❦ 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...
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I stand by the window overlooking the gardens below.
The rain started half an hour ago, pouring down on the world against the beams of the street lights.
Droplets tap against the window, rolling down the glass. People run for cover, sheltering under newspapers and umbrellas and the hoods of their coats. Puddles ripple as the rainfall becomes heavier. The roofs of the cars parked on the street and queued at the stop lights dance to the tune of the rainfall with spray. The sound of it all blur together into one whirring noise, and then lessened to a naturalistic chime before intensifying again.
I wrap my arms tighter around myself as I watch the rain.
You know that sick, sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach you can't seem to shake? Like being worrying about telling your parents about something bad you did, or running into people you had a bitter exchange with not too far in the past?
That's how I feel about Nick.
About almost kissing him on my birthday.
I can't stop thinking about trying to wrap my head around the enigma that is Nicholas Beauregard.
But I also feel for him.
I pity him that he feels he can't be who he is: a wonderful human being with such a big capacity to care and love.
I pity him that he feels he can't show his family who he is in fear of what they'd think of him, of what his father would think of him.
It makes me so, so happy and thankful that my parents took my coming out so well—that they hugged me and told me nothing had truly changed and that they'd love me no matter what.
Either way, I'm going to be there for Nick whether he's so far in the closet that he's in Narnia or if he decides he's ready to step out of it.
That is if my suspicions are right. I have a strong feeling I am.
I breathe out the troubled breath I'd been holding in and walk away from the window.
And then I hear a familiar clink against the glass.
I turn back and look down into the garden below.
Nick.
He's just looking at me up at me. He doesn't need to do anything for me to know what he wants.
I don't hesitate.
I yank on the pair of jeans I'd thrown on the floor an hour ago and pull on the black bomber jacket haphazardly draped over the desk chair.
I stagger out into the hallway, pulling on my Converse sneakers as I hop towards the elevator.
Nick's waiting for me outside in the garden under my window. He's standing in the rain in a leather jacket, his blond hair flattening down on his head.
