There had never been a more important time that she needed to be with him than the moment Enoch had hung up the phone and Olive, so shocked her entire body felt numb, had to lean on a quick thinking Millard to stop her sinking to her knees right in the pavement. They were talking, both Millard and Althea, asking her what was wrong and what happened, if everything was okay but how could it ever be okay? For Enoch at least. She knew Renee O'Connor, the woman had been nothing but lovely, and welcoming as a mother in law would be to Olive. Their parents, their respective mothers at least, had gotten on together and now Enoch had lost his. Enoch's voice when he'd said those awful words was the most heartbreaking sound Olive had ever heard.

I need to go. I need to go home now. She had said, but she knew logistically she wouldn't be getting back to London for at least another day. Was it her business to tell? She only knew that it had happened, and nothing more but she had to explain herself to Millard. Warn Hugh not to text Enoch any terrible puns and snippy comments like he usually would. More than ever she wanted to be able to hold him, he needed somebody and she wasn't there to just dash over for him. Olive didn't want to be able to imagine what he was like now, he was already breaking before, she was scared it would destroy him.

She had one day to cover her bases. Make arrangements with lecturers and classmates to save her work for her. How long she could really afford to take off, she wasn't sure but London rather than Cambridge was where she needed to be right now. She'd go home the following day with her mum when she would have driven up to Cambridge to visit anyway and directly to Enoch's. It would be so much faster when she finally got her car but that was hardly important enough to think about now.

Olive was out of the car before it had stopped moving. There was no going back home first. She left almost everything in the car and stepped onto the curb outside of the O'Connors' home. The front gate which Enoch had once mentioned had been rusting for years and no one ever remembered or bothered to fix, seemed to have given up at last and dropped from one of its hinges as soon as Olive laid a hand on it. It was a fitting representation of the family that lived in that house, slowly rusting and crumbling until something finally gave in. A lump formed in her throat and tears filled her eyes just walking the six metres to the front door. There was something so fundamentally sad about this place now, a home that had seen too much pain. For the first time in years, Olive was nervous, scared even to knock on the door, scared of what she might find inside. Or if anyone would even open it to her. The garage was closed and Enoch's car out the front so he, if not his dad, at least was there.
It wasn't a surprise when nobody answered her knock, so she tried the door and of course it was locked.

With shaking hands, Olive pulled out her phone and called him. On what would have been the final ring, Enoch answered. His voice was dry, and almost empty of anything.
"...what?"

"I'm here, Enoch. I'm outside, it's just me."

Enoch hung up just like that and Olive drew in a shaking breath as she tucked her phone back into the pocket of her skirt.
There was the sound of footsteps and several moments later she heard the click of the lock and the door opened enough so she could let herself in.

"Oh, Enoch..."
There wasn't a moment to even look at him properly before Olive's arms were around Enoch's neck and his were almost crushingly tight around her waist. He was shaking, she felt it everywhere from his hands on her back, to his shoulders beneath her arms and his jaw against her collarbone.

"You took ya time..." He muttered and would have sounded just like he always did were it not for the tremble still in his voice.

"I know, I'm sorry, I couldn't come sooner but I'm here...I'm here..." Olive sniffled and already she wanted to cry as she rubbed his shoulder and leaned back to see him.

Enoch looked awful. His naturally pale skin was almost translucently white, the cause of which was any number of things from lack of sleep to shock. His hair was unkempt and curly which in any other situation Olive absolutely loved, his eyes were sunken and ringed so darkly he might have resembled a raccoon. He looked exactly like a very tall, terrified little boy.

A tear slid down her cheek as her hand came up to cup his face gently.

"Enoch...have you slept?"

She knew the answer before he'd shaken his head and pulled her with him into his bedroom. It was the only room in the house that wouldn't have reminded him of her, she realised.
"Where's your-"

"I don't know. We ain't said two words to each other. I just 'ear 'im...cryin', shoutin', breakin' fings at night." Even his voice was barely more than a whisper as Enoch sunk onto his bed and looked at her with only pain in his eyes.

There is a suffering that is too terrible to name. A grief too powerful to understand without experience and that was all Olive could see in his eyes. He didn't even look like her Enoch now, he was hurting so much more than she could have imagined. Enoch was a broken shell of a man right now, and she wouldn't have expected any less but it was so much worse to see firsthand.

"Tell me it ain't true, Oli." If she hadn't seen his lips move, Olive might not have realised the words came from Enoch.

"I wish I could...oh, Enoch, I'm so...so..."

"Don't say ya sorry. Sorry don't change nofin', an' I just want-I just want mum back. And that ain't ever gonna 'appen."

Her heart broke a little more with each little tremor in Enoch's voice. He didn't deserve the hard lot life had dealt to him.

"You can let it out you know..." She sunk to her knees in front of him and gripped one of his hands in both of hers. "You can scream, you can shout, you can cry, just let something out, Enoch, you can't suppress this too."

"I can't."

"You can't what, darling?"

"I can't let anyfin' out." He met her eyes, their faces barely two inches apart and Olive's heart skipped a beat. "...I can' an' I don't understand why. I can't cry. I want to, but there's nofin'. I ain't cried since I was seven and I still can't and that's not fair. I can't even feel-"

Then Enoch was kissing her suddenly with such bruising force that Olive squeaked and would have fallen backwards onto the floor if Enoch hadn't caught her. Of everything she had been expecting to find, this was not one of them. The kiss wasn't gentle, it wasn't even passionate, it was hasty and hard and frightened and left Olive staring open eyed and mouthed when he leaned back and stared at her with that intense, lost look of his.

