Oakley POV
I knocked on the door Caleb pointed me to. It was already slightly open.
"Caleb, I told you I'm fine," Olivia huffed before she laid eyes on me. She laid in a bed, a lamp lit beside her and a tv remote in her hand. Her eyes lit up when she saw me.
"Glad to hear you're feeling okay," I said a small smile on my face.
"Oak," she exclaimed, "I didn't think you'd get here so fast, come in. Calebs room is amazing." She lifted herself into a sitting position and watched as I walked up to her. Her head tilted and her ponytail dropping sideways.
"Oakley, what's wrong?" She asked.
I turned my head down to the floor, wiping my nose, "Nothing. It was just raining out."
"Yeah, bullshit. I'm not your best friend for no reason, Oak, I know when you're lying. I can tell from your voice alone."
She had a point, my voice was small and sounded fragile. I hated it.
I looked up at her, my frown engrained on my lips and she pouted, opening her arms out to me.
I walked over, taking my shirt and jeans off to lay on the bed beside her, too drained to get new clothes. Another round of tears made their appearance.
She's the only person I'd cry in front of. Crying shows vulnerability, it's used against you in your most desperate time in need. Back in school, I'd cry when thinking of my parents and the kids would laugh, and make jokes. So I taught myself to hide it all inside.
But Olivia was the opposite, she'd cry about her favorite show ending or the ice-cream finishing—speaking from viewers' experience—but yet still be able to take a life. I will never understand her but that's what I love about her.
"Wanna talk about it?" She asked rubbing my head, knowing the answer is usually no. I laid on her shoulder and her arms went around me, careful not to irritate the wrapped wound on her side. I still feel terrible for being the cause of it.
"I'm stupid," I muttered.
Olivia let out a small laugh, "One, you're not stupid, far from it. Two, why would you think that?"
I sighed, licking my lips, "Today when August—"
"Wait this is about August? I thought you guys were nothing?"
I groaned closing my eyes, "Please for the love of god no questions. Especially that one. If I hear it one more time I might throw up."
"Alright, fine. No more questions."
"Thank you," I laid back on her shoulder, "When August and I got to the sanctuary, I saw him... uh, holding a woman," The words felt like acid coming off my tongue.
Liv nodded, "And how did that make you feel?"
I looked up at her with a straight face, "I said no questions."
"Okay, but that's a really serious one," She rebutted.
I turned over grabbing her pillow and covered my face with it.
"Come on spit it out," She sang. "Mad? happy? sad?"
All of the above.
"Annoyed," my word muffled through the pillow.
"Mhm, and annoyed why?"
I pulled the pillow down, "What are you? My therapist or something?"
She shrugged, "Call me Miss Denver. Now go, we're getting somewhere. Why did you get annoyed?"
I glared at her before putting the pillow back over my head, "I don't know."
"That makes two of us. So... why are you stupid again?"
"He said she likes girls. And we got into this weird argument I started before I knew that vital piece of information. He kept it out on purpose just to see my reaction. God, he probably thinks I'm some idiot fucking chick."
A moment passed before Liv spoke, "You're only eighteen Oak and done more things than half the teenage population. As much as I love you talking about your feelings, don't beat yourself up over it. Maybe he was trying to see if you trust him or care at all?"
I can't trust him, not with something so precious to me: my heart. Something that's never been given to no man besides my father. And even then, he was taken away from me, along with a piece of me that will never come back. August is a mafia member and so am I now. There's no room for lending people hearts.
I sighed, pulling the pillow down for the second time, "I don't want to be with him, Olivia. I can't be with him."
"Yeah, and pigs fucking fly."
"Not helping."
"You started lying first," She said shrugging, grabbing the Doritos on the nightstand. She plopped one in her mouth. "Look, I can't tell you what to feel. Only you know what you feel. And I hope you figure whatever it is out soon. But I can just tell you that I'm here for you. Forever."
She stuck out her pinky and I smiled at it. I extended my pinky and hooked it with hers tightly.
"Forever," I said.
"Now come, my Favorite show just rebooted and we have to watch it."
"What's it about?"
"Oh, just this anonymous person telling everyone's secrets and shit."
I laughed at her, scooting closer to grab a Doritos out of her bag. I never had time for watching shows, I was usually out searching New York with the bullet that still hangs around my neck.
