Chasing Chaos

2009

The first thing Gracie said when she saw me was “Fuckin’ hell, Anna, yeh look like death!”

I slid into the passenger seat of her car with tired eyes. We were headed south for the Reading festival. We had intended to have an adventure but I hadn’t slept in two days, not wholly; the prospect of adventure didn’t sound appetizing. I’d been wandering in and out of lucidity since I’d last seen Oli. “Thanks?” I mumbled.

“What's wrong with yeh?”

“Jus’ tired is all,” I said.

“Uh huh, yeah, right.” Gracie didn’t believe me for a moment.

“No, honestly, I’ve been packin’ boxes for days. I’m goin’ back home on Monday.” I told her this, knowing very well she knew when I was moving.

“Wha’s this home business? Yeh are home, Annie. Sheff’s yer home,” she said this as if it were simple to just pick a place. Or a person.

“I still got a year before I ‘ave to decide that,” I said. “Two terms and then I’ll choose.” With this idea, I felt further exhausted. These decisions felt very heavy.

“Yeh really still wanna work in law? Yeh still followin’ yer parents commands?”

“I don’t follow their commands,” I quickly quipped. “I do want to do law. Why can’t anyone believe that when I say it?”

“Because yeh’re talented and beautiful and unique and fabulous. Yeh’d be squandering yer Anna-ness ef yeh sat at a desk wearing boring clothes everyday and ‘aving to cut yer crazy hair to be professional.” She reached out and touched my long wild hair. “And then yeh’ll start watching X Factor and other reality television like the bloody mindless drones an’ yeh’ll be a terrible bore.” She said it in a good humored way but it felt very weighty when she actualized it. I was feeling very overwhelmed suddenly and I couldn’t manage to keep it together any longer. I began tearing up, so I turned my face away, hiding it in my palm. I didn’t hide well; Gracie saw me very clearly and knew what was happening. I took her cleverness for granted so often. She was much more perceptive than her persona gave her credit for. Alarmed by my state, she said “I were only kiddin’, babe! Teasin’ yeh—Anna? Anna, are—“

I tried so hard to play it cool. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to know what was going on in my head. But I needed to tell someone before I disintegrated. “Gracie…”

“What is it?” She tried to maintain focus on the road.

I pushed away any tears and straightened out, going ahead with it. “Graceann,” I took a breath, long and slow. “I slept with Oliver.”

A choking sound escaped her throat before she became very silent. Her painted scarlet lips pressed together and she nodded slowly. “Like recently? Or sometime in the past?” She already knew the answer.

But I stared at the dashboard and told her “Last week.”

Still bobbing her head up and down in slow simple movements, Gracie said “Oh.”

I mirrored her motion. “Yeah.”

“Why’d yeh do that?”

“Damn, I don’t even know—it jus’ happened and I can’t get ‘im outta my system. Like ‘e’s all over me and I can’t fuckin’ sleep without thinkin’ about all this fuckin’ noise. An’ I’ll see ‘im today and I can’t fuckin’ take that. Because I can’t say no. Not anymore. Not even ef I tried. Because I want it. I want ‘im. Why? I don’t know, because I shouldn’t. Because we’ve been there and it didn’t work. Well, it did… but then it didn’t and it can’t work. I mean, really, it can’t work. Because I’m me and he’s him and Tom would—oh god, I can’t even think about all of this.” I was bursting with mania and bottled up energy. Sleep deprivation was getting the best of me.

With a sharp suddenness, Gracie laughed. It was a warm, not condescending, laugh and it made me feel very silly. “Wow, I—that’s pretty interestin’.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and she clearly was not as upset as I was. “Frankly, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”

It was my turn to pause. “Wha’d’yeh mean sooner?”

She turned her head to me with her easiest smile. Abrasive and bright as ever. “Are yeh really so thick? The boy’s ‘ad it bad for a long time.”

Still confused, I shuffled in my seat. “Eh?”

“Yeh can’t tell me yeh’ve not noticed the way ‘e looks at yeh. The ‘e’s never stopped lookin’ at yeh. Everyone knows.”

“What? Who knows what?”

“Ever since back then, back when yeh were whatever. ‘E still looks at only you when yer in the room an’ never knows what to say because yeh completely ignored ‘im up until yeh came back to Sheff.”

“I didn’t ignore ‘im!” At least, I was pretty sure that I hadn’t been ignoring him. Not actively anyway. But I was also pretty sure Oli didn’t look at me in any particular way and I didn’t look at him in any particular way. There were no wistful stares in the world of Oli and Sav. There had been absolutely nothing. We were not set apart in anyway. We were practically strangers.

