as a disclaimer: I had this as a short-story a while ago under a different title. I took it down, reworked it in to a fanfiction that breathed a new life into this story. The original story was dear to me and having a new found direction for it, I wanted to bring it back to the original characters to tell here.
Character death, drug abuse, binge drinking, explicit language, and mentions of sex included. take caution as need. This is a very heavy story, exploring loss and grief and the ways in which people deal with it. There is a happy, if not hopeful, ending.
please enjoy and feel free to listen to this playlist I made for the story
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1lZcl4yaAgSC3eQLmQjqmV?si=7FYqIhxwS12LZLYI21biEw
or
spotify:playlist:1lZcl4yaAgSC3eQLmQjqmV
ANDI
Three years later and Andi still knew the distance between their front doors. Eleven blocks. Not even a mile away from each other; it felt too close. Maybe the time away at college would help lessen the memories, the pain. Maybe Andi could forget how she felt about the blonde girl before her life came crashing down around her. Both of their lives.
But she's home from college. Freshly graduated with an expensive piece of paper to prove it. And even though it's been three years, those wounds are still fresh too. Despite the time, despite the distance, despite the fact that she thought she was through the last of the pain she felt...nothing feels right at all, like her whole world is tilted sideways. It was easier in college when there were no reminders of Andi's brother or her. Three years Andi pushed them aside. She fell into a never-ending revolving door of drugs, hooks-ups, and alcohol to silence the thoughts, numb the pain, hide the guilt that kept building inside.
Andi thought she was okay, that she was dealing with it, that she could handle being this close to the blonde again, and this close to her brother too. He's like a ghost around here. Andi's parents don't talk about him, they don't open the door to the room that was once his. Instead, they look at Andi like she robbed them of him, like it was her fault. And, in a way, it was. He died in that car accident and took a part of Andi with him.
Her parents lost a son and barely recognized their daughter.
Three years ago, she was in her first year of college, trying her hardest to hide how much she was struggling. Her first time away from home and on her own. She didn't have her big brother, Noah, to help her when she needed it; to lighten the mood and cheer her up. And she didn't have her girlfriend, Olivia, either. Noah and Olivia were the same age, best friends since they were in diapers. For a while, growing up, Andi was the nuisance of a little sister. Always trying to hang out with them and begging their parents to force Noah to take her with them wherever they went.
Eventually, they became an unstoppable trio. Noah, Andi, and Olivia—there wasn't one without the other two. Days and nights spent together, laughing and talking and sharing ice cream on the hood of Noah's car. They'd get coffee after school at the local café and milkshakes after Andi's soccer games. Friday nights were spent dragging Olivia to parties, only to leave early. Noah and Andi could go for hours, but it wasn't for Olivia, and they wouldn't dream of breaking up the trio.
The three of them were inseparable. Unstoppable. Until the day Olivia and Noah left for college.
Andi hated it. She went from spending every day with the two of them, to feeling more alone than ever before. She didn't really have other friends, no one that understood her like the two of them. And then they were gone. Studying at the same college.
She tried not to be jealous that they got to see each other whenever they wanted. She was seventeen, and young, and in love with her brother's best friend. Noah got to spend time with Olivia while Andi sat at home and threw a pity party thinking the blonde would certainly fall in love with some hot-shot classmate of hers.
But then they came home for winter break and the trio was back. They were different, but still the same. Noah gained muscle mass and a six pack, talked about his fraternity brothers like they were family, but always reassured Andi that she was number one.
"Don't worry, Andi," he said one night sitting around the fire pit in the backyard. "No matter what, sisters before misters."
"You're not my sister, or my real brother," Andi said rolling her eyes.
"Shut up, you know what I mean, just because you're adopted doesn't make you any less my sister," he grinned, leaning back in his chair and tilting his head toward the sky. His face flushed from the heat of the fire and the several drinks he'd had. "You'll love college, Andi. There are hot chicks everywhere." Andi's eyes immediately settled on Olivia across the fire, her blonde hair illuminating in the darkness and the flames reflecting in her eyes. Her cheeks tinted red from the heat, an easy smile resting on her lips.
