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TW: Drugs, Alcoholism, Death

Girls like Livie Walter very seldom make it out of Cave Junction. They’re the girls who get knocked up by one of their older brother’s friends or maybe one of the motorcycle club wannabes, the girls who end up run through by the time they’re twenty five; the girls who look to find solace at the bottom of a bottle or by shoving it up their noses. It’s not that Olivia was a bad kid or had a rough upbringing, it's just that the most exciting thing for a girl with too much brains and not enough sense to do in Cave Junction, Oregon is to get pregnant or arrested. Her family was like nearly every other family she knew growing up. Her mother was a hairdresser, owned her own salon in the same parking lot as the Dairy Queen, and her father worked for the electric company– at least that’s what Olivia was told. She knew he spent way too much time at ‘the clubhouse’ to have actually earned any sort of paycheque, but still their bills were paid and she never had to suffer the indignity of second hand clothes. Sometimes it felt easier to not ask the questions she didn’t care to know the answers to. 

 Schooling came easy and she flew through at the top of her class, graduating high school as valedictorian and earning herself a free ride to the University of Oregon. She had no idea what she wanted to do with her life, all she knew is that she wanted to be the best. 

It was easy to be the best when the pond was minuscule but as her world expanded beyond her little podunk town, Olivia started to notice herself struggle. Her sophomore year was nearly an entire write off and she came home for the summer break eager to spend her days working the desk at her mom’s salon, craving monotony and the speciality she felt amongst the people of Cave Junction. That summer was the worst of her life, although it opened her eyes wider to the underbelly of the town she once thought of as boring and sleepy. 

 Her older sister Beth had been working at some bar when she picked up a little nasty habit, their father had been a heavy drinker but nothing like what Beth got mixed up in. Her once vibrant and jubilant sister now seemed a hollow shell of herself. The light behind her eyes replaced with sallow gaunt features that reminded Olivia of a zombie, not dead but hardly living. Their house was all but a funeral home slowly planning the service of a sister and daughter still very much breathing. Everybody was quiet, their father hardly ever home and it seemed that none of them wanted anything to change. Every day they would wake up and go to their various workplaces, Olivia and her mother only talking once they were outside of their mostly wood-paneled home. Olivia would beg her mother to do something, to say something. Beth was wasting away to nothing, her sinewy arms covered by loosely knit sweaters that did very little to conceal the railroad of track marks that winded their way up and down her forearms. Her mother would placate her, urging Olivia to believe that her father had a plan. That he had it under control. In the least shocking news since the death of her hundred and three year old great aunt Bea, Olivia’s father very much did not have it under control. He acted like he did, like the work he was putting in was dedicated or that the attention he paid his girls was even half assed. It wasn’t enough though, how could it be? 

 The morning before their annual Fourth of July party, Olivia found her sister cold and unresponsive in their bathroom. The memory of screaming out for her mother, seared into her brain and the smell of half decayed flesh would be something she would never forget. Four days later a ceremony was held, half the town lined the pews of the church– Anglican although their family was hardly religious. Olivia was the only one to speak, her mother too emotional and her father too afraid to open his mouth. Whether he was afraid of his emotions, or the lack thereof remained to be seen. Olivia spoke of her anger against the people of the town, she spoke of her desire for justice. Clearly they had all watched her sister ruin herself, shooting up with god knows what all in the ineffective search for solace. She pleaded with her neighbours to watch out for their own, to not let something like this happen again. 

When it was time for her to go back to school, her father asked her what she wanted to do with her life and Olivia very matter of factly told her father that she wanted to study law. She told him that she wanted to speak for those without a voice, that she wanted to stop any other girl from ending up like Beth did. Her father didn’t admonish her or laugh off what she had to say as just the ramblings of an emotional twenty year old. He told her that he would support her, that her dreams were his if she promised him just this; to leave Cave Junction. 

 Olivia went back to school and worked harder than she ever did, once again graduating top of her class with an offer for Yale Law School. 

 Boston was everything she dreamed of, her classmates were interesting and intelligent and for once she felt like she was in the right place and that she had the opportunity to work towards making a difference. She worked part time in a cafe off campus and met some really great friends. Life was starting to look up for the first time since her sister’s passing. After graduation she started work at the Boston DA’s office, immediately enamoured with the fact that she was fighting for justice, for what’s right. Now the thing they don’t tell the idealist, is that life is a lot more exciting when you’re on the other side.

 Olivia and Anthony had only been seeing each other a little while when he started gifting her with extravagance, the first diamonds she ever owned gifted to her on their first christmas together. They took luxurious trips to places she had only ever dreamed of seeing and their home together was expansive, each room not without its own bouquet of whatever flower was the chicest. The day before they were supposed to go look at engagement rings, just look  she had reminded her mother, Olivia walked in to find his brothers in their living room, their knuckles bloody  and Anthony’s eye blackened. She screamed at them, begging for an answer as to what the fuck had transpired on her white carpet of all places. They just told her to leave and not just the room, so she did. 

 She packed up her life and got as far away from that life as she could, telling herself that this was another Cave Junction and that she could never come back. Olivia felt gross, her entire life a parade of one set of unanswered questions after another. Having thought she ditched her naivety long ago, she made a resolution to herself to not let any more questions go unanswered; she was taking control. 

 A move to New York was easy, she had glowing recommendations from bosses and professors and though she was offered a position at the Bronx DA’s office, she opted for what was supposed to be a corporate position at Shapiro, Stuart & Starke. Her first case assigned was to defend an alleged drug dealer, the evidence was undeniable and the case would be hard to lose so she shadowed and when she saw Rochelle Shapiro argue in court and dumbfound the cops on the stand and opposing counsel, Olivia was hooked. She loved the way her boss could make people stammer until she got the result she wanted, Olivia craved the ability to do so. Having shadowed Rochelle on several cases, in her second year at the firm she began to lead teams on proceedings and earned herself a partnership at the firm within five years of being hired, the youngest woman to do so. 

 Married to her job and addicted to her email app, Olivia can’t stop. She wants to take on bigger cases, to make a name for herself. But the higher they rise, the harder they may fall. 

— WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

-Rochelle Shapiro (50+) Boss/Mentor

-Casual Sex Friend (25+)

-Clients