I didn't want to go to sleep tonight.
Sleep used to be an escape once. It used to be the only time I wasn't constantly reminded of my problems. I used to sleep not even because I was tired, but because I was too drained from being left alone inside of my head all day.
Sleeping was, in a morbid way, a temporary way to die. It was like a free holiday to heaven; a transient return ticket as to what a taste of peace could be like.
But then the dreams turned into nightmares, and sleep didn't help me feel peace like it used to. Sometimes, like tonight, sleeping was worse than being awake.
Instead, I walked deep into the night, numb to the bustling city life around me as I wandered endlessly. The bright lights from the numerous buildings only seemed to further dim my red eyes, groggy and aching from hours of restless attempts at sleeping. Like a gentle hum in the background, the tumultuous noise from vehicles and pedestrians wasn't enough to block out the noise in my head, managing to overpower the rumble of engines and idle chatter flurrying through the air
Paying no heed to my destination, I had embarked on another nighttime venture tonight; the first time since that night.
It didn't feel like two weeks had passed since Theo and I had cried together until the sun came up, stumbling our way back to his house with collapsing lungs and distraught tears. I had left the Harts' sometime in the evening, with teary goodbyes and undeserved compassion as I returned to the house where my mum and Him were waiting.
I should have known better than to go back to the building in which He resided.
School was an agonising week of hiding the blaring bruises seeping through the collar of my shirt and turning my head at the sight of every honey-eyed boy I saw, hoping it would be Theo. I shouldn't have been surprised when he wasn't present for the first day after, or even the first week - but when it hit the second week I didn't have the courage to send him another undelivered message.
Today marked two weeks – tomorrow was Romeo's funeral.
I couldn't bring myself to think about what had happened that night; I couldn't think about that weekend in general, from the aftermath of it all to the anger I received from Him. After the night of Romeo's death, when I had walked out of the house and returned nearly a whole day later, my dad taught me that whenever I felt like I had hit my lowest, there was always further for me to fall.
Subconsciously, I had been doing that a lot lately: switching off my reactions towards my thoughts, dissociating transiently only to regain consciousness of the moment I had been in several hours later.
Romeo had told me to hold onto the stars; to stop defining myself by my pain and realise that I was a separate entity to the things that had happened to me; to find stars that I could look out for in the darkness.
His words had sounded so easy to believe when he was there with me, assuring me every step of the way as I untied the rope from my hands. Now, with no Romeo and no Theo and no one who could remotely understand how I was feeling, I didn't see how I was possibly supposed to follow the steps I had learnt that fateful night.
I wasn't trying to find the light anymore.
I welcomed the pain rather than ran from it. I let the tears roll down my cheeks and ignored the worried glances from passers-by. I dwelt in my thoughts and let them attack me. I felt everything until the darkness I had once overcome had regained control over every inch of me.
It was all that I had left to do.
In the midst of my wandering, I glanced up for a second, finally taking the time to put a name to my surroundings when I felt all the air get knocked out of my lungs:
Arrows.
There were multi-coloured cardboard cut-outs of arrows.
Arrows lining the railing against which Romeo and I had fallen apart, hundreds and maybe even thousands on both sides of the road. There were candles in between, forming a flamboyant array of hope drowning out the palpable despair. Incandescently, the tiny flickers from the candles managed to illuminate the road in a glowing haze, casting light on the vivid arrows with scrawls of condolences written on each of them.
I didn't want to be here. I didn't mean to come back to where it happened - the site of the graffiti piece that Romeo had been showing me before his nosebleed had started - but I had somehow sort of just... ended up here.
The road leading up to the hospital was bustling with mourners, hundreds of people placing down arrows and paying their respects to a boy they had never met. A few camera crews were set up, news being broadcasted as the overnight tragedy was retold across the nation ahead of his funeral tomorrow. Standing still in the sea of strangers, I blankly observed as the stretch of colourful arrows grew and grew, piling up in commemoration of the unmasked graffiti artist.
The candles illuminated the dimly lit road, their soft glow providing a source of comfort to such a melancholy scene. A few letters and cards were tucked between the bundles of cardboard arrows as the countless whispers of sympathies hummed through the night.
I found my feet were moving before I'd even realised, taking me closer to the spot where it had happened. I could see the outline of the splatter of blood stained into the ground, my hands shaking in my pockets as I approached the spray-painted end to his graffiti piece; now, the multi-directional arrow seemed like a direful twist of irony. Trying to keep my breathing level, I felt my lungs begin to tighten as I neared the exact spot, staring at the bloodstained ground as I arrived.
