ABOUT
Full Name: Olivia Way Angel O’Connor
Date of Birth: November 6th, 1997
Age: 25
Gender: Cisfemale
Pronouns: She/Her
Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
Religion: Atheist
Occupation: Bartender at Restricted Access Cabaret
How long as she been in Bradford Springs: On and off eleven years
Where does she live?: In Southside with her half-brother Finn O’Connor
WANTED CONNECTIONS | STATS
BIO
TW: death, abuse, drug mention, overdose mention
Diana Way never wanted to be a mother. She knew it before and after the distinct, ill-fated twin lines appeared on the cheap tests she’d picked up from the drugstore. Knew she should’ve put an end to it when the offer was still reasonably on the table, before it was too late. It was a mistake, she’d realized, to tell her mother she was expecting. The woman begged her daughter to make her a grandmother. Looking down at the baby girl in her arms, trapped in a hospital room with her mother by her side and the father of the child nowhere in sight, Diana knew her first instinct was right.
Olivia Way entered into the world on November 6th, 1998, a chilly, autumn day in Chicago, and Diana felt none of the things a mother should. No love, only a vague sense of resentment. It was a resentment that built the very foundation of the relationship she’d have with her daughter. Olivia, however, never noticed the lack of her mother’s affections. Whatever love Diana couldn’t give, Grandma Lottie gave it in abundance. While Diana kept Olivia at arms length, running out the door and widening the distance as often as she could, it was Lottie who nurtured the growing girl, who showed her love and how to love in return.
Because the warmth casted by her grandmother was enough to fill the voids in her little life, a father became a foreign concept. Olivia never thought to inquire about him or the reasons why she didn’t have one, not that she would. She was young, too young, to know the ways in which children were brought into the world. Mommy and Grandma Lottie were the only family she knew, but then one day it happened. Diana and Olivia were walking out of the grocery store when he was walking in. He stared at Diana first, his eyes trailing down to Olivia before looking back up at the mother again. The woman’s gaze was steadfast on him, the natural scowl on his face deepening as he passed them by. “Who’s that?” Olivia asked, looking up at her mother as they crossed into the parking lot. “Your father,” Diana said plainly.
Her father.
Olivia couldn’t wait to tell Grandma Lottie she had one of those. He looked a lot different from them, she’d tell her. Actually, he looked more like their neighbor Ms. Carol, who had blonde hair and blue eyes. Also, she’d tell her how scary he looked. But the moment she opened her mouth and made the slightest mention of seeing her dad for the first time, Lottie’s demeanor changed. With a frighteningly stern, “You hush, now. Never bring him up again,” Olivia went quiet, nodded, tied it together with a yes ma’am, and cried.
They’d never talk about him again. A few months after her fifth birthday, Olivia was playing in the living room when her mother came home. “Where’s grandma?” Diana asked, and Olivia pointed in the direction of Lottie’s bedroom. Diana headed towards the back, but not before chastising her daughter for not opening her mouth and using her words. A few short seconds later and their lives changed forever. The scream that shattered the sense of security in the home was unlike anything Olivia had heard before. It was piercingly loud and devastatingly heartbroken, the kind of scream that comes from every corner of the body and soul.
It was a stroke that killed Lottie Way. She’d been dead for just over an hour. Olivia thought she’d been sleeping.
The sole responsibility of Olivia fell on Diana. The new transition into a different sort of motherhood proved to be more difficult than when she’d first given birth. And in time, Diana grew meaner, her patience somehow even thinner. Without Lottie, Olivia was left to face the full force of her mother’s indifference alone without a safe haven to turn to. More than anything, she missed her grandmother, often wondering when she would come back until one day she realized she never would.
“What’s my dad like?” Olivia asked out of the blue one day. She would’ve sworn her mother hadn’t heard her if it weren’t for the way the unprompted statement made her pause, even if only for a second. Silence lingered too long, and Olivia knew better than to ask the same thing twice. The hopefulness she felt thinking there might be an answer nearly faded before Diana turned and looked at her. “Do you want to meet him?”
Two days later, Olivia stood excitedly on the doorstep of the unfamiliar home, wearing a backpack that nearly swallowed her with her little suitcase by her side. Diana pounded on the door, turned to her daughter, and promised she’d be right back. There was something she needed to get from the car. By the time the door opened, Olivia turned as the engine came to life and wheels screeched on pavement, watching as her mother drove away. “The fuck do you want?” The stranger at the door pulled her attention back to him. “My dad lives here,” The five year old said, trying to keep her nervous heart steady.
Patrick O’Connor was a powerful man, and Diana was just another woman who’d gotten caught up in his mess – who got tossed to the side, like the others, when he was done with her. And she’d thrown her daughter right into the lion’s den.
But more than powerful, he was downright evil-spirited. The O’Connor household made the word hostile seem polite, and even on the best of days, it made Diana look like the best mother to ever walk the earth. In her new home, crime was normal, expected. Suddenly, she had siblings, half-siblings who resembled her none but looked out for her nonetheless. An obvious bastard child, still, who stuck out like a sore thumb. The childish thrill that ran through her at the sound of her dad’s Irish accent died almost immediately upon the swiftness of his harsh words. Nothing, however, was harsher than the weight of his fists. One of her saving graces was the fact that Olivia was a girl, and the beatings had been reserved for her brothers. Don’t hit women. It was one of the O’Connor rules, followed by: don’t talk to cops, don’t ask stupid questions, protect the family, and do whatever father says.
Her other saving grace was Finn.
