Twenty-eight – Oliver

There were several pills in my hand. Around 20 I would assume. Now there's bile everywhere.

It didn't kill me.

My whole body is shaking from adrenaline. I don't remember falling asleep. I can't remember. I don't want to remember. And the only thing holding me together now is pure will to live.

My room is dark. The house is quiet but my mind humming, working harder than it has ever before. I shuffle myself so I'm sitting up and try to listen and see if my mum is home, but there's no noise. She must have left. I really don't have the luxury of caring right now. I need to get out. I'm so goddamn stupid.

I shove my fingers down my throat and heave one more time. The pain is intolerable. I can feel it from my toenails to my scalp. The bruising, the cuts, the irritation and acidic burning.

The pure fear coursing through my body tells me I need to move. Everyone talks about the calm before the storm but never the other way around. The chaos before the long, cold, quiet. I move on pure instinct, pushing myself off my bed, straight onto my leg. Even the pain slowly burns out into a numbness as my body fights to stay alive. Stomping and stumbling across the room I catch myself on the door handle. I'm not scared of making noise. Even if she showed up now, that means the door would be unlocked. I jiggle it frantically. And it spins but still wont open.

It's the latch that's locked. I know the latch is small, it's barely above the handle. Surely it would give out. I take a rough step back and try to slam myself against the door. I try again. I bite through the pain. Again. Again. Again.

I can't hear anything over the ringing. I'm already fighting for consciousness watching my vision fade in and out. I slam my fists on the door as frustrated tears swell on my waterline. I land awkwardly on my leg and slump to the floor. "DAD! DAD PLEASE!" I sob, "I DON'T WANT TO DIE... I'M SORRY! I'm sorry okay? I can't do this anymore. I'm going to die..."

I know he isn't there. I need someone. I need the Dad that picked me up whenever I fell. The Dad who protected me as much as he could. I need to be stronger. Even if I can't be. Something needs to be stronger. I need to get this door down. I need to throw something at it. Furniture.

I struggle to my feet, moving across the room. The lightest item I can see is my bedside lamp. I grab it with both hands, yanking the cord out and poising it above my head. I throw it and it hits the door. The lightbulb smashes sending glass across the floorboards. The lampshade clatters across the floor.

I fight a dizzy spell, trying to stay upright, as the noise of the break hits my splitting headache. My chair. I need to try my chair. I force myself towards it. Snatching the back of the chair, dragging it behind me, I face the door. I can barely hold myself up. I can barely even see. My body is cold. My hands are pale. I try to pick the chair up... and fail. A stray piece of glass pricks my foot as I over-correct my stance.

Please.

I go to lift again. Ripping my shoulders and swinging it towards the door. Nothing. Again. I pull it further back. Throwing it harder and further. No! Nothing. Tears cloud my vision. I do my best to haul it again and it barely even hits the door. It bounces off the door handle. The loose door handle. The handle is loose. I grab the chair again, full of strength and crack it over the door handle one last time. The gold fixing falls to the floor.

I rush over and push the other side of the handle out, stumbling over glass. I can't feel anything but my pulse, but I guess that's a good sign. I see blood on the floor in my peripheral as I drop to my knees, desperately reaching through the hole for the latch. I scrape my nails across the painted wood, grasping to feel the cold hard latch. Please.

My finger scratches across the metal. I can barely feel anything my fingertips are touching. My hands are almost completely blue. A latch. The lock. There's no padlock. I force my fingers across it, hoping to catch on the right spot.

Desperate seconds, minutes. I don't care how long it was. But I hear it.

Click.

I put my full force against the door and fall out of my room, into the hallway wall. My brain is on fire. My chest is screaming. I keep going. Running to the front door. I jumble with the lock and fling it open.

I'm out.

I need to go. I need help.

I rush away from the house. The car is gone. The neighbours car is gone. I don't trust this street. I head straight for an alley. Cutting across one alley. Then two, before I realise where I'm going. Down the path to the station. To the Middle. Officers.

I can't think but my body doesn't care. I push myself as hard as I can. My chest hurts. My body stops on me and I collapse, throwing myself to the bitumen and heaving. Sobbing. What is happening to me.

I just got out and now I'm dying?

My vision goes black.

No.

No.

No, no, no, no...

It all fades in and out. All I can see are the orange streetlights blinding me overhead, contrasting against the night. My pulse is in my head. I have a pulse. Dead people don't have pulses. I get hit wave by wave of pain and numbness. Cradling myself in the middle of the road.

As soon as I can see again I move. The sky is darker, like it's endless. This all feels endless. It feels like I was meant to rot in that room but I defied my fate and now I'll have to spend eternity running away from it. All I want to do is move and keep moving. I don't know where I am. I need to be anywhere but here. I seem to lose myself, while I try so hard to stay upright and ignore the pain, and forget everything around me. It's a shuffling sound in the dark that wakes me from my daze. I scan the area to try and locate where the noise came from. I just really hope it's not trouble. There's more shuffling and I see a dark figure move around twenty meters in front of me.

I freeze. I can't move. What do I do. What am I doing? I need help. My chest hits me again and I spill over coughing and retching.

"Help..." I try but it barely comes out as a croak. It wont hear me.

Now that help is standing right in front of me I can't do anything. Help? I don't even know if they will help me. Most people would take me back to my coffin. I fold over grasping at my chest, coughing more than I ever have as my vision goes dark. The noise stops. Maybe I cant hear anything. I try to look up. Everything's black. I can taste thick, irony blood in my mouth. Has the person seen me? Will they stop?

Stop. Please stop. "Stop... stop."

Then there's a voice that I hear as clear as day... and my heart stops. My body stops dead in its tracks. My breathing stops. Time itself stops. Everything stops.

There's no way.

Everything starts again. I look around desperately. "Calvin?"

I can't hear. I can't see. I don't know if time has stopped or if nothing happens in the next few seconds. The breeze stopped, my heart stopped… everything's so static.

The figure grabs my shoulders, "…Oliver."

Now everything is burning. My eyes burn. My lungs burn. My leg burns. My face burns. My chest burns. My whole world burns…

Time doesn't know what to do. I don't know what to do.

He envelopes me in a hug. He doesn't question anything. He just hugs me. I press my face into his shirt and hug him back, ignoring all the pain.

I can't help but cry. I don't know if it's out of relief or pain but either way, I can't stop. I sob into Calvin's chest, shaking and heaving. He's crying too. His warm tears stream down his face and onto my shirt. I collapse into him as he drops to the road with me, still embracing each other. We stay there. Holding each other. Not letting our grip loosen. No one says anything. We don't have to. We just stay there.

I don't know how long we were there or how much I cried, but Calvin stayed with me.

He takes a deep breath in. "I was so far away from you... that I didn't feel like me," he says in a shaky whisper.