Immersion

I thought that Oli wouldn't be able to shut his mouth.
That right after he told me that he wanted to be my alliance and help me to win over Adeline, that he'd just go on and on about his "brilliant plan".
Or any other adjective that came to mind.

But as the week rolled on -Monday to Tuesday, Tuesday to Wednesday, and then to Thursday- Oli hadn't said a damn thing. He had finally learned to stick with his own personal secret and not yap to the rest of the world. This, miraculously, did not benefit me.

Oli was probably planning to get me a hooker.
He thought that my fascination had gone to its farthest extreme, and a good bang would solve all of my problems.
Or at least a lap dance.

With him saying he'd help me out, I really didn't expect much. I thought that his mindset was to just put some money down on a girl and bring her over to the house. Then when I would come over home from school, and walked through the hallway, and opened my bedroom door, I'd find a topless chick standing there; Oli smirking from the corner.
Twisted fuck.

Just by taking a look at him, you could tell that he was one of those guys. He didn't take anything seriously. Not his past, his present, and most definitely not his future. He had no substantial plan for where he was headed, just from the image of him still snoring even when it was 4 in the afternoon could tell you that, and as far as other people went, he'd help out in that Oli way of his.

It would be something ludicrous, but in his mind, it would be the absolute solution to your problem. The characters in books or on TV shows that genuinely tried to contribute, but end up making things worse: that was him. His strategy would be sketchy, and even from the get-go it would just ooze BAD IDEA. But he's always had good intentions, and so you'd trust him.
Or if not to that extreme, at least give him a chance.

He was my brother, I had known him my entire life.
He'd been given many chances. I knew his ways and personality more than anyone, so it seemed appropriate that I turn him down, having the most information and experiences, but I never could. His eyes would light up, and a grin would cloud all of my previous reasoning, and just like that, I was hugging him, thanking him for his support.
Then I'd be banging my head against the wall.
It was really that instantaneous.

His tactics would crash down so quickly and with such destruction that I was left with less than I had before. Or if I gained anything out of it, it would only be more issues.
A more fucked up life.

Did I really want to roll the dice on Adeline?

Maybe Oli keeping mum about his arrangement was already making things worse already. It gave me 4 days of contemplating what I had just done, and what was on its way. It gave me a negative perspective on what scenarios could fall like sharp chips if, as always, this procedure didn't work.

I could be farther away from Adeline.
He could expose me in a more morbid light than I was already portrayed under and I'd be an even stronger repellent than before. She could go back to the dean and have me expelled like promised, and I'd be going to a different campus with a sea of fish that would turn me more anti-social than I already was. He could make her completely hate me.

Not intentionally, of course, but I knew that Oli was the only person I ever knew that could make a situation outrageously more severe by accident. Like a little kid breaking the cookie jar as he was carrying it towards him only to have his mother tell him that it was his grandfather's urn, his remains now chalking up the linoleum. Yes, that's how horribly wrong Oli's plots go.

God forbid if it somehow affected my own plans of attending the musical. You could chain me to a Greyhound and I would still find the adrenaline to pull it forward with me and go through the walls of the auditorium, destroying it.
I wouldn't miss it.
There was no way.

Or, there was that small chance, that small inkling of hope that Oli was right all along and everything would fall into place. Balance out the scale. And then, maybe, I could be granted with that miracle of Adeline turning to look at me, for the first time ever, and letting her lips go up in the positive parabola that I had been waiting for. It would be for me.
That smile would be for me.

I felt a wave of euphoria, for just the thought that such a concept, and reality, was actually in existence excited me. What if I end up doing something good to better her, and in return, get much closer to what has been teasing my senses for so long now? Could it really happen if Oli was involved? If he was in control?

Which brought me back to the real question: Could I take a chance on Adeline?
Hadn't I already been doing so?

I never thought about my own well being while I was too busy observing her's. Thinking more deeply on it, I had put myself through more shit just so I could maintain this lifestyle of catering to my inexplicable hunger, instead of what really mattered. I had been taking chance after chance; putting my education, my clean record, my overall fucking life on the back burner so I could continue to be hypnotized by an Illusion.

But this is where you're wrong.
You thinking that this is by choice.
It's not something I choose to do.
It's not something voluntary.

It wasn't controllable, and that is why I had been putting myself on the line, dangling on the hook of addiction. It isn't until you see that one face, or be introduced to that one person that you'll know what I'm talking about. A longing so powerful that it tears your brain in two. Squeezes your eyes until you cry. Has you feeling sick.

That kind of utter infatuation you have for another human being that you're willing to give yourself to them without compensation. You're just waiting, and waiting, and then suddenly; they smile.
And it's completely worth it.

You'd tear your heart out of your chest right then and there and place it in their hand, still pounding and soaked, as long as it would make them happy.
Their happiness is all that matters.

