What We Used To Know

He drank, and drank, and drank.

She walked, and walked, and walked.

Together, although in separate scenarios and settings, they both were reacquainted with the familiar for the first time in a while. For Addie, exploring the streets of her old neighborhood was like she had been here yesterday, walking down the street with friends, or the few she had. The last time she had actually been around here was months ago. For Oliver, it had felt like the last time he drank was ages ago; like he hadn’t felt this okay in months. He hadn’t been this drunk since the last night of the Japan tour, and that was only a little over two weeks ago. And yet this familiarization with the alcohol felt long overdue.

Addie hugged her arms around herself, regretting the decision to not bring a jacket, but too guilty to go back to the house. It was cold and she could feel a flurry of wind to come on soon. She had better get inside somewhere, but the streets were so calming when she could be by herself with no one else to bother her. No more pestering to eat something or a meager excuse for a conversation trying to form. Here, she was alone. And finally, it felt right.

For the weeks that she had craved Oliver when he was touring, she wanted to be away from him now. She needed space to clear her head, and being trapped inside her mother’s house had slowly taken her sanity, personality, and brains, then smashed them into pieces. For now, there was not much left of her. She couldn’t feel anything that she used to. She couldn’t feel the love she ached to feel; to be with Oliver again like how they used to. The sad excuse for a relationship should have never taken a turn this far for the worse. Suddenly Addie found herself wishing Oliver would have stayed home.

Maybe then they would be okay, because she wouldn’t fight with him like how she does now.

And he was only trying to do what was right, to correct every mistake he had ignored for a month.

He was thinking these exact same thoughts Addie was thinking, at the exact same time. Although Oliver was sitting on the floor of the kitchen, one, two bottles of empty liquor sitting near him while he worked at a third. That little voice in the back of his head - which sounded remarkably like his girlfriend - told him to stop now or he wouldn’t ever come back. But of course being who he is, Oliver pushed on. The point of his “mission” tonight was to forget that today even happened. To forget that someone he loved so much could yell at him, even walk away from him when they both knew they needed each other.

Drunkenly he thought of how much of a mistake it was to come out here in hopes of making things better. It seemed that his timing must have been terrible, because the more he tried to make things right, the worse they got. This time, he should have stayed home. He should have made Addie a little bit madder by refusing to come along. Maybe then there would actually still be something between them, like how the only thing between them now was the bed they shared at night, and the cat they had decided to take in.

It took about a minute of noise for Oliver’s brain to register the cat was outside, scratching the door to be let in. His vision was beyond blurry, and standing wasn’t even an option at this point. Shame wasn’t with him as he crawled over to the sliding door, opening it up for Coco and letting her in.

It was like the cat could scorn Oliver with a look in her eyes as she walked past him and into the house, veering away from the kitchen instantly as she could no doubt smell what atrocities were going on inside of it.

Oliver crawled back to the kitchen snickering as he muttered how akin he was to the cat with the way he was crawling on all fours. Nothing made sense in his mind at this point; the only thing he knew was that Addie still wasn’t home, but a few more drinks should cure that. Hell, a few more drinks should ease him into the world of black sleep. If he was lucky enough he wouldn’t even have to wake up.

His eyes widened as he thought that, instantly regretting the thought of himself dying. Even in his current state of inebriation, there had to be some discipline in him that knew when he could never wish for death. If he was terrified enough as it is of Addie and her cancer, drinking himself to death was more than likely worse.

This was, undoubtedly, the worst he had ever been. The worst that he had ever pushed himself to, albeit willing to do anything to forget how he felt.

Judging by the cabinet he had delved into, Addie’s mother shared something of the same hobby as he did. She probably picked it up when Addie had left the country to be with someone her mother didn’t know well at all. Oliver wondered if Addie had the tendency to ruin other people’s lives with destructive habits they picked up in her absence.

Addie continued walking, knowing where she had to go tonight. There was something inside of her that was calling to her, screaming that she had to do this tonight. Somehow, her body was telling her that she might not get anymore time to do this. The only scary part was trying to decipher whose time her body was talking about.

Would her mother be running out of time tonight? Or would it be her?

