1 The excuse of a deal between friends

"How much time do you think he has now?" she asked with a worried demeanor, her glassy green eyes roaming on the figure lying in front of them. A permanent frown etched upon her forehead, as she rubbed her clammy hands against the rough fabric of her supposed to be track pants.

The blonde doctor stood up from the kneeling position, beside the patient, and gave her a pitiful look, shaking her head in disappointment. "Forty percent of the people suffering from Liver Cirrhosis develop Hepatic Encephalopathy (HE) and live for less than a year. Since your father suffers from HE-Grade 3, without the Liver Transplant surgery you'll lose him in less than three months. The controlled levels of Lactulose that I have been administering him have little effect on his obtunded state. He needs to be in a hospital within four days, Olivia. This is serious," Doctor Hanna Parker replied in her sugar smooth voice, her wide forehead in a frown as her honey eyes raked over the yellowish swelled body of the patient before them. She took off the stethoscope and stuffed it inside the pockets of her slim-fit white doctor's gown.

The brunette gulped, pushing down the sorrows and disappointments in her life, and questioned back in her clear voice, "How much do I need to get for the treatment to start?" Biting her lower lip, she waited for the amount to hit her poverty stricken face.

Doctor Hanna eyed the young brunette, scrutinizing her. A pitiful sigh left her nude tinted lips. A hint of contemplation ran across her face. She hated to be the bearer of bad news every time they met. Every broken smile of Olivia's felt like a stab unintentionally directed to leave fatal blows on her heart.

Olivia Stevenson was a precious jewel. They loved her then.

There was a time when the girl standing before her had the most beautiful mane of coal black tresses that cascaded down in elegant waves of silk and framed her face like a precious frame holding captive of an artist's masterpiece. Now all that was left were messy straw-like strands of malnourished brown being forced into an unkept top knot.

There was a time when her eyes never seemed to lose their brightness. When curious, praised, complimented, loved or being loved—those glassy green orbs shone with a brilliance that rivaled the luster of emeralds. That never-ending eagerness was now morphed into a never-ending pool of emotionless greens that were used for the sole purpose of witnessing blues that life threw at her.

The face that once glowed with happiness and hope was now contoured into the never changing expression of gloom. Dullness had entrapped that precious jewel and there was no way to restore it to its original beauty—because the jewel had given up on itself.

Olivia Stevenson is a jewel no more, just a homeless stone that happened to have colour. And stones have a simple destiny—that is, to be kicked around.

"Just tell me Doc," her voice was clear, devoid of most emotions other than the restrained self-pity. She was tapping her worn out puma clad feet against the floor as a sign of growing impatience.

Hanna knew that no good ever came with contemplations and procrastinations. So she took a step in front and stood beside Olivia, both of them now leaning against the wall.

"Olivia, you know that you are like my sister, right?" Hanna asked, pushing her hands into her coat's pockets as her tongue ran over her lips, repeatedly.

Olivia nodded in reply, bobbing her head up and down, her dull orbs not leaving the figure before them. She knew that even if she decided to answer, the words would never come out the way she wanted. They would be broken.

"You know that I really do care for your father as well, right?" Hanna laid out another question, now examining the leaking roof of the supposedly white painted apartment, whose walls were designed by soot, grease, moss and algae.

The tenant above Olivia's never seemed to get out of his bathroom, nor did he take any step to repair the faulty water line. The amount of water wastage irked Hanna to the point where she wanted to personally drag him out and tie him to a pole under the sun so that he would potentially dehydrate for the rest of his life and understand the value of H2O. But her doctor's pledge held her back every time she took a step further than Olivia's dingy little excuse of an apartment.

"Mhmm…" Olivia made a sound in agreement, clenching and unclenching her fists, the tapping increased.

"And you know—"

"Just answer already!" Olivia nearly snapped, her frown deepening (if it was possible) and the trademark scowl –with upturned lips, scrunched nose and a stink eye—graced her face. The restrained self-pity was now replaced by offence because she was receiving pity.

Pity—

One thing that she never wanted, but always seemed to have in abundance.

Hanna flinched back a little, straightened her white coat and answered right away. "You need to collect $15,000 in three days. That's the least I can do to help you, by pulling some strings," She felt a load of burden being released from her shoulders.

Olivia sighed, rubbing her face and slumping down on the ground, a dejected look on her face. The wall opposite to them was leaking. The water went drip, drip, drip. Each drop fell individually and accumulated to make a small puddle on the farther end.

"They are lonely at first, and then they meet. Gazillions of them sticking to each other, having each other's backs and together they can ruin civilizations," Olivia whispered under her breath.

Olivia wished she was a water drop, then she would have ocean to count on. But she is a stone. She is destined to drown.

Carefully, Hanna moved closer to her childhood best friend and sat beside her. The blonde rubbed the brunette's back, in the hope of consoling her.

"What am I going to do Han?" Olivia asked, her voice breaking at the end.

Hanna circled her arms to pull Olivia into an embrace. The brunette leaned her back against Hanna's side; her feet snuggled inside her chest. When she faced up, the candle lit room made her tear drop glisten.

Hanna led Olivia's small head on her shoulder and the little brunette broke down in her best friend's arms.

