Here's the Thing

six

"Okay, so here's what I found."

I slightly turn the paper so that Oliver is able to glance at it. He leans forward, peering over my shoulder at the address that I've written down.

"And this is..."

"The address. For 106.8 Soft Rock." I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. "It's a radio station, by the way. In case you were wondering."

We arrive in a record timing of about ten minutes, finally locating the station after slowly scanning the number of each surrounding building.

Oli shoves his hands into the pocket of his coat, squinting against the force of the wind. It had decided to return along with the fog, coating the town in a sad kind of disappointment in the process.

There was a small sign that read "106.8 Soft Rock" plastered over the front window of the structure. The door was located at the side of the building, but we discovered that it was locked after attempting to open it.

"Great," I muttered, and Oliver began knocking on the door. We waited a few moments, and when no one approached, he knocked louder this time.

The door creaks open and a man with unruly blond hair lifts a finger to his lips. "Quiet, wouldya? I'm on air."

He shoos us in and we stand to the side, listening as the sound of an over-played Greenday song fills the room. He waits until the song ends before plopping into a black swivel chair and holding down a small red button while speaking into a mic.

"Next up we've got 'Reckless Abandon' by Blink-182 followed by 'Here Comes the Sun' and 'A Hard Day's Night', both by the Beatles."

The fast-paced chords replace the sound of his voice as he turns to face Oliver and I. His skin is tired and weighed down with the weight of the world. Although his eyes are a light shade of blue, they appear colorless when they meet mine.

Oliver steps forward and extends a hand. "I'm Oliver," he says, shaking in a polite manner, "and this is Nora. We were wondering if there was anybody named Sam here?"

"That would be me." His beady eyes dart between the two of us. "Need anything?" His words are slow and strained, and the majority of his teeth have either fallen out or are in a condition that suggest that they soon will.

"I was wondering if... my friend and I were wondering if you had a note for us."

"A note?" His eyes have left my gaze and instead have taken up their position in aimlessly rolling around as he speaks. "A musical note?"

"A written one." I twiddle with the drawstrings on my hoodie.

He scratches at his stubble. "This is a music-only zone," he drawls, pointing a shaky finger towards a sign that hangs on the wall that reads "NO MUSIC, NO RESIDENCE" in bright red lettering.

"I've got what you're looking for," he says, "but I can't give it to you just yet. Not before a song." he begins to rummage through his studio, dropping papers and knocking down an acoustic guitar in his way.

"Oh, man." He moved to pick it up. "You okay, Ryan?" He strums his fingers along the strings, letting their harmonic notes ring throughout the room. Oliver shrugs and shoots me a smile that is on the verge of uncomfortable.

"Now if only I had a pick..." he mumbles, reaching into his back pocket to retrieve one. He strums a chord, quick and pretty, and hums a little.

"The fella told me it was a riddle, and I said I wasn't going to pass it on unless it was a song. He said he didn't have any music and so I decided to borrow some."

He begins strumming the soft chorus of "Hey There Delilah", which is soon accompanied by the low and raspy sound of his voice.

"This is what you wear
When your hands are cold and bare
To find the note that's your next guide
Look in front of you, where it resides."

He comes to an abrupt stop and gives us a blank stare. I can just barely make out the chorus of "Here Comes the Sun" in the background.

"Well, there you have it," he yawns, setting down the instrument.

I want to point out that that was hardly a song but think better of it and glance around. "There's nothing in front of me," I sputter. Besides the various signs and posters lining the walls, the only other things in the room were a vintage CD player and a variety of instruments. Of course, there was the studio and the microphones and such, but nothing here was worth more than a blink.

"Let's go," I say, grabbing hold of Oliver's elbow and taking him by surprise.

Oliver squeezes in a rushed thank you, and removes himself from the force of my hand the moment we're outside. "What's gotten into you?" He makes no effort to hide the annoyance in his voice.

"I don't really know," I say, and it's the truth, I don't really know why I'd felt the need to bolt. It might have been the way his eyes rolled in his eyes when he spoke or the sour aroma he carried with him or maybe it was just the riddle and the stupid song and his posters, too. It could have been any of those but none of them seem like a valid explanation for the way I feel. When I'd first made eye contact with him, I couldn't help but feel this horrible emptiness. They were so hollowed and lifeless and seemed to bore right through me, and then they were rolling around as if they had no control. I hated that. I hated the way he spoke slowly, like it was hard for him to string together anything coherent.

"That's what I'm scared of," I bite my lower lip. "The way that guy Sam was? It's so scary. Losing yourself like that. It was like he was only half a person, like he'd left so much of himself behind as he grew up, you know? And the thought of turning into that..." I cast a glance at the white concrete beneath me. "I don't ever want to lose myself," I say, and then I'm crying and I feel like such an idiot for acting like this in front of Oliver.

"Woah. It's okay." He holds onto me and lets me rest my head on his shoulder, and my nose is running against him. He either doesn't notice or he chooses to ignore it.

The thing about crying is that once you start you can't stop. I sound like a broken record as I'm heaving and choking, but I know that there's no point in even trying to put an end to it. Because here's the thing: I've already lost so much of myself. I lost a piece when my mother passed away, I lost a piece when I started dating Chris, I lost a piece when I skipped a family dinner. I've lost so many pieces, so many pieces that were parts of me, the me that I used to love.

"I don't even know who I am anymore," I croak. Whatever happened to the girl who only cared about drawing pictures to hang on the refrigerator? The one who never tied her shoelaces but always knew how to make someone laugh? I miss her.

"Well, I do," Oliver says, placing a hand on the small of my back. "You're Nora Owens. You're independent, you've got a killer smile, you always put people first and you mean a lot to me."

I lift my head off of his shoulder and look up at him, my eyes rimmed with red and stinging from my tears.

"Really?"

"Really," he says, planting a light kiss on my forehead.

Suddenly, the door to the station swings open and Sam looks us dead in the eye. "Didn't I tell you two to keep it down? This isn't a house party," he grunts, which is really an exaggeration considering we were hardly making any noise.

I have to restrain myself from smiling and apologize in a somewhat genuine way. Oliver grabs hold of my right hand and leads me over to Florence Nightingale.

"You know something, Nora?" He turns his head towards me as he talks. "I think maybe instead of losing pieces, everyone's just picking up new ones."

And I'm not sure if that's right or not but it makes sense and the thought is reassuring so I nod my head and think that this whole time, Oliver must have been picking up all the right pieces.

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A/N: Hey guys! Sorry that this has taken me over a week to update, I fell into a bit of a writer's block while writing this and was only able to wrap it up today (although it's still slightly shorter than the rest). What do you guys think of Oliver and Nora's interaction?

Thanks for reading!