Tears poured down her cheeks as her lungs began to chill, the cold air seeping into them coming less frequently than it used to. At this point, she didn’t care if she died, or if her mother died. Either way, they could be happy; free from what was restraining them now. She felt guilty for thinking that, for thinking that she would be better off dead and free from the pain she endured every day since the diagnosis. She felt guilty for knowing that Oliver wouldn’t be able to survive without her, but she couldn’t possibly stay much longer and have a chance of actually living for more than a few months.

Addie pounded her feet faster and faster down the snowy concrete, hoping that the hospital would still be open by the time she finally got there. And as each foot hit the ground she still couldn’t rid the sinking feeling that someone was going to die tonight. It was the way her mind was beginning to clutter as she got each step closer to the doors of the hospital. It was the way her feet froze up and refused to let her step into the lobby. Everything in her told her something bad was going to happen.

Still, she didn’t know who it would happen to.

Either way, someone loses someone they love.

Her voice trembled as she asked a nurse where to find her mother’s room. The hair matted to her face was beginning to freeze from being outside so long. The nurse gave her a questioning look as Addie walked off to find an elevator. Everything felt wrong inside of this place. It was equally as wrong today as it was the day she got the results about her knee.

Addie really wished she didn’t have to be here, that she didn’t even have to be in Springfield at all. She wished her mother was fine, content on her own here like she had been, or at least that was the impression Addie was under while she lived with Oliver.

The truth is, everyone became a bit more miserable as Addie departed from the United States to move in with the person she later realized she was in love with. Oliver drank so much more on the tour after the new year when he had to leave Addie, compared to every other tour where his problem wasn’t “as advanced” as it was now. Addie of course was more than broken when Oliver was gone and didn’t call. But no one thought about her mother, who was supposed to be fine, because mothers were always okay. In truth, everyone fell apart because of the chain of events leading up to where they were now.

Oliver was mumbling to himself on the floor, his eyes blurry from tears that were slowly springing up. His rambling about how many mistakes he had made turned into blubbering about how much he missed Addie, and nothing completely terrible had even happened to her yet, save the diagnosis. His words were distorted, melting in his mouth as his thoughts were unknowingly verbalized. If someone was listening to him, or could even understand what he was saying, they would get an earful of regret, pain, and love.

Everything Oliver had failed to do in the past month lead up to where he and Addie stood now. Everything that had been going on only added more stress between them, weighing them down to the point where they were about to break and somehow call it quits. The only reason they hadn’t quit yet was because they were both too scared. Too scared that if they finally put an end to their own misery in this relationship, Addie would go. She would undoubtedly let go should she have no reason to hold on, and Oliver was as good a reason to keep holding on as of now, even if they were both miserable together. They were both too scared of what would happen if they took a break, when the other’s life was suddenly diagnosed to end soon.

The room in which Addie’s mother was staying was exactly what she thought it would be like. It was cold, quiet, and her mother didn’t look quite alive, nor did she look dead. The way she laid there implied she wasn’t alive at this point, but Addie could see in her mother’s face that there was still so much left for her. Her mother was still full of life, yet one accident jerked her to the depths of the in-between.

She inched closer towards her mother, careful and wary of coming to close. It was scary to face her mother like this for the first time since they arrived here. Addie’s first instinct when she received the phone call of her mother’s accident was to fly out here as soon as possible to be with her, to be close to her. Something changed though the day she was diagnosed with a life-threatening cancer, and she suddenly didn’t want to face her only family left, who could very well die.

It seemed as though her entire family was doomed for extinction. First it was her father and brother, the incident of that shooting painful enough for Addie to block out any and all memories of Sheffield until over a decade later. She feared now that her mother could go, and she could go with her. That would be a whole family, gone. Their entire existence pointless because none of them ever surmounted to anything extraordinary. The only thing all four of them had accomplished was misery, in Addie’s eyes.

But there was always going to be at least one person fighting for what Addie had accomplished, and that would be Oliver. To say her existence was pointless because she could die, was a complete lie. And deep down, Addie herself knew it. She knew she accomplished strength and falling in love with someone she never thought she’d see again. In fact, she had accomplished more than she thought she could have.