The Stevenson household used to be the place where dreams came true. As if one of the Moore faeries had personally sought out the place and benevolently showered it with all the riches, blessings and happiness someone could desire for. They lived in glory, with their heads held high but feet pressed tightly on the ground. Olivia Stevenson was once the girl who never had a reason to shed a tear. Envied and cursed by many, she lived a blessed life. Always thankful for what she had. She was a girl with a big kind heart and a warm soul and hence she befriended the butler's daughter, Hanna Parker.

Everything was as happy as one could wish for, when an unfortunate day Olivia received a phone call.

Lydia Stevenson, as rich as she was, loved to work. She was a social worker and ran many orphanages that supported orphan children and provided them with best quality education and lives, so that they could be independent one day. She wanted for every orphan to never feel how she felt in her childhood—abandoned and unloved.

Lydia was a bright and beautiful woman filled with vim and zest, the bond that kept the Stevenson family together.

First Monday of November, Lydia was out to visit an orphanage. A child was diagnosed with cancer and Lydia wanted to check whether she could save him or not. It was an urgent call and her decision was made in haste. Recent storms had left the paths isolated and not-so-driving friendly. Lydia's driver made a slippery drift in snow and the car fell off the cliff. The body was found a day later, frozen.

Taron Stevenson was a workaholic, he earned wholeheartedly and spent frivolously. His only life line was the orphan girl he fell in love with, during his middle school days. Taron Stevenson was like butter—easily manipulated and affected by the circumstances around him. If you put him in a cold place, he would became cold, hard, stuffed and closed off. If you were to give him some warmth, the cold hard exterior would melt out and you'll see a cheesy, salty, attractive and loving young man.

But when the sunshine of his life, his only source of warmth, went cold, there was no stopping him. He kept working 24/7 forgetting that he had a 7 year old daughter to take care of. He over worked himself, smoked, drank more, worked more and drank and fell ill. His business toppled at an alarming rate. He was reduced to starvation, poverty and misery. No friends, no relatives, no family came to his rescue, afraid to enter their rumored cursed house.

As if a Moor faerie had personally sought out the place and malevolently showered it with despair, hatred and poverty making it the home of someone's darkest nightmares.

That was when Olivia's warmth too went cold and she transformed into a stoic, bratty, angst filled teenager who always had to blame someone for her misery. She shut out the world and followed her father's drunken commands. Even Hanna couldn't help her through this, but she stood like a loyal pillar, supporting the broken Stevenson family from falling into the pits of nothingness.

Not a strong and reliable pillar, Hanna Parker, Olivia would say. But deep down, she knew that impending doom could not have been stopped even if Hercules would have cemented himself into a pillar and stood to protect their barely intact nuclear family.

And here they were now…

"I can try to sneak out some Rifaximin from the hospital or, or I can pull some strings and work overtime to reduce the surgery fee, but Olivia he needs to be admitted as soon as possible. I —" Hanna tried to reason but Olivia's husky voice cut her out.

"I can find a job. I can do something, I will, I must…" Olivia chanted out, her fingers fidgeting with the red track jacket. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. In and out, in and out, in and out.

The shaky tempo of her voice diminished.

Hanna pressed her lips in a straight line, "Lia, as much as I know you, you are just a girl who is living without any support and completely broke. You are a middle school dropout, love; you only passed the freshman year of high school. You don't know the hawk like people out there; this is not a simple society for a girl like you," She voiced out her concerned thoughts, slowly and clearly enunciating them.

Unknowingly, Hanna rubbed salt on her scars. Olivia took her comments not like advice, but as insults. She pushed Hanna's arms away and stood up straight, head held high. Her glassy green orbs stared down at the blonde beneath her. The trademark scowls gracing her face. "I am not some pathetic, slow witted girl who cannot find her way through a dark room. I'm Olivia Stevenson, and I can find a way out. Even though the room is filled with hollow pits of voids and, I will find my way out!" she spat, each and every word of hers filled with rage and determination.

Olivia Stevenson was a stone now—stronger than those precious jewels. If someone were to kick her, they would be pained with an equal intensity. Because a stone's destiny is simple—live and let live or hurt and get hurt.

Hanna sighed and got up, brushing her white coat so that there was no arse-shaped dirt patch on it. She was used to Olivia's sudden outbursts of temper and cranky ways. "Very well then, let's make a deal!" she clapped her hands.

With a look as blank as drawing canvas, Olivia glanced at her three-years-elder best friend. "What deal?" she muttered, frowning deeper. Hanna was convinced that one day Olivia will develop a unibrow out of nowhere and it would not be surprising.

"For the next three days, I'm going to skip work and take good care of Uncle Taron while you are away earning 15 Grand, deal?" she proposed, her right eyebrow etched upwards and hand held out.

"Han, I really app—"

"Na-uh! Lia, I think I owe you this much. If you are going to find a way out of this dark, void filled room then I'm going to be your North Star," she smiled a toothy smile and intertwined the young brunette's fingers with hers. She took off her black baseball cap and settled it on Olivia's godforsaken, unwashed head. "Because we girls should stick together—"

"—Like the roots and shoots of an evergreen tree," Olivia completed and pulled Hanna into warm embrace, the blonde's brown eyes welling up for her best friend.

Olivia pulled Hanna closer and hugged her tighter.

"I guess we are hugging off our deal?" Hanna murmured in the brunette's ear.

The latter nodded, muttering, "It's a deal."