Permanent Memories

Luke

Last time Olivia was awake she was asking for me to play music while she slept, so she would have nice memories to sleep with.

I play my bands music as well as her favorites, All Time Low, Sleeping With Sirens, Selena Gomez and One Direction.

I play their music quietly in the background all the time. Except when her mother is here, or when the boys are here.

Her mum and I have a lot of time to talk, she told me how she cried for the next year, wishing for her daughter to come back. Everything that happened to her in that year she wishes she could erase. Her partner was abusive. Had raped her twice, physically abused her. She had locked herself in the bathroom so he couldn't get to her. She had called the police in tears. She still lives in a refuge with twenty other women. She helps the mothers with young children and helps comfort new women.

I learned so many things about Vanessa that Olivia had never told me. Though I don't think she knew, seeing as since she stopped talking to her mother the day she got on the plane.

Half the time, Olivia's mother is out with my mum, learning about Australia. The other half, she's here in the hospital room, learning about me, and her own daughter.

"If I lose her... I could never love another person." I tell Vanessa, sitting on the bed beside Olivia. "I want to marry her so badly. From the day I met her I knew she was the one. She told me everything. Her depression, her self harm-"

"She self harmed herself?"

I nod. "For the first year she was here, every week she would come to class with new evidence of it. I knew she was doing it, I just never brought it up. She looked like she hadn't slept, her eyes were always red and she always had dark circles around them. I told her every day that she was beautiful and that I loved her. For the first year of our relationship, I swear she thought I was lying. Even before we were dating I still told her that I loved her."

Vanessa looks at me stunned. The look on her face said that she was horrified to find that her daughter had been battling with serious depression and self harm. I decided to not tell her the worst of it.

"I can't believe I didn't know... I... I mean I tried everything. I thought she was just being a teenager and locking herself away. I did the same thing, but I didn't know that she had resorted to hurting herself." Her eyes clouded over and filled with tears. She looked over at Olivia, laying peacefully on the bed, asleep. "This is all my fault." She whispers and I feel my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach. Her words echoing what I have been saying ever since the accident.

I climb down off of the bed and walk around, wrapping my arms around her and holding her close as she wept into my chest.

"I can't believe I didn't notice... this is all my fault Luke..." My heart pained with every word that came from her mouth.

"None of it is your fault... she was just having a hard time adjusting to the new country. She never once blamed you for her pain. I promise."

"I can't lose her Luke, we can't lose her. She's too special to lose..."

Her voice was broken, just the same as Olivia's was the other day. In that moment my heart shattered again, going back to remembering images of the crash. I cried silently along side Olivia's Mum, a woman I had despised, until I knew her history.