Specimen 004 · Dragonflies · Book Two
Against the Wind
I found myself in Olivia’s grief.
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Filed by Lexi Lavene · From the author’s archive
Where do I start with Against the Wind?
This book came when I least expected it. It’s the sequel to Into the Night, yes, and it came almost immediately on the heels of the first one.
But it also rocked me to my core.
I found myself in Olivia’s grief. In a way that I didn’t expect to.
The End of Almost a Decade
My nine-year relationship had ended spectacularly. I had given him an ultimatum in September the previous year. “I don’t want to live here anymore. It’s too expensive, and I hate my job. By March, I’m leaving. I want you to come, but I get it if you don’t.”
We had been together almost a decade.
In January, I ended up spending everything I had saved to help him with a massive debt.
In February (2/13, lol), he broke up with me.
I came home from babysitting a friend’s kiddo. He sat me down on the couch and started talking.
I was exhausted, mentally and physically, overstimulated from being around a three-year-old, and it was late.
It took me about two minutes to realize that this meandering conversation he was having wasn’t about how he hadn’t made plans for Valentine’s Day.
I held up my hand and said, “Are you breaking up with me?”
Simple. No nonsense. Straightforward.
He replied, “Yes.”
I nodded once. Blinked at him. Then said, “Okay. Then, you’re leaving. I pay the rent. Give me your key.”
No tears, no asking why. Nothing. Just, “Okay, bye.” He handed me my key and left. (I found out later he had already loaded his suitcase into his car before I got home.)
Grief on the Page
The next few months were brutal. I had spent most of my adult life with this man. We got together when I was 22. I didn’t know how to cope with what was happening in my head. So I poured my grief out into Olivia, and BOY, DID I REALIZE SOMETHING.
The first time my alpha reader read the book, she asked me if the relationship Olivia was grieving resembled my own. I told her yes.
Then she told me to look up DARVO.
There in Black and White
Y’all. My whole relationship was there in black-and-white text on a screen. Not just this one, but a lot of them. My own mother had started this cycle for me (you’ll notice a lot of dead moms in my stories), and it had perpetuated through all my relationships from high school on to THIRTY-ONE.
Writing Olivia’s journey had freed me. Not just in identifying my abuse, but in identifying what I deserved in another relationship.
What Olivia Found
The kindness and respect that she finds in the second half of this book changed the narrative of my life. She found the security to be her truest self, not just alone, but surrounded by people who loved her for who she was.
Not just what she could do for them.