Keeping On Without You

The flight felt almost as long as the ride home from the hospital had felt.

My brain was cluttered and my throat was aching. Tears spilled from my eyes and seeped down my cheeks the entire time. I wondered who would be visiting her mother’s house next. When or if her mother would wake up, if she would return home and find Addie’s bag sitting on her bed. I didn’t want anyone to find the note I left there; I didn’t want anyone to touch anything in her room.

I wanted to think that that house, that her room would stay just as I left it for the rest of time. Just so that Addie could finally have a place where her two lives could exist together without getting moved around again or disrupted.

She’d had enough of that.

I wondered if I would ever return, just to see that house again and remember the horrible days I spent in it; my final days with Addie. Part of me wanted to come back in some year’s time, just to see what had changed. All I could pray is that nothing had changed. That her mother was doing fine again and her room hadn’t been entered since the day I left it.

I was convinced that a visit back may just kill me, convince me that living without Addie wasn’t worth it, because nearly a day without her had been hard enough already. And there were many, many more days to go. But I could convince myself of that on my own.

We finally touched down after some hours, and it was hard to stand up and get off of the plane. Finding my bag was going to be one task; wanting to look for Addie’s as well would certainly be another. I’d be looking for her for the rest of my life.

Tom was waiting for me though, standing there with his hands in his pockets. His hair was slightly disheveled, but nothing compared to mine as he looked towards me. I watched as his bright blue eyes were rich in disappointment. I was a mess. I knew. My hair was something else, and my clothes were wrinkled and ripped more than usual.

And here I was, quite proud of myself for not getting wasted before I left the house. In all honesty, I hadn’t thought of it. The thoughts of getting help when I finally got home were enough to distract me.

But would being home be a good enough distraction?

I looked at my younger brother with tired eyes, eyes void of any and all emotion as I walked towards him numbly. His eyes understood mine though. Or at least it looked like he was trying. The straight line his lips were pressed into probably mirrored my own as we both tried not to fall apart for different reasons.

Myself of course, because my life had essentially shattered.

Tom, because today I was a different person. Today he saw I had problems, that I was more of a wreck than I had ever been. For him to see his older brother, what he might have called a “role model” so broken, so fragmented that there was little hop my pieces could ever be glued back together. This was pain in the rawest form, and both of us were experiencing it nearly equally. Once again for different reasons.

His arms came around me and I held onto him as well. Tears were spilling out of my eyes in the way that they hadn’t stopped since yesterday morning, and I felt Tom’s tears soaking through my flimsy t-shirt as well. It was emotional for both of us to meet up like this, on these terms.

An embrace was enough to pull me through for just a little bit longer.

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to tell anyone,” Tom muttered, “so I didn’t.”

“Alright,” I said dryly, my mouth not having the ability to sputter out more than a few words at a time. “I’ve a lot I need to tell everyone.”

Tom’s eyes flickered up to me as we walked side by side out of the airport.

“That you do, Oli. We’ve canceled three weeks of shows before just canceling the rest till you wanted to tell us what was up. The guys aren’t exactly happy. We’re all worried about you, Oliver.”

Well, isn’t everything just falling apart.

“Look, I know, Tom. I fuckin’ know. There’s been a lot goin’ on. I just need to talk to everyone once I get the chance. I don’t want an intervention or some shit. I know what I need to handle, and I can do it on my own,” I huffed, anger rising inside of me as the easiest emotion to give into while I was so vulnerable.

Tom didn’t say another word the entire way, just driving faster than normal as his knuckles grew whiter by the minute. Stress was easily filling the car and overflowing as we rode quietly, the only noises being the ones his car made. I leaned my head against the window and watched everything pass by at the speed of light. That’s how my life had felt lately. Everything was passing me by, and there was nothing I could do about it. There wasn’t anything I wanted to do about it.

I wanted to get drunk to pass the time and forget about how shitty things had gotten. But of course by doing that I never realized how much worse things got; that I wasn’t fixing anything by neglecting someone I loved so much; that I only made things worse by digging a hole that was feeling more impossible to get out of every day.

