Modern Rituals Read Online Free PDF

treatment Jordan’s mother required. It was Olivia’s fault. She sought the therapy and recommended the doctor. But could she really blame him for wanting to remain near his mother? But he’d promised her he’d stay.
    “You know I can’t leave—not yet,” she said. “Moving here turned out to be a wonderful opportunity for me—for us.”
    A glint in Jordan’s eye surprised Olivia as she confirmed that she wasn’t leaving. Jordan’s gaze meandered to his right, somewhere far in the ceiling.
    “I’ll miss you,” he said, laced with an unfamiliar iciness. He placed his hand on her knee and squeezed—this normally would have tickled Olivia and elicited a smile from her, but something about the way he spoke those words countered its influence.  
    Is he hiding something from me?
    “When is your mother leaving?” she said.
    “Two, three weeks. I’ll return to London with her then.”
    She fidgeted with the bottom of her baby t-shirt and then with the pockets of her jeans.
    “Why don’t you stay with me until you absolutely have to go?”
    Jordan edged away from her.
    “I think it’s best if I stay with my mum—you know how she can get.”
    “Jordan,” she squared her face with his, “is there something you aren’t telling me?”
    The seat of his pants squirmed—Olivia had never seen him react this way before. He said nothing.
    “Jordan? Why are you really going back to London?”
    Jordan scrunched his lips, leaned over and placed knuckled thumbs to his forehead.
    “Olive—don’t… Let’s just move on, okay?”
    And there it was. The distance he’d put between them expanded like a fire to fresh air. Olivia drew her long legs to her chest and scooted back into the couch—she faced Jordan and pushed aside the nausea welling in her tummy. She wanted answers, no matter how harsh.
    “Jordan—you tell me what’s going on, right now. I deserve that, at least.”
    He sat there awhile, hunched over, inhaling methodic breaths. Olivia observed the curve of his back swell and contract as, she assumed, he weighed his next words. He looked at her.
    “Olive—I love you, and—” A conniption overtook him until he settled himself. “If it wasn’t for you, my mum probably wouldn’t have made it. What? With your ability to tell when people are sick…”
    Olivia recalled the day she had been enjoying a cup of tea with Jordan’s mother. A sensation arose in Olivia’s hands that spread through her arms and eventually to her cheeks and brow. Then, an ethereal light emanated from his mother’s chest, glowing yellow with bursts of menacing purple and red—somehow Olivia understood his mother was sick and asked her to visit a doctor. This wasn’t the first occasion a disease had alerted Olivia to its presence. It was why she’d decided to become a nurse.
    “…and I’ve met someone else.” He looked away. “I’m sorry.”
    Olivia didn’t understand. Someone else? When? How?  
    “What?” She had done nothing wrong—the opposite even—she had given Jordan everything. She so badly wanted to rip apart Jordan’s thoughts, dig her hands in and discover the truth.
    “Look, it doesn’t matter. I’m all packed up—I need to get out of here.”
    Olivia threw an arm toward Jordan but it fell limp—her body disobeyed her every command. With that, Jordan fled from their little flat, and loneliness whisked into the brand-new vacancy. A horrifying reality dawned on her: that she may as well resign to a bachelorette’s life, as her mother—who’d single-handedly raised her—had done. Tough times. Times where Olivia was the only person in the world. Times where she needed companionship.
    Olivia’s mother rarely stayed put—the demands of her mother’s work forced Olivia from city to city and her mother out of Olivia’s grasp. Friendships required time to form—time Olivia never possessed. Books afforded her solace and she did well in school, receiving a scholarship to a respectable uni.