What We Used To Know

Oh glorious Thursday, what have you in store for me today?

Well, by the looks of it, not much. It was dreary today - to say the least. Rain was pouring down in buckets, and the only thing I could think about was how fun it was going to be to walk to school in this.

I grabbed an umbrella as well as a heavy raincoat to protect myself as I walked out of the house, locking the door. It was windy and gusting about as I tried to situate myself, adjusting my bag on my shoulder. The umbrella I chose to use wasn’t working for crap, and I may as well have just abandoned it, I was getting wet enough anyways.

I didn’t want to think of how drenched I would be by the time I got to school. By then, it would probably appear as if I had just gotten out of the shower; my hair would be soaked and my clothes would no doubt look the same.

But I trudged down the street, not liking how the sky looked so ominous and dark, what with the way the clouds were obscuring most of it. I hated how it looked around here. I needed a change of scenery, it seemed.

Maybe we’d be moving again. Only if I was lucky.

Oliver was scuffling out of his house at the exact same time I was walking by. It was like he had his morning schedule synchronized in order to scramble out the door by the time I was walking by, just so he could bound up to my side like some puppy dog - an unwanted puppy dog. I made a face as he walked down the slippery drive to me, carrying his own umbrella that didn’t seem to work, either. His hair was already wet, so I guessed he had just taken a shower. For all I knew, he could have been standing in his garden out back - that’s about how wet he looked.

He grunted some sort of acknowledgement towards me as we walked in silence. I really, really did not feel like walking next to Oliver anymore.

The last time he was by my side - yet again - was Tuesday, when I had told him off before school. That was the second time I told him off, and now it seemed like he still didn’t get the message. Sure, he had stopped talking to me, but that didn’t mean he had to stop walking next to me every chance he got. Of course not! Not to Oliver. The boy’s dumber than a lamppost, and about as oblivious as one, too.

Why, oh why couldn’t he have just left his house a few minutes earlier. I was even leaving my house as late as I possibly could, just to see if I could give him some sort of head start. That didn’t work though. It was like he caught on to my plan.

I didn’t want to think about it, but it was very plausible that Oliver may in fact have just waited by his door until he saw me to step outside and scurry down to meet me. I didn’t like thinking about that though, because it creeped me out. I already knew he watched me enough in school, I didn’t want to think about him stalking me around the neighborhood now, as well.

At least he wasn’t verbally harassing me anymore; I had to be thankful for that.

The only thing that could be heard between the two of us as we walked was the slapping of our feet against the wet pavement, and the raindrops that fell and bounced off our umbrellas. Or in my case, bounced off the umbrella and then landed somewhere on me. I could see the spots of rain on my jeans from the way the denim grew substantially darker as each raindrop pelted onto the light colored fabric.

“Looks like you’re about as wet as I am,” Oliver muttered. He sounded like he was trying to say it in a lighthearted tone, but the sound of the rain seemed to overpower his voice, making it sound dreary - just like the weather.

“Excuse me?” I had known what he said exactly, but I didn’t really know how to respond. It sounded like I was offended, but I didn’t really care what my tone sounded like to Oliver.

“It looks like we both just got out the shower, aye?” He moved his umbrella out of the way, leaving his already wet hair out in the open for me to see.

“Yeah, it does,” I said, trying to stifle a chuckle that escaped my lips. He caught it though, and smiled.

“Aye, made you laugh,” he proclaimed, like this was a goal of his to somehow get himself off of my bad-side. Unfortunately, humor wasn’t a likely factor in me acting like Oliver was a normal human being again. To me, he was just some freak who followed me around, and didn’t act normal by any means.

“Shocking discovery. I am able to laugh.”

“Well, ‘s better than you bein’ all stoic and whatnot. ‘S not very fun walkin’ with someone who I know hates me, you know.”

“Well, it’s not mandatory that you walk side by side with me to school everyday, y’know. Believe me, I didn’t choose to be walkin’ with you everyday.”

“But it wouldn’t be as fun walkin’ in the rain by myself, now would it?”

“Actually, I was happier by myself, where at least it was silent all the time.”

“Ouch, that one hurt, Addie. You can’t say you don’t like ‘aving someone to walk with, can you?”

“Actually, I can. I really can,” I muttered, scuffing my feet along the pavement as we walked through the rain together. So after I tell him I don’t even like walking with someone, he can’t get the hint that he should sod off?

Apparently not.

This time though, I was the one to break the silence.

“So, why did you think that Jordan was goin’ to do something bad to me?” I asked him, remembering his reason for walking with me in the first place, all those weeks ago. Almost a few months now, was it?

He was walking with me because of Jordan; Oliver thought Jordan was some bad guy, who was up to God knows what. He didn’t even know Jordan, yet he was going to try and protect me from him - or at least that’s what I’d gathered based off of what he told me.

