Survival (Twisted Book 1) Read online

  “Are you sure you don’t want someone here with you?”

  I shook my head, “No. Thank you.”

  “Okay,” she shifted in her chair and straightened her back. “It isn’t good news, Ms Jones.”

  I choked on a sob and my bottom lip trembled. Oliver.

  "Your brother suffered severe brain damage and he's no longer responding to any stimulus."

  I shook my head again. She was lying.

  "Right now, the ventilator is the only thing keeping Oliver alive, I'm afraid. A neurologist is due here shortly to confirm my diagnosis.”

  “Diagnosis?”

  “Yes. The brain stem is what controls the flow of messages between the brain and the rest of the body as well as the vital functions such as breathing, heart rate, consciousness and awareness. Early indications show that Oliver’s brain stem is no longer functioning.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand and my body trembled. The tears pooled and the pain plunged to every one of my nerve endings.

  “Unfortunately, it is irreversible.”

  “No.” I exhaled and couldn’t breathe in.

  "To confirm brain stem death, my colleague and I have to assess a specific set of criteria at least twice. We will then ask for your permission to cease mechanical ventilation."

  I couldn’t listen to any more. I stood up and paced the room. She was lying.

  “Skye,” she said, halting my pacing and stopping my incoherent mumbling. “It might be a good idea to start saying goodbye.”

  I stepped out of the office and looked around me. Nothing felt real. The bustling of the nurses at the station, the sound of a bottle falling inside the vending machine, a baby crying…nothing felt real. It felt like a nightmare. Not Oliver. She couldn’t have been talking about my Oliver.

  “Skye.”

  Curtis approached me and sensed it. His face fell and he took my hands in his.

  “What did she say? When can we see him?”

  I shook my head.

  “We have to wait a while longer?”

  I shook my head.

  Curtis tried to laugh, but I knew he almost lost it, “What did she say?”

  “He’s dying,” I keened and fell to the floor. Curtis fell too and stared at me. “He’s already gone.”

  Six

  And then…it ends. One twin dies and the other feels like she’s lost half of her soul.

  January 7th, 2003.

  “My brother was a star. Not the kind that had fame and fortune, but the kind that brought light to the darkest corners of your life.”

  I stood on the pulpit at the front of the church. The pews were full; family, friends, his fighter friends. I didn’t care about anyone in the room. Oliver was in a box behind me where he would spend the rest of eternity and there was more than a handful of people in attendance who could have prevented it, me included.

  I cleared my throat and continued.

  “He wasn’t your average nineteen year old. He was kind, he was pure and he was my favourite person in the world. We were there for each other when no one else was. I only had nineteen years as his twin and I am grateful for every second. Today we bury Oliver before he had a chance to fall in love, before he could have a career, before he became a father. I choose to believe he’s in a better place. I choose to believe he is watching over us and I know he would want us to be happy. I will carry Oliver’s light with me, until I see him again, and I ask you all to do the same.” I turned to the coffin. “Goodbye, brother. I love you.”

  I didn’t know how I made it back to my seat, but I did. I didn’t sit with my mother, father or sister; I sat in the last pew at the back on my own.

  I stood alone at the front as Oliver’s coffin was lowered into the ground. I didn’t cry; I couldn’t. I lost the ability to feel the day I lost the other half of me. I wasn’t able to accept that he was gone.

  I stared into the hole where my brother would rest, remembering the day I lost him. Our parents had turned up at the hospital eventually; my father with his new girlfriend hanging around him like a lost puppy and my mother had arrived with a bag big enough to smuggle in her bottle of vodka. I hadn’t needed to smell the fumes emanating from her pores to know even the death of her eldest child and only son wouldn’t have stopped her drinking. I had ignored them, refusing to acknowledge their presence, and stood by Oliver. I stroked his hair and committed his beautiful face to memory. If there was anything to be grateful for, it was that he looked like Oliver. The only indication that he’d been in a fight was the nick above his eyebrow. He looked relaxed; he looked ready. I stroked his cheek and held his hand. I told him everything would be okay as the beeps on the machine slowed and I let him go.

  I hadn’t cried in the hospital; I stayed strong for my brother and said my goodbye with strength and love in my voice as I desperately tried to conceal my heartbreak.

  I had returned to the tower block alone the evening he died. I climbed in Oliver’s unmade bed and cried until the exhaustion allowed me to slip into a tortured sleep.

  I could hear someone calling my name as I replayed that day over and over in my mind.

  “Skye?” Curtis brought me back to the present.

  I realised I was alone at the grave as the earth was thrown into the hole. Everyone had left but Curtis. He took my hand, but I pulled away. I did it every time he tried to comfort me, which had been a lot in the past week, but I refused to accept it. And I refused to accept the pitiful looks from people and the “I’m sorry for your loss”. It wasn’t my life that had been lost; it was Oliver’s. Mine had just gone with him.

  It was my fault.

  I shouldn’t have sat in that arena and watched him fight. I shouldn’t have distracted him by calling his name. For a split second his focus was lost and it cost him his life. Because of me.

  It was my fault.

