"This is it then." It's close to ten now and in the middle of this highway with car lights all around us it still feels so much darker than I know it actually is. The mood is darker, pitch black.
"Yeah." I don't have much to say. I know this was my idea... what am I doing here? This really was a stupid thing to do.
"What was he doing out here?"
"You know the answer to that already." My jaw tightens around my words as I force them out.
"Fuck he should be in jail."
"It's my fault, we were fighting and he thought he could fix things for me."
"It's not your fault..." Oliver stops and I look over at him to see that he's already looking at me, he looks haunted and he's too pale. "It's mine." He says it like he's absorbing the words for the first time, like he didn't know until now that they existed and now that he's realized they're there they feel like the only ones he can understand.
"You can't-"
"It's just the truth Max, none of this would have happened if it wasn't-" his voice breaks, "if it wasn't for me."
"You can't blame yourself for Lucas going to meet him or for a car hitting him." I've never thought about Oliver's part in all of this before, not really. Looking him in the eyes now though I know that I love him and it's not his fault. I know whose fault it actually is too and it's too much to take. I've never said the words out loud to anyone before. "If it's not my fault then it's not yours either." I say in an attempt to move on without having to explain things.
"I'm sorry."
We sit not getting out of the car, staring at the spot on the side of the road in front of us not saying anything and I know I need to tell him he has nothing to be sorry for. "You have n-"
"Don't. I know you blamed yourself for a long time but you weren't thinking back far enough. This is my fault. If I hadn't started dealing for him then you wouldn't have started using and Lucas and you never would have been anywhere near him."
"If you want to go back to the beginning if it's helpful for you to place blame..." I hesitate it's a big statement to make but it's not one I haven't thought about before. It's why I can't face looking my mom in the eyes and holding it for very long on my worst days and why I can't forgive her on my best. "Then it's my mom's fault. Not yours. She was the one who dated him for two years and brought him into all of our lives, and it's his because he started pressuring me into drinking with him and then gave me shit to try. That's what escalated me, not you. You never offered me anything and you'd never give me anything either, you," I swallow hard pausing, "you insisted I go to a meeting, you found me my first meeting and went with me. You tried to stop dealing after that and he-." I cringe and stop talking, now I know I've just broken something in him, shattered it. Shown him something there he's clearly never thought of, or wanted to face, the rest of the picture. I can see it on his face and I know what it is, his relationship with my mom. They've always been so close. He looks, devastated. It feels devastating, even after all this time. A ripple effect through all of the people I've loved life's except for the person who started it.
"Have you told her about any of this?" His voice sounds raw.
"No. What good would that do?" We both know the truth, of what the real reason is and that's not it. "Have you told your mom? About any of it, about where the drugs actually came from?"
"No." Oliver scoffs then sits up straight becoming more rigid as if someone else is watching us and I can see what he's feeling even if he doesn't let it show. Fear. It hits me all at once that I don't know a single thing about Oliver's relationship with him and that terrifies me. I was too fucked up in the head before to pay attention to anything like that. But Oliver spent the most time with him... alone, away from us. What is he afraid of... is it even the same type of fear? Our demons might not even have the same face. I feel sick at the thought. "What good would that do? I'm still on probation, your—"

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It Doesn't Even Matter
Teen FictionMax is struggling, plain and simple. After dropping out of school two years ago to help his mom with the bills and losing his best friend, he's just kind of shut things out. His life has been in pure survival mode. Work, pay bills, survive. But thin...