I Can Taste the Failure

Two long days passed, producing no leads on Louise’s case and nothing but silent looks between Oliver and I, undecipherable and painful to endure.

When I had walked through the door to Louise’s hospital room Wednesday night, thankfully without Oliver, who I had sent on a coffee run down to the hospital cafeteria for this very reason, Louise took one look at my pink cheeks, set down her magazine, and went, “What did you do?”

I had replied by setting four more magazines on top of her used pile- the poor girl had nothing to do but read gossip magazines since she hated to read actual books- and plopping down beside her on the ugly blue sheets. “Luvvie,” I had said, taking in her pretty pink cheeks and blue eyes soaking me in as if I was a soap opera. “I think I just fucked up big time.”

The only blip of hope to come was that today, Louise was being released from the hospital. Outside, rain drilled against the roof and slid down the blue curtain covered windows, but inside everyone was riding on a cloud of happiness. In these hours leading up to Louise’s release, she was our sun, making us all smile from her self-empowered euphoria of being let out. She hated being locked up like she had been for the past couple of days.

All of the ‘Horizon boys had been nothing but helpful, especially Curtis, who was so helpful Louise was actually getting a bit annoyed. She loved to be adored, but even she had a line. Curtis was acting like a worried, lovesick teenager.

Louise was finally able to ditch the unattractive blue dressing gown she had been required to wear for her stay at the hospital, and this was probably the thing that cheered her up the most. I went home and brought her back some of her favorite comfort clothes. She emerged from the bathroom, ready to leave, dressed in rolled-up blue ducky pajamas and a black tank top.

She grinned at me, “Ready to go home?”

“Not home,” I corrected my best mate automatically, like I’d been doing since the time two days ago when I told her about my Wednesday night escapade with Oliver.

Louise shrugged her tiny shoulders, “Same difference.”

We climbed into my small black car alone, having insisted that I drive her so that we could catch up. It had been a mostly gossip-less last couple of days, due to the boys springing up in Louise’s hospital room every couple of minutes. They had quickly fallen into our daily routine.

Louise let her head fall back against the headrest, her eyes drooping. She brought up her hands to gently massage her temples. She’d been getting headaches ever since the poisoning and still, she wasn’t as strong as she was before, though her attitude remained the same.

“So tell me what’s up with you and Sykes,” she said once I had pulled out of the busy hospital parking lot. “I hear about this amazing sex, and then you two can’t even look at each other.”

Clearly, I shouldn’t have told her quite how amazing the sex was. Whenever the subject was brought up- and it was brought up daily- the sex was always referenced to as “the glorious sex” or “the amazing sex.” Louise loved to talk about good sex, but even more important to her was my attitude about it.

I exhaled, “I don’t know, Lou. It was like Oliver said, I need him. I shouldn’t have done it, though,” my fingers tightened around the steering wheel, “because all it’s done is screw everything up.”

“Eh?” said Louise.

“Lou, I’m fucked, I’m bloody fucked,” I cried. “Don’t you get it, I fancy him,” I hit the steering wheel with the palm of my hand, annoyed, “He knows it too, I know he does.”

She looked at me like I was barking, “Well, obviously, but he fancies you too, y’know.”

“How does anything he’s done translate to him liking me?”

“Well, you see, it’s all in the interpretation…”

I raised an eyebrow at her, “You’re really not helping.”

Louise shifted in her seat so that she was angled towards me and brought her leg up onto the seat, curling her leg under her thigh. She let her hands settled in her lap.

“Honey, you’re complicating things,” Louise told me. “Have you even bothered to tell Oliver that you like him?” I opened my mouth, and she raised a chipped blue fingernail, “Hush, Hol, I’m not done,” I settled into silence with a grumble. “You need to tell Oliver how you feel. The boy’s not going to put his heart on the line, at least not fast enough, which is why you have to do it. I can see you’re scared, but isn’t it sort of worth it to take the chance?”

I fell silent for a few moments, but then whispered, “He’s a player.”

“Oliver’s like me, love; don’t I do the same things?”

I peered at her curiously, “What do you mean?”

“Oliver and I, we like to have a good time,” Louise said, bridging the connection. “We fuck and we chuck but because we’re thinking of ourselves.”

I groaned in frustration, “Lou, how does that change anything?”

“Oliver cares about you.”

“Louise, are you listening to yourself? Oli fucks and chucks, and you just said so yourself!”

Louise pinched the bridge of her nose like I was giving her a headache. “Holley, really now,” she said, sounding both pained and annoyed. “Have you even realized what that boy has done for you? He offered us a place to live to protect me, a girl he doesn’t even like, because I mean something to you.”

“Oliver likes you,” I said unconvincingly.

She ignored me, “Look at the facts, Hol. He offered you a place to live, a job,” I cringed at the recall. “I may not love the kid, but I know you like him, and you’re making this amazingly hard for yourself.”