Andi's stomach flipped as their eyes met.
"I bet there is..." she answered softly.
Olivia kissed her the night before she went back to school. Noah had gone to bed, leaving the two of them alone. Olivia told Andi about her classes, her friends, and her roommate. She talked for hours about how great college was. How much she loved every minute of it even though her friends are idiots and the schoolwork was hard. It made Andi's stomach twist and churn in a way she had never experienced before. She bristled with anger; jealousy filling her up the more Olivia talked happily about all these people and experiences that didn't include her.
She couldn't hold it in any longer, an accusation on the tip of her tongue. "Then why did you even bother coming back?" The words came out like fire, though Andi's voice broke midway through. Olivia's eyes widened for a split second before she smiled sadly.
"Because of you, Andi."
"Don't—don't play with me like that, Livvy," she said stepping away from the taller girl. "You know exactly how I feel about you."
"You were, like, ten when you wrote me that love letter," Olivia recalled. Heat rushed up Andi's neck, coloring her face at the mention of the letter that was never supposed to be read by another soul.
"And I still mean every word I wrote." Andi shakes her head, finding the courage to look Olivia in the eyes. "Don't say you come back for me if you don't mean it. I can't—I hate when you and Noah leave for school. I have no one here. You both leave and I'm alone. I love you, Olivia, and I'm okay with it not being reciprocated because at least you'll still be my best friend. I can handle you falling in love with some nice person at school because you were never mine to begin with. But I can't—I can't handle it if I had a chance with you and then I lost you." Andi was as far away from the blonde as she possibly could be in the tiny basement lounge that they had created. Arms crossed over her chest just to hold all those cracking pieces together until Olivia inevitably left.
But she didn't.
She moved swiftly across the room to Andi, gently cupped her face between her hands, and said, "I come back for you. It's been you ever since I can remember; it's always been you, Andi." And then their lips met, and Andi was melting into the embrace. They kept their relationship a secret for a while, not wanting to make Noah upset or uncomfortable. But he knew, the whole time, he knew. And he was happy for Olivia and Andi. They were still the unstoppable trio, inseparable and troublemaking. They were Noah, Andi, and Olivia.
Until three years ago when it became Andi and Olivia.
And then just Andi.
And just Olivia.
***
It's a Friday night, and Andi knows the blonde isn't the type to go out. She never really was. Andi leaves her parents' house, closing the door behind her. Her mind won't stop counting how far she is from Olivia.
Eleven blocks.
Thirteen blocks.
Fifteen blocks.
The music is pumping out of the house Andi approaches. Silhouettes of bodies are moving behind the windows. She steps through the door to the party. Bodies packed tightly wall to wall. It's hot, loud, filled with too many people she knows—too many people who knew exactly the past she carries around with her. Hana and Chelsea are still very much attached at the hip, they wave to Andi like they were friends. Maybe at one time they were, but that was before Noah died. Victoria and Hank offer her a drink, co-hosts of this ridiculous party, filled to the brim with more ghosts from her past than she cares to see. Jason, Carter, Lindsey, and Emery continue their hustle at the beer pong table like they do at every party. They beckon her over, but Andi can't. She can't stand this. These people who watched week after week as she drank herself to death. Any other night, Andi would have waved to Hana and Chelsea, taken the drink from Victoria and Hank, joined the chaos that is the beer pong table.
But not tonight. It was too much. Too many people who watched night after night as Olivia carried her out of over packed houses. Too many people who knew Noah, who loved Noah, who don't mention Noah anymore. He is gone and everyone else has the luxury to forget.
Andi doesn't have that luxury.
Andi can't forget.
She finds a door at the opposite end of the house, navigating between sweaty bodies and hands that are too grabby. The moment the cool night air hits her face she relaxes, tugging a cigarette out of the pack in her leather jacket.