“Yeh did. Like ‘e didn’t even exist. An’ then yeh came home—yes, home—an’ all of a sudden I’d catch yeh talkin with ‘im at a party. Not talkin’ like friends, but like yeh were able to see ‘im again.” Gracie seemed to be rather flustered by all of this.

My mouth hung open just a little bit, enough for me to look dumbfounded and amazed. “I don’t… I don’t get it.”

Gracie rolled her eyes. “Yes, yeh do.”

I shook my head. “I swear I don’t.”

She sighed, ignoring me mostly and saying “Well, what about Peter?”

I looped a piece of hair around my finger and twirled it three or four times before explaining “I’ve not told ‘im.” I smoothed my hair back into place. “’Ow am I supposed to do that? They’ve been itchin’ to fight each other all summer. An’ God, Peter would kill ‘im. ‘E’s got fifty pounds on Oli.”

“Dunno about that. Oli don’t go down quick. ‘E fights ‘til ‘e’s fuckin’ demolished. Especially ef ‘e’s been drinkin’.”

I sighed at the thought of a conflict between Oliver and Peter. I flinched at the violence in my head. And I truly didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I wouldn’t allow anyone to be blamed but me, and I would have all anger directed at me if possible.

Gracie blinked, baffled by my struggle. “Anna, yer really torn up about this, aren’t yeh? What’s the problem ‘ere? Yeh like Oli. Not a big deal. Break up with Peter.” Her shoulders were arches back and she seemed serious enough.

“An’ then what? What about Tom?”

“What about ‘im? Tom’s the reason yeh didn’t stay with Oli in the first place, isn’t it? Ef it weren’t for Tom…”

I rushed to correct this. “No, it was never about Tom.”

“Are yeh fuckin’ serious? It were o’ways about Tom. ‘E’s the only reason why Oli’s stayed away, isn’t it? Because Oli knew wha’ were more important. ‘E knew he couldn’t ‘ave yeh without Tom’s full approval and consent. Oli wouldn’ try an’ keep yeh away from Tom. I think that really fuckin’ says somethin’ about Oli, yeh know. Yer all fuckin’ adults now, I think yeh can sort this one out pretty quick.”

I felt like she was missing a piece. Like she didn’t really understand. But there was something true in what she said. “So fuck, what do I do?”

“See wha happens with Oli?” She offered.

“Jus’ like that?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s HIM, Gracie… Oli. We can’t just, we can’t go back. After what happened—“

“What? The accident? Anna, that happened a long time ago. Yeh can’t forgive ‘im?”

I looked at her, bewildered. How could she think that. “Forgive ‘im? For the accident? I was never mad about that. No one was. It was what happened after tha’s the problem.”

“Well ‘ow were we supposed to know wha’ happened? No one knew why yeh hated Oli and how yeh and Tom got friends again. Thought it was about the accident. But it was all a big secret or something. I mean, after the accident, everything was fuckin’ different. But not really. Yeh never said anythin’ to anyone about how it all became that way…”

“Well, I jus’… didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, whatever. The point is that yeh can’t keep draggin’ up the past as some excuse. Yeh bein’ childish. Either do it or don’t. It’s not fuckin’ rocket science. I love yeh lil’ mama… but be real.”

Be real? How would I go about doing that exactly, I wondered. I didn’t know what was real. There was evidence for both sides of the argument. For: Gracie saying that he ‘had it bad’, his sincerity, the feeling in my chest. Against: The past, the repercussions. She had said it best. Do it or don’t. Was it really as simple as that?

---

2005

The passenger side of Oli’s Mum’s car had taken the brunt of the impact. The side of the car that I’d been sitting. I saw the crushed car only very briefly before I was hurried into an ambulance. The sight had seized and shocked me but the constant rapid flow of pain from my arm made it impossible to think of much. Though by the looks of the vehicle, I shouldn’t have walked away.

The exact details were unclear to me. I had only temporary moments of true consciousness throughout, only a handful of images to piece the beginning of the story together. The first sight after the impact was, of course, Oli’s eyes. Through my own burning tear lidded sight, I saw the safety of his hazel stare, asking if I was okay. He looked at me for almost a thousand years, studying me and kissing my cheeks, like he didn’t care about what happened around us, only us. Only me.

The second image was the beating flashes of blue emergency lights. I couldn’t look away from the lights when they arrived. They felt hypnotic and if I stayed focused on them, the pain seemed to almost dissipate. My first and only moment of Zen.

Then I was in an ambulance, crisp and clean and white. And terrifying. Oli was no longer at my side. Instead there was a very serious paramedic asking me very serious questions and shining lights into my eyes. I tried to look around the vehicle but the paramedic strapped me down to the gurney, telling me I needed to hold still while he assessed my injuries. I begged him to tell me where Oli was. I’d lost track of him and I had so many questions. Was I alright? Was he alright? Was this his fault?

