CHAPTER 1
'When does it end? What's even the point of all this?'
Oliver was the kind of guy at the office who always kept to himself. People who knew him would think at times that there was a lot going on in his mind. He could seem cheerful about things that he cared about deeply, but only to a mild degree. They didn't expect him to try doing that again, though.
Isabella was knocking on his apartment door while holding her phone. She had tried calling him at least 20 times before she went there. Dozens of texts unanswered; an even larger number of missed calls... It was pretty much a regular Tuesday when it came to Oliver. She knew he hated talking on the phone. But sometimes there's just no other way around it.
After all the knocking, calling, and texting, she tried turning the doorknob to open the door. Surprisingly, it was unlocked. There is no way to understate how odd that was. People didn't just leave the front door unlocked in this neighborhood and especially not Oliver.
Upon entering the apartment, she saw exactly what she expected. Her brother was a complete slob. A pile of unwashed dishes in the sink... All manner of clothing spread out on the couch and floor (it wasn't clear if it was clean or dirty clothes, but she was actively avoiding finding out) ... Empty pizza boxes piled up one on top of the other...
'How does anyone live like this?' she thought disgusted at the chaos of what passed for an apartment.
'This actually looks like a crime scene... But... What if I got the wrong apartment? Not like Oliver would have the decency to pick up his damn phone to tell me...'
Exhausted by everything, she tried his phone one more time. It didn't look like anyone was home.
Upon calling again, she heard a faint buzzing sound in the distance. It was hard to pinpoint where it was coming from exactly, but it sounded like a vibrating cell phone. She had already taken a peek inside the bedroom and no one was there.
The only door that wasn't open was the bathroom door. Once she stood in front of it she was suddenly overcome by an awful sense of dread.
'Please, God... Anything but that... I can't deal with this again... Just... Let it be anything but that!' Isabella nervously thought to herself.
Memories of a dreadful day suddenly came flooding in. She had received a call from her mother. She was crying and it was difficult to understand what she was saying. What she was able to piece together was that Oliver was on the floor with foam coming out of his mouth. She naturally dropped everything to rush over there. When she arrived, Oliver wasn't breathing. She quickly performed CPR on him. A few moments in, he started coughing. If she hadn't rushed over there, he would have certainly died. After she called an ambulance, she noticed a pack of rat poison in the trash bin.
"Have you been dealing with rats lately, mom?" she asked. "Rats? No! Why would you ask something like that at a time like this?" she questioned unsettled.
That was Oliver's first attempt. Isabella now feared that history would repeat itself, and she dreaded what she would find behind the bathroom door.
"Oliver... Are you in there?" she asked fearfully... Hoping that things would be different this time around. Meanwhile, the buzzing was still blaring from behind the bathroom door. No reply was offered to her question. Isabella had no other choice but to open the bathroom door.
'He already tried that once... at least that I know of... He wouldn't try it again, would he? He knows what it did to us... He wouldn't do that... Not to his family... Not again...'
As the door slowly creaked open, Isabella had to see exactly what she had hoped never to have to witness again. The cell phone was on the floor. The buzzing had stopped. The call had already gone to voice mail. A sharp knife was on the floor next to his cell phone, and a whole lot of blood was all over the bathroom floor and inside the tub, where Oliver was lying motionless.
Isabella quickly dialed 911. She checked to see if he had a pulse. As a doctor, it was something that she was accustomed to doing, but she had never been more afraid to check on someone's vitals before. Even though they weren't exactly close, they were still family; which is why seeing him like this was so riveting.
Oliver had apparently sliced both his wrists, laying in the bathtub just waiting to bleed out.
'Thank God! He still has a pulse! I'm going to have to do what I can here to keep him from bleeding to death... Oh, Oliver! What could possibly be so awful about your life for you to do this... again!?'
*****
"Where am I? What's going on? Why am I handcuffed to the bed?"
A few hours had passed. Thanks to Isabella, Oliver survived long enough for the ambulance to take him to the ER. He lost a lot of blood. But now he was out of the ER in one of the rooms. His head was wobbly and he had a generalized feeling of weakness all over his body.
Isabella was standing next to his bed. You'd think that she would have been sad and crying and all that. In reality, she was enraged.
"I just can't believe you had the gall, Oliver. After all, we've been through."
"Leave me alone, Bell."
"Seriously? Seriously?!" Isabella's voice was filled with indignation.
"Screw you, Oliver! I don't care about your need for space right now! Just so you know, once they give you the go-ahead, you'll be going straight to a mental institution. You clearly are a danger to yourself and don't give a rat's ass about what you'd put your family through if... " Isabella's speech was interrupted by a sudden surge of emotion.
"Seriously, Ollie... How could you do this... Again!" while uttering these words she was shedding tears that were seasoned in rage.
Oliver didn't have it in him to even look at his sister. He was facing the window to avoid looking at her. When she said that he would be going to a mental institution, he wanted to protest with every fiber of his being. And yet he remained silent.
