I am so incredibly sorry! I know it's been like two months and its not really an excuse but I do have my reasons. Don't worry, I'll always update and I have this story planned to the end so there's no question of writer's block. 

I've been dealing with some personal stuff recently, and on top of that I'm doing a production of Wicked at the moment which takes up a great deal of my time. So apologies for that. Anyway, without further ado, we are back in business with chapter 25!

xxxXxxx

Stupid? Maybe. Uncomfortable? Definitely. Necessary? Unfortunately.

Enoch let the phone fall to his side as he lay staring at the ceiling on Olive's bed. It was the last place he wanted to have to turn and it was the only place he could, at least for the night. It wasn't that he was desperate. He had savings, and if he had to, university accommodation for as long as he was enrolled as a student. He supposed he had to go back eventually. Maybe it wasn't too late to take the classes he needed to go into forensics.

He groaned and ran a hand over his exhausted face. That wasn't what he wanted. None of this was what he wanted to happen, and that was no new feeling to him. As far as he was concerned Olive was the only family he needed now and she was certainly the only one to care.

It had taken the three hours he'd spent sitting in his car and driving miserably around with no real aim, for the feeling of "what have I actually done" to sink in. He'd more or less been independent since he was just a kid, at least in his own head. And certainly after he graduated high school, somehow, and gotten his own life, but now all strings were severed.

Then there was the matter of what he was supposed to do for a job, even if it had only been a family business, and impossible to tell right now if O'Connor's Funerals would even reopen its doors for a long time. He'd have to manage. Terribly incapable though he was at any kind of interaction with living people.

Enoch hated his father. That's what he told himself. So then why was the terrible beast he was trying so hard to fight back since his mother died, sinking its teeth even further into him than it had been a day ago?

Difficult as it was for him to sleep now, especially alone, he didn't even try once he hung up the phone with his girlfriend. He would be out of her folks' house as soon as he could in the morning, when he knew what the hell he was going to do with his life. Eventually sleep overcame him anyway, hours later after midnight as he was still fully dressed with his laptop half open on the other side of the double bed beside him the internet browser opened to a bookmarked page of flat listings in London.

For once, Enoch didn't wake up in a sweat, or choking on tears that he never wanted to let fall again. Although while his sleep was uninterrupted, that didn't make it easy. The familiar graveside dreams that regularly plagued him were still there, only this time it wasn't his mother's grave he was standing over. Or even Esther's little one. It wasn't even Olive's which he had dreamt once even while she was in the bed with him and refused to tell her why he was so disturbed the next morning. This time the grave was empty and he stood with a shovel in his hand and soil staining his clothes.
The headstone was set into place and no sooner had he lifted cold eyes to read the name, there was a shove behind him on the small of his back and down he went much further than the traditional six foot into the earth.

That was when he woke up, stiff and uncomfortable from sleeping in jacket and jeans on top of the covers with his face an emotionless mask he donned as easily as if it was putting on a t-shirt. He groaned and sat up slowly, closed the laptop all the way and slipped it back into the bag he'd taken it out of.
He looked around Olive's old bedroom and there was something comforting about knowing she slept here that calmed his anxious mind a little as he got up and raked a hand through his untidy hair. Grateful though he was for a roof and a bed for the night from her parents, the last thing Enoch wanted was questions and company. So like a thief in the night, or rather morning, he stole out of the room, down the stairs and out the door without so much as a word.

xxxXxxx

By the time he heard from Olive that she was coming back to London to see him again, it was a full week later, over two weeks since he had buried his mother. He had fallen, and scrambled for purchase on any handhold of the cliff face he had stumbled off and missed most of them. But it hadn't been hopeless. In fact, for the first time since his mother had died, a faint shadow of things going alright was being to dawn on a very dim outlook on life.

He was going back to school, and sure for now he was going to have to deal with college accommodation, single of course there was no way he would tolerate a roommate. The plan was to find himself a flat, and while he had savings that would have been a stupid decision to make without a job. But that was later, whenever he could.

Enoch looked up from his bed where he sat on his computer at the knock on his door. He waited an extra few seconds before he sighed and got up to unlock it. A head of beautifully familiar red waves greeted him and before he could say a word Olive's mouth was on his and her arms around his waist. If she was the only good thing he had in his life, at least he had the best there was.

Enoch's eyes flittered back open when Olive pulled away from him first and stepped inside out of the communal hallway. He didn't ever say it, not nearly as much as a boyfriend probably should appreciate it but she was an extremely welcome sight.

"I fought you were comin' tomorrow?"

"I wanted to surprise you and come earlier." She smiled, which Enoch did not exactly return although he knew she already knew he was glad to see her. Olive could do the smiling for both of them. "I'm really glad you came back to your course...it makes you happy."

Did it? Maybe it had a month ago. Now 'Human Anatomy' was less of a fascination and more of a way to keep him from going insane or spiralling completely down a dark spiral he would find it difficult to claw his way out of.

"You make me 'appier." He muttered without a smile although it was true and more passive way to argue about what he was actually happy about anymore.

