Chapter 16
Oliver
This wasn’t the first time. Wouldn’t be the last, but it still didn’t make any of it any easier. Life tended to suck, and when it did? You could either crumble or…
I didn’t know what to call it, but it had now been a week. One whole fucking week of sitting on the floor in my cold, bare flat, staring at the walls like the obvious loser I was.
Me. Oliver Jacobs. Idiot of the century. The guy who had no doubt embarrassed himself on some bloody TV show that he was now sitting here praying that nobody would watch.
Apart from the fact that…yeah. I was that guy.
The guy who had obsessively stalked social media and all the accounts and read every single comment on the Save the Date website to the point that my brain had started to believe the hype.
My fragile memories of the past weeks mixing with things that were obviously not real.
And the worst thing? The worst thing of all?
Reality and fiction? Sometimes…I couldn’t tell them apart.
Hence I was sitting here on the floor wearing just an old jumper and briefs. No socks. My feet were cold. Why were my feet so bloody cold?
Now here was the other thing.
I took a deep breath. And another. I was not going to panic. I was not spiralling. I was not going to let this go down the gutter. Because I was Oliver Jacobs and Oliver Jacobs was way better than this. Stronger. Faster.
Smarter.
I didn’t feel it.
Many years ago, I’d been right here, sat on the pavement down at the playground, about a mile from the place I thought had been home.
I had my school rucksack, a few hastily gathered essentials picked as my stepfather had banged on my locked door.
Screaming. Shouting. The cry of the baby who’d probably needed a long-overdue feed.
The fridge door. That obvious hiss of a beer can being opened.
I couldn’t bear it. The sound of that hiss still sent chills up my spine. I never had cans in the house, not any kind of cans. Bottles. Bottles only. I’d told Peter, and he’d agreed with me.
Oh crap. Don’t think of Peter.
Peter had left.
Peter had turned out to be an arsehole of the highest degree who deserved none of my thoughts. And anyway. No. Peter was straight. Peter was old. And I was an idiot.
Final.
No more.
It wasn’t the first time I’d told myself that. Wouldn’t be the last, and just like that I was back in that park, feeling just as out of control and scared as sixteen-year-old me had been.
I’d got myself together back then. Straightened myself out. Got myself on a bus, stayed up all night hiding in a back alley, made some plans and…
I had survived worse things than this. I mean?
What was this? I’d gone on some ridiculous TV show, which had turned out to be an absolute joke, and I had, and rightly so, walked out when the ridiculousness had reached an all-time high.
My memories were hazy, but walked I had.
Perhaps I’d been pushed. I had definitely been shoved into a waiting taxi, my bag chucked in behind me.
I tried to curl into myself, right there on the floor. The memories once again flooding back, making me cringe in embarrassment. Panicking over Peter being gone, because it was bloody obvious he’d gone. Me running around demanding his return. Screaming and shouting, a camera right in my face.
Some studio executive trying to calm me down, and then they…
Fuck. That Pawel. Cocky bastard, but…
Yeah. I hadn’t been a decent human being either.
The stuff I’d let slip from my mouth? The words I’d shouted in his face?
Not his fault, but fuck me. Awkward? That hadn’t even been the start of it.
I’d stomped downstairs and demanded my things back and…
yes. Of course I had. Had a complete meltdown out in the road with some security guard trying to get me off the pavement and back into the taxi I’d escaped from.
They’d put me back in the car. Sent me on my way, bawling my eyes out in the back seat.
The turn of events was all fuzzy in my head. The timeline muddled up.
How I’d got home was a mystery, but I had. Me. My bag. My phone. My sanity intact.
Well, I sure hope it was because I was not having this. No more. I was doing what I’d always done when faced with a crisis.
This was not a crisis.
This was.
Shit.
I fixed things. When things went bad? I worked methodically, made a plan, and I fixed things. My clients were moulded into what I needed them to be. Accepting of my methods. Grateful for my excellent skills with their investments. I was trusted.
I didn’t feel it.
This was not a client. And this was simply not something that was here to be fixed. Instead I needed to fix myself, because I was the one who had to be moulded here. Shaped and coddled into something that felt…more like me.
This flat had always been safe. A space where I could just exist with nothing coming for me. Nothing to worry about. No need to hide. And that was the problem here, because this flat? It no longer felt like…
Fuck. Double fuck.
Okay. Breathe.
I needed to make a plan, but I hadn’t managed to even get myself off the floor today, still sat here in a heap trying to figure out what to do…about everything. Laptop on my lap. Phone in my hand. All the tools I needed to get my life in order.
Yet I did nothing, sitting here like a paralysed amoeba with no ability to use my brain.
I wanted to do what I always did. Get my flash gear on and walk myself down to my usual place of choice. Tap my card on the reader. Get myself messed up to the point where I no longer cared. The temptation was nauseating. Alluring at the same time as it made me sick to my stomach.
I wanted it. Badly.
Just the hit. My nostrils flaring in anticipation. I wanted someone’s hands on me. I wanted to be manhandled and pushed and made to do things. I wanted.
