The Missing O

Kaitlyn was giggling, wrist deep in cherry red paint, making one hell of an unholy mess on the kitchen table. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, something to keep her busy for a few hours. But I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that she was in fact just over a year and a half old, and that painting for her wouldn’t be the same task as it would be for say a three or four year old. Instead of making pretty pictures of mummy and her, or flowers and a nice sunshine with a smiley face, she seemed more interested in slapping as much of the gooey stuff on not only the rice paper I’d provided her with, but also all over the newspaper that had been laid over the table to protect it’s surface. I’d definitely over estimated my God-Daughters ability -fuck, she could barely speak, let alone produce a master piece.

The reason for all of this was to keep her busy and happy whilst her mother was out of the house. Leaving at six this morning, way before her usual wake up time, she’d caught a taxi to Leeds Airport to meet Matt from his flight. The band came back today, and Charlie had made it a conceited effort to remind me every other hour for the last two weeks.

It was the middle of February now, and although warming a little with the snow completely having melted, it was still cold enough for Charlie to wear the scarf her boyfriend had sent her just a month ago. I hadn’t been sure what she’d been more excited for when I’d made her a cup of tea at five a.m. before she had to leave: the return of Matt, or the prospect of her new Chanel coat. I thought it could have been both.

It was almost one in the afternoon now, and I thought by now they would have returned or I would have at least heard something. As the thought of preparing Katie and I something for lunch crossed my mind, my phone buzzed from the coffee table. Expecting a text from Charlie, explaining where she was or giving me some sort of a heads up of what time she’d be back or even checking up on Katie, I almost dropped the phone when I saw who it was from.

We should meet up? Oli.

My hands shook as I tried to find a reply on the keys, but as they trembled I realised that I hadn’t a clue what to do.

There were a few ways I could look at this: 1) Oliver had ignored, or more so avoided me for the best part of three months. Why should I give a damn? 2) I couldn’t deny that I did give a damn, due to the fact that I was actually considering agreeing to his text after three months of basically nothing. So maybe I should?

Any other person would have given up by now. Charlie most definitely would have done. So why hadn’t I, of all people? I was so sure that I knew myself so well - I forced isolation upon myself, and to some extent I was accustom to that. I didn’t enjoy it, but I had grown to accept it. But with Oliver - I don’t know - I just couldn’t be okay with this.

The thought of being around him made my stomach do odd knots and make my heart beat erratically. But during this departure, all I seemed to be able to think about was the Sundays we’d had together, how he’d watched me for all those hours, just typing. I could think back and count the lemon slices we’d shared and how many black coffee’s he’d gotten through whilst we bickered about the topics we didn’t agree on and the wasted long stretches of time discussing the interests we shared. I thought about all the times he’d driven me home from work, just because of that one incident with Mr Wydell, and how angry and disgusted he’d been after wards.

I realized that I’d never had someone act this way around me. Nobody had ever known so little about me, yet understood so much. Oliver and I were different, almost polar opposites - he was loud, cocky and overly-confident. I was…well, I wasn’t any of those.

But maybe Oliver’s nature was what I needed - what I was missing.

There was so much to hate about him, but so much to adore. And crave. The confusion made my head spin.

“Oh, Katie,” I sighed, sitting down and brushing her hair back. It was long now, long enough that it was acceptable for Charlie to pull it into little pig tales. “What should I do, hmm?”

Katie looked at me, wide eyed. Her rosebud lips were almost pointed downwards, and she had her head cocked to the side, no longer consumed by the paint, but with me and my face. Her pupils danced back and forth, her lashes, long and black, fluttering with every blink. I knew she’d be gorgeous when she was older, just like her mother.

And then, as sudden as the look of puzzlement and wonder had taken over her face, it was replaced by a grin.

“Happy, Moggam,” she cooed, slapping a red hand on the table.

I studied her, wondering how a child of such a young age could form such ideas. It was like she could feel the emotions mixing up inside of me, scattered and undiagnosed, and she was there to pick out the one that I needed.

“Maybe,” I said. Maybe to myself. “Maybe, Sweetie.”

* * *

There were a few places that I’d of thought Oliver would have wanted to meet. The café, where we’d spent most of our time together when it was solely us. Perhaps his apartment, that I hadn’t stepped foot into since the last time I’d seen him. Maybe even in the city center, though now being aware of his celebrity status, I understood why he might want to avoid crowded places, although it had never surfaced as an issue before.

It made me wonder how he’d pulled this off. Either I was incredibly dim and couldn’t see further than the end of my nose, or Oliver was incredibly cunning. Maybe a little of both.

