SEVEN MONTHS PRIOR TO THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

Finn had never really liked the holidays. Sure, he liked not having to go to school, and he didn't mind a few extra hours of sleep. It was just that, more often than not, his holidays were lonely.

While almost all his friends drove to see their relatives over Easter, some even travelling out of the country with their parents, Finn couldn't remember the last time he'd spent a holiday somewhere other than at home. Which was fine. He knew that they were tight on money, and that there was no way his mum could stand a train ride, much less flying on a plane. They could've driven somewhere, maybe, but even then there was still a high chance she would only lock herself in her hotel room.

Finn wasn't angry at her for it. He himself was nervous before getting on the bus before away games—Had he always been? He couldn't remember—, knowing that if he had a panic attack, there was nowhere to discreetly hyperventilate. So... yeah. Not angry. Just a bit disappointed, maybe.

This time, however, was different. This time, Oliver was there.

His foster parents weren't travelling—something about grading and a study and research that couldn't be put off—which meant that, for two weeks, they saw each other almost every day.

That day, they were spending it in Blissby Green. It was the closest thing the town had to a park; a carefully cropped square of grass with a few monkey bars and a swing set that was located a few minutes away from their school. At two p.m., the April sun stood high in the sky, prompting them to take shelter in the shade of one of the tall oak trees.

Finn was sure they made for a comical sight. There was him, dressed in his football trackies and a washed-out t-shirt, the sun warm on his bare arms. Then there was Oliver, draped in all black, glowering at the blue sky from behind the sunglasses they'd bought in Brick Lane like it had personally wronged him.

"Have you ever travelled?" Finn asked between sips from his Ribena. Before their picnic, they'd gone shopping at the nearby Sainsbury's. Their haul of discounted Easter chocolates and crisps was scattered across the blanket between them. "Like, properly?"

Oliver popped a piece of chocolate into his mouth, thinking about it for a moment. "I went to Spain once with one of my foster families. I just remember that it was scorching. I wanted to see the museums, but they dragged me to the beach every day."

Finn snorted a soft laugh as the image of Oliver miserably stalking through the sand in his leather trench coat popped into his mind. "What about the Walkers? Did they ever take you anywhere?"

Oliver hesitated. "They wanted to, yeah. Last year, over the summer. I didn't go though."

"Why not?"

"Dunno. Just felt weird." He shifted a little, repositioning his head where it was pillowed on his bunched-up coat. The piercings in his ears glittered in the sun. "Like I was intruding or something. I just imagined them going through a photo album in a few years and seeing holiday pictures with me in them and going Ha, remember when that bloke lived with us?"

Oliver didn't speak much about his feelings regarding his foster family—or any of the ones before, for that matter. Hidden behind the sunglasses, it was hard to make out his expression.

Finn didn't press. Instead, he asked, "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

"Rome," came the immediate answer.

"'Course," Finn snorted.

"You?"

"I'm not sure. Somewhere proper warm. Somewhere that's not like..." Finn waved a hand around. "This."

"You haven't travelled much either, have you?" Oliver inquired.

"No. My mum..." He trailed off.

Oliver understood without him having to explain. "Yeah."

They lapsed back into comfortable silence. A few feet away from them, a group of kids was playing frisbee. A couple with a stroller and a dog passed by their spot.

Finn's eyes drifted down to the mess of Oliver's hair. It caught the sunlight like an oil spill, shiny and deceptively soft-looking. If they had been alone, or perhaps in the library, Finn would've run his fingers through it, maybe even asked Oliver if he could braid it the way he'd taught him. Instead, he busied himself by plucking out one of the daisies and flicking it at Oliver's face.

Unimpressed, Oliver picked it up from his forehead and reached out a hand to tuck it behind Finn's ear instead.

"Ollie," Finn murmured, cheeks heating up as he met eyes with one of the elderly ladies strolling past on the street. "Not here."

He tossed the daisy back into the grass. Oliver's hand dropped limply onto the blanket.

With a sudden lump in his throat, Finn nudged Oliver's thigh with the tip of his trainer. "Hey, er... I have to leave in a bit. My mum's got a doctor's appointment today."

