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“You should get home,” Gabe said, his tone a little kinder than it had just been. “Whatever’s happened…”
“My mum died,” Oliver blurted miserably. He let out a choked laugh, still refusing to turn around, even when he felt a sudden, warm hand on the small of his back. He pushed his head harder against the bricks until his skin started to sting and it felt like his skull would crack. The pain brought him down a little, and his breath came out, shaking and thick with tears. “My dad rang earlier, just before Leo went out. She died. I have to…I’m off to London for the funeral.”
“When?” Gabe asked, his voice almost a whisper.
“Dunno. I’ll get the details soon, I expect.” He took in another breath and grimaced at the taste of vomit still in his throat. “I’m really fucking sorry, Gabriel. I don’t know why I’m like this. I don’t know why I can’t just be a fucking decent boyfriend. Clearly you were right all along, you know. Not to trust me.”
“Ollie,” Gabriel said, his tone almost heart broken. “You know I love you.”
Barking an angry laugh, Oliver finally turned his head, looking at Gabriel’s stricken expression. “But love’s not quite enough. You made that pretty clear. Isn’t going to cure me, is it? Not going to erase the scars or somehow turn back the clock and make that bitch not…not…” He stopped when his stomach heaved again, but nothing came out.
Gabe stood there a moment, looking helpless before he reached out, pulling Oliver away from the wall. “You need to shower, and brush your teeth, and get in bed.”
Oliver stumbled but let himself lean on Gabe as they made the trek back to his house. Luckily the night was cool, the breeze coming from the direction of the ocean soothing to his sweaty brow and aching limbs.
“You’re not going to stay with me, are you?” Oliver asked quietly, just as they reached his driveway.
There was a long pause before Gabriel answered. “No. I’m not. I don’t want to see you until after you get back from London.”
Had words been able to cause physical wounds equal to the pain he felt from that, Oliver was sure he’d end up bleeding out right there on the pavement. But it wasn’t like he didn’t understand. It was only fair. It was only what he deserved. He hadn’t been able to hold up his end of the bargain for more than a handful of days. He’d promised Gabriel he’d never cross a line with him again, and then he’d done it. He could count the hours of how long it had taken before he fucked up once more.
Swallowing, he didn’t reply, but he allowed Gabriel to get him to his front door. He fumbled for his keys, and didn’t look back as he stepped in. He didn’t want a messy goodbye. He didn’t want to cry in front of Gabriel right then. He didn’t have the stomach for it.
If he was going to survive the next few weeks of going back to the place which had only ever caused him pain, he couldn’t let himself give in to weakness. Not while there was still hope. Gabriel hadn’t said forever. He just said for now.
For now.
That was something Oliver could live with.
Fifteen
Oliver had been away from London long enough to forget that the summers could get hot. The moisture in the air from the unforgiving Atlantic sea combined with the summer heat made the days oppressive and uncomfortable. The flat they’d grown up in had no air conditioning, and the windows offered very little relief, even when every single one sat wide open. The siblings were profoundly grateful for the suite their father booked, and even more so that they’d have to spend very little time in the Chelsea flat.
The funeral was to take place at their mother’s church—an ancient cathedral with the same echoing walls, marble statues, and stained glass that littered the city. It was the same church Oliver had been tied up and dragged through to a back door where he was loaded into a car and whisked out of the city to be purged of his demons.
It wasn’t the same vicar, of course. At Oliver’s tender age of seventeen, the vicar who spent his days rambling about demons and Lucifer was already reaching the end of his years. This one was younger, almost fit.A waste of a perfectly good, shaggable man, Oliver thought. He had a pretty mouth and wondering eyes, and if Oliver had been in a very different place in his life, he’d probably attempt to seduce him.
But what was the point, now?
Death was supposed to leave the living miserable, and he certainly was. His mother’s wrath hadn’t ended with her life. Not when it was destroying Oliver from the inside and taking away what little support he had.
He only had himself to blame, really, but it felt so much better hating her for it.
A chilled glass pressed against his knuckles, and Oliver looked up to see his sibling handing him a glass of whiskey. There was a lime mashed amongst the ice, just the way he liked it, and he gave his sibling a grateful smile as he took it, tipping back a long swallow.
“Text off dad. He’ll be here in an hour, and we’ve got to go to the viewing at the church.”
Oliver felt his stomach roil hard. He clamped his jaw together, praying to a God he never believed in that he could just keep it together, just for a little while. He took another sip, then sat back against the chair, glancing out at the London skyline which was beginning to cloud over.
It was funny how the skies in the movies were always dreary and dark the day of funerals. He never really thought about it before, but maybe it was fitting the universe would mourn the loss of a life—even someone like his mother.Someone ought to, he thought. Because apart from the vicious, acidic anger sitting in his gut, he felt very little emotion at all.
Leo strolled over to the sofa across from the chair and sat, and it was then Oliver realized his sibling was wearing a black dress. It wasn’t tight, off the shoulders a bit, long sleeves, the skirt hanging down well past the knees. He assumed it was Leo’s last fuck you to their mother, and he appreciated him all the more for it.
Oliver wasn’t as brave.
“You hear from Gabe at all?” Leo asked after a few moments of silence. It was profoundly obvious Oliver and Gabe were on the rocks, but Leo didn’t bother to ask after Gabe until now.
“Text off him this morning telling me I could ring him if I needed to.” Oliver didn’t mention it was in response to a series of drunk texts and subsequent apologies from the night before. Most of them had been innocuous—he missed him, wished he was back home, was sorry for the things he’d done. A few bordered on pathetic, begging Gabe not to leave him, and Gabe was gracious enough to let those slide.
