November, 2018

Mum had come home not long after Marli had left. After hurrying to my bedroom to hide my bottle of alcohol and then running to the bathroom to hop in the shower in the hopes it would sober me up, eventually I did my best to appear calm and collected in front of my mother as she told me about her day. Though it was hard to ignore the heavy eyelids demanding me to go to my bed, or the slight wobbliness of my legs as I gripped onto the kitchen bench to keep myself upright.

But if she noticed anything, she didn't say a word. Under the lie that I had eaten already, eventually I retreated to my bedroom for the evening, saying I was going to sleep. Though as I climbed under the covers, I kept my bedside table light on, wanting to keep looking at him for longer.

Laying down on the other side of my bed, his eyes reflected the yellow hues of the room as his locks brushed against his face. "Hi," he eventually breathed.

"Hey," I said back, unable to stop the smile taking hold of me.

"Why are you so happy?" he queried, but even he couldn't hide his own joy.

"I'm just so glad I can see you again. I've missed you so much, Ben, and—"

"Shh," he tried to soothe me, hands extending outwards as the waterworks began to turn on. Though his attempts of comfort were useless. Face marred with annoyance that he couldn't hold me, eventually he just retreated to his side and watched me calm myself down instead.

"I have so many things I want to say and ask you," I finally managed to get out once more breaths were steady.

"You can ask anything."

So I started with the most obvious. "What was it like?"

"What was what like?" His brows pinched together, but I could see a slight sense of expectancy in his gaze... like he might just know where I was going with this.

"Dying... Death... The spirit realm... Where do souls go?" I had to stop myself with the questions and give him time to respond. But more echoed in my mind. Were you in pain? Was it dark there? Is that where Marli sent me before?

Heaving a sigh, he rolled onto his back, eyes searching the ceiling. As I watched his gaze fixate on a particular line on my roof, I couldn't help but melt a little into the bed, acknowledging just how much I missed his habit to search the ceiling as though it offered answers to his worries.

It was a thing I had grown to hate when he was alive, but now...

"I... I don't know how to answer that, Olivia," he then said, but I could hear he was holding back.

"Try. As best as you can," I prompted.

"Well... I can't. Because... One moment I was in my body and the next... I was out of it. Watching you crying over me. Watching you kill Rudiger."

"Wait... you saw that?"

Head tilting slightly my way, he gave me a reluctant nod before averting his eyes once more.

And, ever so slowly, what he was withholding began to dawn on me. "Have you been... watching me since you died?"

"Our souls are attached... even in death," he whispered. "I can't do anything but watch you..."

At once guilt slammed through me. Because, if he had been there from the moment he died, then he knew what happened that very night... he knew about Lukas and I sharing a bed... about our bond... about—

"There's nothing going on between me and Lukas," I quickly blurted, his earlier comment about me belonging to our once-best-friend now burning in my brain.

The corners of his lips turned up as he forced a smile, but his eyes—still gazing at the roof—were full of anguish. "That's not true."

"There's not. You should know this if you've been here the whole time. I haven't contacted him since—"

"You have a bond. It's not nothing."

Rolling onto my own back to join him in the search for answers above, eventually I muttered, "It's only an invitation..."

"Yet your heart has moved on from me... or rather, back to him."

"It hasn't," I hissed, closing my eyes in the process. But the truth was, I wasn't sure who I was trying to reassure here... him or my own heart? "It's just that stupid hovering invitation from when he wiped my memory. Nothing more."

"But it's still there. You can't deny it, Olivia."

"And I left him." My eyes flew open as I turned to look at him. Though he kept his own gaze fixed above. "I left him and everyone so that the bond would break and that I could mourn you properly like you deserve and—"

"I never asked you to do that."

I took a moment, mulling his words through my head, trying to gather what he meant by it. Still unsure, I said, "Well, duh. You were dead."

"I'm still dead," was all he gave back.

Trying to swallow the spit now pooling in my mouth, I came up against a lump in my throat. And, before I knew it, the warm wet had returned to my cheeks. "I'm so sorry, Ben."

He finally looked at me again, all anger, anguish, and ambivalence washing from his face as he filled with only affection. "You have nothing to apologise for," he spoke the very words I had been dying to hear from him, but still couldn't bring myself to believe. Because... he was wrong.

"I have so much to apologise for."

"No. You really don't."

"I do. I'm so sorry that my stupid heart moved on. I didn't want it. I swear I didn't—"

"I know you had no control over—"

But I wasn't listening. I was too consumed in spilling all the words he had to hear. Ones I had cried in my head before, maybe sobbed out in the shower, ones he may have heard already... but now that I knew he was here to hear them, I had to voice them into the space between us. "And I'm so sorry you died because of me. You never should have jumped in front of me. You should have let me died and—"

"As if I'd ever let you—"

"And I'm sorry we were even in that situation in the first place. Had I listened to you—"

"Olivia, stop."