Oliver frowned. "What's that got to do with you?"

"I have to go there with her. On the bus." Finn tried to tamp down on the irritation that flared up at having to spell it out. "Because she doesn't want to go alone."

There was a beat of silence. Then, Oliver sat up, his face serious. "Finn... have you ever tried to get her to go to therapy?"

Finn suddenly found it very hard to hold Oliver's gaze. It didn't help that he had taken off his sunglasses—in the sunlight, his brown eyes were the colour of honey, warm and imploring. "No."

"Why not? Diagnosed or not, this is clearly affecting her life. And yours too. I mean... I see how often she texts you. How you're constantly running errands for her because she can't go." He paused. "You're sixteen. You shouldn't have to do all of that."

"She won't go." The words came out with an edge that surprised even Finn. He dug his nails into his palm. "Look, I know her. She's not going to go. She says she's fine."

Even without looking at him, Finn could feel the weight of Oliver's gaze. His voice was soft as he asked: "What about you, then?"

"What about me?"

"Therapy. Maybe you could go."

Finn opened his mouth, but nothing came out. No one had ever told him to seek help. No one had ever thought he needed help. Because he didn't. He was here, wasn't he? He went out. He went to school. He played his games. He had friends, more than most of his class mates. He'd done well these last few months, hadn't he?

"Hey." Finn jumped when he felt a hand land on his knee, cold as ever despite the temperature. "We talked about this in class the other day. About anxiety disorders and stuff. I really think that therapy could help you."

Finn finally found his words. Moving his leg away from Oliver, he firmly said: "I don't need help."

"How many panic attacks have you had this week?"

"What is this?" He tried to laugh, but the noise came out all wrong. "Picnic psychoanalysis?"

"Finn."

Three. I had three. "I don't know. 's not like I count them."

Oliver didn't look like he believed him. "The standard answer would be zero, Finn. According to the ICD-10, even one panic attack a week over the course of at least one month could constitute a moderately severe panic dis—"

Finn got to his feet before Oliver could finish his sentence. "Stop." It took everything in him not to raise his voice. He suddenly felt nauseous, his stomach a mix of shame and white-hot anger. "Just because you're taking Psych for your A-Levels doesn't mean you're a bloody therapist."

Oliver stood slowly, his expression frustratingly even. Not just even. Sympathetic. Looking at it made Finn's skin itch. "I know I'm not. That's why I'm trying to get you to see an actual one. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Finn. Mental health is just as important as your physical one. If you were sick, you'd go see a doctor, wouldn't you? This isn't that—"

"I'm not sick," Finn cut him off. His hand shook as he raked it through his hair, trying to ignore the stares from the group of moms watching them from a few feet over. "I'm fine. I'm not like my mum."

"So you admit she has a problem, then?"

Finn's eyes stung. He was an angry crier—another thing she'd passed on to him. It only added to the humiliation that squirmed hot in his gut. "Just fucking drop it, Oliver. I'm not sticking my nose into your family either, even though you're clearly keeping me out."

Oliver's expression dropped. It didn't feel as gratifying as Finn had thought it would. "They're not my family."

All at once, Finn felt so tired. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to argue with Oliver. He wanted to lay down with him on the blanket and hold his hand and let Oliver put all the flowers he wanted into his hair. He wanted to turn back time to this morning. He wanted to stop being so angry and so ridiculously, drainingly afraid all the goddamn time.

"I'm sorry," he said, picking up his jumper and the half-empty box of Ribena. "I didn't think—I'll just go."

Oliver watched in silence as Finn grabbed his bike and left.

***

Their drifting apart, like their falling back together, happened slowly. Those creeping shifts, Finn had learned, were the most insidious (insidious: item number sixty-four on Oliver Sallow's Encyclopaedia of Big Words).

Days spent inside the house turn into weeks into months into years, time blurring, habits quietly cementing themselves. Panic attacks rise in quantity one at a time, until you find yourself crossing off the days when you haven't had one as opposed to the other way around. Twin planets lose their gravity, getting used to floating on their own instead of circling each other in their familiar orbit.

Looking back, Finn couldn't pinpoint the beginning—only the end.

