Ghost of You

Olivia woke me up sometime early in the morning, vomiting in the toilet. I leaned over and caught the clock, spinning it around so I could have a better view of the time.. 5:23 AM. I looked over at the bed next to ours and could just make out a few strands of black hair pooling out from underneath the covers. Yu was sound asleep. I rolled over on my other side as Olivia slipped back into bed, not knowing whether I was awake or asleep.

I woke up around nine for good. Yu was already gone, and Olivia had vomited twice more. I sat up in bed as I waited for her to come out of the bathroom once more. When she did, she looked at me cautiously.

"You're up." She stated.

"Good morning." I greeted. She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed and began to put on her high heels.

"You're leaving?" I asked her. She looked back at me.

"Yeah I am. I don't want to be a thorn in your side any longer. You got what you wanted, now I can leave." She said, sounding angry.

"You don't have to. And I didn't get what I wanted. I mean, not like you were bad or anything." I said after she gave me another look.

"Yeah but I don't want to be an issue." She said.

"Last night. You....you said you were homeless." I reminded her. She walked over to the table underneath a mirror and picked up my brush, wondering if she could use it. I nodded.

"I guess I am now. Ever since my mother died my step-dad Frank agreed to allow me to stay as long as I suck on his dick from time to time." She said bluntly, turning her back to me to look at her reflection in the mirror.

"But that's not what you want. Was he that man who was hitting you last night?" I asked her. She pulled her hair back in a ponytail, and even from where I sat I could see a giant bruise on the side of her face standing out from all of the smaller ones I had made on her flesh last night. In a flash, she let her hair drop back down, even if I knew she had wanted me to see the bruise.

"It's not always about what you want in life. It's about what you've got." She said to me and began to brush out her hair.

"It should be about what you want. You can stay with me for a little while until you get back on your feet." I offered her. She gave me a look of disbelief in the mirror.

"What do I have to do for you? Sleep with you? Do your clothes? What is it that you want from me?" She asked me.

"I want you to feel better about yourself. And I just want you back on your feet again." I told her honestly. She turned around, folding her arms across her chest.

"And what makes you think I feel bad about myself?" She asked. My eyes lingered down to her arms to the cigarette burn scars and cut marks that were very faint. She noticed me looking at her and stalked into the bathroom. I heard the toilet lid slam down and then the shower starting to run, and for a while I wondered if I offended her.

Olivia spent a while in the bathroom, and in that time I had gotten dressed and called Yu to ask where he was. He told me that he had went over to Kiro's and Shin's room for doughnuts. He said they wanted to congradulate me on my first one night stand, and with that I hung up on him. Olivia came out with a white towel around herself, her hair wet.

"Can I use your cell?" She asked me. I opened the drawer and pulled it out for her. She walked back into the bathroom, and I heard her for a while talking to what sounded like her step-dad. She came back out soon later, not making eye contact with me.

"I talked to my step-dad. He's going to put my necessities in a box out on the curb this afternoon." Olivia said as she handed the phone back to me. She dabbed at her eyes, trying hard not to cry. I reached up and hugged her once again, glad that I could help and worried about her all at once
I was the one to tell my band mates about my new guest at my house. They were all shocked, and Yu slapped his head in defeat.

"Have I taught you anything?" He asked me desperately.

Later during the day, I also went with Olivia to get her things. I had wondered what her step-dad had meant about only leaving her necessities on the curb, and when we pulled up to his house not too far out of Magdeburg, I knew what he meant. There was one single medium sized brown box on the corner. I watched out of the back window as Olivia picked up the box without going through it and climbed back into my car. It was raining slightly, and she had suddenly became entranced by the hallow sound of the rain hitting the metal roof as I pulled away.

"What did he leave you?" I finally asked after we had been driving in silence for what seemed like forever. Silently, Oliva opened up the box. I glanced over when we finally reached a stop sign. There was her phone, purse, her Ipod, a single change of clothes inside, as well as a jewelry box and a photo album. It was exactly the bare essentials in which he knew she wouldn't part with. I had wondered for a month or so after why she never requested more than that, but I finally figured that he had given her the most important things.

"You do know I'm in a band, right?" I asked her.

"The guitar case propped up on the wall in the hotel room was a hint. You hanging around with eccentric people was a dead give away." She said. I turned the steering wheel.

"Not all musicians are eccentric." I replied.

"No. Only the good ones are." She said. I smiled at the half complement she had given to me. I had thought she had just been making assumptions about us, but looking back I have a feeling she truly meant it.

When we finally finished with the farther away interviews and finally went home to Berlin, I had originally given Olivia my studio as a bedroom. Shin had generously donated an extra day bed he had for her to sleep on, and I gave her a few sticks of furniture from other rooms of the house.
Within a week of moving into my flat, I began to be accustomed to her personality. Her sweet and playful side, her spontaneity, her ability to create beautiful poems and carpets. I also began to quaint myself to her sarcastic responses and to her depressive moods. At the beginning, she had been depressed a lot; an hollow ghost of the person she could be. She had came out of her shell completely around three months of us living together, and that's when I began to fall in love with Olivia.

She was unique and different from many of the girls in my life up until then, with a beautiful body that didn't need much makeup to veil her appearance. She was always slender, even when her eating habits picked up, with a light creme color skin. Her dark brown hair descended in waves just below her shoulder blades, and her deep emotional brown eyes saw right through me every time.
I was the first one to tell her I loved her, while she was up writing in her studio one night. I sat down next to her as she worked. When I told her she smiled, and then started to laugh. I was about to get angry at her for laughing when I was being serious, but then she shoved her notebook into my face and I read a poem that she had dedicated to me.

"Strify, I love you." She said to me, bringing her lips to mine softly. Olivia spent the night in my room, as well as every night after. Her bedroom became a studio once again that we both shared.

It was in the beginning of August in 2009 when I brought her to the park not too far away from our flat. It was a beautiful day, and in despite of that, the lazy people that was our neighbors weren't out enjoying it in the park, except for two mothers and their three kids. Cinema Bizarre had just released our new single 'I Came 2 Party' and it was rising its way up the Billboard charts with out any intentions of slowing down anytime soon. I felt like life was the best right then.

"Guess what?" I told her.

"What?" She asked, entwining our hands together on my right leg, sitting with her feet up on the bench next to her.

"We've got the beginning dates of the tour lined up." I told her.

"Andi, I'm so happy for you." She said, sounding completely cheerful.

"I want you to come with us." I told her.

"On tour? Are you sure it's fine?" She asked.

"Yes of course. Yu Phoenix brought his ex-girlfriend on our last tour. Why not bring you along?" I asked her. That made her happy. I rested my hand on her warm cheek as I pressed my mouth to hers.

"Do you know what else I'm going to ask?"

"What?" Olivia asked me.

"It's no fun unless you guess."

"Come on, Strify." She said.

"Well since you're so impatient, fine. I refuse to tell you." I further agonized her.

"Strify..." I kissed her once more on her lips lightly.

"Will you marry me Olivia Van Heller?" I asked her. The question caught her off guard, and she paused for a second before answering.

"Yes." She told me simply. I chuckled and kissed her again.

"Forever and ever?" I asked her hopefully. She laughed

"Till death do us part." She promised me.