It was only in moments of despair like this one that she sought the worst parts of her mind, the parts that could make any situation gloomy and morose. Somehow it comforted her to allow her mind to put everything down, to tell herself that she had not done anything worthwhile. For when she thought about it, it was better to think of herself as a soon-to-be dead person who never accomplished anything, than someone who had done so much. Less tragedy was instilled when a person who never did anything died.

Addie inched closer to her mother.

Oliver inched closer to passing out.

She couldn’t seem to come within a foot of her mother’s hospital bed, so she settled for pulling up a chair as close as she felt comfortable.

He couldn’t get the tears that had been falling for over an hour to stop. His eyes felt like they would never run dry so long as his mind was only plagued with the wrong he had done.

Addie could only look at her mother, to regret leaving her and to regret the way their relationship suffered once Addie had moved away. Their relationship wasn’t the only one suffering though, once Oliver left her for tour. Tears were warm on her cheeks, burning a trail down and reminding Addie that her family should have always come first, because there was hardly any left. And Addie decided to leave what family was left in hopes of making Oliver part of her new family.

But with the way Addie refused to work on the innumerable problems between herself and Oliver, she was only damning herself by thinking that he could be her new family.

So she settled for reprimanding herself while visiting her mother.

And Oliver was laying on the floor of the kitchen, staring at the pattern of the linoleum with eyes that could hardly see through the tears. Sobs racked his body back and forth while he allowed the monster inside of him to be released and take over, grieving for everything he should have set straight.

The mixture of alcohol in his system, as well as the violence at which he sobbed led him to scramble up in a hurry in hopes of making it to the restroom in time. He ran clumsily, a miracle he could stand at all, while he blindly searched for the bathroom. The taste of vomit was in his mouth long after it left his body; the sack of skin and bones he had become slumped against the toilet, sliding onto the floor where he would remain.

Addie had to gather all of her strength before standing up from the chair next to her mother’s bedside. After staring at someone for an hour who hadn’t been awake in over two weeks, it was time for Addie to go home. She walked out of the hallway her mother’s room was located in with shaking legs, her knee more painful than ever tonight. With shaking legs and a heavy heart she made it from her mother’s room to the main floor of the hospital, but she didn’t make it any further than that.

Pain rocketed through her body as she was sent crashing to the floor, clasping her knee with both hands in hopes of easing the blinding pain.

Tears sprung to her eyes and nurses sprung to her side. The lack of response from Addie had them wheeling over a stretcher. Her pupils were constricted from shock, pain, and fear. She watched them move her along through the hallways while she couldn’t hear a thing; their mouths moved and yet she couldn’t hear a word. The only thought running through her mind was that she was glad she got to see her mother, because this must be death right now.

The second thought was slow to enter, but it came. She wished that she didn’t walk out on Oliver earlier today, but it was an either-or situation. Addie could have stayed home today with Oliver, still mad at him with tension hanging on their shoulders, or she could have took the route she did and walked out, visiting her mother for what now was going to be the first and last time, so Addie was convinced.

The wallet in her pocket was dissected by nurses who had her in a room now while Addie cried hysterically, not having a clue what was going on anymore. She fell, and now she was being moved from the gurney to the bed. It happened in the blink of an eye, yet the nurses seemed to react so much faster.

Her name was now known and there were phone numbers to call when they found her cell phone in the other pocket. Her name was typed into the hospital database as her eyes were closing, shutting everything out, while the nurses gained information of Addie’s first visit to this hospital almost three weeks ago. They sighed, seeing that her mother was also in the ICU here, their hearts going out to this girl who was suddenly losing a battle as she lied on the bed.

Her mother’s house was called in hopes of catching anyone there.

They called four times, and not a single time did the noise even penetrate Oliver’s head.

He was passed out in the bathroom with vomit on his shirt and tears staining his entire face. His mind was far into sleep, the unconscious taking him to a whole new level.

Addie’s own eyes leaked tears while she silently begged to return home to Oliver. It was the only thing she wanted right now. She had to see him, to say so much that had meant to be said for weeks now since they arrived. She wished her knee didn’t cause so many problems, she wished that she could have fallen down outside so that she could have stood back up and kept going.

