--WARNING!-- This Chapter contain mention of alcohol, mental health and mention of self-harm and death.
Oliver
stared at the sunset in front of him, the sky turning a hue of pink and purple
as the daytime slowly came to an end. Sometimes it felt like his life was
coming to an end with it, but a different life would start when the stars came
out. Oliver had no idea when he had turned so melancholy, but he blamed the
booze in his system.
When was the last time Oliver had
gone two days sober? Was it when he was 13, back then when he still felt like
he had something to fight for? Or maybe it was when he started in high school
when he had a feeling, he would never be able to finish? And when did the drugs
start? Back then, when his mother died, and he felt his whole world crumble
down?
He was ten years old; his brother was
12, and he watched as his dad barely had any life in him, watching him loose
that spark and pulling himself away from others, even his family. Back then when
Oliver and Jake needed their dad, but their dad could barely even keep himself
going.
Oliver sought comfort in painkillers,
at first only a few times a month, but it escalated to once a week then to
several times a week, and the doses also got higher over the span of a few
years.
But when did it go from painkillers
to other stuff? Oliver didn’t really care anymore, as long as he had something
in his system, whether it was drugs or booze. He knew he was a failure, the
black sheep of the family, and even though he wished things had turned out
differently for him, he didn’t care anymore to change it.
It didn’t help that Oliver was born with ADHD or that his hearing on his left ear was bad, like you could shout in that ear and it would be like a whisper to him. It didn’t help either that he had to wear glasses, yet he never did, resulting in him not being able to follow along very well in school. Not that Oliver cared. He sucked at it and had given up years ago, even though his brother would force him to do homework from time and again, helping out as much as he could without ending up doing it for him.
But if there was something Oliver was good at, then it was taking pictures and skating. Oliver had found an old camera in the attic one day as he was searching through stuff, and when he asked his dad about it, he was told it used to belong to his mom. Oliver had first wanted to sell it to grab some quick cash, but upon learning it belonged to his mother, he decided to keep it, along with a photo album that his mother had left behind, full of photos of places she had been and things she had seen.
When he learned she liked taking photos back when she was young, Oliver started to grow interested in it and from when he was 15 till now at the age of 19, he had practiced taking photos. He wasn’t good at it, since he never had any real guidance, but he enjoyed it none the less and was one of the few things that could help him get through a bad day, beside getting drunk and high.
Skating, though, was difficult to learn, since the problems with his hearing actually also caused him to have a bad balance, but after years of practice, thanks to his friend Zack teaching him, he had somehow learned to deal with it. He wasn’t the best, but he still could a few tricks and loved to roll down the street, going anywhere he want to.
“Yo, earth to Olli!”
Zack slightly yelled, waving his hands in front of Oliver. He blinked for a
second, then his eyes gilded over to look at his best friend, who was sitting
next to him on the rooftop of Oliver’s house, wearing a plain dark green
t-shirt and loose dark grey cargo pants. Oliver’s bedroom window led out to the
roof of the garage, which was flat and sturdy enough for them to sit on and
they spend many hours here growing up.
“What?” he asked, before taking another swig of the bottle of rum placed in between them.
“Are you listening?” Zack laughed before grabbing the bottle from Oliver, taking a swig himself, “I called your name a few times, don’t tell me you are already wasted.”
Zack has been Oliver's friend since kindergarten, and they were like two peas in a pod, the one was never without the other. They hung out so much that they even managed to convince people they were siblings, even though they looked nothing alike.
Back then Zack used to have brown hair, but two years ago he decided to color his hair blond, for whatever reason Oliver didn’t understand. He still had his own hair color, black as coal and cut unevenly, making his slightly curly hair stick in all directions.
They used to spend all their time together, from when they met in kindergarten to when they started in school and then high school, even after school, they would spend most of their time together, skating, hanging out in the mall or go to the scrap yard.
“Listen, I need to leave, Clarissa wants me to come over, so I’m going to crash at her place,” Zack grinned, waving his phone he was holding in his hand.
Oliver felt a ping of disappointment and his heart ache. Clarissa was a name he didn’t like hearing, as it belonged to Zacks girlfriend.
She wasn’t a bad person, honestly Oliver liked her, but at the same time he didn’t, because ever since they started dating three months back, Oliver felt like a third wheel whenever they all hung out together. He didn’t like that the time, they used to spend together, now had to be shared with a third person, which meant Zack would often be too busy to hang out with Oliver and that kind of made him jealous, but he couldn’t tell Zack that. He couldn’t because Zack finally seemed happy, more than normal, and she did keep Zack from self-harm, which he had struggled with for some years.
That was also the reason why Oliver couldn’t really hate her, because she could keep him in check when Oliver couldn’t. He tried to do what he could to help Zack, but he wasn’t much better at taking care of himself.
Oliver was that type of
person who liked doing dangerous things, which meant there was also a chance of
getting hurt by it. Whether it was doing stupid stunts like trying to see how
many trashcans he could jump over, doing amateur parkour jumping off walls or
simply do drugs.
Oliver forced a smile
before he replied, “sure, fuck her brains out, just remember to think of me
while you do it” he winked teasingly, which made Zack punch his arm before
taking one last swig of the bottle and hand it back to Oliver.
Oliver didn’t get up; he found the evening breeze to be refreshing so he decided to stay put. Not long after, Zack was on the road, pulling his bicycle from the front yard.
“See ya, loser!” Zack yelled, staring up at Oliver with a grin while waving.
“See ya, fuck face” he replied with a small wave, which prompted Zack to flip him off before riding away.
