What We Used To Know

The phone was ringing too early in the morning for Addie’s taste, calling her into the kitchen where the phone was. She slowly untangled herself from Oliver’s arms, then the sheets, walking over the cold hardwood floors to the phone that wouldn’t be silenced. Her heart raced as she looked at the caller ID though, the name of a hospital displayed. It had been about a month since her visit to the doctor, and still no results. She prayed that this was it.

The American accent on the other end let her down though.

“Hello, is this Adelaide Kaston?” the woman on the other end asked, her voice calm and collected, but Addie had a sense this phone call was going to be anything but.

“Yes,” Addie answered back timidly, scared of what was going on. She never got calls from the states, save from her mother or sometimes Dee, but they never called the home phone.

“And your mother is Caroline Kaston?”

“Yes,” she repeated, nervous now about what happened. She had just spoken to her mother three days ago.

“I’m afraid to say that your mother was in a car accident, and is now being held in our ICU at the Legacy Hospital,” she said, worry in her voice as she spoke to Addie.

“W-what?” Addie spoke in disbelief, not even knowing when or how this happened. Her mother should be fine, they just spoke on the phone!

“It happened just last night, and she has already slipped into a coma. We were ordered to notify you, and I suggest you come out to see her as soon as possible. There may not be much time left, due to the severity of her injuries and the rate at which she’s rapidly declining.”

Silent tears were leaking out of Addie’s eyes one by one as the woman from the hospital described what was going on. Tragedy had a way of striking Addie at the worst times.

Her shoulders were shaking as she pulled herself back together in order to bid the hospital worker goodbye and hang up the phone. Stress was already working away on her, eating away at her mind. She had only one thing to do, and that was fly back to the States as soon as possible. Her mother was in danger, and her mother was all she had left, save for Oliver.

But even after last night, there were no guarantees that she would always have him.

Addie flew into their bedroom, not even caring that it was only eight in the morning to begin looking for her suitcase. She went through the closet, tossing around various other bags and duffels (most of which belonged to Oliver) in order to find the one that she used to bring most of her things over here. She grabbed it and flung it onto the bed, jarring the already half-awake Oliver into complete awareness.

“Addie love, what the fu--” he looked at her sharply now that he was registering what she was doing. His heart was racing to the point of stopping as he watched her shovel clothing into her suitcase. The only thing he could think about for a split-second was that she was leaving him. He was only able to think that somehow she got fed up, and was leaving him now. It was the only reasonable explanation for the tears streaming down her face, and the force at which she hurled her clothes into the suitcase.

“Addie please, don’t go. What’s goin’ on?” he questioned intently, a mix of begging her to stay, and trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

Her eyes flicked up to his, then quickly away while she ran into their bathroom to grab her things from the shower.

“My mom got in a car wreck last night, and she’s in a coma as of now,” she said flatly to him, trying not to choke on her words while more tears continued to pour from her eyes.

Oliver was in shock, not knowing what to say. It was utterly cruel for him to think, but he was relieved she wasn’t leaving him, like he had originally thought. But after watching Addie for a moment more, his heart broke, because he could see how shattered Addie already was over this. If she hurt, then Oliver hurt, too.

“I don’t know if you want to come, but I’m catching the next plane out of here to go home. I need to be with her,” she said sharply, not caring either way whether Oliver went with her or not. This was something she needed to do, and she would go alone in a heartbeat if she could be closer to her mother, sooner.

Oliver was still trying to fit all of the information into his mind at this hour of the morning. He tried to connect the dots. Addie was leaving soon, and he had no idea if or when she would be coming back. The most logical answer was of course to go with her, but it was still hard to register that she would be gone, and her mother was in a coma.

“I’m going with you,” he said, trying to be strong in his voice to show Addie that he could be there for her. The times of regretting being the strong one in the relationship were going to be overruled now as he tried to keep everything together. If he could keep himself together for Addie, then he could show her that everything would be alright. That’s what she needed, was someone to show her things would be okay, because she was the farthest thing from that right now.

***

The plane they caught left just hours after Addie got the news about her mother, allowing them to get closer to her in as little time as possible. The entire flight Addie was shaking, scared of what would happen once she got there. The only thing she could think of was that she was away when her mother needed her.

Oliver tried to comfort her. He didn’t say a word, just keeping her close to him was the best he could do, and it worked better than he thought. They fit into each other closely, leaning on each other as if their life depended on it. Addie needed him more than anything, because he was the only thing she had left now.

The only thing Oliver could do was be there for Addie, since he hadn’t been for the past month of touring. It was time to start making up for his actions. The only regret he had was that the all of his making up for the past was at the expense of Addie. He hated knowing that the reason why he was doing all of this, going above and beyond now to be there for her, was because her life had just shattered and he was trying to make her “feel better.”