Clarity and vague certainty began to creep up on me at the hospital and though things were still staggering, I could finally see and hear. I realized it was probably due to the fact that the bright pain I was feeling was no longer new. I was growing accustomed to it.

I was asked more questions, like “On a scale of one to ten, how much does this hurt?” and “Have you been drinking or using any drugs tonight, love?”

“Thirteen” and “yes” were my responses. But I still had my own queries to be addressed. I reached out to the attending nurse, a middle aged bottle blond with a kind demeanor. I grabbed her wrist with my functioning hand and asked “Where is Oli?” It was the prevailing thought.

The nurse pushed my hand back to my side and with a cool smile said “Yer boyfriend’s fine.”

I went to tell her that he wasn’t my boyfriend but she had rushed away and out of the room. I was left to sit in the sectioned off hospital room, with long white curtains dividing it down the middle. It was so empty and sterile. Scary too maybe. I wondered if they’d called my parents. I itched to know where Oli was and if he was really fine or if the nurse had just been placating me. Then, in an off-handed secondary sort of way, I wondered if I was okay. I didn’t feel okay. I was swelling with sickness, nausea. Beer still sloshed in my stomach.

I turned my body the best I could and leaned over so that when I heaved a wrenching vomit, it landed on the floor and not on my lap. Though it was vaguely relieving to have done this, I was disgusted and alarmed. This was actually real life. These things weren’t supposed to just happen. Not to me. Or to him. Weren’t we young and lucky? No, just young and stupid, it seemed. Once more, I started to cry.

The nurse returned after only moments of being gone and she sighed. “Shhh, love, ‘s o’reight now. Yer o’reight. Don’t cry.”

“I-I’m sorry,” I croaked. I felt very foolish. For puking, for crying, for being there.

“No need to apologize,” she said in a smooth tone.

“Will yeh please tell me wha’s goin’ on…” I said as she began cleaning up the mess I’d made. I burned red with embarrassment and worry.

“We’re jus’ waiting for yer scans to come back before we do anything else… But I’m gonna give yeh something for the pain now… That’s a pretty nasty break yeh got there.” Her matronly voice was somehow very relaxing.

“My arm?” I asked.

“Uh huh. Looks to be the worst of it though, luckily for yeh. Paramedic said yer car was totaled.” She had cleaned up my vomit and rinsed her hands with the agility and grace of a dancer, as if these were such common steps in her routine. This nurse had seen worse and there I was, treating a broken arm like it was the end of the world. She shot something into my IV and my veins felt warm and prickly. “Morphine,” she said. “Might make yeh a little drowsy but I’m sure yeh’ll appreciate it.”

I blinked. My eyes felt dry again. “Thanks,” I said in a low willful mumble.

She smiled down at me, some sort of pity there underneath it. There was a layer of judgment, I felt. I considered her opinions as she exited the room once more. She probably knew all about Oli’s intoxication and she probably even knew something about the circumstances of the accident. She knew more than I did and that concerned me. And soured me. But after several of these allegedly profound thoughts, I was done with thinking. My mind was beginning to melt and bend with the drug she had given me.

My eyes hadn’t been closed for more than an instant before I heard “Savanna?” The voice questioned from outside of my room. I perked up, not entirely out of my morphine net but alert enough. I looked to the door with a mix of mild relief and nervous eagerness. He rounded the corner with just as much wild worry on his face as was on my own. He wore no shirt; his few tattoos dotted the pale skin of his thin body. He looked wrought and wrung out, all transparent white paper pulled so tightly across his bones that it looked as though it might rip and tear apart. He was managing to look very worn at the same time that he looked very young. Very much like the nineteen year old boy he was. “Savanna!” He jumped into my partitioned room when he caught me in his sights.

“Oli,” I replied with grogginess and a glad smile. “Oh, Oli, I were—“

“Sav, I’ve been looking for yeh. They took yeh in one ambulance ‘cause yeh looked so bad—I mean, yeh ‘ad that cut on yer head, ‘s stitched up now I guess. And it were yer side o’ the car.” He stepped closer to me, at my side in barely a moment. “An’ they brought me separate. My mum tried getting’ them to tell her but they wouldn’t.” I wanted to know how his mum was here and mine wasn’t. But he immediately stole a kiss from my mouth, distracting my thought. “Fuck, are yeh okay? What’ve they said—Sav, I’m so fuckin’ sorry. I can’t believe this. An’ the craziest thing is that I didn’t do it! It were this old bitty lady—Ran the bloody sign—“

“It weren’t yer fault?” I inquired with a quaking in my voice.