He would never forget May 24th.

It had started out like any other day. A quiet breakfast with his mum while his father headed to work. Two lessons spent in a stuffy classroom, not panicking not panicking not panicking not—

A panic attack in the boys' restroom. Splash water, drink some Lucozade, pretend to be busy washing your hands when other people enter. Two more lessons. Mug a protein bar off Kavi, laugh in front of the lockers. Two more lessons. A gruelling practice that left his legs sore and his ears ringing from his coach's shouts. Until finally, finally the library.

They hadn't seen each other much over the last few weeks. Oliver had taken up tutoring English for year eleven kids now that GCSEs were in full swing, and Finn had been so busy with practice and games every weekend that there was hardly an afternoon both of them were free.

When he entered the library that day, Oliver was leaning down next to a girl to point out something in her book. His hair was down—it had grown to be the longest Finn had seen it so far, reaching almost halfway down his back. Upon hearing Finn enter, he straightened, brushing it behind his ear with a ringed hand to look at him.

"Hey." Finn smiled, dropping his bag onto a desk by one of the windows, already claimed by Oliver's tote bag. "You all right?"

Oliver nodded. He bent down to murmur something else to the girl before he sauntered over to Finn. "Good practice?" he asked.

Finn pillowed his chin on his arms where they rested on the desk. "Not really."

Oliver pulled out the other chair with his lace-up boot and gracefully sank down. "Hm. Want to talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Fair enough." Rummaging through his tote bag, Oliver pulled out his phone.

Finn watched him scroll for a few moments, cataloguing the way the afternoon sun gave his hair a faint reddish glow and glinted off the piercings in his ear.

Since their not-fight in the park a month earlier, not much had changed. Oliver hadn't talked about therapy again. Finn hadn't asked about his foster family. It wasn't as much a truce as it was simple resignation on both their sides.

"Ollie." Bored with the silence, Finn nudged Oliver's shin with his trainer. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to find this one specific blouse," Oliver murmured around the nail he was chewing on, chipping away at the black polish.

"Another black one?"

"No." Oliver looked up from his phone, a smug smile tugging at his lips. "I will have you know that it's actually bottle-green."

"Bottle-green," Finn flatly repeated. "How are even your colour words so pretentious?"

"My colour words," Oliver said this last word with a snort, "are accurate and evocative, thank you very much."

Before Finn could ask what evocative meant, the girl Oliver was tutoring politely cleared her throat, making him abandon his online shopping and their desk. Finn watched him go before turning his eyes to the window. Outside, students darted across the courtyard and unchained their bikes, most of them in a rush to get home.

He wondered what that was like. To look forward to going home. To not feel claustrophobic at the knowledge that as soon as he would walk through the door, his mum would come rushing from the living room to hug him and ask him about his day. To feel forced by a strange sense of duty to sit at the kitchen table with her and let her tell him about everything she'd done that day, knowing that he was the only human interaction she got aside from his dad. To feel guilty if he brushed her off or headed to his room to finish his school work, but to also feel bad when he was around her because he felt like when he told her about how great everything in his life was he was just lying and—

The sound of the door banging open cut off his train of thought. "Oi, Birdie!"

"Guys," he turned around, forcing a smile as Aarun, Kavi, and James trampled towards his desk. "What are you doing here?"

"Coming to see our favourite team captain, of course." Kavi threw himself into the chair next to Finn, his feet coming to rest on the dark mahogany Oliver wiped down several times a week.

Even without looking at him, Finn could feel the judging stare Oliver levelled at his friends from all the way across the room. His own mouth tasted bitter. Chair legs screeched across the wooden floorboards as Aarun plopped down at the head of the table, James in the seat that Oliver had occupied until a few moments earlier.

All at once, Finn could see the way this scene had to look to Oliver. The three of them, careless and noisy, claiming any room like it was theirs to own. And him, laughing along with them, his mask so very see-through.

"So, this is where you hang out every day, huh?" Rocking back in his chair, Kavi glanced around the room. Finn knew how this looked to him, too. There was a dissonance here. Finn—Birdie—didn't spend afternoon after afternoon in a dusty library.