She pressed play and we laid there watching the T.V. The room was dim and the rain outside hit the window loudly. And for a moment I felt like we were back in our apartment, laughing and smiling.
***
Nearly an hour had passed, I turn as the show came to an end. Olivia was asleep. Sighing, I smiled at her mouth sprinkled with Doritos crumbs and got out of the bed I slowly putting the covers over her.
I walked over to get a change of clothes from the closet, turned off her lamp, grabbed my bag, and shut her room door.
In the living room was Caleb, he was laying on the couch, a blanket over him.
"Why don't you lay with Olivia?" I asked him. He was staring at the ceiling but turned to look at me walking down his hallway.
He sighed, "I don't want to be so obvious."
"Of you're feelings for her?"
He sat up, "Fuck, so it is obvious? Does she know? And don't lie to me I know you two are inseparable."
I laughed lightly, "I do know, but I guess you have to find out for yourself. Go sleep beside her, she probably thinks she's gonna wake up beside me. If she tells you to get the hell out, then you know your answer."
Olivia would never do that, especially to Caleb. He's the first guy she's really liked since I met her and now I think I just did her a favor.
"Why aren't you just sleeping alongside her?" He asked, his British accent strong.
"I was thinking I should go upstairs to August's house. He should be sleeping it's almost one in the morning."
He leaned over and dug into his pants pockets and flung me something I caught it in mid-air.
"Yeah he came back only a few minutes after you did and I told him you were here with Livvy. Here's, that's his key. He gave us each one just in case but I think you need it more than me now."
I looked down at the singular key on the metal ring. Looking back up at Caleb, I nodded and walked towards the door.
"Oh, and Oakley."
I turned, "Yeah?"
"I've never seen him give someone the amount of attention he gives you."
"Probably because he has to. It's his job... Right?"
He smirked, "I don't know, I guess you have to find out for yourself."
I rolled my eyes pulling his door open and stepping out into the hallway.
I made my way up to August's apartment by elevator and slowly approached it, sliding the key Caleb gave me in and twisting it open.
The living room was dark, the moonlight shining in. But it was quiet. I placed my bag down on the couch and slipped my key and phone in it when I heard a bottle clank.
Jumping, I reached for the gun in my bag and turned around with it pointed towards the sound.
But sitting on the floor I see a dark blob that I quickly realize is august. Relief flooded me but quickly got replaced by irritation as I lower my gun and walk to turn the light on.
August was surrounded by beer and alcohol bottles in the kitchen section, his head leaning against the island table.
"August," I said. He didn't even move. He must be wasted if he drank all those empty bottles. There was around eight, maybe nine. I walked over to him and kneeled on the ground tapping his cheek.
"August, hey, wake up."
He didn't even twitch. I cocked my hand back and sent it flying against his cheek.
His headshot to the side and he gasped for air at the impact. It felt good to have an excuse to do that. His eyes widened and his hand flew to his face.
"What the fuck," He mumbled. "Did you do that for?"
"August, what the hell are you doing?"
His eyes finally laid on me, doting around my face, "Oakley?"
"No shit."
"Oakley, Oakley, Oakley, " He repeated as I stood up to collect the bottles scattered on the floor. His words were slurred and mushed together.
"I am aware of my name," I muttered, "Don't have to wear it out."
"You're fucking annoying," He let out, his eyes barely open.
I rolled my eyes as I dropped the last bottles in the trash, it clanked on the ones under it, "Go to hell."
"I'll meet you th-there," He slurred.
I shook my head, not trying to let his remarks get to me. He's just talking out his ass, his drunk intoxicated ass. I walked in front of him, kicking his leg. "Get up."
"If I get up I'm thro-throwing up in you."
"August, get the hell up, I don't have all night," I said and he stood quiet. His shirt was buttoned low, showing his defined chest. I pressed my lips together and shrugged, "Fine stay laying there. I don't care."
I began walking away when I heard him call my name again.
I turned around. "What, August," I responded flatly. He looked up at me, straight at me, those hard eyes droopy and low staring back at me.
"I..." his eyes starting to dip into sleep.
"You what." I threw my arms to the side of my thighs, too tired to be here dealing with a drunk August.