But this time the hospital seemed to have itself set on claiming Addie as a resident here, too.

Only two nurses hung back in her room to attempt to ask questions again, anything they could get from her to have a little more information about who to contact. They knew her entire medical history already from the database, but there had to be someone else besides her mother that needed to be contacted.

Frustrated and semi-unconscious Addie blurted out his name, the taste of it staining her tongue in the best way possible. Her eyes closed again as she blocked out the room she was trapped in now, unwilling to be here as she convinced herself she was fine. Convincing the nurses and doctors of that would be another matter though. And lights were turned off in the room as the nurses knew they wouldn’t be helping her any.

Oliver was passed out on the bathroom floor for the remainder of the night, while Addie was just trying to deal with the fact that now she seemed to be held in the hospital against her will with her aching knee.

The morning was slow to come when they were both enduring misery.

Oliver’s eyes fluttered, vomit surging from his stomach to his mouth and into the porcelain bowl of the toilet. There wasn’t a clock in the bathroom but when he stumbled into the kitchen with weak legs the stove clock told him it was only six fifty in the morning. He sighed, his stomach feeling like it was a mixture of on-fire as well as folding in on itself. Breakfast wouldn’t be happening this morning with the way he was feeling.

He noticed Coco staring at him, so he stared back, making a face at the cat he hadn’t exactly love, due to the fact that she got more attention than Oliver himself did.

The phone that hung on the wall of the outdated kitchen was blinking, and Oliver guessed this meant there was a message. He hadn’t heard the phone ringing last night, but then again he could barely hear his own thoughts. He picked up the receiver and listened to the beeping noise. A small piece of paper was taped next to the phone, various names and numbers labeled.

At the top of the list were the numbers for the voicemail, and the password.

For once it seemed like he was in a bit of luck, but that was when he realized that Addie hadn’t come home yet (or that he was aware of), and he now had a message to deal with from someone he probably didn’t know.

After trying twice to punch the right numbers into the phone that seemed smaller than average for his clumsy fingers, Oliver was instantly sobered when he listened to three messages in a row telling him that Addie was in the care of Legacy Hospital as of last night.

His heart sank. Every single thought that was slowly passing through his head was halted as he couldn’t think of anything else except for getting to the hospital.

He reeked of vomit and alcohol, his hair a mess and his breath nothing short of repulsive. A change of clothes and a shower at the speed of light were the first things he did after calling a cab. Stepping out of the house into the cold snow with his canvas shoes to find a cab waiting for him was less than appealing when he knew the reason he had to leave the house so early in the morning.

Part of him wished he didn’t wake up to find those messages, but the only thing he could think of was Addie, and what was wrong with her right now. He was utterly terrified for the entire ride over, confused and scared that something horrible happened and she had to check herself in because of her knee. Maybe now it was reaching the worst, final part.

Tears were leaking out of his eyes before he even got through the sliding doors.

His hands were shaking as he approached a counter with a few women in scrubs sitting at computers. “I’m l-looking for Addie Kaston’s r-room,” he said shakily, his face white as a ghost while his tongue became the victim of his teeth to prevent his chin from quivering.

The nurse told him her room number, pointing to the elevators and then giving him general directions where to go. He could hardly remember them by the time he took a step away from the counter, his hands fidgeting together as he tried not to start wailing in the hallways.

It took the elevator thirty-seven seconds to open up, let him in, and then let him off at the second floor. His head was pounding harder than it ever had, both from his Devil’s hangover and the emotions swelling within him. The two were deadly enough on their own, but of course today would be the day they mix, at the worst time possible.

By the time he stepped out of the elevator his breathing could be compared with that of a distance runner’s while he slowly paced the hall looking for room two hundred eleven. Sweat should be sprouting from his brow soon, his hands clammy and his mouth dry now. Dry at the time he felt he needed to say so much, question so many things.

There it was. The door barely cracked open and only the little morning light seeping into it. Not many people were around due to the time, Oliver himself getting strange looks from the nurses patrolling the floor.

He made himself enter the room, feeling like he had slammed the door open and made a dramatic entrance with the amount of energy and willpower it took to step through. Addie’s head was facing towards the window, looking out of the slats in the blinds with exhausted eyes. She hadn’t heard Oliver enter the room until she saw him standing in her line of vision.

