Disease

Oli sat on the bed at his mum’s house with his hands clasped together. His eyes were focused solely on the door and nothing else. It had been over three months since Afton’s death and he was still devastated. He was depressed and simply falling apart at the seams. He couldn’t live at the apartment anymore. He refused to go inside of it. Tom and Matt had moved all of his things over to his mum’s house when Oli asked them. No one knew what to do for him.

Oliver was so heartbroken, he hadn’t left the house on his own. He had to be forced out of the door or prompted to even leave his bedroom. His mum brought his dinner to his room, Tom coaxed him into the car and drove him places he thought might help. Matt even tried smoking a joint or two with him with Carol’s permission. Nothing could help him.

And why should it? The love of his life, his fucking fiancé, the day he was finally going to marry her, to prove to the fucking world that he was in it for the long run; she died. Oli’s hands clenched into fists. He could feel his heart aching in his chest, and he swore he was dying. He wanted to be dead, just like Afton. It’s what she fucking wanted. Ever since she got that stupid disease all she talked about was being dead, killing herself, dying. Why was she allowed to get what she wanted? How come Oli couldn’t get what he wanted? Just one fucking time. Was it because he’d cheated on her? Because he broke her heart and she had to break his back? It wasn’t fair.

A slight knock came at his door and Tom came into view.

“Ready mate?”

Oli nodded, getting off the bed. He moved stiffly across the room, like his legs were one piece and he had no joints in his knees. Tom held the door open for him and they went out to the living room where his mum, his dad and Matt stood. His mum held the box.

The box that contained Afton inside of it. Once she was dead, it was agreed that she would be cremated. Her father was contacted and he said he didn’t care what they did with her, and since Oli was next in line, almost married to her, they let him make the decision. He had never actually seen her dead. Only Matt and the cleanup crew had. He didn’t want her rotting away in the ground, so he chose to have her cremated. Everyone gathered in the car to go up to the hill where Afton and Oliver had first gone on a picnic.

The drive there was silent. No one wanted to joke in fear they’d hurt Oliver’s feelings. He wasn’t cross or angry. He was merely upset and he had this sad look on his face always, just this disgustingly heartbreaking sad look on his face. He stared out of the window, watching everything pass by him. Just like Afton’s life. She was gone just like that. It didn’t take much to kill her. They wanted to do an autopsy, but he refused. There was no way they were just going to cut her open and dissect her like a fucking frog in science class.

What they had guessed was she was taking a bath or starting a shower and she had one of her coughing fits. She must have passed out and hit her head on something or just passed out in the water. She had drowned, that was obvious. But they couldn’t exactly pinpoint how it happened. That wasn’t necessarily important to Oliver though. He could really give a fuck how she died. He was so empty and hollow that it didn’t matter to him.

Oli’s stomach sunk as they pulled into the park’s parking lot. He opened the door and reached into the window, taking the box out of his mum’s hands. He started to walk towards the grassy hill and she got out of the car to follow him, but Ian grabbed her arm and shook his head at her. The four of them watched as he walked slowly with no sense of direction. He walked in a crooked line, like he was drunk, but they knew he was blind from the tears and deaf with heartbreak. Slowly, they all got out of car and stood beside one another, watching as he became further and further away from them.

Once they were out of sight, Oliver began talking to the box. He sat down at the very top of the hill with the box held in his tattooed hands. He sighed loudly and wiped tears from his face, only to have them be replaced by new ones. His hands shook and his back ached. So he lay down with the box beside him. He tried to wrap his arm around it, but it was too small and didn’t fit in the crook of his elbow. Now he was sobbing, snot pouring from his nose as he spoke lowly. He didn’t even care if someone saw him, if they walked by and stared at some guy who had his arm sitting awkwardly on a box full of ashes, crying to himself and talking to a dead girl.

