What We Used To Know

Oliver brushed off Addie’s attitude during the days they spent lounging around the house. She was quick to snap and even quicker to altogether walk away from Oliver, taking Coco outside and sitting on the snowy patio. He knew she was hurting. She was shattered. Stress was eating at both of them, and it just happened to get the worst of Addie.

Everything about Springfield suddenly made Oliver want to go back home. He wanted to be where it was familiar and comfortable. Where the news of Addie’s mother hadn’t happened yet, and Addie herself was doing alright. If only they could go back in time. What he would do, what he would change. Ironically they were all the things about himself that he would change.

He would have called. He would have sent her text messages and pictures of things that reminded him of her. Everything just went crap, and he hated that when he was touring wasn’t even the worst of it. The days he tried to get through now were the worst of it.

He had to watch Addie float through the day, beside herself, not knowing what to do. She wanted to buck up and just make the best of what she had now, but it was so hard when she had so much pain. All she wanted was just some time to put everything back together, but there wasn’t anymore of that. She just needed some time to piece back together her now-failing relationship with Oliver. In just two weeks of them arriving, learning of Addie’s cancer, things were falling apart. After the day they admitted how much they loved each other, their rollercoaster love took them on yet another downhill ride.

Oliver was toasting a bagel in the kitchen, waiting for it to spring up from the toaster. Addie sat at the kitchen table, Coco rubbing against her leg while she was writing something down on a piece of paper. She wouldn’t let Oliver see, moving it out of his view when he came to the table to ask if she wanted anything to eat.

As the answer had been for the past two weeks in Springfield, she said no. Oliver hadn’t seen her take hardly more than a bite of anything during their stay so far. He was worried. Utterly more worried than he had been when he found out what was wrong with her, if that was possible.

And the only thing he could do was brush it off, and know that Addie wasn’t going to do anything unless she wanted to. She was stubborn; forcing her to eat would be pointless. So he tried to make the bagel look much more glorious than it was in an attempt to get her to ask him to make one for her.

“Guess how many days until the Sufjan concert,” he said around a mouth full of blueberry bagel. Yes, he was counting down the days to this, convinced they would be seeing that show. Addie had to see it. And Oliver had convinced himself that Addie would make it till then; she would make it far past then. She would want to see it badly enough to stick around till then, right?

“Hmm?” She made a noise, looking up from whatever she was writing with blurry eyes. Addie had been too immersed in what she was doing to have clearly heard him, her brain cluttered with lack of sleep and too many thoughts bouncing around in her head.

“The Sufjan Stevens concert,” he said, going over it like she had never heard of this. “You know, the tickets I bough you for Christmas…”

“Of course I remember!” she said, correcting for her lack of paying attention. Her voice didn’t sound as reassuring though. It was muddled and heavy, and it had been growing less and less like how she used to sound every day.

“Well, there’s only like, a month until we get to go see him, here.” Oliver himself was probably more excited for this than Addie was. He wanted so badly to be able to see this with her, because he knew how badly she wanted to see it. Or how badly she had wanted to see it. She didn’t hold much of an interest in anything these past two weeks they had been there.

The case in point was Valentine’s Day, as it had turned out to be rather painful for Oliver. Addie wasn’t having a good day that day, as most of the days had been bad ones. They ended up getting into a fight over absolutely nothing when Oliver wanted to take her out for dinner. She screamed about not wanting to eat anything, getting overemotional for no reason at all. Oliver watched her that night as she cried, and he tried to comfort her in the best way he knew how. But she pushed him away, as per usual, and went to sit on that patio with the cat.

Oliver was getting pretty sick of both the patio and the cat at this point. They both got more attention than he did now, and one of them was completely inanimate.

“Oh. Really? I can’t believe it’s coming up so fast,” she said softly, trailing off and looking towards the paper Oliver wasn’t allowed to see.