Kavi's eyes drifted over to where Oliver was probably still standing, and something inside of Finn seized as he remembered Kavi's stare when he'd walked in on him and Oliver in the locker room almost three months ago. Along with the memory returned the sick feeling in his stomach. He kept his eyes glued to a scratch in the desk.

For months, the library had been his and Oliver's. He knew he didn't own the building. And still, he had the distinct feeling that it had been intruded on by people who had no right to be there.

He only lifted his gaze again when Aarun made a curious noise. "Whose is this?"

Finn's heart dropped when he saw that he was holding. Oliver's tote bag.

"Does it matter?" he asked. "Just leave it there."

He knew he'd made a mistake when Aarun's eyes lit up. Like during locker room brawls, Finn's defensiveness only spurred him on, determined to prod at the soft spot to get another reaction.

Humming to himself, he peeked inside the bag, pulling out item after item while James leaned closer, intrigued.

"Guys," Kavi muttered, but neither of them reacted.

Finn sat frozen as they lined up the contents of Oliver's bag, oohing and aahing over each of them. A box of tarot cards. A half-empty bag of cough drops. Cigarettes, the cheap brand that Finn's dad sometimes secretly smoked and forgot to hide in the glovebox. A hairbrush and several hair ties, a claw clip that had been chewed on, a lipstick in a shade that Finn had wiped off his own cheek only a few days ago. The annotated copy of Hamlet that Oliver had borrowed him on the bus back from London.

It was this sight that ripped him out of his daze. "Guys," he said, louder than Kavi had. "Put it back. That's Oliver's."

All at once, the two froze. James turned around, glancing at Oliver like he only now realized he was in the room. Oliver gazed back, expression unreadable.

Aarun, unaware of the tension, only laughed, snapping the claw clip open and shut in time with his words as he asked: "How d'you know? Is he your boyfriend or something?"

For a second, Finn's brain lagged. All he could think was Of course it's Oliver's. Who else would carry Shakespeare and so much ominous shit in their tote bag?

Then he realized that, to these three, Oliver wasn't the boy who could recite plays from memory and changed his hairstyle every two minutes because he couldn't deal with it falling into his eyes. He was just an outline, an empty screen they'd spent the last almost-three years projecting their own preconceptions on.

And then, he realized what Aarun had said.

"Me and Oliver?" he said, overcome by some terrible instinct, his voice all forced levity. "As if."

He caught the hurt on Oliver's face in the split second before he turned around to fully face the year eleven girl.

What was somehow even worse, though, was the expression Kavi wore. He was watching Finn with disbelieving brown eyes, fingers pressed to his lips in shock.

Oliver didn't look his way for the rest of the afternoon.

***

Instead of going home, Finn waited until his friends were out of sight and then sat on one of the weathered picnic tables in the courtyard, his eyes fixed on the door to the library, ready to leap to his feet the moment Oliver appeared.

When the door finally did open, he sat frozen.

Oliver didn't look at him as he locked up the library. "I thought you went home."

"No." Finn swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I wanted to talk to you. Did you hear—"

"Yes," Oliver cut him off.

Finn nodded silently.

Oliver sighed. It wasn't an annoyed sigh, the kind Finn's mum breathed when he forgot his lunch box at school or got tomato sauce on a white t-shirt. It was an exhausted sigh, the kind that sounded like it had lived inside him for a while now, dredged up from all the way down in his chest. Quiet and raw and terribly, bone-deep tired. "Look," he said. "You're obviously ashamed of us."

"I'm not," Finn immediately said.

By now, Oliver had reached the picnic table. His expression looked like he would've rather been anywhere else. "No? Then why won't you even look at me when your friends are around?"

"I didn't—Ollie, I promise that's not the reason."

"Well, then give me one. Go on." The leather of his jacket creaked as he crossed his arms.

Finn said nothing.

"Right." The laugh that Oliver let out didn't hold even a shred of humour. "That's settled, then."

The words were there. They were right there, but Finn just couldn't grasp them, couldn't bring them into an order that would make Oliver understand. "It's—it's my mum. She wouldn't—"

"You can't blame everything on your mother!" For the first time, Oliver's voice rose. "For fuck's sake, Finn, you have just as much of a problem as her!"