Light. Inhale. Smoke billows slowly from between her lips, curling up and disappearing into the sky. Andi knows it a bad habit, one she picked up while Liv and Noah were away at college. They were busy and rarely had time to talk to her. She just needed to pass the time, to do something. She ended up under the bleachers during lunch with a group of kids who smoked, they weren't forever friends. They were people she could pass time with and try to ignore the pain of her two favorite people not having time for her.
Now she just smokes when she's alone. Like right now. A house full of people and she's alone. Always alone.
So, she smokes. She drinks. She dances with Taylor, one of the kids from her bleacher days. The dark-haired guy likes to call Andi his girlfriend, but really Andi couldn't care less. He buys her drinks. He gets her drugs. He helps Andi forget that she lost the only two people in the world that mattered to her.
When she's with Taylor, she forgets that her brother died and that her girlfriend left her because she was killing herself. She can forget that her parents won't speak to her because she's the reason they lost their baby boy—she can read between the lines; they lost their real child. It's a realization she made when Noah died, when her parents started treating her like a leech instead of a daughter. She knows they wish it was the other way around, that it was Andi instead of Noah. Andi wishes for that too, but at least when she's with Taylor she can forget all of that. All that pain, all that weight she carries around. At least with Taylor she can forget she hates herself more than anything.
When she's with Taylor, she's not the girl with the dead brother or the girl who's ruining her life. She's just Andi. Andi who can kick ass at beer pong and give good head. That's all Taylor cares about. They don't have to talk or be emotional. It's just sex. It's just drinking. And Andi likes the attention, she likes the feeling of being wanted and needed by somebody. Anybody.
Her parents hate her. Olivia hates her. If Noah was alive, he would hate her.
And Taylor wanted her.
But, it's a Friday night. And Andi knows that Olivia is home, probably watching the cooking network in her pjs or dancing to ABBA and pretending to be in Mama Mia. Maybe she's still trying to teach her betta fish to do tricks. Or maybe she isn't doing any of that. Maybe Andi doesn't know her at all anymore.
"Didi," Taylor whispers in Andi's ear later on in the night. Who knows how many drinks deep she is, but she's unsteady on her feet, the name causes an uncomfortable shiver to go down Andi's spine. Taylor mistakes it as a good thing. "Let's go upstairs. I want you." Andi tries to shake Taylor off.
"Not now, Tay, I'm not in the mood."
"I'll give you a hit," he says pulling out a baggie of weed. His eyes are glossy and bloodshot. Dark hair sweaty and slicked back. Andi doesn't know what she saw in him. She doesn't really see much other than the complete opposite of Olivia.
"Seriously? I'm not in the mood. Get off me." Taylor stumbles back at the force of Andi's push.
"You're always in the mood after you have some." He shakes the baggie in Andi's face. "Come on, Didi, have a little fun."
"I don't want to, now stop!" Andi shakes Taylor's hold on her arm and moves to leave the party as quickly as she can, but Taylor calls after her.
"I do so much for you. I saved you from that pathetic mess you were two years ago. 'Oh, poor me. My brother's dead, I'm all alone." Well, you're not anymore. You have me, you should be grateful!" Everyone near them stops, all eyes on them as the words spill out of Taylor's mouth.
Andi turns around on her heels, marching back up and into the his face. "Fuck you," she spits. "I may have been pathetic, but at least I don't need to drug girls to get them to sleep with me." Several people laugh at the astonished face Taylor makes, but Andi doesn't stop to watch the embarrassment flair up on his face. She rushes out the party and away from everything she let herself become.
She's been home from school for two weeks. And this whole time, she can't stop thinking that she's so close to her right now. To Olivia. To the only connection she has left to Noah.
Three years in a fog of drugs and alcohol, three years a few hours away, three years without any constant reminders...it was easier then to forget Olivia. To forget everything they had together. But now it's just eleven blocks. Now, she's stumbling through the street trying to get to her. To see her. To tell her how sorry she is for everything she did after Noah died. But Andi knows that it won't be enough.