And then I felt my legs cave out from beneath me.
I fell to the ground, kneeling as I sobbed into my hands, their red tint seeming more and more prominent with each passing second. It was still on my hands – blaring red as it had seeped from his nose and stained into my skin, taunting me daily with reminders that he wasn't with me anymore.
He was gone.
His death had been irrevocable, and no matter how much hope he told me to have, nothing could have stopped the tidal waves of guilt that were steadily pulling me down under. I was dialling Theo's number, holding Romeo's pale frame in my trembling arms, watching helplessly as the red rivers trickled down his neck, into his white shirt with a soundless:
Drip. Drip. Drip.
My lungs were constricted as I broke down in the crowd of mourners, my entire body shaking as I sobbed with all my might, cursing fate and it's misleading misadventures that had culminated in this immense anguish.
He wasn't meant to die.
My eyes felt like they were burning as the tears streamed relentlessly, hiccupping through my sobs as I gasped for air and wrapped my arms around myself, as though I could replicate the warmth Romeo always seemed to exude. As though I could imagine that he was still here, tucking the grey beanie over my shaven curls, holding me gently as I fell apart all over again.
"CJ..."
I knew it was Theo just from the brokenness of his voice itself; the crack in his tone and the way his voice caught on the second syllable, followed by the heavy sigh that slipped through his lips. I felt his arms wrap around my hunched figure and I leaned into his embrace, feeling my whole body shake as the sobs racked through me.
I had no one to blame but myself for this. As horrible as it was to think, if I hadn't been here, none of this would have happened. Romeo would still be alive. If I had just killed myself earlier as I should have, then Romeo would never have died. He would have been in hospital, instead of bleeding to death while stood on his art with a girl undeserving of his love.
"CJ, I've got you, it's me, it's Theo." His voice seemed distant despite feeling his arms around me, and I couldn't bring myself to look at him and see the pain etched into his eyes. He may as well have been a figment of my imagination, a mere hallucination to aid me in better dealing with my insurmountable grief.
"You weren't there," I hiccupped, shaking my head as I turned to face him through my blurry gaze. "You- you said we would get through this together, and you- you weren't there."
It had only been two weeks, but Theo's hair seemed a little longer, raked over to the side to stop his loose waves from falling over his sunken eyes. The heavy bags under his dull gaze, from which tears waltzed down his cheeks, gave away that he hadn't been sleeping either. Honey-brown sadness surrounded the red tint of his tired eyes, doing nothing to help erase the vision of his bloodied brother from reappearing in my mind.
"I'm sorry, CJ, I just couldn't-" he paused, getting choked up again as he covered his face in his hands. His shoulders trembled like the flickers of the candles around us, withholding the brewing torment of emotions within him.
"I couldn't- I don't know how to- to live without him..." he whispered, his voice noticeably wavering as he broke my gaze. "How to continue, knowing that he's- he's gone."
At his words the two of us only seemed to cry more, leaning against each other for support as all was forgiven and forgotten while we held each other. Sometimes it escaped my mind that although I had lost my greatest love, Theo had lost his brother. In the whirlwind of my grief I mistook Romeo for someone Fate had designed just for me, rather than a brother and a son who had left many others grieving too.
Incoherently muttering, the sound of our countless apologies to each other was muted out by the nearby voice of a news reporter, stood with a small camera crew a few metres away from us. After Romeo's death, the Harts' had become an overnight tragedy, with the press desperate to relay their story and find out more about the treatments which may have ended up doing more harm than good in the last year of Romeo's life.
"...thousands of people have gathered here throughout today to pay their respects to William Hart ahead of his funeral tomorrow. Not only was he a previously anonymous graffiti artist under the infamous guise of 'Romeo', but he was also a cancer patient suffering from leukaemia, who sadly passed away two weeks ago today. As you can see behind me, there are hundreds of arrows laid here as a result of his death, in honour of the graffiti piece he had visited moments before he passed away."
The cameras panned past the news reporter to scan across the myriads of arrows propped up against the railing, the cardboard cut-outs attempting to replicate his art style. It was a thoughtful act of condolence, which helped to compensate for the blood-splatters across Romeo's very own spray-painted monochrome arrows.
"His sudden death has sparked nationwide mourning and reintroduced conversations about just how crucial it is for the government to invest in finding efficient cancer treatments. Numerous discussions have also been held over whether his untimely death was caused by the very cancer treatments he was undergoing. To take part in a drug trial for a newly-developed leukaemia treatment, William had relocated to London..."