It was like oil on a fire. With his fingers curled around the edge of the table, Finn snapped: "Stop talking about her like that. You don't fucking know her."

"It's not as if you've ever tried to introduce us."

"Are you kidding me?" Now it was Finn who laughed, sharp and terrible. "You don't want me to go anywhere near your foster parents! Do you even realize how much that hurts? To know that you don't want me to be a part of your life like that after it's been eight bloody months?"

Under all his make-up, Oliver blanched. "This again, huh."

"Yes, this again!" The angry tears returned with a vengeance. Finn felt like he could hardly breathe around the way they clogged up his throat, his eyes stinging when he tried to blink them back. "You don't get to accuse me of being ashamed of us when all you ever do is keep me out."

His voice broke on the last word, echoing in the silence that followed. Finn didn't know what was worse: the sound, or the way it didn't seem to affect Oliver at all.

His voice was horrifyingly level as he said: "You agree, then. This doesn't work."

"What?"

"This doesn't work," Oliver repeated. He said it like a news reporter announces a horrible tragedy, calm and far-removed. Meanwhile, Finn heard sirens ringing in his ears. "I mean, what have we done these past few months? Hang out in the library? Make out, but only when no one else is around? That's not a bloody relationship. That's just playing hide-and-seek with a little bonus kissing."

"So... you're breaking up with me because I'm not ready to be out?" Finn whispered.

"No." Oliver's features softened the tiniest bit. "It's not that, Finn. Or your panic attacks. It's everything else."

"Everything else?" Finn echoed. He wished his voice didn't sound so fucking small. He wished his friends had never showed up at the library, and then he wished he were better at lying to himself and blocking out all the weeks that had preceded this exact moment.

Oliver brushed his hair behind his ears. Finn didn't know why that gesture, so familiar by now, made him want to sob. "I'm sorry. You can still come to the library, if you want."

Finn sat frozen.

"You can always text me if you need something. Like, if you're having a panic attack, or just... just to talk."

Finn sat frozen.

"All right. I'll... I'll be on my way, then. I'll bring your sweater to school."

Oliver turned around, and Finn sat frozen.

Lucretia's engine faded in the distance, and Finn sat frozen.

The sky began to darken, and Finn sat frozen.

His phone buzzed with messages from his mum asking where he was, and Finn. Sat. Frozen.

Eventually, once he'd begun to shiver without the sunlight to warm him and the motion-activated lights inside the school building all turned off, a car pulled up. His father got out and asked him questions. He thought he answered. He thought he was getting better at lying.

At home, he ignored his mother and walked up the stairs to his room. He watched the way the light shifted on his ceiling. Evening turned into night turned into another day.

He was a lonely planet thrown out of its orbit, and without Oliver's gravity, there was nothing there to ground him. Nothing to hold on to at all.

***

One week later, Oliver showed up at school with Finn's belongings. He didn't give them back to him personally. Just left them in his locker, like he'd done on Valentine's all those weeks ago.

***

Two months later, Oliver stopped trying to wave at Finn in the hallways. Finn had wanted to wave back. Honest. But in order to do that, he would've had to look at Oliver. And he couldn't do that. He couldn't.

***

Three months later, Finn barely remembered what the library smelled like. He had found a new spot—a classroom at the back of the science building. It smelled a bit like sulphur, but it was quiet. Empty. He barely spent a moment not studying, so his marks were better than they'd been in years. Soon, the term would be over. Aarun and Kavi had offered to take him to Ibiza with them. He thought he might even go.

***

Four months later, Finn could smell cigarette smoke again without feeling nauseous.

***

Five months later, he had almost forgotten the way Oliver's hair felt when it glided through his fingers.

***

Six months later, Oliver Sallow was dead.

*****************************

pain and suffering </3

here's the moment you've been dreading ahhh. was this how you expected their break-up to go? what are your thoughts/feelings?

this was the second to last chapter in the past time line! after this, we'll stay in our boys' present for a bit. next chapter, we're visiting the walkers, so look out for that!

p.s. today's song is astronomy by conan gray. it fits so well with the whole planet metaphor :,)