***
Three years ago, Noah was coming up to visit Andi at school. It was spring and she was stressed out with all the schoolwork she had to do. She missed home. She missed Noah and Olivia. One night it was too much, she called Noah up crying. Her roommate kept locking her out to have sex with her flavor of the week. She failed a test. She had yet to make any decent friends.
"I hate this, Noah," she cried to her brother. "I want to go home. I don't want to be here anymore."
"It's only a couple more weeks and we'll all be back together, I promise." He tried to reassure her for hours, but Andi was adamant that she wasn't going to make it through this semester. She had no hope, no motivation. Everything felt meek and meaningless. "I'm coming to you tomorrow, okay? Livvy and I will come visit for the weekend, how does that sound?"
"No, you, you both have your own stuff—"
"We don't care, you know that. We both love you so much, and we take care of our own. Don't act like you don't want to see us."
"You know I do..."
"Then we're coming, end of story," he said.
"Okay..."
"Come on, say it," he teased.
"I love you," Andi mumbled into the phone.
"Love you more, sis!" Noah yelled cheerily, "you'll see me tomorrow."
She didn't.
Olivia and Noah left their campus in the morning, it was only two hours from Andi. They were half an hour away from the campus when the accident happened.
Olivia was driving and Noah was in the passenger seat. They were going through a green light when a car came careening through the street. Olivia swerved to avoid it, but instead hit a telephone pole. It collapsed on the car. Right over the passenger's side. They were both alive when the ambulance got there.
By the time Andi got to the hospital, only Olivia was still breathing.
Andi spiraled after that. She blamed herself. She blamed Olivia. She drank and drank and drank until she blacked out. Every day was a different vice and every night a different nightmare. The drugs and alcohol kept them at bay. But no matter what she tried the pain was still there when she woke up. No matter what she did to push away the memory of the news, of seeing her brother cold and dead on a slab of metal, she couldn't erase it. She couldn't forget it. There was a gaping hole inside of her that she kept trying to fill and fill and fill, but nothing worked. It was all just a temporary fix.
Olivia had a few broken ribs and a concussion, but she was fine. And Andi hated her for it. She walked away from the wreckage and Noah didn't. Her brother didn't.
Andi was selfish in thinking she was the only one of them to be affected by the accident. She may have lost a brother, but Olivia lost her lifelong best friend. The three of them, they were a family, and now it was just the two of them.
Noah, who brought them together.
Noah, who was the mediator.
Noah, who brightened up every room.
But now she was gone.
And Andi didn't know how to handle losing the only person who understood her.
But he wasn't the only person, because Olivia was there from the start, too. She understood Andi, she loved her, she suffered the same loss that Andi did. And while Andi turned into a monster that couldn't be stopped, Olivia turned into a person who tried to help as many people as she could. Including Andi.
She didn't want to be helped, though. She wanted to waste away and kill herself slowly because it was her fault that Noah was in the car that morning. It was her fault for not being a big girl who could handle being away from home for the semester.
Olivia stuck by her for six months after the accident. Pushed her to get help, to stop drinking. She picked Andi up out of the gutter every night and nursed her back to health in the morning just to watch her do it all over again. She listened to Andi call her every horrible name she could think of. Yet, Olivia still told Andi she loved her each day.
She even told her the day she left.
Andi was trashed. Incoherent. Babbling ruthlessly at Olivia as she tried to help Andi into the car.
"You killed him," Andi screamed, voice distorted and cracking. "You killed the only person who loved me!" Olivia was silent, ignoring the words being slung at her. But Andi wanted to hurt her, wanted her to feel what she felt every day without Noah. But Olivia never flinched, never gave her any sign that the words were hurting. Until she pulled up in front of Andi's house and looked at her with tears falling down her face, blonde hair disheveled, eyes swollen.
"I blame myself for Noah's death as much as you do, Andi," Olivia whispered firmly. "But you're wrong about one thing; he wasn't the only person who loves you. I do, too. I love you so much, and it kills me to see you like this. I think you and I both know Noah would be so disappointed to see what you've turned into."
