Disease

Her hands were shaking as she worked to unscrew the cap and extract the rather large pill she had to take twice a day. Strength clearly was not with her this morning, as it wasn’t much any other time of day. Lack of sleep and a diminishing appetite was leading up to her all time low as Afton allowed the disease to get the best of her. Letting it overtake her mind, controlling her thoughts, caused her to forget that the times of her life had been abruptly halted as soon as she was consumed by her illness.

Exerting too much force upon the cap of her antibiotic pill bottle, the cap flew off and the small plastic container flew from her hand and onto the floor. The sound of dozens of pills scattering on the hardwood floors of the kitchen radiated to the walls and back. She sighed, looking down at the mess she had accidentally created, knowing that if she kneeled down to pick them all up a fit of coughing would begin and leave her on the floor without a way to stand back up.

Oliver’s ears perked up from the island where he was eating a piece of toast and peeling an orange. He watched as Afton stood there in the diffused morning light, staring at the floor and wishing the pills would magically place themselves back into their container.

He stood up and came up behind her. “Lemme get that,” he said quietly, sighing as he wished Afton didn’t have to take these pills in the first place. As of now, they were helping to keep her with him just one more day at a time. Joints in his knees popped as he kneeled to the floor picking up one pill at a time as fast as he could; all she needed now was contaminated antibiotics.

They were back into the yellow plastic bottle, in her hand as she carefully took out just one, scared of spilling them all again. The directions printed on the paper taped on the bottle told her to take these with food, but food hadn’t been entering her stomach often during the past days. An appetite suddenly became something unfamiliar to Afton. And worry had gotten the best of Oliver as he had to watch this happen to someone he loved so much. Not being able to do anything was just about as bad as Afton having to go through this in the first place.

For now, the only thing they could do was try to deal with however much time they had left with each other, and make the most of it. Although it grew continually harder as tension rose between them.

The only thing they could do was ignore how awkward it had become with someone who was more than familiar. They had to dismiss the moments that were less than comfortable to lie to themselves and pretend they were happy and normal, like they had been less than a month ago. And if pretending was all they could do, well then it was going to be all they had. Maybe if they got the hang of this soon, they could fool themselves into believing they were happy.

Afton looked out the window, her hands placed on the counter as she wished that going out could be an option today. But the velocity at which the wind was blowing suggested the second she stepped outside, the wind could very well knock her over.

She flinched as she felt something wrap around her. Right, Oliver’s arms. That’s what they felt like to be around her. It had been a while.

He rested his chin on her shoulder, wondering what she was thinking about as she continued to stare out the window, nearly ignoring his presence. All he could hope was that he hadn’t done anything wrong yet; it was still so early in the morning and he couldn’t face it if Afton was going to be cross with him for the rest of the day.

“I’m going to go out for a bit, but I should be back in a few hours,” he said, a weight in his voice as he spoke the words.

For Afton, this meant sitting around trying to think of something to do while she was alone, passing the time while Oliver was gone. She hated to admit it, but sometimes things just didn’t feel right if he wasn’t home with her, even if they were in a fight and on opposite sides of the flat.

For Oliver, those words meant he was lying, or at least not giving Afton the blatant truth to his whereabouts in the next hour. Replying to that email from the tart who was less than pleasant wasn’t yet to be determined a mistake or not. Oliver could only find out if he was wrong to reply until after his coffee with SJ. It had been two years since he had last seen her, fucked her, and then lied to Afton about it.

But he was convinced that this wouldn’t be anything like what had happened two years ago when he was obviously so unsure of himself that he let infidelity get the best of him. This time, he said that he was only seeing her to catch up, to talk to someone he hadn’t spoken with in a while. This was strictly platonic, probably even less than a friendship at best.

“Okay,” Afton said weakly, her voice not portraying whether she was upset or not that Oliver was going out for the day. Of course, she was a little bit upset, but thought it best not to show it.

Oliver kissed her cheek, remaining close to her head for a few moments to remind his heart again where it really belonged. The smell of her hair and the feel of her skin was enough for him to breathe in the love again between them, the love that had apparently been absent for the past few weeks.

The staple shoes of his, black canvas Vans, were waiting by the door for him as they always were. Tying them was hardly deemed necessary to him as he shoved them on and was out the door. He sighed as he paused a moment before setting off for the carpark. His mind needed a few more moments’ preparation to see SJ again for the first time since he called off what was going on between them. What was going on never was a clear subject between either of them, but Oliver came to realize that whatever it was, was wrong. Even now he was still proud of himself for being able to quit the unfortunate drug that SJ had proved to be. He was proud for quitting, but still ashamed that he had even danced with the concept of cheating on his girlfriend.

Afton drifted over to her laptop, typing away on the plastic keys. Venting her feelings onto a Word document had proven to be rather therapeutic during the days when she had no one to talk to, when she felt that she couldn’t speak of what she was going through. And the computer had heard about every story by this point.

Oliver arrived in front of the coffee shop that SJ suggested they meet. With every step he became more and more uncertain of his decision to reply to that email. Nerves racked his body as he opened the door, a bell tinkling as he walked into the warm space. From here he could smell her perfume, the presence of someone he hoped to escape overwhelming him. And he wasn’t even within a two foot radius of her yet.

“Oli!” SJ’s shrill voice seemed to pierce the calm aura of the coffee shop, every other customer suddenly disturbed. “It’s been so long!”

Oliver neared closer to where she was sitting at a table, a coffee already sitting in front of her.

Thanks for waiting for me, Oliver thought. He had to remind himself how he put up with her in the past, or what even attracted him to her in the first place.

Right, those.

She stood up and extended her arms towards him in a desperate attempt for a hug, some sort of contact. Her v-neck staple was of course being sported today, the shirt more than revealing for daytime hours.

His eyes unwillingly flickered towards what SJ wanted everyone to watch, to stare at what someone else’s money had paid for. She giggled as she knew he was staring.

Oliver winced as her arms crashed around him, trapping him from any movement for a good ten seconds, much longer than a normal friend-to-friend hug would last, nonetheless two people who had nothing to do with each other as of late.

“Yeah, guess ‘s been a while,” he said, being released and sitting down at the table where SJ had already started her whip-frap-ten-shot-whatever drink.

“Two years,” she said curtly, her eyes fixated on Oliver, somehow condemning him with a glare for abandoning her in order to start being completely honest with his girlfriend again.

Oliver didn’t say anything, settling for silence and scratching the back of his neck. Going to order a drink sounded pretty good right now. Leaving sounded nice, too.

“How’s your girl been?” she tried again, hoping to get anything out of him. “Heard she’s been sick.”

Oliver coughed, “Yeah, she’s been real sick. It’s been hard, y’know. Lots of stress I guess going on now. It’s just been hard.”

SJ looked at him, batting her eyelashes as he knew just what she was thinking.

But not hard enough to go back to you.

“You can always come over if you want, to get away from whatever,” she said, the complete hidden meaning behind her words obvious to Oliver. This is what she said last time things were stressful between Oliver and Afton. Unfortunately, he wasn’t smart enough at that point in his life to realize what a mistake SJ was.

“Look, SJ, I really don’t know what you were expecting from this, but I’m really not interested in startin’ anything up between us again.” Ever. And suddenly Oliver was looking for his escape route now as he realized that it was a mistake to even think about talking to SJ again. She was trouble the first time around, what made him think that getting back in contact with her again would prove any different the second time around?

And of course what she said next was the exact thought that was about to debut in his mind.

“Well Oliver, what were you expecting when you replied to the e-mail?”

In truth, he didn’t know how to answer it.