He wanted to reach out and place his hand over hers, to hold her hand and tell her that she had to stay, that she had to fight this and not give up. Oliver wouldn’t be able to handle it; Addie knew this. Neither of them liked how things were going. But he couldn’t even hold her anymore. Somehow that made this all entirely more unbearable than it already was.

These days Oliver hardly touched Addie. They rarely talked now, muttering about a few things when they were laying in bed. But Addie didn’t sleep anymore. Oliver would stay up and watch in the dark as her eyes never closed. He watched in the dark when she would get up after laying there for an hour or two, and he’d hear her shuffle about downstairs, occasionally going outside. He wanted so badly to hold her. To try and tell her everything would be okay. To persuade her to visit her mother.

Nothing worked anymore. Leaks were springing up in their relationship faster than they ever had before. And this time there wouldn’t be any emotional talks or confessions to help seal it back together. This love wasn’t what it used to be. Addie was distancing herself from Oliver.

And they both were scared of the reason for it all.

She was trying to make it less painful for when she left him.

Seeing Addie like this broke Oliver’s heart. It broke for every time he looked at her and couldn’t smile because of how radiant she always looked. There was no more radiance coming from her. She was sullen, eyes looking sunken and darker than they had before. He loved her more than anything still, and he would still love her long after she left.

Addie wouldn’t seem to believe that though.

She wanted to block herself off so that Oliver wouldn’t want to deal with her anymore, so that he would want to distance himself off. And she missed him so much. She missed touching him and loving him. Addie craved him more than anything now when she was so weak, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go to him and show him how vulnerable and alone she felt now.

But he knew. Oliver could see it in the way her face was blank now, in how she automatically took a step away from him when he came near, even if she wanted so badly to curl into him. This disease was eating away at her, making her believe that this would be the easy route to detach herself now. Of course it would only make things harder, make them miss each other more in the end when they were busy wishing they had told each other how much they loved the other more often.

They had a liking of making things more complicated than they needed to be though.

Addie should have wanted to use this time to her advantage, to consume herself with Oliver while they had the chance. He was taking time off of the upcoming tours, staying here with her no matter what was going on at home. They canceled show after show, eventually canceling them all until Oliver could give further notice. He had a feeling that his spot in the band may not be there to welcome him back soon, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered more than Addie at this point, and she couldn’t even hold a conversation with him anymore.

“I brought those tickets here with me,” Oliver tried, his voice cloudy. He looked at her through his hair, chewing on his lip while he hoped he could get Addie exciting about something.

“Oh,” she said, sighing. “I hope we don’t have to stay here that long. I mean, I hope my mom will be okay by then.”

Oliver sighed in return. They had been here for two and a half weeks now and Addie hadn’t gone to visit his mother. He was worried. She left at the drop of a hat when she got the phone call, and now he couldn’t do anything to get her to the hospital. It was her own mother for Christ’s sake. And she wouldn’t even go. She wouldn’t even talk about going.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go visit her… sometime soon?” he asked, for what was the equivalent to the thousandth time.

“Yes I’m sure, Oliver,” she snapped, her tone of voice low and cold. She stood up from the table immediately, taking whatever she was writing down with her upstairs. Oliver sat there in shock. The sad part was that this reaction was a normal one, happening at least once daily should Oliver try to embark on a conversation with her. He sat there, wondering why she was so scared to leave the house and see her mother; why she flew all the way over here to stay in her mother’s house, and not even go to see her.

He listened, hearing her slam a door upstairs. After that, he didn’t hear anything.

Oliver stood up gingerly, placing his plate in the sink. He leaned against the counter and closed his eyes, hiding his face in his hands as he wished all of this would fix itself. He couldn’t talk to Addie; she wouldn’t listen, and then she would storm off. There was nothing he could do, and the minutes were just ticking away at this point.