"I can't...feel anything but 'urt and I 'ate it."

"I know..." But of course she didn't. She hadn't lost a sibling, and she hadn't lost a parent and she'd never doubted her place in her family like Enoch did. She knew nothing about what it was like for him except to imagine how strong he must be. "I know..."

"I was a terrible son."

"You weren't, don't you dare go saying that, Enoch, I forbid it."

He just looked at her pathetically. "You don't know what I said to 'er. The last bloody fing I ever said to 'er and I can't ever take those fings back now."

xxxXxxx

"I'm going to stay with him tonight, and later I'll work out when I'm going back but...he needs someone tonight so-"

"Olive, we know, it's okay..."

Olive looked into the mirror where she was smoothing her black and grey dress, almost the only black she owned, at her mother over her shoulder and tried not to start crying again. She hated funerals. But then...they weren't really something anyone should enjoy. It meant the world her parents were coming, she'd kept that little bit of information from Enoch until she knew for sure they would want to. More specifically her father. But the minute she'd told her that Enoch had lost his mother, Theo Elephanta's face paled and took on the sudden appearance of a very repentant man. Enoch would never be his idea of a good partner for Olive, but something told her with the loss that hit Enoch so hard, a bridge might be built somewhere else. Poor consolation for the price that was paid but...

"How's he doing?"

Olive couldn't bring herself to be glad for the familiar faces and voices as Hugh, and then Emma and Millard came into view when Olive got out of the car.

"Oh my gosh, you guys made it..."

"Of course, Enoch's our mate, whatever he says about it, we know him well enough by now to know he needs someone to have his back, poor sod."

Something about Hugh's face looked wrong when he wasn't smiling but then Olive was too distracted to notice for long by the sight of Enoch and his father. They were talking, more civilly on first glance than Olive had ever seen and it suddenly struck her how strikingly similar to his father Enoch looked. They had just the same profile, the same height, the same jaw and the same dark hair, and now, the same grief shadowing their faces. They were both going through the unimaginable.

There was something horribly ironic in a funeral director, an undertaker, having to bury their own family. Again.

"Can we just not do this...for today, Dad? For once?"

If Owen O'Connor had said anything in return, Olive wasn't near enough to hear it. As far as she could tell he didn't, and before her eyes just turned and walked away ahead of his son.

Olive lingered back, a few steps respectfully behind Enoch and his father who stood almost shoulder to shoulder for once, graveside. There weren't many people, she wouldn't have expected anything else and it was over far sooner than anyone would have expected. Owen couldn't even stumble through his eulogy without dissolving into a sobs. Olive kept looking at Enoch, at his shoulders which trembled sometimes with the effort she knew he was going to try and stay together but when his face turned slightly, his cheeks were dry, his eyes held little moisture. He really couldn't cry.

"Enoch?"

Olive slipped her arm through the crook of his where his hands were tucked into the pockets of his jacket and his tie flapped a little in the breeze that blew past. She wiped her eyes with her other hand and leaned her head on his shoulder. Enoch was so motionless he might as well have been made of stone for all the response he gave. She wouldn't ever make him say anything, or move until he was ready to.

Olive's gaze drifted to their left, where her father was shaking hands with Enoch's, and saying something she couldn't make out. But she could see the muscle leap in Owen's jaw as he nodded.

"Enoch, Hugh and Fiona are here...and Millard, and Emma...they made it."

"I don't give a damn, Olive." He finally spoke, and as if on cue, Hugh came up alongside them and put a hand on Enoch's shoulder. Enoch all but threw it off and then the anger that Olive had seen so purely, and raw a few days ago, was back.

"Nick off."

xxxXxxx

"How's your dad doing?"

The second she asked it, Olive almost regretted it. It was better than asking Enoch directly how he was going himself, but it could easy go the opposite way. As it was, Enoch barely looked at her as he closed the door to his bedroom and immediately ripped off his tie like it had been suffocating him.

"He can cry. That's more than I can do." Enoch said hollowly. "It's all I 'ear every night...that and some glass or bottle smashin' on the floor. So... 'ell if I'd know. Bad."

She had been crying on and off all day. Every thought was sad, and tragic and upsetting to the core. Every time she looked at her boyfriend, a broken shell of the man she knew, it made her more upset, more desperate to be able to help him and more disappointed that there was so little she could do for him.

She watched as he dropped onto his bed and kicked off his shoes without bothering with the laces. She sat beside him and leaned over to plant a kiss on his freezing cold cheek.
"Do you need me to stay tonight, love?"

Enoch shook his head and leaned over his knees and Olive swallowed nervously for a moment thinking he might just tell her to go. She couldn't hold it against him if he did.
"You dun' 'ave ta."

"Enoch..." Then she would rephrase the question, "Do you want me to stay?"

"...Yes."

Was there any sadder sound in the world than that of a heart breaking in the depths of a grief that everyone dreaded to experience? But what was that sound? For Olive, the sound of a heart breaking was the choking sobs and short, sharp gasps for breath that she woke to in the early hours of the morning.