It doesn't matter if you know them, or if you don't.
As much as I wanted to be connected to Adeline: I wasn't.
I didn't know anything about her.
She didn't know anything about me.

All she had to go by was the fact that I followed her everywhere and was her personal GPS that gave back constant reports of her location once I got my photos from the shop. She didn't know me. She surely thought I was some freak.
Some psycho.
Some pervert.

It was a hard thing to admit, and an even harder thing to accept.
Unless I actually went up and talked to her, maybe she could change the image of me into a better one. Like the guy with so much guts who went up to her. I'm sure it was too late for that though, considering that image was probably dead set on her first impression.
When she saw me hiding in the bush.

With all these options, possibilities, fears, and dreams boiling in the pot of my skull, I had to come to terms with the fact that what's done is done. I practically sold my soul to an angel who seemed to be dressed in a Satan get-up at times, and I'd just have to wait it out. Even if Oli wasn't telling me jack shit about how he planned to potentially make or break me, I'd just have to stick to the backseat as he drove on dangerous highways, my hands gripping the edge of my seat to the point that I could taste the leather.

I was walking home when inner turmoil was having a seizure in my head. It seemed to be happening more often than it had before, and I'm not just talking about this past week, but the past month or so. My last straw of sanity floating down from my body like a stale leaf from a tree the day I had detention. I think my conscience was Epileptic.

Turning the corner to my street, it was then that I noticed I had been engrossed in myself the whole journey. Almost as if the world had been inverted from the outside to inside. I tried to remember how many cars that had passed me, or the path I took to get there.

Phenomenally, I was stunned clueless.
Cars? What cars?

As far as I knew the whole town had been deserted and everything from bikes to tree stumps had been sucked in along with it. How I had gotten home, the directions I took, was also another disturbing mystery. My damned parietal lobe was taking the reigns and keeping me in auto pilot again. Shaking off the feeling, I trotted to my house in a fastened pace. The time just went by so fast, but I guess that's what happens when you're plagued with everything. Like I predicted, Oli's car was sitting in the driveway. It hadn't moved all day.
It wasn't even a question anymore.

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at that pathetic site, but still went up the sidewalk to the residence. This house had only been dead lately, especially with my brother basically ignoring me for 96 hours. How he did it was he'd stay cooped up in his room, knowing I wouldn't go in there unless there was an emergency or if I was livid like last week. He only got up to go to eat a veggie burger and then shit it out, which actually wasn't much different from his normal tendencies.

I had to try and remain spirited about his plan though by keeping it for his mind only and reasoning that instead of doing nothing like he always did, Oli was avoiding me because he was diligently plotting like he said he would. It was a hard concept to get through my doubtful head.

At the front door, I reached in my back pocket for the key, found it, and got a hold of the knob.
I pushed it forward and it opened.
Raising a brow, part of me wondering if I locked it when I left or if my house was being robbed, so I entered with supreme caution. The ceiling fan light, which was centered in the living room and was never turned on, was illuminated from my end of the hall.

I blinked.
what the fuck?

Just as I knew there really was a burglar who was stupid enough to brighten up the place instead of sneak in the shadows, Oli was crossing the room rather quickly. Too quickly for someone who had just gotten out of a deep slumber, which only told me that he had been up and about for quite some time. I could only stand there amazed as I took in such changes of the household.

Lights were actually on, and Oli was being productive.
This wasn't possible.
Not even fathomable.
But here it was happening.
Right before my very eyes.

He crossed again, only this time stopped mid-step when he saw me.
I thought that he was going to drop whatever he was doing, turn off the light, and scatter back to his room. But he stayed planted. We stared at each other for probably minutes at a time, who really knew, but I think we were both waiting for the other to start something. Anything.

He straightened up his posture (what the fuck was going on?!) and made his way towards me. His composure was brighter than I had seen in a long time. As though his face was clearer; a sobering look. I mean, he wasn't drunk all the time, but by sobering I meant a new beginning. An epiphany had taken place because he just looked so damn...alive. That's the word I was searching for.

He reached in his back pocket to get something and I chuckled, thinking about how we were so related that we had the same places to place things, with the same mannerisms.
It was an envelope.
Was this part of his plan?
After 4 of the fucking longest days of my life, was Oli finally throwing me a bone? Or was he just toying with my sanity and giving me the rent to go give to the landlord?

Woah.
No, that can't be it.

His face was hard to decipher this time. It was a mix between happiness, that glow, and an attempt to be suspicious and blank of emotion. I grabbed it from his palm and looked it over quickly.
Too quickly.

Too quickly that I thought it was from my school.
Too quickly that I thought I saw the words "Journalism Club" once again.

Too quickly that when I opened it, I thought it said that they wanted me to be the photographer to cover the musical.