Coco was meowing, scratching at the sliding glass door to be let out. Oliver uncovered his eyes, red from lack of sleep and excess tears when Addie wasn’t looking. He groaned and walked over to the door, sliding it open hastily for the cat. She ran outside, Oliver sliding it shut. For now, he could do without the cat. All he wanted was his girlfriend back, but he was getting sure that the only direction she was going was away from him.

Oliver trudged up the stairs, hoping to find that Addie was alright. She wasn’t in her room. The only other door that was closed in the hallway was what he guessed to be her mother’s room. He walked into Addie’s room softly though, finding his duffel bag on the floor, clothes half strewn in and out of it. Everything had been such a mess.

He was looking for a CD that he thought to bring. It was the one CD that brought him comfort no matter what. There was a player in Addie’s room, so he lightly dusted it off with his fingers, guessing it hadn’t been used in years from the amount of filth on his fingertips. He pressed a few buttons and listened to it warm up before skipping a few tracks.

The soft guitar started up right away, and he turned the volume dial all the way up. This song was so much more powerful when it filled up the room, compared to just listening to it on his iPod. This music may be soft, but he felt comforted when it was loud, filling him up and sealing all the cracks that had been made during the past weeks.

Tears sprung to his eyes immediately when Sufjan’s voice filled the room. They didn’t fall though, they only hung around in his eyes to torment him and remind him how much he missed Addie. He sat down on her bed, looking at his knees as he listened to the song, not feeling like humming along. It was too beautiful to be hummed along to.

Just a few more moments into the song, Oliver heard a door slam open, Addie’s footsteps pounding down the hallway into her room. She stood there for a moment, breathing heavily with tears streaming down her red face. She watched Oliver sitting on the bed, facing away from her as he was lost in thought. Everything was ending. Everything would be gone soon. All he wanted was for Addie to want to be with him.

“How dare you listen to that song!” she said harshly, her voice raising and wavering from tears, anger, and frustration.

Oliver turned his head to face her, his heart breaking yet again as he watched her look so upset. He watched her chest heave up and down as she glared at him.

“How dare you listen to that,” she spat again.

Oliver just looked at her, nothing but adoration and care for her filling his heart.

“It reminds me of you, love,” he said quietly. This song had gotten him through a lot during the tours when he missed her. He listened to it on repeat every night in his bunk, more than drunk, but still able to comprehend the soft lyrics. A thousand tears had been spilled because of this song, because of Addie. And the count was only going up by the day.

“How can you listen to that when I… am how I am?!” Addie growled, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand. “How can you listen to that when I have cancer, and the damn song is about cancer. She dies in the end Oliver! Is that just going to be me, too?”

He stood up now, walking towards her in only a matter of two strides. The song was still playing and he outstretched his arms, dying to touch her and hold her. He could hardly remember now what it felt like to wrap his arms around her, holding her tight and feeling her breath on his neck. It sent a shiver down his spine when his arms were still outstretched, and Addie was backing away now, turning and heading down the stairs.

“Addie, what the hell!?” He followed her down the stairs, standing there dumfounded as she was shoving on a pair of shoes, not bothering to even tie them. “Why won’t you talk to me?!” he shrieked, his voice level raising far above a normal level and cracking as tears flowed down his face. Tear after tear poured as he watched her, not having a clue why she was doing this.

Addie was breathing heavily as well and still crying. She’d never seen him cry like this, and guilt bubbled up inside of her as she knew she was the reason for this. Oliver was always the one trying to hold it in and be strong. Now, they were both falling apart, and they couldn’t even be each other’s support system. They were on their own.

“Don’t even think about coming after me,” she muttered, opening the front door and slamming it shut as she rushed outside, forgetting a jacket.

Oliver screamed, his hands balling into fists and making hard contact with the wall. He didn’t even care if Addie walked back in the door at that second; the first thing he did was walk to the kitchen to raid the cupboards. Addie’s mother had to have some sort of alcohol. If Addie was going to be gone, then Oliver was going to be gone, too.