Walking into her mother’s house was like bricks hitting Addie. Everything looked dusty, the entire place feeling desolate and empty. It wasn’t only the absence of her mother that was off-putting to Addie, it was the look of it now that she was returning for the first time in a few months. It had never looked - or felt - this empty. This home was always just that, a home. Now it felt like nothing more than walls and a roof, with furniture underneath to make it appear like life was there. But there was no life here.

And Addie had a fair guess that there hadn’t been any life in here since she lived in Illinois with her mother.

She knew moving away would be a bad thing for Caroline.

Look where it got her: alone in this house, in this country without her daughter, and now she was alone in a coma.

Addie led Oliver up to her old room, where they would be staying. Walking up the stairs of this house was so familiar, but it felt like she was doing it for the first time again knowing the reason she was here. She hoped that her mother would wake up soon, just so that Addie would know she would be alright. She hated being here, not knowing what was wrong with her mother, and not even knowing what was wrong with herself.

Addie’s family was slipping away through her fingers quicker than she could have ever imagined, and it was more painful to know that she herself was slipping away, and it all was happening without an explanation.

Oliver dropped their bags onto Addie’s old bed, the very same one she had slept in since she was in high school. It felt weird for her to be back here, where she started (the second time around), with someone who she had known for years. It was her two lives converging into one now, the past life and the present colliding into one.

Oliver looked around at the walls, pictures of Addie growing up without him pasted up here and there. Everything in the room made him miss everything he never got to experience with her. He lost her for the greater part of his life, and seeing her during those years in these pictures made him jealous of the people who got to spend that time with her, while he had to accept that friends leave, and sometimes they don’t come back.

But he got lucky, and she found her way back into his life.

And then all was well.

Until now.

Addie watched Oliver with tired eyes as he looked around. He seemed so absorbed in her room, trying to take in all of the things he wished he could have taken part in with her.

“I’m, I’m going to go downstairs for some fresh air,” she warned softly, so that when he came back to reality he wouldn’t be worried that she disappeared on him. That seemed to be a habit of Addie’s though.

“Okay,” he said mindlessly, nodding as he sat down on her bed. Seeing the room she grew up in--without him--was some sort of detonator in his mind, setting off mental bombs left and right. If he lost her then and she came back, that was fate. But now he was nearly walking out of her life when he ignored her for days on end during tour. He was a terrible, terrible boyfriend at the moment. He willingly forgot about her for those weeks, because he wanted to.

All of this realization was crashing down on him now, screaming at him how much he had done wrong in the past month. He had left her. Oliver left Addie waiting, wondering if she’d get a phone call, or even if he’d be coming home.

Oliver did not want to lose Addie again. Once was already enough, and he knew that if he kept up these habits of drinking and neglecting her, she’d be gone again.

And maybe there really wouldn’t be a second time around then.

Addie was sitting on the patio, not caring if there was snow on the ground, and that the weather was less than accommodating. Outside there was still barely enough room to contain how she felt right now, but it was the closest thing she could find to relief. The air was cold enough to numb her lungs, but not cold enough to numb her emotions. She wanted to sit outside and cry for hours until she couldn’t anymore, but she was scared that if she let the first tear fall, it would never stop. She ached to be there for her mother, to have been there for her mother all along. And leaving her was wrong. But being with Oliver was so right.

It was a battle within her trying to decide whether leaving her mother was the right decision.

“It’s not like this wouldn’t have happened if I stayed here,” she muttered, curling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The one knee was of course sore as always, but it’s not like she could feel a thing on her body at this point. The only pain she could endure now was the emotional kind, the inescapable pain.

She heard a noise, a rustle in the snow building up on the patio and on the grass. A cat slinked over to her across the patio, making hardly a sound. Its eyes were a piercing blue, something that Addie would compare to the sky during the summer when it wasn’t cloudy. The cat moved closer, wandering around Addie in a circle before pausing in front of her.

“Everything’s just my fault, isn’t it, cat?” Addie spoke softly, extending a hand out to the furry white creature who looked at her intently. She could see her reflection in its eyes. It moved closer, rubbing against her leg in the weird way cats do when they want attention.

“And who do you belong to?” Addie couldn’t remember if any of the neighbors had cats or not, but since she hadn’t lived there since high school, it was likely this larger-than-average cat with a poofy tail belonged to someone around here.

It meowed, and Addie kept petting it. She sat there in the snow with that cat, petting it and watching it dance around her legs. Any hold on time was lost as she sat there, her skin burning red from the cold, but she still couldn’t feel a thing. And Oliver got worried when he didn’t hear her come inside, stepping quietly down the stairs of the unfamiliar house. He could see her through the sliding glass doors, sitting in the snow with a cat he knew didn’t belong to Addie’s mom. He watched for a moment as she sat there, looking straight ahead as the cat rubbed against her. And he knew that Addie was a very broken, fragile person who was just getting it together until Oliver got to her. Slowly, she broke down piece by piece, trying to hold herself together while Oliver wasn’t there to be strong for her. And then something like this happened, and it all fell apart.

And suddenly Oliver wished he could have been a better person.