Out of the other kids, she’d been drawn to him, found comfort and solace in him. By no means was he a sweet boy. He was a hell-raiser like the rest of them, and nine years her senior, but he made her feel the most safe in a time when she needed it most. But time progressed, and eventually, she didn’t need his safety net. Olivia had been indoctrinated, because after all, she too had O’Connor blood coursing through her veins. She barely flinched at the things she saw, at the things she heard. Hatred touched her heart too soon, but she knew better than to ever disrespect her father.
By the time she reached seven, the only life she’d come to know shifted again. One day she was home, and the next? She was being taken away by Child Protective Services and placed into foster care along with her siblings. Why? Patrick O’Connor had been arrested for reasons she was still too young to quite understand. This was merely one of the consequences, something meant to save them from their unsuitable home. In saving them, the system’s lack of resources split the siblings up. Fortunately, Olivia had been put into a home with Finn.
And as it turns out, some of the least desirable homes were far better than the environment they’d been brought up in, and it wasn’t even close. Sometimes they would stay at a place for weeks, sometimes even months, until a year of being wrapped up in the system subtly passed. Finn was getting closer to turning 18, just a year shy of it, but when that day came, he’d get her out of there. That was their agreement. That was the promise, but it was a promise that would be delayed.
Her foster parents got the call first, and reluctantly, they gave the phone to Olivia. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. Immediately, somehow, she knew it was Finn. With a tentative hello, she was met with an I’m so sorry so sincere it scared her. Shortly after, Finn was sentenced to five years in prison.
It was the second time, the first since her grandma died, that she felt her heart break. She acted out the way hurt kids did, moving from family to family more in a few months than she had in the entire first year. Each time Olivia found herself in a new home, she sent Finn a letter with her updated address so he knew where to find her. But it wasn’t the same. She wanted her brother back. The letters, the phone calls, and the occasional visits weren’t enough. The world grew lonelier and significantly colder without him. It was their dad’s fault, she decided, choosing to let her resentment fester and blossom into full blown loathing. She was glad Finn almost killed their dad, Olivia had told her case worker. She’d just wished he’d succeed and gotten away with it. Later, she’d be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
“I can give you something for that.” Gabe was her latest foster brother, a high school boy who’d been in the system even longer than she had. Olivia, twelve years old now and counting down the days until Finn’s release, was intrigued in whatever he had to offer. He pulled out what looked like a half eaten brownie. She ate it, too much of it she’d realize. After a panic attack that should’ve put the fear of God into her came the best feeling she’d ever felt in her entire life, and she fell in love with it. It was a feeling she’d spend the rest of her life chasing if she had to.
Pot brownies turned into smoking blunts turned into taking pills she didn’t know the names of, nor did she really care to learn. Not when they worked the way they did, making her feel the way they did. So much so, Olivia even thought she might actually miss Gabe when Finn’s sentence ended. When the day came, she didn’t even think twice about her foster brother. She’d worked out a plan with Finn. As soon as he got out of jail and the coast was clear, he was coming to get her. She threw some clothes and a few necessities into her backpack, even finding Gabe’s stash in his room and shoving it into the bottom of her bag. All the while, she smiled. She was getting her brother back. The moment he pulled up, she was ready.
Angel O’Connor would be her new name. She’s chosen it herself. No real significance. There was an angel on a passing billboard when it was decided she needed a new identity, and O’Connor was a given. They were headed for Bradford Springs, a town about an hour outside of Denver. No one would even think to look for them there. It would be perfect, a chance for them to start anew.
Then again, the fresh start was easier said than done. If middle school was bad, then high school was an impossible hell. Angel was a problem, and she knew she was a problem. Prided herself on it, even. The behavioral issues didn’t disappear upon crossing the state line into Colorado. In fact, they worsened with age, along with her affinity for drugs. By the time Finn could get a full scope of the situation, it was too late. They fought a lot, despite how much she loved him. She challenged him, pushed back, pressed his buttons, because what the hell did a twenty something year old know about raising a teenage girl? He was just as fucked up as she was, if not more, and barely an adult. Why did she have to listen to him?
But she did listen to him, sometimes, even if she didn’t want to admit it. Finish high school. That’s the promise Angel made to Finn, something he didn’t get to do – not the way he should’ve anyway. And though she barely passed, and though she showed up to graduation too hungover for her age, she walked across the stage in her cap and gown and got the diploma.
After that, Angel began disappearing for weeks and months at a time. She’d up and go with no real plan, seeing wherever life decided to take her. She fell in love with the quiet roar of the ocean in California. She found herself in New York, in awe that the saying was true. It really was the city that never sleeps. She did some unspeakable things for her first taste of cocaine in Texas. And every now and then, when he crossed her mind, she’d call Finn and let him know she was still alive. In the times in between when she’d find herself back in Bradford Springs, she’d be a little thinner, a little more tired, a lot more covered in stick n poke tattoos she collected like souvenirs, but she’d always be happy to see her big brother.
And then she woke up, 22 years old, in a hospital bed in New Mexico with no recollection of how she’d gotten there. She blinked a few times, eyes adjusting to the sterile light. She finally saw him, Finn, sitting in the corner of the room. Without having to say a word, Angel knew. She knew. Her friend made the call, back when she was unsure if the overdose would kill Angel or not. Clearly, it hadn’t, but seeing the tired disappointment on Finn’s face, she wished it had.
When he dragged her back to Bradford Springs, she didn’t fuss or fight. Angel surrendered peacefully, albeit defeatedly. However, she wanted one thing to be clear. She wasn’t getting clean, had no intention to, and felt no need to lie to Finn about it. She would, on the other hand, be more careful. It’s been almost two years since then, almost two years since she’s been back in town permanently. Working as a bartender at Restricted Access Cabaret, ironically, is the easiest and safest bet, because at least there, someone can keep an eye on her and report back to her brother if need be. But she doesn’t need it. She’s being good, or at least she’s trying.