"Then we never would have ended up like this. But I always insisted I knew best. And I stupidly, blindly trusted that dumb Lukas—"

"Olivia, stop," he tried more forcefully.

"And it got you fucking killed. I can't believe I trusted a guy I barely knew, one who wiped my memory at that, over the person I was bonded to. Who I had agreed to spend my life with... I was such a horrible partner to you, Ben, and I will live every day regretting that you had to spend—"

"Olivia, please just stop and let me speak!" he shouted this time, finally making me catch the words that still wanted to spew from my mouth. His hands reached for my face, but neither of us responded this time to the absence of touch. We knew what to expect... or what not to. "I don't blame you for a single thing that happened, okay?"

"But—"

"No. You had your turn, now listen to me."

I pressed my lips together, wanting to retort, but also feeling the gravity of guilt for never listening to him when he was alive weighing over me.

"I do not blame you. You acted out of your best wishes and on your own heart. We both did things when I was alive that hurt each other... that wasn't the healthiest for our relationship. But neither of us could have known how this would all end up. Did it suck watching you fall for Lukas? Yes. Do I hate that that's how my life ended? Sure... But... I got between you two in the end. He met you first. You still had a bond that—"

"No. No, that's not how—"

"Olivia," he warned.

And so I clamped my mouth shut again, letting him talk.

"At the end of the day, regardless of the fights we had and where our hearts ended up, I would still never take back that I met you. Not a single day or decision that kept you by my side... as selfish as many of those choices were."

I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but I knew he wasn't done. So I bit my tongue.

"You showed me what it felt like to live and love. And I was going to die one day... maybe not so soon, but regardless... I'm glad I got to experience it and I'm glad it was with you."

My bottom lip was quivering now, but he just gave me a sad smile.

"And besides the story of us... All that doubt I had of your abilities... All the smothering I tried to do... You can't deny my wariness and distrust of your strength also led to our demise."

"But—"

"You did it, Olivia. You killed Rudiger. On your own. Without my help. Barely with Lukas's... and I never thought you could. I was sure that he would take you out first. And had I never doubted you, we never probably would have fought. We wouldn't have been fighting that day and let our guard down. And... perhaps your heart wouldn't have ever opened up to Lukas again."

"Ben, I know you're trying to make me feel better, but the fault is actually all—"

"You can look at it from many points of view. Yours. Mine. Ours... or no ones. Maybe it's just fate. But regardless, it happened. Everything happened as it happened, and... you need to forgive yourself. God knows I've already forgiven you. I never even blamed you."

"Ben—"

"Marli said souls hang on for a reason. I can't say that anyone ever visited me in this strange afterlife... or limbo... whatever this is... to tell me why I'm hanging on or how to let go of life, but I'm certain the reason I'm hanging on is because I need to see you forgive, forget, and start living again."

"I am living though," I croaked, not even trying to hide the tears that came in waves out of me at this point. "I'm alive and you're—"

"Here. Waiting for you to make the most of this life... now. For the both of us."

I pressed my lips together to hold back the sob, not wanting to be too loud in case mum overheard me.

"But what you're doing right now... this isn't living, Olivia. Don't even kid yourself."

"I'm breathing. I get up every day. I'm back at uni, and—"

"You've barely improved from how you were when you came back to Australia."

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

October, 2018

Only a couple of hours had passed. No... minutes. No... seconds. Regardless, somehow I was standing at the curb of the Townsville airport, hand numbly outstretched to call the approaching taxi over.

I had just left Heathrow... so how did I get here already?

Was it magic?

Or was I that far gone in the recesses of grief that time had become a foreign construct, forcing me to become stuck on a state of autopilot?

"Olivia! Come back! Please, don't leave me, too."

I shook the echo of his shouts from my head as I blinked my heavy eyes. I needed to stay present. I needed to let the past stay in the past. I needed to only focus on mourning the one who matters.

I closed my eyes once more as a cloud moved away from the sun, the world becoming somehow even brighter. But in the moment of darkness, I felt myself starting to drift away...

Only the stumble of my step as my body began to sway brought me back to reality, reminding me where I was heading and what I was doing.

The crisp sun raged above, threatening me of the summer to come, and a familiar moistness clung to the air, desperate to make everything stick together.

Was it always this hot? I wondered as my skin prickled while I walked over to the boot of the taxi, throwing my luggage in before taking a seat in the back. Or have I just become that weak?

Buckled in and gaze instinctively turning out the window to relish in the rich blue sky intersected by the deep green treetops, I almost forgot where I was again until a voice said, "Where to, Miss?"