  I should have done more than pour coffee and answer phone calls. If I had brought enough money in, if I had paid enough attention to the changes in him, he would have still been alive and not six feet in the ground. I refused to accept comfort when it was my fault my twin brother no longer had a life.

  “Let’s take you home.”

  Curtis wrapped his arm around me and refused to let me push him away as he led me through the graveyard and to his car.

  “I don’t want to go home,” I said as he opened the door and helped me into the front seat. He crouched down next to me, but I kept my eyes on the trees ahead.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  I shrugged in response. He squeezed my knee, stood up, closed my door and walked round to climb in the driver’s seat.

  “What can I do?”

  “Can you bring my brother back?” I still didn’t look at him, but I saw him drop his head.

  “No,” he whispered, “but I can be here for you.”

  “Oliver should be here.”

  “I know.”

  He turned the key in the ignition and reversed out of the spot.

  Seven

  Life didn’t stop, no matter how much I wanted it to. I had to go on living no matter how much it hurt.

  January 10th, 2003.

  I had to go to work. I had spent days locked in my bedroom consumed by fear. I was afraid to live without Oliver. I was afraid of the life that awaited me just outside the door. I was afraid of only having my mother, knowing she didn’t want me. I was confused. I couldn’t accept that Oliver was gone and although the fact was that he was never coming back, I sat on my bed and stared at the door, wishing he would burst through it and tell me it had been some sort of sick joke.

  But he didn’t come. Nobody did. I was alone and afraid of the future.

  So I had to go to work. I mindlessly climbed in the shower, welcoming the burn of the hot water as it seared my skin, reminding me that I was living a nightmare. I scrubbed myself dry with the cleanest towel I could find and pulled on some clothes. I didn’t know what I put on; I was on auto-pilot, completely disconnected from everything
. I just wanted it to go away. The pain. The regret. The ache that told me there was a hole in my heart that would never be filled. I wanted to forget it all, I just didn’t know how.

  I pulled on my coat and left the silent, dark flat. My mother was home, I could see the light from her room under her door as I left, but she didn’t come out.

  I walked the dark streets alone with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company. Thoughts that weren’t welcome.

  I got to work and sat at my desk and pulled on my headset. I logged onto the system and looked around me as it set up. I didn’t need to see them looking at me. I could feel it.

  Every pair of eyes in the room were on me. Eyes full of sympathy and pity. I didn’t know any of them; we just worked in the same call centre, but Oliver’s death had made the local news and it was immediately obvious that all of the eyes had read about the accident. That’s what they called it; an accident. It wasn’t accident, it was a tragedy and my fellow phone operators were looking at me like I was hot gossip.

  “You should take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I said, watching as they all hid behind their computer screens.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” the woman in the seat next to me reached out and squeezed the top of my arm.

  I nodded and bowed my head, shielding my eyes with my hand to hide the burning tears that threatened to stream from my eyes. The beep in my ear alerted me to my first call.

  “Good evening, Lindan Insurance. Can I take your name and policy number, please?”

  I worked my shift, blocking out the sensation of being watched and the sound of whispers between calls. I kept my mind on the shoe box in my wardrobe, tucked away in Oliver’s drawer. That box, and what was in it, was my only hope. My only chance of escape. I kept my head down and ignored the unwanted attention, focusing on that goal.

  It was pointless; I felt like I was losing it. My anger grew. My frustration intensified and I felt more and more out of control with every minute that passed on my computer screen and every customer who called and expected me to move mountains because they’d crashed their car.

  What was the point? What was the reason for any of it? Money didn’t matter. My job didn’t matter. The people sitting around me waiting for me to break down didn’t matter. They weren’t going to get it. I was stronger than that.

  I finished my shift and left, walking home alone.

  I climbed in bed, covered my face with my pillow and screamed. I screamed until my throat was sore and then stared out of my window at the night sky as the tears rolled down my face, wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life.

  Eight

  Sometimes, the only way to punish yourself is to let someone in.

  February 7th, 2003.

  It had been one month. One month that already felt like a lifetime of solitude. I ended up quitting both my jobs – there was no point in working when I had nothing to work for. I was ashamed, but I had given up. I ignored calls from my friends; they were no longer friends. How could I spend time with people when they pointlessly tried to make me feel better about something they didn’t understand? Oliver no longer had friends. The fighters at Geoff’s Gym sent me flowers every week with a note telling me they were thinking of me and I was welcome at any time. The flowers went straight in the bin; flowers die, just like my brother did. I stopped eating too. I didn’t have enough money to buy food since I quit work and the woman who gave birth to me didn’t buy any. She sat in her bedroom, only coming out to go and buy vodka and cigarettes. I never saw her. Dad disappeared again, much like he had when the ball got rolling, no doubt to seek comfort from his girlfriend. Beth called every day for the first week, offering to move in. I told her to move on, to stay where she was. She had to make something of herself and make Oliver proud.

  I continued to sit in my room and stare at everything Oliver and I had. None of it mattered anymore. I slept in his bed every night and told him I loved him before I closed my eyes and the nightmares took over. They were the only things that reminded me what was happening. The images of my brother in his final hours would forever be etched into my mind and remind me that I had failed.