"You have to give me something, Ollie! Help me understand here! Let me see things from your perspective!" she pleaded with him. But Oliver said nothing.
Isabella was short of hyperventilating. Despite her young age, she was quite a successful surgeon. A life dedicated to her craft put a strain on her other relationships, turning her into the single mom of a teenage boy and a little girl. She knew what it was like to be under pressure. She was a tough girl. But nothing was as stressful for her as dealing with her brother. Even the thought of him would often cause her physical pain.
"I know that you hate being in those places. But Ollie, you're not giving me any choice here... Unless you talk to me, you're going to be there for a very long time! Is that what you want?"
Oliver turned his body to face the wall. He did not utter a single word. Isabella left the room without saying anything else. She didn't feel like she could handle Oliver anymore.
*****
A year later, Oliver was discharged from the mental institution. In all that time he never got any visitors. He pretended not to care about it, but the truth is that he felt abandoned. Discarded. Alone.
He didn't really look like it, but Oliver was quite the actor. He learned and refined his acting skills over the years. The times he would speak to his family... Whenever he was at the office... His time with his girlfriend Brenna (or ex-girlfriend, to be more precise... Although their relationship ended up being a strange one in the end... ). Oliver acted like a guy that was completely normal and not like someone who was falling apart.
Isabella was always able to see right through him, though. The only thing she was never able to figure out was the why.
Why was he so unhappy? Why was he so eager to die? Why didn't he care about devastating the lives of those who cared about him? There had to be a reason...
Oliver went back to his apartment. He was surprised when he saw the state of it as he went through the door.
There weren't any clothes lying on the floor or on the couch. The dishes were clean and neatly put up in the right place. Even the bathroom was spotless.
'Bell must have gotten someone to clean and take care of the place while I was gone...' he concluded. She really cared for him, despite all the times he's ghosted her.
Something caught his attention at the small table in the living room. There was an envelope with his name on it. Oliver Keen. The address on it was Isabella's, though.
'Was this the reason she came to see me that day? To give me this?' he wondered briefly. After tearing it open, he found a small folded sheet of paper with an address and a weird message. It read 'What if it's the answer you never knew was possible, Oliver?'
The envelope had no return address on it. 'The hell is that supposed to mean? Who could've sent this? And why?'
Annoyed by the mysterious message, he crushed the paper into a ball and tossed it on the floor. He went to the bedroom and let himself fall into his bed. It felt extra nice to do so because of the clean sheets.
Oliver slowly closed his eyes and quietly dosed off in the comfortable embrace of his own bed.
"What are you doing here? I thought you were..." Oliver uttered in quite a state of shock. The old man that entered his room had just startled him. That in and of itself was understandable, but considering the fact that he lived alone, and who that old man was, Oliver was probably right to be a little jumpy.
"I don't want to be here, son. But I came nonetheless. Could you say the same?" the old man grunted in anger.
Oliver was past the initial shock of seeing his dead father in his bedroom. A cocktail of feelings began brewing and it was very hard for him to say anything.
Somehow he managed to find the strength to utter a few words.
"I never told you this... I always hated you for what you did."
Oliver sat up in his bed and directed his eyes to the floor. His father took a step closer. "And what was this thing that I did that made you hate me?"
"Hah! You have the nerve to ask? There's no way you could've been that oblivious!"
"Maybe saying it out loud is what you need for healing and whatnot."
"Fine! I'll say it! The moment you gave up on life you were also giving up on us! We needed you! I needed you! And despite whatever feelings you may or may not have had, you never showed us that you gave a damn about any of us!"
"Is that so?" he replied in an ironic tone.
"You were gone to me long before your death... And the worst part is that... It's that I'm... I'm just like you! And that's why I hate you the most! I'm your friking carbon copy!" he shouted.
Oliver looked like he was struggling to breathe. Saying those things out loud felt liberating in a sense, but by no means was it easy to do. His father took a few more steps forward and was now directly in front of him. Oliver looked at him with disdain. His father had a neutral expression on his face, though.
"So your life's been a train wreck. Then fix it. You know what you have to do. What if it's the answer you never knew was possible, Oliver?"
Those words sounded way too familiar to be coincidental. "What did you just say?" he asked in utter disbelief. His father then gave him the creepiest smile he had ever seen in his life. Immediately after seeing that, he nearly jumped out of bed in a cold sweat. His heart was beating erratically and he was having trouble breathing.
'Did I just dream all that? It must be something because I never remember my dreams...'
It was 5:00 AM. The bedroom window was open and a lightning storm was on and about. The wind was blowing the rain into the room.
Oliver couldn't go back to sleep after that dream. He kept going over it in his mind, time and time again. It was all too weird to be just a coincidence.
When the clock marked 6:07 AM, he had gotten out of bed and went to pick up the sheet of paper that he left on the floor.
He stared at the message and address for about thirty minutes.
'What harm could there be in checking it out? I sure hope there's gas in my bike...'