I could not accept that I missed all of the obvious voids in what background I knew of him. From how he’d never go into detail about work, or his sketchy behaviour when I’d make note on his new clothes, or comment on his flashy apartment. I should have noticed something, an occurring theme, when I saw the collection of photographs of a group of grungy, tattooed boys, who - upon looking back - quite honestly looked like they were in a band. I should have picked up on the way those girls had admired him, practically worshipped him as he walked past the day we went shopping for Christmas presents. Surely I would have gotten a hint when, after finishing drooling over him, they’d switched their gaze to stare daggers at me. And I especially should have gotten that damned CD from Britt. Then everything would be so different.

If I had just gotten that CD, then I would have eventually figured it out for myself, instead of having to have a stranger tell me. If only I had, then I wouldn’t have had to scrape the change from the pit of my hollow wallet and get a taxi to the outskirts of Sheffield, to Oliver’s parents house.

Where he was waiting for me.

I’d waited until Charlie had gotten home until I agreed on the meeting place, and so left Kaitlyn in the hands of her mother and Matt, who’d come back to the flat with her. He’d pulled me in for a hug that felt almost familiar, like he was a family member that’d been absent for some time. I wondered if his band mate would be so welcoming. I doubted it.

The Sykes family household was homelier than what I’d expected. It was only natural for me to assume that because Oliver was loaded, his parents were too. But what the taxi had pulled up to, late afternoon, leaving me to stand outside with a whole world of knots in my insides, was not the mansion I’d pictured.

It resembled my own childhood house in Sheffield, when I’d lived not in the same house, but round the corner from Charlie. There hadn’t been any Kaitlyn, or scary bosses or rock stars back then. It was just me, my mum and Charlie. They were the only ones that had seemed in important.

Our house back then had been built mid 60’s. It was sun-glazed brick, with white framed square windows and a very plane, square front garden. Just like what I remembered, The Sykes’ house had a triangular roof that made up the upstairs, which meant all of the bedrooms had slanting ceilings. The only real difference between the house that I stood before, in the wind with a darkening sky, was the location, and the forest green front door.

I knocked twice against it before it opened.

His hair was wet, twisting and flicking up in dark, shining tendrils. Spots of water dotted on his shoulders, into the grey sweater he had on. Browner than what I remembered, his eyes darted over me, around me, but they seemed blank and distant.

“Morgan. You want to come in?” Oliver pushed the door until it was opened to it’s fullest and stepped aside, always keeping his unsteady gaze on me.

Inside the house it smelled of spicy cinnamon and washing powder that wasn’t Oliver’s. I’d never smelled it on him before. He lead me passed a room where I could hear a television playing, an into the kitchen, where he closed the door behind him.

“You want a drink or something?” He spoke again, and I only replied to even out the stakes. I didn’t want him to do all the talking, despite not having a clue what to say.

“Coffee,” I said. “Please.”

When I pulled a chair out to sit down at the kitchen table, Oliver’s back flinched at the noise. He turned and shot me an uneasy smile before focussing back on the drinks. Maybe I wasn’t the only one on edge.

“Tom’s here, if you want to say hi in a bit,” he said, back still to me. Small talk. Great. “Think he’s upstairs with one of his mates, but he won’t mind you popping in.”

“He still live with you parents?” I asked, my voice steadier than what my heartbeat was telling me.

I heard Oliver clear his throat before he leant against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. It seemed hard for him to keep his eyes on my face, but he tried.

“He stays here a lot, but he has his own place. Same building as me and the rest of the…”

“The rest of the band.” He nodded when I’d completed his sentence. There was a long pause, where we did nothing but watch one another. Laughter, from two people in the other rooms, threaded through the walls and under the gaps below the doors to meet us, but it never broke the stillness.

“I would have told you, you know,” he sighed, gripping the front of his hair in one hand.

“When? When you got back from the tour you’d never mentioned, or would you have waited another five months?”

I felt blood rushing up my neck and into my face, from anger and adrenaline. I’d never dealt with conflict well, not ever. It made my chest pound, my hands shake and my head scream from the nerves. Usually I’d back out, not daring to voice what was on my mind, and let the opposing party win, just to save a breakdown. That probably explained the state of Charlie and I’s relationship.

Oliver stared off to the side, gathering thoughts before he faced me again.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” he shook his head, arms folding tight again.

“So you thought you’d leave it for me to figure it out myself?” I challenged.

The kettle had boiled, whistling to a stop. Looking torn between tending to the two awaiting mugs on the side, and answering my question, Oliver eventually made his decision and poured the drinks. I rolled my eyes and waited for him to hand over the coffee. He sat down in front of me, nursing his mug, watching me again. He wasn’t looking at me, or studying me. But watching me, like I was a time bomb, slowly ticking down until I’d explode. I felt like that, that was for sure. His awkwardness, which was so uncharacteristic of him, was setting me on edge and making my blood boil.