I turned back to Theo, guilt brimming in my eyes as I caught sight of the indescribable agony written across his face. He cast his eyes down, sighing despondently as I felt my heart clench in remorse with each pensive second that passed.
"I feel like there was so much I never got to know about him."
I blinked at the suddenness of Theo's statement, glancing up to meet his light brown eyes, glinting with streaks of honey as the reflection of the yellow candlelight flickered in his watery gaze. "I didn't even know he did graffiti; I thought he was up so late because he had insomnia. I thought the constant stream of medicines probably took its toll on him, and that his sleeplessness was one of those effects."
Theo's tone was steadier now, only faltering slightly as the two of us watched the compassionate scenes unfold around us. A peaceful calamity of hugs and tears surrounded Mr and Mrs Hart as they made their way around to thank the multitudes of people gathered.
"The last time I spoke to him-" Theo cut himself off, inhaling sharply while he closed his eyes, running a hand through his hair as he pulled at the unruly strands. "The last time I spoke to him, I was so angry. All Will had done was apologise, and all I had done was get annoyed over how he had chosen to spend what I hadn't known would be his last day alive."
Theo's words stung, but I couldn't even begin to comprehend how he was feeling. A small part of me could relate, but Romeo had died telling me he loved me, whereas Theo had walked away in hurt from his apologising brother.
"He knows, Theo," I whispered quietly. "Will is up there, and he- he knows. He loves you, and he's not upset, or hurting, or angry with you. He knows."
Theo leaned further into my embrace at my words, letting me hold him as he cried into my shoulder. "I couldn't- I couldn't face you this week," he murmured against my chest. I stilled at his words, awaiting an elaboration at the suddenness of his statement. "If I came to school, and I saw you... I would have remembered that I- I made it all worse that night."
My arms tensed around Theo as I shook my head to myself at his words. "You had every right to be upset, Theo. None of us knew it would end this way."
"I don't know how to-" Theo cut himself off again, soaking my jumper with his free-flowing tears as I held him closer in my arms. "I don't know how to live with myself, CJ. I don't- I can't look at you, or even look at myself, without feeling like it's entirely my fault."
A beat of silence passed between us.
"You were the one who helped your brother have a fighting chance against his cancer, Theo," I corrected softly, glancing down at the wavy strands lying haphazardly across the top of Theo's head. "You're not to blame."
I didn't need to say anything more. I knew that, and Theo knew that. We were simply being honest with one another, opening up instead of suffering alone. I couldn't give out light when I was shrouded in darkness, but at least if we were in the dark together then we would feel a little less alone. If the most I could do was try to light a candle for Theo, then at least it would be a little brighter in his mind.
"Can I be honest too, Theo?"
Theo nodded against my shoulder as I dropped my head against his, staring out ahead at the faint city skyline.
"Why- why don't you hate me?"
His honey brown eyes flickered up to mine, his eyebrows raised with surprise before his expression was swiftly replaced with an incredulous look. The question had haunted the desolate chambers of my mind during these two weeks without Theo, questioning whether he was avoiding school because he couldn't stand to see the girl who had single-handedly destroyed his family.
"Why would I hate you?" Theo murmured, more to himself than to me as he furrowed his eyebrows, ruminating briefly before it clicked. He sat up straighter as my arms loosened around him. "CJ, it wasn't your fault either-"
"I know... but it feels like it was," I sighed quietly, turning away from him slightly as I focused my attention on the stretch of darkness beyond the railing. The faint silhouette of the city skyscrapers helped to distract me from the brimming tears in my eyes, awaiting their chance to fall. "If I hadn't done certain things - or if I had reacted quicker – or if I'd just not even been here in the first place, then..." I trailed off, unable to say the words.
"Cassie," Theo implored, his voice pained as though it physically hurt him to hear me speak the way I was. "Will had cancer. Even if he had been in the hospital it would still have been too late. He's had a couple of bad nosebleeds this past year, and they came suddenly and out of nowhere. Will would have said it himself: it was up to fate, not you or the medics or my parents or anyone."
A lone tear rolled down my cheek, landing on the arrows below us. "You should take your own advice, Theo," I smiled bitterly, my words faint as they crackled through the teeming air.
Theo let out a wry laugh as he nodded, glancing down at the ground before he continued speaking gently. "He was my brother, CJ, and I- I know he loves you. He would hate the thought of you giving up, Cassie. He would hate the thought of us apart. That's why I knew I had to go over to you the second I saw you tonight. You should be stood with my family, not here, breaking apart alone."
