❦ WINNER OF THE RIVETING WRITING CONTEST ❦
OLIVER IS DYING
With only months left to live at just seventeen, Oliver spends his remaining days of endless tests and debilitating drugs in the St. Andrews paediatrics ward planning his impending funeral...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I feel like I'm stuck in a machine dryer—my insides are churning around and around, my emotions flipping over each other again and again.
After the party, I don't think I want to experience another one.
What happened in that bedroom was...was...I don't know.
What I do know is that I don't blame Nick for any of it, as much as he thinks he's responsible for what happened. I never expected him to babysit me. I didn't ask him to hover over me like a helicopter mom.
But I can't help but think that if he'd turned around for just one second earlier as I was going up the stairs—just one—maybe none of what happened in that bedroom would have.
I push those thoughts far out of my mind.
None of it was Nick's fault. I should've been able to say no. Perhaps Dan would have stopped. Perhaps he wouldn't have.
Either way, I should've been able to stop it.
The night wasn't completely awful, though. The hour Nick and I had spent on the beach was something else. It was like the night we went stargazing, but something more.
You get me because you understand loneliness.
I do understand loneliness.
As much as I love Bobbi and Simon, the other kids in Tombstone and my parents, I can never seem to shake the heavy feeling of it, like I'm standing in the middle of a bustling city watching people rush by in a blur and I can't seem to feel connected to any of them.
It's not the kind of loneliness like being alone, because I'm never alone; when I'm not with Bobbi or Simon, it's nurses and doctors with tests to perform and drugs to take.
It's like watching the world go by and having no part in it.
No, it's the kind of loneliness where relating to people seems so impossible. It is impossible.
Nick hadn't needed to explain it.
He's surrounded by people who never truly understand him, who seem like they never will. They never understand his fears, his struggle, the thoughts that stay locked away but itch in the very back of his mind; that weigh his heart down.
He doesn't feel that nobody cares about him. It's more that he has the constant feeling that what people do isn't enough, and they know it isn't.
He craves connection beyond just the surface level.
I know this because I saw it. I saw it etched onto his face. I saw it in his piercing blue eyes.
Nick hadn't needed to explain his feelings on that beach.
He hadn't needed to because I get it. I understand. And I want to help him.
"Sooo."
Bobbi's drawling voice pulls me back into reality.