"Don't you dare put words into his mouth! He's not here, he can't—he can't say anything anymore!"
"I know and I'm so sorry. But this isn't the way to handle it, and you know that as much as I do." She sighs and wipes her face. "I can't do this anymore, Andi. I can't sit here and be your punching bag. I love you, but I won't sit by as you destroy yourself, I can't."
"Then you never loved me to begin with." Andi didn't wait for a response; she got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her. With the final word and retreating figure, she stumbled drunkenly into her house. She cried herself to sleep that night.
***
Andi walked closer and closer to the blonde's doorstep thinking that she could get Olivia to talk to her. Maybe she can finally tell her that after all these years she still loves her. That it took Andi three years and several near-death experiences to understand that she can't keep living like that. Coming home, seeing Noah's room untouched, shocked her system to its core. She spent so long drowning her emotions that she didn't realize that the better method would be to experience them. Feel what she needed to, talk about it, and maybe then she could move on.
The only person she knows she can talk to about Noah is Olivia.
And maybe she'll want to, or she'll slam the door in her face. Andi wouldn't blame her if she did. What she did to Olivia was awful. And while Andi is fresh out of a party and still inebriated from the alcohol, she's starting to see that she needs to change.
Taylor is no good for her. He was a good distraction. A nice lay. But Andi was only a piece of meat to him; a drugged up, drunk, easily coerced piece of meat. She didn't want to be that anymore.
Not when she's so close to the woman she's loved her whole life.
Not when she's drunk enough to remember all the good times with Olivia and Noah in this town.
Not when she can finally feel something other than a high from drugs.
Eight blocks from Olivia's doorstep and Andi thinks she should turn around.
She sees the coffee shop they used to sit at for hours and do homework. And the alleyway next to it where Olivia would kiss her before Noah showed up. There's the corner where Noah broke his wrist trying to impress Marissa Henderson in the 5th grade. And the bus stop that would take them to the mall across town. And Mrs. Bae's house who would give them the best candy on Halloween even as teenagers because she believed no one outgrew fun. Everything that made their childhood great, that made Andi, Olivia, and Noah best friends came flooding in a mile a minute.
She's two blocks away and she's hurting herself with each memory she drudges up. The first "I love you." The first time they had sex. The first time they fought. When she stopped going out on Friday nights with Noah and stayed in with Olivia instead. When trying to bake turned into flour fights and flour fights turned into sex on the kitchen floor.
She should be turning around, going home. She shouldn't be inching toward Olivia's front door. Maybe she should go back to Taylor, to the new normal she created for herself. Or at least go home to her parents who ignore her existence. At least then she wouldn't be risking herself more pain.
Andi sees her doorstep. The chipped red painted front door and the lantern beside the stairs that she broke the first summer they were dating. She sees Olivia's little grey car in the driveway, the one she rode in the last time she saw her.
Their last words ring through her ears.
"I love you, but I won't sit by as you destroy yourself, I can't."
"Then you never loved me to begin with."
Andi is a few steps from Olivia's front door before she thinks better of it and turns around. Three years later and there's nothing more that she wants than to see the blonde girl and apologize. Explain herself. Maybe catch up if they can. But three years is a long time to be strangers to each other. Three years and so much can change. So, Andi turns around, heart set on giving up and trying to let go.
But the door opens behind her as she's walking away. Andi turns at the sound and there she is.
It's late, and Olivia is in her comfy clothes. The same ones she always wore all those years before. Including Andi's old soccer sweatshirt from high school.
"Andi..." Olivia says in quiet wonder. The sound of her voice makes Andi freeze in her spot. "Andi, is that—is that you?" Her voice is still as deep and soft as she remembers. Still as captivating, still does things to her heart.
"Hey, Livvy, how've you been?" The words slide out of Andi's mouth unnaturally; the world tilts and time stops. It's like being thrown back in time to the night Andi realized how deeply she loved Olivia. To the moment they collided as Olivia ran out to get tea and more fish food for Liv Jr. and Andi was rushing home from a party. To the pink coat that Olivia wore; the same one that sat in Andi's closet until she finally worked up the courage to get rid of it. To the very first fluttering of butterflies in her stomach that she acknowledged as something more than an admiration for the older girl.