Olive let herself in and he closed the door and turned to watch her. His eyes scanned down to the plain skirt he really thought quite suited her ginger hair and back up again. She turned and opened her mouth and suddenly he knew what she was about to say before she said it.

"No." He preordained. "Don't even ask."

"How do you know what it is?" Olive huffed and looked a little put out.

"Because I know ya. I ain't makin' no amends, love."

Olive sighed and he watched her green eyes scan his room and then rest on him with the pitying look he did not appreciate.

"You know why I left." He added with a stern, 'I can't do this anymore' expression he knew she understood.

The girl sat down on the foot of her bed and patted the mattress for him to sit with her which he did if only because he needed to be close to someone he trusted and missed moreso than because she wanted him to.

"I wasn't even going to suggest you move back home." Her hands folded over one of his and Enoch let himself relax the tiniest bit at her touch. "I wouldn't ever make you do that because I know how miserable you were there. Besides...I think it could be good for you to have your own place. But...Enoch, don't you think that it would be worth even trying to talk to him again?"

" 'e barely knows 'e 'as a son." Enoch muttered bitterly. "Ain't cared about me since I was a kid, you know that. Far as I'm concerned 'e ain't no father of mine."

"Enoch...he's the only family you have-"

"No 'e ain't. You are." Enoch snapped and if Olive had looked offended it was only for half a second before he saw her blink and stare at him in apparent surprise.

"You've never said that before...."

"Oh bloody 'ell, for cryin' ou-" He started and rolled his eyes.

"Enoch..."

"Look I ain't talkin' 'bout it. 'e was the one wiv the problem." He said stubbornly and clenched his jaw to let her know there was no arguing with him about this. Mercifully Olive seemed to accept this and a strand of orange hair fell down in front of her face. If it meant he went the rest of his life without his father in his life, well what damn difference was there? Was it better or worse than having one who he hadn't felt approved of him in years?

"Have you spoken to Hugh? Or anyone else lately?"

"Did you just come 'ere to tell me 'ow I should be actin'?"

Olive sighed and pinched her lips shut. He knew she was just trying to help, and she just wanted him to be okay.

"It's barely been three weeks. Not three months, Olive." He added unnecessarily and then sighed and looked away.

Olive, bless her, didn't so much as bat an eyelid after that at the way he was snapping at her. Because the last thing he wanted to do was chase her off too. He was grieving. He hadn't really ever stopped grieving only now it was fresh. But he didn't apologise for how he spoke and was it a good thing or a bad thing that she wasn't seeming to expect an apology?

"I'll find another job when I'm ready to." He said and it felt bizarre that he was the one talking and answering questions that hadn't even been asked of him. But they were there, in the silence and in the look in her eyes. "And a proper flat and I'll 'ave my own life same as before, only...separate and 'ow is that a bad fing?"

"It's not. Not in itself, Enoch." Olive said in her gentle voice which pulled his gaze back to her instead. "It's not that that I'm worried about. It's...you."

"Well fanks for clearing that up." He said sarcastically and arched an eyebrow.

"You can do anything, I know it, and I know you're incredible at letting things bounce off you like rubber." She angled her body slightly to better face him, "I just...I don't want to see you going backwards even faster than you can keep up with. I love you...I loved the impossible to get to know, brick of a boy in high school and I love the you that actually lets me in. I know you're hurt a lot easier than you ever wanted to let on. I don't want to see you burn every single bridge if there's any chance at all of mending them."

"Well sorry, Olive, ya wrong this time. Not everyfing can be patched up. The sticky tape is gonna completely fall apart sometime." He said stonily and then sighed. Darn her ever enduring optimism and hopefulness.

"I don't believe that's true in this case."

"I freakin' do."

Olive stood up and smoothed her skirt over her knees, the black tights standing out in a contrast to the plaid pattern that even Enoch could notice. "I also know you'd never give in you impossible, wonderful man."

"Is that meant ta be a complim-"

"What if your dad did? What if he wanted to bridge the gap again?"

"Gap is an understatement. It's the Grand Canyon. And there ain't a snowman's chance in 'ell of that." Enoch pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. As far as he was concerned, there was more chance of convincing his father to play Juliet in Shakespeare in the Park than there was of ever getting him to apologise. Why? Because Enoch knew precisely where he own stubbornness came from.

"I'm going to go out and I'm going to get you coffee and something to eat." Olive said sounding so very calm and domestic that for a second Enoch forgot to be annoyed and looked up at her as she poked around his small dorm looking in cupboards. "Because looking at you, you haven't been eating properly."

"I still can't stomach anyfin'." He said truthfully and ran a hand through his untidy curls that he desperately wanted to cut right off and end the never ceasing frustration of messy hair in his eyes.

He felt a warm pressure on his cheek as Olive pressed her lips to it and a welcome distraction of her own hand through his hair, distinctly more enjoyable despite his apathetic reaction.

One day. Things might be better one day. Just how distant a future did it have to be?