He leaned his head back against the island table, his eyes closed, and just when I was about to walk away again, I heard him speak.
"I lo— love you, Oakley."
I nearly fell to the floor, tripping over my own feet as the words registered in my head. My breath lodged in my throat as I repeated it over and over again like a tape. I turned around and walked towards him ready to send a hand across his face but he was already sleeping, his head tilted on his shoulder.
He's drunk, Oakley.
He doesn't know what he's saying. Drunk people say things they don't mean all the time. I took deep breaths, trying to calm my shaking hands.
I walked over to him and kneeled, my nose beginning to run.
"I should shoot you for that," I muttered to his passed-out body.
I sniffled and stared at him, his chest rising and falling slowly, his lips slightly parted. The lips that have felt nearly every part of my body except the lips that sit on my face.
I love you. He had said. So casually, the words barely leaving his lips, but I heard them. I know he doesn't mean them, the three simple words. Not only because he's drunk but because there is no reason he should. At least none that I can think of. I'm a complete and utter mess.
There's nothing to love about me.
I stood up as my bottom lip began to tremble. Quickly, I turned away from him, a hand going to my mouth to muffle the cries that were trying to seep through my lips.
He didn't mean it.
So why am I hurt? Why am I hurt that I'm hearing it from drunk August instead of sober August when I should be relieved?
I closed the door to his room and leaned back against the door, sliding down it to the floor and let my tears loose.
I wept, silently, in his dim-lit room on the floor. And they weren't tears of sadness, but of this rage inside, anger towards me for not knowing how to arrange the broken pieces inside myself. Maybe then I'd allow myself to love and be loved. Maybe then I'd fully open myself up to someone. Because how can I let someone in, when I don't even let myself in?
I don't know what lays in my heart, and I don't want to find out.
Especially not with someone who confessed his fake love for me pissy drunk.
This is exactly why I don't stick around with one-night stands. Maybe I should just say fuck it and leave. Find Apolo again without the mafia's help.
But before I knew it I was laying down on the floor, in front of the door with my eyes closed. Too tired to make my way to the bed. I closed my eyes sniffling and attempting to breathe through my clogged nostrils.
***
"Oakley get down!"
The same words of my father the day he died. The same words frantically echoed through my head.
I dropped my head to the seat for what felt like the thousandth time, a deafening click sounding through the air. A second later the back glass of the car shattered on me. My heart began to beat at a rapid speed.
Not again.
Please not again.
I sat up in my seat, hyperventilating, glass dropping from my body and looked towards the driver's seat to warn my dad. I quickly tapped on his shoulder frantically, trying to warn him of the car that was soon to pull up on the other side. The car that delivers his and my mother's death.
But I couldn't believe my eyes when the person in the driver's seat was-
"August?" I said.
He didn't turn around, he didn't even realize I was touching him. He was breathing heavily, both hands on the wheel as he whipped the car back on the road, trying to stop it from slipping on the wet ground.
I turned to the other seat to try and signal my mom but although the light brown hair that resembled hers sat in the seat my mom once did, she was not my mother.
She was me.
I was watching myself, another Oakley, panicking in the seat beside August, just as my mother was when I was eight years old. She was wearing the same thing my mom was, screaming the same way she was, and crying the same way she was.
"Oakley, Angel, breathe. I will handle them," August said to the Oakley beside him. I watched her undergo a panic attack, her eyes shut and her hands clutching the leather seat.
Tears on my own face began to stream down at the sight, "August, please can you hear me!" I shouted from the back seat.
He didn't respond.
The black-tinted car on the side approached us through the heavy rain. And just like last time, I am the only one to notice.
But this time, the window was down. This time I could see clear as day who the shooter was. And it was Apolo, a focused glare in his eyes as he pointed the gun out the window.
"August!" I shouted behind him in his ear, my throat scratching and straining. But he didn't hear me. He couldn't hear me, he couldn't see me, and he couldn't be saved. But his hand went out to the Oakley beside him and held onto her shaking hand. Distracted by her well-being even at a time like this.
I turned back to Apolo who was staring at me, of all the things going on, as he pulled down on the trigger into the two front seats of the car.
Into the Oakley that sat in the front passenger seat, and into August.
Killing another section of my heart along with them.
[A/N]
Crying. That's it. That's the author's notes.