to someone who hadn’t experienced them first hand, lived with them.
Half the problem was that most people had, at some point, felt a bit down, a bit out of control, a bit stressed. And they often conflated those experiences with true anxiety and depression. In their opinion, it was about shaking this off, changing her frown upside down, digging deep for some motivation.
It was hard to explain the sensation that, at her worst, she could have sat in the distillery while it burned down around her and she still wouldn’t have been able to find the energy to move, even though her brain would be screaming at her to get the hell out of there.
“For the record, that did sound like you were diminishing it,” Olivia said. As she yanked the lid off the box of cinnamon buns, the scent of freshly baked sugar and cinnamon hit her. And here she was, eating her feelings again. They said step one was naming your problem. She didn’t feel like hitting step two, so took a large bite of the bun.
Emerson grabbed her hand. “I’m sorry, Liv. Let me try again. I would love to see you back on our social media pages because you are really good at engaging people in our products with your videos. And I think it’s horrible that a few assholes were able to rally trolls to come at us like that. But it has been several months since we’ve seen that kind of interaction on any of our platforms. So, I pray they’ve gone away in the hope that you can get back to doing something you are so good at.”
Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Better. Apology accepted. I’m sorry this is still such a sensitive spot.”
“It is what it is. You can take as long as you need to feel better.” Emerson reached for another cinnamon bun.
“How many of these did Connor eat?” Olivia asked, holding up the cinnamon roll. Before meeting Emerson, Connor was a macro-counting meal prepper.
“Two, but he scraped the icing off. He’s a heathen.”
Olivia laughed. “That’s the best bit.”
“Yup. He was pretty grossed out when I scooped it up and doubled the icing on my cinnamon roll.” She looked in the direction of the hallway. “Don’t tell him I ate another one. He’s already grossed out by my breakfast choices.”
Connor’s frame filled the doorway, a broad grin on his face and a green smoothie in his hand. “It hurts my teeth just watching that.”
“And it hurts my tastebuds just looking at that swamp juice in your hand. We should buy stock in that green powder you use.”
Connor shrugged. “Morning, Liv. When you get a sec, I had an idea for a flash Valentine’s campaign.”
Olivia nodded. “I’ll finish this and come see you.”
“Wait,” Emerson said, pretending to be offended. “Why didn’t you tell me about this brain wave?”
Connor raised an eyebrow. “I was in the shower when it happened.”
Color flushed Emerson’s cheeks. “Wait, I was in the shower too.”
Olivia covered her ears. “La, la, la. This is too much information.”
Connor laughed. “I can multitask.”
Emerson stood and playfully slapped his arm. “Do I want to know when this multitasking happened?”
“Well, I definitely don’t want to,” Olivia said. She watched enviously as Connor slipped his arm around her sister, how his hand held her close. Anders had held her the same way at Christmas, and she’d seen the same look of possessiveness in Anders’s eyes that Connor had for Em.
Damn, jealousy had a really bitter taste.
“It was just as you stepped out to dry off, and I thought about how I could show you how much I love you on Valentine’s Day.”
“Nice save,” Emerson said, stepping up onto her toes to kiss him chastely.
Olivia put her fingers to her mouth, pretending to vomit, and Connor grinned.