What We Used To Know

Addie stared at Oliver in shock after he whispered those three words she never dreamed of hearing from him - at least not so soon. She was blinking rapidly, not knowing what the hell to say and feeling like she was about to shut down completely from shock. Oliver just stared right back at her, too, somehow knowing only now was it probably a bad idea to give in to his biggest fear and let it take him over.

Addie just wrapped her arms around him, squeezing her eyes closed and holding him close, words failing her. Her leg was bothering her again as she clung to him, but just breathing in his scent was like a painkiller, keeping her mind occupied with what had just happened. She wanted to stay like this forever, and never ever forget how it felt to hear him say those words.

“I-I think…” Addie tried to start off, not knowing how to go about returning the I love you. This was completely new territory to her. The three words were caught in her throat, fighting to get out, but they were being pushed down by some other force. “I’m in love with you, too.”

Oliver only grinned upon hearing Addie say those words, knowing now what it felt like to really be complete, to really have found the one person you’re supposed to be with. It was like ecstasy, but this feeling could have lasted his entire life, should he spend the rest of his days with Addie. This was really living, he thought. This is what life is supposed to feel like, and he was finally getting his taste of it.

“I think we should get out of here,” he mumbled against the side of Addie’s head. Her hair was even starting to frost from the snow that had just begun to fall lightly, making them break out into goosebumps while they held each other.

“T-that’s a good idea,” Addie said, stuttering from the way her teeth were chattering in the cold, a laugh slipping through her lips as she tried to control her jaw.

They waddled back into Matt’s house, making their way through all of the people who were now clinging to each other to prevent themselves from falling over. Oliver nodded a goodbye to the Matt’s who were both still in the kitchen, only now each of them had a girl on their arm. Both of them smiled at Addie and Oliver, not having a clue of what had just happened between them, but they were too drunk to care.

In the car both Oliver and Addie smiled the entire way home, too happy to even think about anything else than the way it felt to hear the other say ‘I love you’. After nearly a year of knowing each other, they came out and said it. This was both of their biggest fears, overcoming them and taking them over, making them give into the emotion that they had become so scared of. It was the temporary bliss they were caught up in that made them question why they had been so scared to admit it, to even think it. But once they came down, they’d have to think about it again, soon enough realizing why it had always been so scary.

Their secret was that they had been falling in love with each other since the moment they met (the second time around), and their fear was that they would give in and fall in love, not being able to do a thing about it. Their reality was that suddenly nothing else mattered but the person they loved, and that their fears obviously hadn’t been enough to restrict them from falling in love.

In just a few moments, everything in the world was right, and the both of them were convinced that nothing could ever happen to make a thing go wrong again. But that wasn’t about to hold true, not when Addie would give into vulnerability when Oliver left, more doubts setting in just like the last time she had been without him. But those thoughts weren’t to come until later; for now, they were secret smiles and secret giggles as they walked to their flat from the car, hands bumping into each other as they walked through the snow.

Oliver fumbled to unlock the door, his hands a bit frozen from the walk to the hallway from the car park. The key felt like ice in his long fingers, struggling to actually get it into the lock before turning, while having Addie stare up at him with big eyes. She felt a wave of seriousness come over her now that they had been deemed ‘in love’. She felt like this was the best thing to ever happen to her, but it put a whole new spin on their relationship. It wasn’t all ‘carefree’ and ‘let’s hope we don’t get hurt’ anymore, now it was ‘we’re in love, and I never want to lose you.’ Part of this scared her, and part of it made her question how in the hell she even managed to last this long with Oliver in the first place.

It was probably the fact that they didn’t take it very seriously for quite some time, not until Addie lost her virginity and later on moved to England. That’s when it started changing, and they knew that this wasn’t going to be something they could sweep under the rug should it go sour, like they would have been able to with any other past relationship. This was here to stay, and the memories would never fade.

They made it inside, Addie instantly heading into the kitchen to brew a steaming cup of hot cocoa while Oliver slipped his shoes and jacket off, dropping the keys loudly on the island in the kitchen. The metal made a loud noise when coming into contact with the stone of the countertop. Addie was busy microwaving the water, sliding her shoes off and setting them next to Oliver’s in the closet, her jacket hanging nicely besides his.

She smiled a little, the image of the closet burning into her memory. It had looked this way since the day she arrived; her pair of shoes lined up next to Oliver’s, her jacket hanging right beside his. This was how it had always looked, just Addie and Oliver, together, lost in the sea of mess that was the rest of the world. Or in this case, all of the junk that Oliver hid in his closet.

Her cocoa was almost done now, Oliver heading into the living room to get comfortable on the couch while Addie was walking over to join him. She knew that there was probably some talking to do; if not, there was some serious bedroom action to be done. She grinned devilishly as she slid over the smooth wooden floors, trying not to spill the contents of her cup.

“Y-you know when you asked me about my biggest fear?” Oliver suddenly said, situating himself down on the couch in the dim light. He sank into the cushions, rubbing his hands over his face and sweeping the hair out of his eyes. Addie set her green mug of hot chocolate down on the coffee table, before sitting down on the couch, turning so she was facing him. She kept her knee straight for it was still aching and throbbing.

“Yeah?” she replied, not sure where he was going.

“An’ I said that death were my biggest fear?”

“Yeah,” she said again, still wondering what was going on.

“Well, that’s one of ‘em. But there’s a bigger one,” he started, not exactly sure himself where he was taking this.

“Okay,” Addie said, giving Oliver a hard look that told him to just spit it out.