“Who?” Right, he never knew Jordan’s name. Of course he would be confused.

“Jordan is that one bloke you thought was up to somethin’ that one day you started walking with me.”

“Oh, right. Him,” he said, his voice sounded quiet and airy.

“Why’d you think he was up to something?”

I could see the park; it was just about fifteen meters in front of us now. It was wet and empty, but it looked comforting all of a sudden. It was like the lack of people there made it all the more appealing to me as we came up on it. I reminded myself to stop there again soon - I needed to get out more often, even if the weather was crap.

“’Cause he was yellin’ at you, and screamin’ and stuff. I don’t know, he just looked a bit shady if you ask me.”

“That was my brother.” I didn’t say anything more than that, because the look on his face was slightly amusing. His eyebrows shot up to the point where they could have met his hairline, and his mouth dropped open slightly.

“Oh,” was all he managed to choke out. Trying to think of something else to say, I guessed. His eyes were darting around, and I could tell that they landed on the park, where my own eyes had been focused for a while now as we walked.

“Really?” he asked, still shuffling along, although he was slowing down now. I didn’t slow down though, and only kept walking towards school.

“Yep.” I looked back now though, only to see Oliver crossing the street and heading over to the park. He looked both ways while he was crossing, not bothering to check the street before entering it. “Hey, where are you going?” I called, and he turned around to face me.

“To the park,” he answered, only shrugging his shoulders and then continuing on.

“But, but you ‘ave to go to school!” I called again, wondering why on earth he was heading to the park. Sure, I wanted to go there myself right now, but I couldn’t just skip school. That was something Jordan did. Or rather, something Jordan used to do.

“No I don’t.” He was standing on the other side of the street now, facing back towards me again while he stood there. I certainly hoped no cars were coming. As much as I didn’t like him right now - although I admit maybe I didn’t hate him so much, at the moment - it would have really sucked if he got hit by a car.

“Well, what are you going to do there? Just sit there all day?”

“Yeah, that was the plan. You should come, too,” he called from the other side of the street. He was standing on the sidewalk on the other side of the street now, just looking at me. My eyes shifted from side to side, evaluating my surroundings.

“Why should I skip school to go to the park with you?” I shouted back as a car passed, the noise from the exhaust overpowering my voice. There was no way I was skipping school. I never had before, and I hadn’t planned on it before. Like I’ve said, skipping school is the kind of junk Jordan is supposed to do, not me. I’m the good kid. I hadn’t missed school once this year, and I wasn’t going to ruin my attendance now, because Oliver wanted me to go to the park with him.

“’Cause maybe I wanna know more about that brother o’ yours. And more about you.”

“What?!” I was shocked. He actually wanted to talk to me? About Jordan? Oliver wanted to get to know me? This was weird. I didn’t like this. I needed to go to school, to start my day so that it would be over soon.

“You heard me. C’mon, we only got a couple weeks of school left, one day off ain’t gonna matter. I don’t know anything about you, Addie.”

“Exactly, Oliver. An’ we should keep it that way!” I turned and started walking again, noticing now how wet I had gotten while standing there and talking to Oliver. I would at least be near school by now if I had been walking through the entire time. Now, I had a good ten minutes ahead of me still.

Stupid morning distractions.

“Please, Addie? I don’t wanna skip school all by myself,” he yelled after me, walking parallel next to me on the other side of the road, still keeping up with my pace.

“Well then you shouldn’t be skipping at all,” I said, turning my head to look over at him. By now, his umbrella was nearly caved in with rain; I imagined mine looked about the same.

“Oh come on. I’m not gonna walk the rest of the way to school in this shite weather. You’re wet enough as it is, might as well just skip and do somethin’ fun for once.” My eyebrows raised a little at his language. I wasn’t surprised that he swore, but it caught me off guard.

“Stayin’ in the park all day isn’t gonna help me dry off, Oliver. And there’s plenty of fun things to do at school!” Well, we both knew that one was a lie.

I was torn between actually going to school now, and skipping it to go to the park with my annoying neighbor. It didn’t sound so bad, actually. There wasn’t much going on in any of my classes except for studying, which I did enough of on my own. Hadn’t I felt like staying home earlier anyways?

You’ve already made half the journey, may as well continue on to school, half of me said. The other half that just wanted to give up and start acting normal again told me that maybe I should just screw it all and go home to make some cocoa, or actually go to the park with Oliver. “Normal” meant I actually talked to people, and made friends, and did things I actually enjoyed. Was I even ready to start being normal again?

We were both stopped now, standing on opposite sides of the road, just looking at each other. It was the first time I had really looked at him full on. His legs were just as skinny as they looked from the back - girl legs. It looked like his pants were too tight, so tight you couldn’t have even tucked a shirt into them. And his shirt had some sort of weird logo on it. The scrawled letters looked like they said something like “Linkin Park” or something or other. No idea what that was… Oliver’s hair was still a mess, sprawling out in all directions like it had been when he first bolted out of his house - it was now even worse than it had been.