And my vision once again went dark, even before I closed my eyes, trying to handle the wave of fear that engulfed me.
I had worked so hard to get away from this. To change things. I had done everything right, and what had it been? A couple of weeks? I hadn’t even been tempted when that Thom had whispered secrets in my ear. That there was some runner downstairs who could score stuff. Whatever I wanted.
I hadn’t because.
“Fuck,” I breathed out into the room.
I hadn’t. Because. Fucking hell. My heart was racing again, and I was sweating profusely. My body reacting to all the things it needed that I refused to give into. I needed water and food. I needed a baggie of coke and some little pills. Something to take the edge off all my paranoia and anxiety.
Yeah, I knew how deranged I sounded in my head, and how insane this was. Every little part of it. From me being sat on the floor here to the very real fact that the notification was blinking on my screen. New episode now live, it said. Like I’d been sat here waiting for it.
Truth. I had. I had watched the first three episodes. Over and over again.
To be honest? The hit I got from it was way stronger than the surge in my stomach for nutrition. And the drugs? I was stronger than the shivers roaring through my body. Braver.
I was an absolute idiot. But for now, it was the only thing that worked.
Now I was fully aware that I was trying to excuse my obnoxious behaviour with stupidity. Telling myself it was addictive television, visionary reality TV and all the other things the screen was telling me.
I believed it. I had to, because the alternative was terrifying.
The fact that I was sitting here watching myself make an absolute pig’s ear of my life, for everyone to see? People who knew me? Like?
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
People at work would see this. It was better if I didn’t. That way I could just ignore anyone commenting. I could pretend I didn’t notice people’s looks. Clients. Would people recognise me at work? Would old hookups come crawling out of the woodwork to spill all my secrets?
And then I would remember that I was actually…probably. Not returning to work. Another small detail that made icy shards of reality stab me on the inside.
I lied. I lied so much to myself that even that had become a blur.
I shuddered and let my finger dance over the touchscreen. Because I had to. Because the alternative was unbearable.
Press play. Watch the stupid ads. I closed my eyes and let the introduction play. Some stupid jingle with a wedding march theme crawling through me like the earworm it was.
Gina. Her boobs on display in that thing she was sprayed into. Eyelashes so long I was surprised she could actually see through them.
And a convenient recap. My face filling the screen as I was laughing at something, sat on…
I almost said it in my head. Our bed.
Me. Smiling like… Shit. I was looking happy again. I hated it. Hated it because it was so obviously fake. Everything was fake, down to the way the camera zoomed in on my fingers, nervously fiddling with the hem of my jumper.
Some stupid jumper.
And then there was Peter, just sitting there, calmly looking at me.
Or maybe he was looking at someone else.
What did I know? I didn’t remember half of these shoots, everything bouncing back and forth as the camera panned around.
Different people. Names that now seemed like people from long ago.
Laughter. Words that made zero sense because I wasn’t actually listening.
I wasn’t watching this for the dialogue. Wasn’t here for the stupid games they had made us play. I wasn’t even interested in the gossip and the drama.
I was only here for this. Those shots that seemed to crop up every couple of minutes. Me laughing at something. Me standing up, looking at something in disbelief. Someone giving me a friendly hug.
And then right there would be Peter. Looking at me.
I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stop watching. Couldn’t erase it from my brain. It was addictive on a grand scale, the kick of nausea in my stomach every single fucking time. And the hit that followed was more powerful than anything my card could tap into down at that bar.
I wanted to get up and leave right now. I wanted as much coke as I could get my hands on. I wanted to snort it all up my nose and watch the world disappear.
And then there he was again, right on the screen. The camera zooming in on his face in slow motion.
Just the way his face changed. How his eyes just…
He looked at me. A small smile forming on his face. Just a tiny one.
I felt like I’d seen it a million times, and not quite understood what it meant. But right here on my screen?
The dopamine kick shouldn’t affect me like this, but I couldn’t deny it. I was…addicted to it. I was sat here like the junkie I was, just wondering when it would hit me.
I was going insane. That was it. I was just imagining it. It wasn’t real. None of this was. It was just a bloody TV show, and everything was cut and pasted in order to make it look like something it definitely wasn’t.
Then there I was on the screen again. And he was right next to me, whispering something in my ear. His fingers gently travelling down my arm as he spoke.
A tender caress. It could have just been a trick of the light. The angle.
Yes, it was definitely just the angle. The lighting was off. I didn’t remember it being that dark.
Then he looked at me. Really looked. And he smiled.
I wanted to die. I wanted this to stop. I couldn’t take anymore of this, yet I still sat there letting the waves of fear travel through me.
Because when Peter looked at me?
He looked at me like he…
He looked at me like…
It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t cute. It was insane.
He looked at me like he loved me. Me? And I…? How I knew that I didn’t know because I definitely wasn’t loved. People didn’t look at me like that. I knew. I was me.
And anyway, how the hell was I supposed to know?
So I screamed into the screen. Just raged. And then? There he was again.