“I just-” he sucked in a breath, held it in, then let it out slowly. “I just didn’t want things to change. Morgan, what I do. Who I am, who the band are. It gives people a pre-conceived impression, usually one that’s total bullshit. But you didn’t know that about me. You didn’t know the person that everyone thinks I am, you just knew me. I haven’t had that in a long time. It was selfish of me, but I didn’t want us to change because of this.”

There’s a certain feeling you get, when you imagine a persons voice so many times over, when you haven’t heard it in so long. Then they speak, and their words could be heaven. I knew what he was saying was crucial, but for a split second, I just want to sink into his voice, into the gravely pitch, and his floating accent. I could have swam in it.

“The only thing that would have changed was your job title, Oliver. My feelings-” My lungs felt so tight. “- they’d of stayed the same.”

I wanted to look away from him, maybe get up and leave the house and just wish we’d never met so I wouldn’t feel the way I did now. It was so much to take on, so much of so many different yet similar emotions, things that swirled and made me want to be sick. But as addictive as his voice, and his smell and his eyes and his laugh and smile and everything about him, simply him being sat there as plain as day kept me there.

I heard the footsteps before he even spoke. “And what do you feel?”

“Oliver!” A woman entered the kitchen, an empty, crumb-littered plate in her hand, looking bewildered. I knew she was his mother straight away, not because they held any resemblance, because it was hard to spot, but because of the way she crowed his name. She’d done it a million and one times over.

Oliver’s eyes widened for a moment, as if he’d been caught red handed doing something he shouldn’t have, but then relaxed.

“Sorry, Mum. I should have told you she was here, but- ”

“She?” His mother questioned, shaking her head as she bustled towards the sink, letting the plate sit there. “Oliver Scott Sykes, you’ve been brought up better than to talk about someone like they’re not in the room. Now Sweetie,” she said, softer now as she turned to me with a kind smile. “Seeing as my brute of a son has failed to use the manners he’s been taught, I’ll introduce us. I’m Carole, Oli’s mum. And you’re Morgan, am I right?”

“Uhm, yeah. It’s nice to meet you.” I took a peak at Oliver, who was glaring at his Mum, his gaze flicking between her and the door, signalling her to leave. She didn’t.

“Ian!” Carole shouted, making the two of simultaneously jump. “Ian, come meet Morgan!”

Seconds later a man with greying hair, who Oliver did resemble, poked through the kitchen door, chewing something.

“Morgan?” he said. “Oli, why didn’t you tell us she’d gotten here?”

“I, uh -”

“Never mind. You’re a true Pratt, son. Morgan, has he offered you a drink? Have you eaten? We’ve just had our tea, but I’m sure one of us can cook you something up. Carole, have we got any of the Spaghetti left in the fridge? Morgan, you’re not a veggie like Oli is, are you? Right fussy eater he is!”

Carole chimed in, as if Ian had handed her the mic. “Pain in the arse when he was younger. Wouldn’t eat anything I put on the table, wouldn’t eat for days until I cooked him something without meat. We tried telling him it was part of a healthy diet, that he was a growing boy and-”

“We’re going upstairs!” Oliver said over his parents as they pottered about, trying to offer me the contents of their cupboards. Ian and Carole looked between one another, then seemed to gather some wits about them, letting us leave, our coffee mugs remaining to leave rings on the table.

“Come on,” Oliver lead me up the stairs, the carpet soft beneath my feet. I tried to study the pictures on the walls, but couldn’t keep up as well so forgot about them.

Upstairs I could hear the thumbing bass line of music, muffled from behind a closed door. We neared where the music was coming from, and with a heavy fist against the door, Oliver knocked and then slammed it open.

“Tom! Turn it down you fuck!” Oliver bellowed over the music. Peering round the corner of the door frame, I saw a sour faced Tom and a boy of round about the same age that I didn’t recognise sat on a grey couch. Toms frown disappeared and he beamed at me, waving one hand while shifting to turn down his music with the other.

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Oliver was already heading off down the hall in to another room, I would have spoken to the younger Sykes boy. But when I turned back to nod a goodbye to Tom, he was sending me a sorrowful look, trying to smile passed my impending endeavour.

Leaving Tom and his friend, who I’d rather be lazing around with right now than searching for his older brother and his room, I tried a door and found Oliver first try. He looked up from he was sat on the bed, and I thought of how different this all would be, had he told me sooner.