“Not technically, no. Not my fault.”

“But yeh were…”

“Drunk? Not that drunk,” he shook his head in a fast repeated whoosh. “I wouldna let yeh get in the car with me ef I thought I were wasted. I wouldn’ risk yeh like that.” With this, he kissed my dry lips again. “Not that I ain’t in trouble. Fuck though, I didn’t even try and avoid it. I coulda seen ‘er comin ef…” But he trailed off and shrugged. “I’m fuckin’ sorry though, love. I don’t know what I would do ef yeh were… ef something, I mean, uh—“

Instead of letting him struggle with apologies, I asked “Are yeh okay?”

“What? I’m fine.” He spoke with a rapid fire feel. “Knocked my head against the bloody steering wheel.” He pointed to the large bruise forming on his forehead. “But it’s nothin’. Not like those cuts on yeh.”

“What cuts?” I reached for my face. I felt a criss-cross of slashes layered across my cheeks and forehead that I hadn’t even known were there. I realized that the car window must have shattered. I hadn’t noticed. I let my hand fall back to my side; my limbs were heavy and beginning to numb.

“Damn, yer bloody doped up, ain’t yeh? What ‘ave they given yeh? Are yeh o’reight?” He still chattered with an anxious speed about him. Adrenaline or excitement.

“Oh, uh… I’m o’reight, yeah.”

“Aye? Yer safe an’ sound?”

“My arm’s broken.” I offered this piece of information in a bout of confusion. I didn’t know much besides that, except that the break was ‘nasty’.

“Fuck, really?” He looked to the arm that I was babying against my chest. “Damnit, Sav,” was all he could say. He swept more kisses along my gash-littered forehead.

Something about this, about the whole room felt very surreal. It was broken into fragments and we were not a part of it. We existed outside of it, not a part of anything but ourselves. We were a unit. Oli and Sav. Us. And it felt as thought we were pitted against everything else. Why didn’t anyone understand us as a unit, us together? We seemed like an impossible question to answer. But we weren’t. It was so simple and I saw it through the veil of morphine. He pulled me from myself, pushed me into the world, allowed me to explore. I accepted his faults, ran with them, enjoyed them.

Our harmonic moment was brief because the scene was discovered. “Jesus, Ol, there yeh are,” a tired Tom said to Oli’s back. “Yeh can’t jus’ wander off outta yer—Anna,” he inhaled harshly when he saw me.

“No one would bloody tell me ef she was okay.” Oli defended his actions with haughty pride.
Tom didn’t respond to his brother right away. He stared at me and I was relieved in that he didn’t look angry. He looked scared. Like he was standing at the edge of a very steep cliff and being asked to jump. However, within an instant, he was washed with young rage. But it was not directed at me. It was aimed at Oli. “What the fuck, Oliver. Look at ‘er! Look wha’ yeh’ve done.”

“But I—“ he made to protest.

“She looks right mangled—God, yeh coulda killed ‘er.” It seemed that he had some serious concern left for me and I felt hot with morphine and meandering. Was it wrong that I was glad to see Tom so angry at his brother? Maybe. But I felt near euphoria. My mind sang an old familiar tune. Tom, Tom, Tom. Come back. Come back.

“Piss off, Thomas. Like I don’t fuckin’ know that, yeh prat.” Oli faced his brother. They were both standing proud and puff-chested. If I hadn’t been so high, I would have tried to intervene.

“Oh don’t act so indignant, Oli,” Tom said. “How can yeh—I mean, fuck.” Tom’s anger was justified in some way, wasn’t it? “Yeh think yeh can drag my best mate around to all lengths and not ‘ave something bad happen.”

“Well, yeh ‘aven’t been much o’ a best mate.” Oli said this and I thought it. But it was low of Oli to say. Even then.

Tom was speechless a moment before picking up with “This ain’t about me.”

“Are yeh daft? Everythin’s about yeh for her. Don’t yeh—“

“What’s going on ‘ere?” My nurse had returned, escorting my mother and father, both looking as if someone had glued their eyelids to their brows. “Yeh can’t be in ‘ere. Family only.” The nurse instructed them.

“We were jus’ leavin’,” Tom said curtly, shooting me a peculiar look. Not angry but not happy.

Oli too looked at me, giving a reluctant wave as he left.

“Anna,” my Mum began with her pointed tongue. “We didn’t even know yeh were gone. But goddamn, I’ve been waitin’ for this. Waitin’ all summer for the call sayin’ yeh’ve gone and gotten into trouble. Jus’ like yer brother. An’ ‘ere yeh bloody are.”

Never once during her continued tirade did she ask if I was okay.