“An’ I’m so fuckin’ sorry Af. I know I ‘urt yeh and I wish I never did. Is that why yer dead? Because yeh wanted meh teh feel like yeh did? Yeh know that I loved yeh, right? That I still do and that I’d do anythin’ teh ‘ave yeh back? I’d fuckin’ kill myself teh be with yeh again.” He stopped and cried for a few minutes, his body feeling so weak, so fucking dead. “I just can’t live like this anymore. I’m so fuckin’ lost and so broken an’ I fuckin’ need yeh!” He was yelling now. He picked up the box and took the lid off, staring at the ashes, “Yer in this fuckin’ box and I can’t fuckin’ hold yeh, I can’t tell yeh I love yeh and that I want teh be with yeh forever. I can’t..” He stopped. “I fuckin’ can’t.”

He stood up, his whole body trembling. He held the box sideways and let the wind take the ashes. As he watched them go, his whole body collapsed and he fell into a sobbing heap upon the grass. She was gone. Afton was actually gone.

From the car, Matt could hear Oliver’s sobbing. He ignored everyone’s slight protests as he made his way up the hill and to his best friend. For a moment, he stood back. He didn’t know if he should interfere. And at that moment, he felt the type of love that Oliver must have felt for Afton. Not necessarily the same thing. But he saw it right then.

He just wanted Oli to not be so upset. He wanted Oli to be better, he wanted Oliver to be happy, to love life again. He couldn’t bear to see him like this anymore and he finally realized why Oli had put up with Afton for so long, why he loved her so much. Because she was someone that lived off of Oli, she lived so that he could make her happy, and now that she was gone, what was Oli supposed to do with his life? He had no one to live up to, no one to care about.

Matt walked slowly up to his best friend and pulled him into a sitting position. He sat down next to him and put an arm behind him so that if he were to fall over again, Matt could grab him before he hit the ground.

“I’m sorry mate,” Oli sobbed, wiping his face. “I’m bein’ such a fuckin’ priss.”

“Yer not, Ols.” Matt shook his head. “No one thinks that. Yeh deserve this time teh just grieve and sob and cry and live in yer room if that’s what yeh want. Yeh don’t just get up and recover fast when somethin’ like this happens. It ain’t like a hangover, it’s more of a drug addiction.” He paused. “Yeh loved Af with all yer fuckin’ heart, Ols. From the beginnin’ all the way teh the end. And it’s not her fault she’s dead and it ain’t yer fuckin’ fault. She’s just dead and that’s it. There’s nothin’ yeh could’ve done teh stop it.”

“I wish there was Matt.”

“I think we all wish that. ‘m not sayin’ what ‘appened was okay or that you shouldn’t be upset, ‘m just tryin’ the tell yeh that it wasn’t yer fault.”

“I know. I just can’t get over it. This ain’t a stupid fight or a small break up or something we can just get over or get through together. She’s fuckin’ gone Matt.”

Matt nodded, not saying anything for a long time. Finally, he stood up and picked up the small box and the lid. He closed the box and walked over to a tree nearby, nestling the box between some branches. He walked past Oli again.

“Yeh come back down when yer ready, all right mate?”

Oliver didn’t say anything, merely looked ahead and thought. It had finally ended. It had ended in one death and one heartbreak. Oli would live on without Afton, because that’s who he was. He couldn’t do something as cowardly as killing himself, even if he actually thought it would bring him closer to Afton. He would have to live through the pain and the ache and the complete misery.

Nothing had ever really worked out for both Oli and Afton. Oli loved Afton and she loved him up until the point where he’d crushed her heart. Granted, she still loved him; she just wouldn’t admit it to him. After a while, she ignored her pride and took him back in, loved him again and he had never stopped loving her, just continued to love her more and more each day. And at one point, they actually fell in love with one another. It wasn’t long before their love was put to the test and Afton was diagnosed with TB. They lived miserably for so long until Afton realized she was coming towards the end. She had to love Oliver like she had before everything went bad. And he had to put aside his spite and love her back. The last couple of months were the best; like it was a new beginning. And then it all ended abruptly, almost as if whoever was writing their story just couldn’t write the ending they deserved.

Her struggle to live was finally over, but Oli’s had just started.