Downside Up

Chapter Fourteen (Happy Little Pill - Troye Sivan)

Tyde had always been nice around me. He was a polite person – and my host brother. Which is why I tried to be nice to him as well.

I bought him a birthday present when his big day had come. (A simple album by one of his favorite musicians which Sage recommended.) I attended his birthday part though I didn't know anyone besides the Mellets themselves. (And I had never been good around new people.) I tried to stay away from him because I knew how he felt about me and I didn't want to ruin his party.

It was a while ago, a few days after I arrived in Perth when Tyde had gone out and suddenly I heard the phone ringing in the middle of the night. Insomnia follows me everywhere, so there I was, laying awake, staring at the ceiling. It's not a great feeling to be left alone with your thoughts and no escape. Sometimes they even haunted me in my dreams – or should I say he?

He was still on my mind every day. I had traveled to the other end of the world, went as far away as possible from everything that happened, but I had to take my mind along with me. And that simple detail made all the changes worthless.

Every other night it got too much and that night was one of them. So I got out of my bed again, went to my closet and picked up the small package that I hid behind my clothes. Along with it, I grabbed the glass that was standing on my bedside table.

I slowly opened the door, went out onto the hallway and over towards the bathroom. My glass was soon filled with water and I gulped the pill that I had pulled out of it's tablet. When I went out of the bathroom, to finally go back to sleep, I heard voices coming from downstairs and curious as I was I leant against the parapet and looked down.

Tyde was walking up the stairs and I could tell he was drunk by the way he tottered on his way. Suddenly he spoke up. "I hate her", he shouted. "Why does she do these things to me?!" I had no clue who he was talking about, but then he added the words, that changed everything. "I hate you, Olivia Sanders!"

I stumbled backwards, because I was sure, that he had seen me and went into my room. Why would he hate me? What had I done, that he was that angry at me? Before I went back to bed I put my pills into their original place and placed the glass on my desk. I wasn't too sure if they could help me anymore because there was too much to worry about. But luckily they could and I was fast asleep.

Afterwards, I tried to avoid him and spend most of my time with Sage. Maybe it was because we went to the same school and ended up sharing some of our classes as pre-calc and home ed or because I literally lived next to her and was engaged in every family activity.

At the Mellet household, Friday nights were the best and weekends the worst. Because they were Jewish they celebrated sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening meaning that you're supposed to spend the whole day praising the lord and not doing any work. My family and I were Christians and usually celebrated sabbath on Sundays, because it was the day Jesus rose from the dead and because I believed in the same lord as they did and didn't want to cause any trouble, I rested on both days. Sometimes I managed to do my homework on Friday before Jewish sabbath began or I did them on Monday before school began though I think they would've accepted it, if I just did them Friday night or on Saturday, because I had another religion, but I didn't want that. All in all my weekends were very relaxed.

Troye was a very nice guy as well and I with Laurella and Shaun I could talk for hours. When Tyde's birthday had come I finally got to meet Steele, the oldest son of my host parents and he was just as his brothers a very polite person.

When I got hit by the soccer ball during Tyde's birthday party I had no idea how to react and when Tyde came over to apologize it got even worse, because I had unintentionally ruined his birthday. I couldn't laugh along when his siblings joked about his shy manner because I felt guilty enough. What are a ruined dress and bleeding knees against a ruined birthday?