Oliver knelt down to be at eye level with her, regretting to see what emotions her eyes contained. There was a lifelessness inside of them now that had never been there before, and it terrified him to see how having her away from him for only one night had catastrophically turned his love into this person who was so much more pained.

“What happened?” he started slowly, his voice cracking. Worry and guilt and regret began to overtake him in just moments. He reached his hands out to Addie’s face, stroking her hair.

She didn’t flinch away from him. She couldn’t. Over the course of the night her level of energy had drained to the point where it was nearly impossible to move.

Tears fell onto her cheeks where they met Oliver’s cold hands.

“I don’t know,” she said weakly, her voice dry and barely even a whisper. “I don’t even know.”

The way Oliver could see how much effort Addie had to put into those words sent another wave of tears crashing from his eyes onto his cheeks. He leaned his head in close to Addie’s, breathing there for a moment while his lips rested on her chin.

“I…I,” Oliver tried to say something. Words failed him though, his mind cluttered and sore from last night’s activities.

“I fell over when I was leaving here, and I ended up in this bed,” she said dryly, looking up towards Oliver. “I visited my mom.”

His eyes gained a bit of new hope to learn that Addie finally came to see her mother. But that visit was what resulted to where Addie was now.

“I’m really glad you went out to see her,” he whispered, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear.

Addie wanted to agree, to say she was happy she got to see her mother. But she wanted to scream how much of a mistake it was to leave the house, to fall over and end up with no energy and the sinking feeling that the last hours of her life had to be spent in a hospital room without Oliver.

When she looked up at him with heavy eyes, Oliver lost it. He cried, he sobbed, he wailed. He let Addie see exactly how he had been feeling since they arrived in Springfield, since he had to start drinking to stop missing her all those months ago. It was every emotion he had dealt with in the past year finally erupting, unveiling itself to Addie so she could see that she wasn’t the only one hurting in this relationship.

“I’m so sorry,” he breathed, tears choking him up and getting in the way of what he wanted to say. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done. For being gone for so long. For not calling when I should have. For letting this relationship become next to nothing while you needed me, and I needed you too. I’m sorry for coming out here and making everything worse because we don’t even talk anymore.”

His eyes were clouded with tears, his voice sticky.

“I don’t want you to go, Addie, I don’t want you to go! I want you to stay, to be here with me for the rest of my life because we both know I’m not going to be able to make it if you leave me. For the second time!”

Silent tears traced down Addie’s cheeks while she listened to Oliver apologize for things she equally didn’t take care of.

“Addie, I… I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t imagine it any other way. You’ve become my best friend again and I’m positive I don’t want to know what it’s like to be without you again. It was hard enough the first time.”

Oliver just looked at her. They were both crying, more words being said with their eyes than their mouths could ever speak.

Addie gathered all of her energy. “Oliver, listen to me. I won’t be sticking around. I can’t. I just, can’t. But you’re going to have to go on without me, because I’ll be damned if you give up too, just to mope around. You’re going to heal up in time, and then you can find someone who can make you happy again, because I know someone like that is waiting out there for you. Just make sure you never stop moving, because I know you can do it. Don’t stop because I did.”

“What if I want to come with you?” he pleaded, fat tears seeping from his eyes and rolling down his cheeks lazily.

“Don’t you even think that Oliver. Don’t you ever, ever think about coming after me,” she croaked, praying her words would stay with him forever in hopes of keeping Oliver from causing the ones he loved pain. Addie was doing enough damage as it is; she didn’t want to cause yet another tragedy.

Oliver wished more than anything that this didn’t have to feel so much like their last day together, because he knew it was. He knew moments like these, with this much emotion and this many apologies only came around when the end of something was near.

He wanted to give his own life so that it wasn’t Addie’s life ending.

Somehow that defeated the purpose though.

Oliver had apologized for everything he had done, for his wrongs and his mistakes that led up to how fractured his relationship with Addie had become. He did it because it would set things straight. It would make the transition complete, with no ends left untied, and no questions left without answers. There was always going to be one thing he could never tell her though.

The last thing she breathed was his name.