I needed to tell people I needed help, because I wasn’t going to be able to do this on my own. I obviously hadn’t been able to do it on my own for the past year, and look where it had gotten me. If this keeps up, a year from now I’d easily be dead. If it kept up and I had it my way, I’d be dead a whole hell of a lot sooner.

We pulled up to my flat building. Tom didn’t turn off the car, he just let it idle and rumble. I stared at the building, like glaring at the bricks would make entering it that much easier. I was most of all scared of entering my own flat, being surrounded by the emptiness and reminders of what had been just a few short weeks ago. Who had lived here just a few short weeks ago.

I grabbed my bag from the backseat and carried it up the stairs while Tom trailed behind me. My keys were shoved to the depths of my duffel, I was sure. Looking for it meant I had to unzip it and dig around until I found them. And seeing as how no one was on the other side of the door this time to let me in, I would be doing that.

So I found them after several minutes of annoyed grunting and complaints of how I probably lost them, just like how I lost everything else.

Tom stood there quietly though, observing with his calm eyes and not saying a word. Even if he didn’t know what to do, what he was doing now was enough to make me feel like I wasn’t completely alone.

The keys slid into the lock and it turned with some agitation.

“Can I… have a few minutes alone in there?” I turned and asked Tom, watching the way that he prepared to enter right behind me.

“Alright,” he said softly, looking into my eyes with reassurance of some sort. “But I’m stayin’ here tonight. I don’t want you to be here by yourself.”

I nodded, he nodded.

And then I entered.

It was quiet and desolate, even more so than what I had prepared myself for. But I had learned by now that preparing myself always fell short of what reality really was.

The place looked dusty, not having been lived in for a month. Of course it had gone much longer without my presence in the past, but it just felt different this time. I guessed it was because this place had never felt like home to me. It was just the place I stayed when we weren’t on tour. But then Addie came, and suddenly it was the only place I wanted to be.

Things could change so fast.

I dropped my duffel bag in the middle of the entry way, listening to it echo throughout the flat as though there wasn’t a piece of furniture in here. Everything all looked the same, but of course nothing felt the same. My comics were still in a pile on the coffee table, Addie’s novels sitting next to them in an orderly stack. Souvenirs. They reminded me of so much, from when things were good and we could do anything together, even if we weren’t really doing it together.

I remembered New Years Eve as it flashed across my eyes; we were reading on the floor. She had her book, I had my comic.

I had a bit of a fear at this point of walking into our bedroom.

But I had to do it. I wanted to get it over with and feel whatever would explode inside of me once I walked in to find it just as empty as every other room.

I dropped the keys onto the island in the kitchen and heard the sound of metal making contact with the smooth countertops Addie used to sit on.

My feet dragged and stuck in place as I trudged towards the bedroom. The door was slightly open and I could see barely a hint of light streaming out from the crack where it was open. My toe nudged it lightly and the door opened up a little more. I peered inside like a nervous child eavesdropping on adults.

I gave in and shoved the door. It swung open and hit the wall, coming back at me before I stepped inside of the room. The bed was still there. The dresser was. The closet. It was all fine. Everything was there like it had always been, and like it always will be. Nothing was displaced or disrupted. Nothing was looking like the equivalent to how I looked right now.

Her side of the bed looked just as it always had. Just like my side of the bed but only on the other side, with a different pillow.

How pathetic.

I was pathetic. I had to tell myself that all of my belongings looked just the same, as they of course would, to somehow comfort myself and convince myself that “not a lot” had changed.

Everything had changed. I knew it. Tom knew it now. Hell, the cat even knew it, wherever she was.

Five minutes passed and I slid off my shoes, climbing onto my bed, over the covers. I laid on my side of the bed only, careful not to even touch Addie’s side. I smashed my face into the pillow and closed my eyes.

Five more minutes and I heard the front door shut as Tom’s soft footsteps were heard pattering across the wood floors. I listened as he picked up my duffel and moved it somewhere, hopefully in front of the washing machine. His footsteps were again heard as he came closer to my door.

“I’m around if you need anything,” he whispered, shutting my door and walking away.

I needed so much right now. I needed support and help and guidance and love. And I needed Addie. I needed to stop drinking and coming up with ways I could have prevented her death. I needed to stop blaming every possible thing I could for what had gone wrong.

I needed to step up.