Everything is the same, yet so vastly different. Because this time, when those words fall from Andi's lips, Olivia doesn't smile. She doesn't laugh. She just moves closer to the younger girl like she's seen a ghost.
"Why—what are you doing here?" She asks.
"I graduated," Andi says dumbly, internally scolding herself for panicking.
"Why are you at my house?" Olivia asks more firmly. Andi gulps not used to being on the receiving end of Olivia's anger.
"Technically, I'm on the sidewalk." Andi mentally slaps herself for being a smartass. This isn't how it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be smooth, sweet, beg for forgiveness. Not act like a sarcastic ass.
"You know what I mean, Andi." Silence. Andi sways on her feet. Her mind is racing, thoughts backing up like a highway during rush hour. She's not sure what she thought she would say to her when they were finally face to face.
"Well, I—I came to see you. Not my—not my best idea." Andi frowns.
"Feel free to leave then." Olivia pushes past her.
"Wait, Olivia, that came out wrong!" She tries to follow the older girl, but she's nervous and shaking, and still slightly intoxicated despite the sobering moment of coming face to face with the woman she once would have called the love of her life. Part of her still believes she is the greatest love she will ever have.
"What—what could you possibly have to say to me after all the years of radio silence?"
Andi's mind goes blank and she says the first thing she can think of.
"I like your sweatshirt." Andi wants to run, to turn back time so she can try this all over again and do it better.
The blonde's eyebrows furrow, eyes tired. "Really? That's it? You're insufferable, Andi." Olivia starts to walk back the way she came; toward her and away from her all at once. Andi sees her chance disappearing and she rushes to get the words out, everything colliding and fusing together to say what she needs to say.
First, the words coming out of her mouth sound like incoherent childish babbling.
Then, she says, "eleven blocks."
Olivia stops. "What are you talking about?"
"Eleven blocks..." Andi says again. "From my door to yours. Sometimes it feels too close. Too close to who I used to be. Too close to who we were. Noah is gone. My parents hate me. And you—I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see me again."
A car drives past the otherwise empty street. Leaves fly up into the air before falling down around them.
"I'm moving out." Andi continues to speak as the quiet settles again. "Across town. Away from all of this—" She gestures around the two of them at the metaphorical ghosts. Olivia still doesn't speak. "I'm sorry, Liv. It took me a while to realize I wasn't the only one who lost Noah. He was my brother, but he was a brother to you, too. And I was your girlfriend. We both lost so much, and instead of being there for you, I turned against you. I left us both with no one, and I will regret that for the rest of my life. You deserved better than that and I will never stop being sorry for how I treated you.
"If I could take it back, I would. I don't think—no, I know—I will never love anyone like I loved you. You were my great love and I beat myself up every day for letting you slip away. I know nothing I say can or will make what I did in the past go away, but I hope you know how sorry I am."
Andi waits a moment to see if she will say anything, but when the silence stretches on for too long, she takes that as her cue to leave. She didn't expect Olivia to say anything or welcome her back with open arms. But still, the silence tears a new hole inside her. She tries to walk past Olivia quickly, hiding the tears springing up in the corner of her eyes. But then Olivia's voice, deep and slow, carries its way to Andi, echoing in the empty street.
"How far," she calls from the same spot.
"Huh?"
"How far away is your new place?" She asks. "From here."
"I—" Andi pauses knitting her brows together. "I don't know, actually." Olivia nods slowly before a smile graces her lips.
"Figure it out and then comeback." She turns on her heels and walks back into her house leaving Andi standing in the night alone, but, for the first time in three years, she doesn't feel lonely.
Eleven blocks from Andi's door to Olivia's doorstep. Three years later, it's still too close. Too close to the ghosts of who they used to be. But maybe, a new place, a new distance, a new start is all they need to rebuild what they once had.