Theo stood to his feet as he spoke, crouching down next to me with outstretched arms to help me up to my feet. Holding onto his arms for support, I managed to haul myself up to stand, clinging onto Theo as he pulled me into a tight hug.
"Do you suppose that one day, we'll be okay?" I found myself whispering over his shoulder. My eyes were trained on the original arrows that Romeo had spray painted onto the ground, peeking out between the gaps in the cardboard cut-outs that people had placed. "Is the pain ever going to stop?"
He paused uncertainly, a pensive silence falling between us despite the humming noise of the bustling mourners around us. "I don't know, CJ... but I hope it does."
Pulling away from the hug, I lifted my gaze to meet his, taken aback by the tangible melancholy brimming in his eyes. Over the top of his shoulders, I could see his morose parents in the middle of an interview with one of the reporters, before my gaze zoned back to the calculating glint in Theo's gaze as he studied me.
With the dim candle-lit hue around us, it was difficult to decipher if Theo could see the faded yellow and grey patches, which were slowly blending into my light skin. I tugged on the neckline of my jumper, an action that didn't go unnoticed by Theo as I remembered the countless outlines glittered around my collarbone from the encounter with Him.
Theo reached out to stop my hand mid-action. He paused – a split second of utter silence – before releasing my hand instantly and nodding knowingly to himself as he exhaled sharply.
"What happened?"
I blanched at the seriousness of his tone, watching his features soften immediately with a silent apology in his eyes. "It's nothing important-"
"CJ." He interrupted me, his eyes holding the same tenderness as Romeo's for a passing moment; then I blinked, and I was staring back into Theo's lighter brown orbs rather than the almost jet-black haze I was used to, with Theo's facial features nowhere near as defined as his brother's. "You are important to me, so it's important."
I was so tempted to leave right then – to run away from my problems as I always did and make up some sort of trivial excuse as to why I had to go. Receiving empathy from him felt so overwhelming, a harsh contrast to the half-hearted pity and sympathies I had been receiving during these two weeks.
Theo stared at me again, his hands hovering in the air as he was halfway between reaching out to me and dropping his arms back down, dubious over whether to comfort me or wait for an answer. I could see the moment it clicked in his gaze: the slight widening of his honey eyes as they departed from mine for a moment, glistening with sorrow as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Was it- was it Him?"
Slowly, I nodded.
"You're not going back there again unless someone's with you," Theo stated abruptly, his eyes meeting mine again with a steady determination in his gaze. My eyebrows furrowed as his words sunk in while I blinked back in surprise, and I was just about to send a rebuttal his way when he beat me to it.
"I'll come with you and we can pick up some of your stuff from your house, and then you can stay with me. My parents adore you and you're practically family anyways, so don't bother trying to disagree with me because I'm not letting Him hurt you again."
I opened my mouth to protest but found myself smiling, tears falling from my eyes before I had even comprehended the words Theo had spoken. "You're being serious?"
"I mean it, CJ," he nodded, holding out his arms again to pull me into another hug, murmuring apologies that he didn't owe me for what had happened. "I know-" he started, pausing as he thought over how to phrase his words, "I know you don't see me how I wanted you to, and I want you to know now that I'm okay with that. I'm more than happy to still be your best friend – just me and you, CJ."
I was crying and smiling and laughing through my tears, unable explain the gratitude coursing through my veins as I pulled back from Theo. "Thank you," was all I could say as I wiped my tears with the sleeve of my jumper, noticing that his parents were approaching us.
Mr and Mrs Hart joined us with the same teary smiles, approaching at a sombre pace as the latter was still blubbering with tears. We didn't hesitate to embrace each other, the four of us stood together in a perfectly discombobulated hug while everyone around us seemed to halt their conversations. In respect to Romeo, it was a wonder how the whole crowd fell silent, hyperaware of the cameras intently fixed upon us as the four of us held each other in a heartfelt embrace.
It was as if Romeo was here, joining in on the hug too.
All too soon the moment had passed and we dispersed from the hug, uttering thanks to those who offered their condolences and slowly watching as the crowd began to dwindle out, till we were the only ones left here. Theo and I watched on solemnly as his parents placed down their own arrow, a personal message from each of them written across the front. Turning away from them, the two of us strolled down the rest of the road to give them some time, looking on at all the different arrows.