My head snapped back, reality warping back in again as I took stock of my presence. Bench seat below. Window to my right. A man in a crisp white uniform craning his head through the gap between the front seats to look at me.

"Er, 85 Cypress Drive, Annandale," I quickly said back.

"Very well," he replied before putting the car into drive and taking off from the airport.

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

I had blinked. One moment I was in the car, giving my address, and next I knew I was standing in the driveway, sun blazing down on me, sweat already beading on my upper lip.

When did I get out of the taxi? I pondered as my eyes squinted in the daylight.

Head swivelling this way and that, I took in my surroundings.

Better yet... how long have I been standing here?

The taxi was nowhere in sight, meaning I must had gotten out and froze.

Gaze turning downwards at my jean-covered legs, I began forcing my feet one in front of the other as I dragged my suitcase behind me, all the while it protested against the pavement with every bump of cement block it had to jump over up the driveway.

But as I reached the door, hands automatically patting my pockets, I realised I didn't even have a key.

Key... key... where did she used to keep a spare?

Abandoning the handle of my luggage, I began picking up nearby pot plants as though she ever used the most obvious spots. But I didn't get far into my search when the door swung open.

"Olivia?" she gasped, calling my attention forward and back to her.

"Hi, mum," I numbly replied.

"What are you doing here?" she flustered, frozen in the doorway, giving me the chance to take her in. She had a light dusting of makeup on her face, hair thrown into a loose braid—either she was going out or had recently come home.

"I, uh..." But as I stood on the porch, trying desperately to remember the speech I had prepared, though only running into mind fog, eventually I realised my defeat. I had left all explanations for my life back in England. "Surprise?" was all I managed to get out.

"Oh, honey. It's quite the surprise!" she gushed. At once, she closed the distance between us, arms wrapping around me as she enveloped me into a hug.

For a moment, peace consumed me. Intoxicated by mum's familiar honey and rose scent, all pain drifted back out into the world as I burrowed into her, giving me the first sense of ease I had had in what felt like an eternity.

And maybe that serenity would have lasted for a long time once she let go, if she hadn't already been whispering into my ear, "You feel thin. Have you been eating okay?"

"I'm fine," I grumbled, yanking myself out of her grip and reaching for my bag. "Just... jetlagged."

I could feel her confused and worried stare watching me go as I stumbled into the house, because even my mind was questioning how that made sense. Sleep deprivation and weight loss may go hand-in-hand with grief... but not with a two-day flight.

If she suspected anything of me, she didn't say it then. Instead, she busied after me, telling me how she was just about to head to the Cafe near the Botanical Gardens to catch up with a friend. And in the same breath, she almost invited me, though she stopped herself, instead turning on the aircon in my old room and pulling out a new set of sheets before claiming I should definitely get my rest.

"I wish I knew you were coming," she said at one point. "I would have made this a little more homely for you."

But after kicking off my shoes and pants, climbing into the familiar—though foreign—bed, and receiving a kiss on the head from my mother before she gently closed the door behind her, I couldn't help thinking that this was homely enough. An old type of home. A safer type of home. A home free from the biggest mistakes I had ever made.

· · ───── ∘☽༓☾∘ ───── · ·

November, 2018

"I disagree. I've made heaps of progress," I retorted, remembering how I was back then.

But Ben gave me a look that said all.

Maybe I felt alive right now that he was finally here again... But he was right. I hadn't felt joy in a long time. Living life like a robot, I breathed, I slept, I ate for the sake of others. Life was not mine anymore.

Living was not for me anymore.

And I had barely shown any progress on that front since he had passed, stuck in the depression stage of grief, even all these months on.

"One way to start salvaging the wreck that I, you, Lukas, definitely Rudiger... that we all made... Well, it starts by going back," Ben said to me after a few moments of silence and reflection. "Back to your life in London and to Luk—"

"No," I said at once, cutting off the words before they exited his mouth.

"Oliv—" he tried to reprimand.

But I sat up, making him stop in his tracks as his wary blue eyes followed me. "If there's one thing I will not do for you to move on is go back to them. No."

"Why?" he implored.

"Because I can't face them, Ben. After you died because of—"

"It's not their place to hate you. I'm the one who died, and, as I said, I don't blame you or—"

"And never, ever, will I go near Lukas again. This bond will break if it's the last thing I do. I cannot be near him. He is a liar, he is manipulative, and this whole time he made me believe he was genuinely rooting for me when he was actually just trying to make up for not supporting me when he had me. It's bullshit."

Ben's lips pursed as his eyes searched my face. And he didn't say anything for a while as I heaved frustrated breaths.

Though eventually he said, "I guess we have time to work on that decision."

"You won't ever convince me."

"We will see about that."

Will she ever forgive Lukas do you think?