“Well, I’m sort of really, really scared of fallin’ in love,” he breathed, finally admitting the secret he’d never told a soul. No one knew how much it scared him to be in love with someone else. It was a rare feeling he tried to avoid, because of how much damage it was able to cause. This time though, he was still scared as hell, but he didn’t care. He suddenly couldn’t imagine doing anything but loving Addie. He was willing to be scared and tremble throughout their relationship, now admitting to himself that this best experience of his life - being with Addie - was also the most terrifying.

“Does that mean you’re afraid of me?” Addie asked with an innocent look on her face, smiling a tiny smile with that gleam in her eyes that got Oliver every single time.

“I guess I should say I was really, really scared of fallin’ in love,” he corrected, smiling and looking at her with tired eyes. He moved over on the couch a few inches to lean into her, not even having to think while their bodies just form-fitted to each other.

“I am, too,” Addie whispered, her voice at a level that Oliver could barely hear, but still managed to make the words out.

“Well then aren’t we just a fit pair?” he joked, laughing as Addie chuckled with him, his arms soon around her and holding her close.

“I guess so,” Addie said lightly, knowing now that this was probably true. She wondered if Oliver had ever known how scared she really was, and how scared she still is. She hoped he could pick up on it enough to prevent her from actually having to say it aloud and admit to it. Maybe if they could just continue to skate by without ever talking about serious stuff like this, they could make it.

“Do you ever get the feeling like we’re not meant to be together?” she asked, her voice sounding too shrill for the silence between them.

This felt like the exact same situation Oliver had been in just over a month ago.

“H-have you ever, have you ever… doubted us?” Addie asked, stuttering over her words as she shoved them out, the words getting tangled into each other as she tried to keep them separate.

Oliver wasn’t sure how to answer it. Should he be truthful and say he has? That the times they were apart for so long made him question whether it was worth it? That there were more nights than not he depended on some sort of substance just to forget about it all? That on too many occasions, he realized he was far too attached, and that nipping it in the bud would have been less painful than falling in love with Addie?

They just looked at each other, Oliver having to resist asking the same question back to his girlfriend. Their eyes said it all, though. Both of them had doubted their own relationship more times than they could count, and they both knew it now, without even having to say it. All Addie wanted to do was stop having these doubts. She wanted to be sure that what she was doing was right, that she wasn’t wasting her time and only setting herself up for painful failure.

He truly wondered if the situation would just repeat itself, and he would only have to do the exact same thing he did last time. Because last time, it had a good ending. This time, he was scared of admitting to the truth and having something bad come from it, like how it only can when you admit to your girlfriend that you have felt like you’re not meant to be together.

His eyes searched for hers, finding them in the dim light. Oliver just looked at her, taking in her beauty now as he tried hard to convince himself that he should just lie and say he thinks that they were always meant to be together.

That feeling of them not being meant for each other had been yet a distant thought in each of their minds since Addie had moved in. That was a thought that hadn’t plagued them in nearly a month, pressed and sealed in the back of their minds to be forgotten about. But that was only while they were with each other. The second Oliver was gone, those thoughts would be creeping up on Addie like shadows in the night.

“Addie, if we weren’t meant to be together, then why were we brought together?” he asked, hoping his answer was going to be the right one. In all those times, this thought had occurred to him often, easing the pain of knowing that their lives were going in separate directions - pulling them apart.

“Is that really what you think?” Addie questioned, not sounding skeptical, but thoughtful.

“Well, that’s what I try to think. I mean, it’s hard when…”

“We’re away from each other. When you’re off going in one direction, and I’m stationary. When you’re alone at night. When I’m sitting there during the day wondering where you are.” Addie finished for him, saying all of the things she had felt when away from Oliver, when she honestly felt that they were not supposed to be dating, or even friends.

Oliver nodded, his eyes darkening with emotion. She had said everything he wanted to, but was never going to be able to.

“I’m scared of something bad happening, Addie,” Oliver murmured, burying his face in her hair to avoid having to look in her eyes.

“Like what?”

“Like, this could all go to crap and we could end up miserable. This could maybe not work out, and we’ll have lost everything. That’s what I’m scared of.”

“I guess I am, too. I guess I just don’t want this to…” Be a waste.

“Be a waste?” Oliver finished, reading Addie’s mind as he hid from her gaze. He felt her nod, kissing her neck. “I know, Addie, I know. I get like that a lot. I guess, I’m fucking scared of finally falling in love, but all I can think about is what’s going to happen if it doesn’t work out?”

What if the unthinkable happened? What if a tragedy happened, forever separating them and impeding their love for one another. Oliver would never, ever admit this - at least not for a long, long time - but he believed that when he loved someone, he would love them relentlessly for the rest of his life. And if life was what came between loving him and someone else, what was the point of loving them in the first place? Thus, death becomes that fear directly linked to love.

Addie felt like he was speaking the words directly from her mind, and it almost made her nervous to know that the only other person in this relationship felt the exact same ways as she did. Who was going to be the strong one and convince the other that this was all worth it? Oliver decided he was going to be responsible, but did this mean he was going to be the one reassuring Addie when she got nervous and questioned everything that was right in front of her?

So this time, she decided to step up and hope for the best. “It’s better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, right?”

“I always hated that sayin’,” Oliver said, smiling against Addie’s neck as he kissed her again, knowing still that what she said was entirely true. He would always believe with his entire being that he was truly blessed to have Addie, and loving her wasn’t comparable to any other experience in the world. He was blessed to have found this, even if someday it might not be here anymore. And he would entirely agree that even if he should lose something like this, it was better than never loving her at all.