“But he’s so tricky,” I replied “And it’s just not that easy. He made it clear to me, the night of our first date, that if I didn’t accept the way he fucked other girls, then I could pretty much get the hell out of his life.”

Louise was silenced for a couple of seconds, “You never told me that.”

The memory made me wince. “I know.”

“So you had sex with him after that, didn’t you?”

I cringed, “Unfortunately, yes.”

The car rolled to a stop in front of Oliver’s house- an old, white Victorian home with peeling paint and character. I turned off the ignition, and we sat in silence for a few moments. Louise shook her head and got out of the car; I followed after her.

“I still say you talk to him,” Louise volunteered as we made our way up the old gravel driveway.

“Tonight,” I promised her.

My heart thumped against my chest unevenly at the thought.

The door flew open as we approached the stone steps, bathing us in artificial light. A boy stood in the doorway, only younger than us by a couple of years. His eyes were warm, and so was his smile. I could see Oliver in some parts of his face, though they still looked wildly different. He looked sweet and gentle; Oliver was more devil-may-care.

“Holley, Louise?” he said, smiling down at us.

“Right we are,” I replied to the boy, finding it impossible to not return the smile. “That must make you Tom.”

“That’d be me.”

Tom looked over his shoulder, something making him shake his head in amusement and then nod. I went to turn, but someone’s arms circled around my waist, spinning me around, making me cry out in laughter. They laughed along with me.

Oliver put me down; his warm eyes were content. I stood still, breathing slightly heavier, my arms draped around his neck. His hands burned pleasantly at my hips.

“Happy to see me, Oli?” elated, I chirped.

It felt great, seeing Oliver like this. He was so beautiful when he was happy.

He chuckled, “Right, love.”

Louise shot me a look, and I glared at her. He was in such a good mood, one I hadn’t seen in what seemed like forever. Why push my luck?

Oli’s lips dipped against my ear and he whispered, “I wanted to let you know how great your arse looks in those jeans.”

I took a deep breath, touched my hand to his shoulder, and said, “Actually, Oli, I was hoping I could talk to you.”

He pulled back and nodded, turning to his brother with an “I’ll be right back- can you show Louise around?” Tom nodded and Oliver touched his hand to the small of my back, leading me upstairs to the second level, which had a floor covered in rough tan carpet.

The upstairs consisted of a small square entry with a deep mahogany banister that sectioned off the staircase, doors around the room leading to bedrooms and bathrooms. I recalled this from when I was last here, though I had been drunk off of alcohol and Oliver then, and now I had only one dangerous substance to worry about. Oli took my hand and led me to a door around the banister, which he pushed open and pulled me into.

Oliver flipped on the light and his room was in the same disarray since the last time I’d seen it; same tan carpet as the hallway, covered with dirty clothes, navy blue bed chaotic and messy, pictures of half-naked girls on his dark blue walls. I looked curiously at the only addition I had never before noticed. I stepped cautiously over all of the clothes, remembering my last visit and the boxers that managed to tangle themselves around my ankles, and made my way over to the large sliding door, which led out to an old terrace.

“Is it safe?” I asked Oli curiously.

He nodded, pulled open the door, and led me out into the warm summer night by my hand. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said in response to my awed gasp.

It was beautiful. From up here, I could see the street bathed in the dim street lamps, the lights shining in the neighbors homes, and the moon beaming down at Oliver and I from the sky. Even the stars twinkled down on us tonight.

Oliver lit up a cigarette while I was distracted and I turned to him, “Give me one of those?”

“You sure?”

“I’ll choose my poisons,” I said, plucking the offered cigarette from between his long fingers. “Fags are slightly worse than coffee, though I’m willing to take my chance with dying by either.”

Oliver lit the cigarette for me, and we sucked on them in silence, blowing smoke up into the night sky.

“So what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

I stopped cold; I was suddenly glad that Oliver couldn’t see my eyes in the moonlight. I turned to him, shrugging, “You know, everything- Louise, the move… us.”

Oliver blew out smoke between his lips and rested his arm on the balcony, his cigarette dangling from his fingers. “What about us?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them slowly. “I want to know how you feel about me, Oliver,” I told him.

He paused, “I like you, I thought you knew that.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, suddenly frustrated.

Oliver exhaled slowly, “I know, but I don’t know what you want me to say.”

I rubbed my arms, drifting closer to him, “Oli, I told you I need you, and it’s the truth. I want to know- don’t you need me too?”

“Of course, Holley, of course I need you.”

“How much?” I whispered.

Oliver pulled me against his body, his arms loosely snuggling my waist. He rested his chin on the top of my head. I closed my eyes, breathing in his familiar scent- cigarette smoke, light unidentifiable cologne- and rested my head against his chest.

“Enough,” he whispered back, “to need to have you in my life.”

I knew, in that moment, that though it wasn’t much, it was a blip of light in the dark, stretching horizon. My heart swelled with both relief and pain. It hurt to come to terms with, but it was becoming clearer and clearer every day that his need and my need were two very different things.