  Curtis became the only constant in my life. He found us a park not far from home and he took me there every day to look out at endless fields. Sometimes there were children in the playground and I imagined how Oliver would have been as a father. He would have been perfect. But mostly, the park was empty and we just sat in silence.

  It was a cold day. I sat on the picnic table wrapped up in my coat and the patchwork blanket Curtis put over me. He blew on his hands and shoved them in his coat pocket.

  “Here.”

  I slid closer to him and gave him half the blanket. He moved closer still, wrapped his arm around me and pulled the edges of the blanket together so it closed around us.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, so quietly his voice was almost lost to the raindrops that began to fall slowly to the grass. “I’m so sorry.”

  I shook my head.

  “Oliver wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me,” he continued.

  “That’s not true,” I let a few tears fall and watched as they got lost in the rain. “I guess everything that happened before led him to you. You couldn’t have stopped him.”

  “I could have tried.”

  “You didn’t know this would happen.”

  “But the fact that it could happen should have been enough.”

  “Stop,” I said, resting my head on his shoulder. “Oliver wouldn’t blame you.”

  “I blame me.”

  “I blame me, too. It doesn’t bring him back.”

  We sat in silence as the rain continued to fall. We didn’t care; we stayed in the same spot until darkness fell and we were soaked.

  “Can I take you somewhere?” Curtis asked as he helped me off the table.

  “Where?”

  He didn’t answer. He took my hand and led me to the car.

  I didn’t expect Geoff’s Gym to look like it did. I didn’t know what I expected; I never got the chance to see where Oliver spent his days. It was a small building in a car park, light and inviting. It wasn’t bathed in the darkness I expected when I thought about fighting.

  “Why are we here?” I asked as we climbed out of the car.

  “I live here,” Curtis pulled out a set of keys and opened the front door. “My parents deserted me too.”

  I hesitated on the threshold, but it was where Oliver had spent his time. It was the last connection I had to him. I stepped inside and Curtis locked the door behind us.

  The oxygen was squeezed from my lungs as I looked around. There was a ring in the middle, but I quickly looked away from it as the blade of grief twisted in my chest. There was a group of punchbags hanging from the ceiling on one side and some weight-lifting and training equipment on the other. I could feel Oliver; his presence was absorbed into the eggshell paint on the walls and it enveloped me in longing.

  “We all feel him,” Curtis said noting my reaction, and led me towards the far end of the gym. “It’s like he’s still here. I haven’t been able to train since - but I feel him.”

  “He liked it here?”

  “Loved it,” he unlocked another door and we stepped into a hallway. “This place is like a second home to most of the boys. Geoff looks after us.”

  “I’m glad he was happy here.”

  We climbed a staircase and stepped onto an open living area. It was small and dark and smelled of Curtis. I never noticed he had a smell before, but I noticed it then. It was comforting.

  “I wish he would have brought you here.”

  “Why? I can’t fight.”

  He took two bottles of water out of the fridge and handed one to me.

  “You wouldn’t have to. But you could have escaped, too,” he gave me a sorrowful once over. “Wait here.”

  He disappeared into a room and came back minutes later with some clothes. He had changed into a pair of lounge trousers and a t-shirt and
handed me a pile of similar things.

  “You can change in the bathroom,” he pointed to another door. “I’ll dry your clothes.”

  “Will you tell me a story?”

  We were sitting in silence on his worn brown leather sofa, listening to the whirring of the dryer.

  “What kind of story?”

  “Any kind. I just want to hear your voice.”

  I didn’t think I needed a friend, but I did. I could talk to Curtis and know he understood. I didn’t have to tell him about my life, he already knew. I didn’t have to pretend everything was okay because he knew it wasn’t. He shared my pain. He loved Oliver too.

  “Once upon a time,” he started and shifted closer, “there was a boy. He was a happy boy. He played football on Saturdays and his father always told him he would be a star. His favourite dinner was sausages and mash. His mother cooked it for him before she went out with his father. It was their anniversary and the lady next door came over to build jigsaws with the boy and put him to bed. The boy was five and he loved the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

  “They built the puzzle and the lady tucked him up in bed and read him a story. The boy fell asleep and dreamed of the porridge his mummy would make him for breakfast, but the lady was still there when he woke up. She made him toast with strawberry jam. He didn’t like jam, he liked porridge and honey. The lady looked sad so the boy ate his toast and sat on the sofa with her to watch TV.”

  I closed my eyes and rested my head on his shoulder. I heard the pain in his voice and my heart broke for him.

  “The boy’s mummy and daddy never came home. Their car broke on the way back and the angels took them to keep them safe.”

  “Curtis.”

  “Shh,” he looked into my eyes and stroked his thumb over my chin. “Just listen.”

  I pursed my lips and he continued.

  “He stayed with his aunt for a while but he wasn’t nice to her. He didn’t want an aunt-mummy, he wanted his mummy. As he got older, he got angrier. He didn’t understand why his friends had their parents and he didn’t. He used to fight, but he would lose because he couldn’t control his anger.”