“How long are you going to stay here?” Jake asked, stirring Oliver from his slumber, and opening his eyes to look at his brother. Jake was leaning out of the window, his bare arms resting on the window edge, as he looked down at Oliver with his ocean blue eyes and his smooth dark brown hair, stylishly slicked back. His hair was nicely kept, with short sides and back but a lot of hair on top. Oliver hadn’t noticed he was lying down when he opened his eyes. He must have fallen asleep, he thought as he propped himself up, leaning on his elbows, head tilting back to look at Jake upside down.
“What time is it?” he asked before yawning.
“Dinner was done ten minutes ago, we called for you,” Jake said a little apathetic and sighed a little when he looked at the bottle next to Oliver, realizing he had been drinking. “One of these days, you are going to regret drinking so much,” he said before pulling away from the window. “Come on, dad’s waiting” he slightly yelled and left the room.
Oliver sighed a little and picked up his bottle, noticing it was almost empty and sat up straight. He had been drinking more than he thought he would, even though Zack had helped. He got up, wobbly on his feet as he could feel the alcohol and went over to the window. He climbed in but lost he balance and fell over the edge, onto the floor of his room, landing on his back.
“Ow… fuck” he cursed as he lied there, starring at the ceiling. He sighed, almost contemplating if he should just stay on the floor, but decided that he better get up. Oliver let out a soft grunt, as he got up, and placed the bottle on his desk, by the window, before heading downstairs.
When Oliver entered their 90's style kitchen, all kept in light wood with white countertops, worn down by years of use, their dad was aldready eating, sitting at the end of ther dining table, placed at the far end of the kitchen, up against the window.
Their dad was the type of person, who didn't wait for anyone unless he was eating with guests. His favorite phrase had always been, 'the early bird gets the worm', meaning be there to get food or too bad.
Jake had gone back to his own seat, which was to the right of their dad, scopping up some mashed potatoes onto his plate as Oliver sat down. He took his seat next to their dad's left, across from Jake. His dad eyed him for a moment before returning his focus on his food, not saying a word. Oliver scooped some food onto his plate and hungrily begang to eat, like he hadn't eaten for days.
"Could you not eat like a pid?" Jake asked, glaring at him while making a disgusted expression. Oliver rolled his eyes exaggerated and slowed down eating.
"Why don't you mind your own business?" Oliver sneered back. Before Jake could say anything their dad interrupted them.
"Boys, let's not right at the table," their dad sighed, sounding exhausted. Jake rolled his eyes and went back to eating, leaving Oliver to eat in peace too. "And Oliver, didn't we just talk about you cutting down on the booze?" his dad asked, but without much fight in his voice.
Oliver glanced up from his food to look at his dad, his gray eyes met his dad's gray eyes. His fathers exhausted face, made him look older then what he really was and it didn't get better with the fact that, his dad had salt and pepper colored hair, his black hair looking more dark gray. It was worn down, probably from years of stress and not being taken proper care of, but still nicely kept and combed to the side.
As they stared at each other in silence, Oliver could see the oh so disappointed look, he had learned not to care much about, after seeing it for so many years. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, pushing some carrots around with his fork, as he sent his dad and exaggerated smile.
"I'm down to a bottle a day," he said sarcastically, knowing full well it would only annoy his dad. It was hard to take him seriously when he he didn't even take himself seriously.
His dad sighed again and rubbed the bridge of his nose, "could you just for once make an effort?" his dad asked with a hint of annoyance. "You won't live long, less accomplish anything, if you don't start taking this seriously," his dad started to argue, which made Oliver lose his appetite.
"Dad, please, just stop," he said flatly and sighed, his dad sighing to while he shook his head in disappointment before leaning back in his chair.
"Son, I'm concerned for you," he looked at Oliver, his eyes exhausted yet still full of worry. "I don't want to see yoy ending up in the hospital with liver failure, before you turn 20," he said, about to say some more, but Oliver had had enough and stood up.
"Thanks for the food," he cut him short and took his plate, half full of food, and dumped it on the counter. "I'm going out," he mumbled and left the kitchen to go to his room.
Oliver didn’t want to stay at home, since he didn’t
want to listen to his dad complain, so he grabbed his skateboard, keys, and
phone from his room, before he went out of the front door, ignoring Jake's calling
after him as he closed the door behind him.
Oliver knew what he was doing was
bad, but he didn’t care enough to do anything about it. He had long given up
trying to be the good kid, letting himself drown in his misery, that no matter
how much he want to get better, he had no will to do it.
The evening breeze felt nice against his warm skin as he skated towards the town. His black Metallica t-shirt and black skinny jeans, with ripped holes down his thighs and his black converse was sucking up the last heat from the suns rays.
Since he hadn’t eaten enough at home, Oliver wondered if he should buy some food and decided to head towards the summer carnival by the lake.
He skated for forty minutes, surprised how well he could skate with how much alcohol he had in his system, when he reached the carnival.
It wasn’t something big, it had some amusements rides, though no roller-coasters, different types of carnival games, where you would waste money on trying to win something than actually winning, a haunted house and it had a food court with all kinds of different food.
The bright light and the sounds of music and screams could be noticed from a distance. Crowds of people were walking around, as the nice warm evening heat and the sun still in the sky, encouraged people to stay longer at the carnival.
Oliver picked up his skateboard and headed towards where the food stands were, wondering what he should get and decided on some fries and a milkshake, when someone, he hadn’t seen for a long time, suddenly caught his attention.
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