Theo's honey eyes rested on the side of my face for a moment, before I turned to meet his gaze. He shook his head to himself, the corner of his lip tugging up slightly as I sent him an inquisitive look. "I was gonna ask you something, but I realised it's a little pointless."
"No, go on," I shrugged, "You can ask."
He sent me a sanguine smile, glancing at the colourful stretch of arrows in front of him as his eyes flickered from me to the woeful scenes around us.
"Are you okay?"
My breath stilled at his question as I sent him a wry smile, taking a moment to ruminate as I pondered over how best to respond.
Am I okay?
After the whirlwind that I had been through these past two weeks, I didn't think it would be possible to answer such a complex question with a simple, 'I'm fine'.
Physically, I was far from okay: I was aching all over from my lack of sleep, my neckline was scattered with faded bruises and my lungs felt like every breath I had to take without Romeo's presence was slowly killing me. Mentally, I didn't even know anymore: I had reached the highest of highs, and then it had crashed down so abruptly that I still hadn't been able to fully accept what had occurred.
"Well, no; not really, but..." I trailed off pensively.
What did it truly mean to be okay?
Was being okay when you weren't struggling but weren't necessarily succeeding either, just balanced somewhere in between? Was being okay being mentally stable, or having a constant state of mind? Was being okay surviving but not truly living, sheltering yourself for protection from every potential tragedy?
Or, was being okay simply pretending to be okay; holding yourself together even though it was all falling apart. Was being okay being able to keep on going despite breaking down internally, shining on through the darkness?
Was being okay even about being okay, or was it about how well you could hide how badly you weren't okay?
I suppose being 'okay' looked different for everyone, but ultimately I would have said that being okay was reaching a certain level of stability in my mental state.
"Is anyone ever okay?" I mused questioningly, my gaze drifting over to Theo. "Is it even possible to be okay?"
"I'd like to hope so..." Theo's warm gaze softened as though he could hear the thoughts in my mind. "Somehow, someday, we could learn to live with all this pain and we could be happy."
I thought back to all the times Romeo had spoken about the stars; all the memories we had made together that he had said could guide me throughout my dark moments. I hadn't known how I could possibly hold onto a star when nothing around me seemed bright anymore, but as I glanced over towards Theo, I realised I might have had a light in my life this whole time.
"But that doesn't mean you're going to be okay right now, CJ," he continued, uncertainty in his tone as to whether he was overstepping. "You can hold onto the stars, but it doesn't change the fact that there's still darkness. Don't let the darkness define you, but don't let the stars blind you either. You don't have to be okay if you're not."
I looked down at the arrows, nodding at Theo's words, which seemed to carry the wisdom of his brother's. Momentarily, I felt a small glint of hope reignite within me, as though I could feel Romeo watching down on us, urging us to hold on to the stars to comfort us through the darkness.
"Right now, no, I'm not okay in the slightest," I admitted, feeling my lips tug upwards at the relief of saying the statement aloud. My chest felt like someone had opened up the airways to allow oxygen to stream in, as the heavy burden of keeping it all in was no longer weighing down on me.
"But I want to keep trying to be okay," I continued, letting out a shaky breath. "Being okay, feeling happiness, experiencing what it's like to know who I am: I had all of those things once, and it was incredible. It's what I deserve – what we all deserve – to be okay."
"We may not be anywhere close to being okay right now, but I suppose all we can do is try," Theo added on, sending me a faint smile. "We can keep trying, and keep finding stars, and hold on despite all the darkness, because if anyone deserves to be okay, it's us."
I found my eyes tearing up at the truth in his words. He was right.
"We're the kids who grew up too fast, who are alone and misunderstood, who feel too much, who carry so much pain and hurt, resentment and anger, guilt and grief – but I reckon... I think we can do it," I smiled sadly, mindless of the tears streaming down my face. My heart was aching with every word, but I managed to whisper out the last promise into the quiet autumn air. "We can keep on saving ourselves."
Perhaps someday, in days, weeks, or years to come, I might finally be able to say it. Perhaps, I might look back to this moment, as I stood with Theo on a candlelit road with myriads of arrows, and realise I had finally done it.
Maybe one day... I might just be okay.
(A/N) I want to cry. I wish I could talk to my past self from two years ago and show her AYO now, and tell her I'm so proud of her.
I'm holding back on the long emotional goodbye, because I might have to dedicate a whole chapter to explain how much growth and gratitude I've experienced while writing AYO.
The epilogue is coming next, and then AYO will be officially done.
Thank you so, so much.
- T.R. ❤️