The Serum

T W E L V E.

"Mind if I join you?" I look up over my shoulder to see Oliver standing, his silhouette illuminated by the moonlight. I nod with a small smile as he sits next to me. He leans back on his hands, tilting his head up.

"Listen," I clear my throat. "I'm not good at really saying this kind of stuff, but thanks for, you know, not letting me die." 

He laughs.

"You're welcome."

"You swim really well." 

He folds his legs into a crisscross and shrugs.

"I used to play water polo before..." he trails off, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Before?" I ask him tenderly. I know that glazed, pained look; he's lost someone too. 

"I'll tell you if you tell me." He says in a low voice. After a slight moment, I nod again. It's a fair enough deal.

"I don't know how she got infected. She used to love playing volleyball in the evening with her friends, so one night she went. She came back, looking a bit worse for wear but nothing too bad. As the days progressed, she got worse. The symptoms started to show up and we rushed her to the hospital." Oliver sighs deeply. "We were too late. The doc said she was too far gone to be saved. My dads were heartbroken but me... I didn't know what to do with myself. Lauren is everything to me and was even before we were adopted. It took me a while to find myself after they released her into the Wilds."

I say nothing, lightly squeezing his wrist. For these kind of memories, words do no justice. 

"How old was she?"

"She'll be 16 now. She was 14 when she turned." I open my mouth to say something but he holds up a hand. "Please, spare the sorrys. They honestly do nothing for me."

"I wasn't going to say sorry. I was going to say that I understand." Oliver cocks his head, his intuitive green eyes curious and sad.

"Who did you lose?" He says it simply, mostly because it's nothing of a shock. Whole families have died out because of the coronavirus 19, even whole cities have been wiped out. 

"Actually, I lost them both two years ago as well. My father... I adored him. He and my mother had been high school sweethearts and you could tell by just looking at them. It was a few months after my 17th birthday-I'm 19 now- when he didn't come home from work one evening. My mother was panicking, and so was I. She called his office and they reported he'd gone to the hospital. He'd fainted there. We rushed there and the doctor informed us he'd caught the infection." I chuckle bitterly. "I was naive. I thought they could fix him, that he could come back to us. He was gone within the week. The month following was the worst one I'd ever had to experience. But one person was there to help me get through it. Sam. He was my childhood best friend, and we did everything together. Naturally, those feelings turned into... something else. He was my sun, my moon, my everything. And I was his everything. And we were happy, content, to be together. I loved him with all my being. It's almost comical, really, how life works. Just when I felt that maybe, just maybe, there is light at the end of the tunnel, Sam caught the infection. He was deteriorating fast and he went quicker than my father. Now, it's just me and my mother. Alone."

"Oh, Lizzy," Oliver breathes, wrapping his arms around me. He smells good, and I'm reminded of Sam's embrace. He made me feel safe, like I wasn't just a waste of space. I choke on my tears and soon, his sweatshirt is soaked.

"What did I do to deserve this?" I whisper to no one in particular. 

Oliver says nothing, just rocking me back and forth in tune to Lucas's snores. 

"I'm sorry for being so selfish. You lost someone too. It's just... I've never really told this to anyone."

"I get it. You don't have to apologize." He says soothingly. "Just close your eyes, relax, and think of Sam and your father and all the good memories you had with them."

I do what he says and within seconds, I've drifted to sleep, with echoes of Sam's laughter in my mind.