And he stood there, just looking at me. He didn’t even say anything. And neither did I. We only looked at each other.

I couldn’t have told you what he was thinking about, because I honestly didn’t know. His face gave nothing away as to what might have been going on in his mind.

I however, was debating whether I really wanted to skip school and head off to the park with someone I hated. That shouldn’t have even been a debate though. I should have known the answer right away. And I can tell you, it wasn’t the answer I was about to give.

“Alright, alright. Fine.” I caved. Did this mean I was going to be normal again? Probably not, because I can tell you that Oliver was not normal.

He smiled as I checked the street before hurrying across the two lane road. I ran over, my backpack and umbrella bouncing along as I ran across.

***

“So, who’s this Jordan?” he asked, picking at a scab on his hand. I made a face at first, a few of the less pleasant memories of Jordan flooding back to my head before the actual good memories had a chance to remind me how much I loved him - used to love him.

“Well, he’s my brother. He’s the reason we’re always movin’ around and stuff. I hate him sometimes, but I’ll never really stop loving him.”

“What’s he done that make you lot move all the time?”

The bench we were sitting on was soaking. Neither of us cared though. I don’t think we cared about anything today. I didn’t care that I was skipping school, or out in the rain for hours on end, or sitting next to someone I used to hate, or talking about things I had never shared with anyone. What was it about today that made me feel like changing?

Oliver was different now, now that I was talking to him. He didn’t make fun of me or be obnoxious like he had been so many times before. Something was different today. Really, something was.

“He’s into drugs. Or, were into drugs. Don’t know if he is anymore. My parents shipped ‘im off to some reform school couple weeks ago. Right after the day you saw him, actually,” I said, my voice started to give. I wasn’t going to cry due to talking about him, but it felt weird to admit things I never had spoken aloud to someone who felt like such a stranger.

“But you hate him… sometimes,” Oliver started, a bit of a confused tone in his voice.

“I don’t hate him, usually. I guess it’s just more the feeling of betrayal. He was always there, but now… now he’s just not. I still feel like he might change one day though. I always think that maybe if he knew how much I loved him, that he’d go back to normal,” I said, breathing in the cool air, and feeling awkward all of a sudden at my own love confessions about my brother. “And… I don’t know why I just said that.”

Oliver chuckled, running a hand through his now knotted hair. “I get it. Sort of. I only have a little brother, but I can imagine what it would be like if he did something like that all of a sudden. ‘Specially if he was the reason I got uprooted all the time. How many placed have you lived?”

“’Bout six, so far. Maybe more. I stopped counting after last time. I don’t care anymore. Really, I just don’t. They can take me away from anything now, and I jus’ don’t care.”

“What about your friends?” he asked, seemingly curious enough.

“I stopped making friends a while back. Got too hard to leave, so I figured I might as well save myself some grief and not create any happiness to begin with.”

“Ain’t that a little depressin’ sometimes?”

“Very. You get used to it though… eventually.” I shifted in my seat, trying to get comfortable despite the now soaked splotch of my pants that was chilling me to the bone.

“So you don’t have any friends here, at all?”

I shook my head, not feeling like I should really admit how much of a loner I was.

“I’m not even considered your friend?” he asked, laughing a bit. I couldn’t help but smile, laughing a bit as well.

“Oliver… I’m not even sure what you are. I don’t even think you’re human,” I joked, laughing as Oliver laughed too.

I ended up spilling my guts to someone I once hated, someone I once considered a stranger. I told Oliver about my parents and how I was only considered their baggage, only considered some sort of object to take care of - of which they did not take care of me. I explained how much I hated home, no matter where it was for the year - or however long it took for us to decide to relocate again. He nodded and understood when I said that maybe I was sick of being alone with no friends, but what was going to happen when I had to leave again? It felt like maybe he was just there to listen for once, not doing all the talking. And it felt good to finally talk to someone again. I told him about how much I missed Jordan, how much I loved him. He got it when I said that it was like losing a sibling, because it really was like Jordan had died. Jordan died when he turned into the drug addict I hated. I hated his drugs, I loved his old personality.

The whole day, I sat on a bench with a boy named Oliver Sykes. He told me about his life, too. And I listened, like we were friends. I understood his problems too, like friends do. We were both vastly different in our interests, and I hated his sense of style, music, and outlooks. But we clicked, somehow. It was like we could agree to disagree, so long as we had the other to talk to.

He called the school and pretended to be my mum - which was a funny thing to hear, trust me - and informed them I was sick. It felt weird to finally have someone to be there for me, and bail me out. I hoped this wasn’t a one-day deal, because I think I was finally ready to start being normal again.

Although I can tell you nothing about Oliver - or myself, for that matter - was normal.