It was a short afternoon that day, after hearing all those stories about the parties. Oliver and I were home alone all evening, and I had to say, some parts of him were growing on me. But I couldn't really explain how I felt. Maybe reminiscent? But it wasn't really, because I had no memory of anything that had happened. Nevertheless a warming sensation though.

There were a few major gaps in the stories though. Things my imagination couldn't quite piece together, even with photographs.

"Fresh air..." He whispered.

It brought me right back down to earth. Oliver and I were sitting outside, in these really tacky white plastic chairs. The sun was coming down over London, and Oli was starring out at the orange hues, over our tiny garden.

"Really fresh." I said, not really knowing how to respond. I glanced over at him quickly, and admired how the light was hitting his face perfectly, making his cheeks glow with this radiance of natural shadow. Maybe I smiled, or let out a heavy breath, as Oli must have noticed me looking at him, and he turned to face me.

"Stay. I'll get you something to drink, yeah?" He said.

I nodded to him and watched him brush past me back into the house. It was quiet outside, I had kept thinking about how I felt, how overwhelming all of this stuff actually was, and I didn't know whether to be so excited to hear all of these beautiful things that had happened to me before the accident, or whether to cry about it all.

I had heard Oli clang the glasses together as he left the kitchen, but then there was silence. I waited a few more seconds, but there was still no sound of him coming back outside. I wondered what was taking him so long, so I turned my head gently to peer in the door.

What I saw was slightly distressing.

Oli was starring at a photograph on the coffee table. He quietly picked it up, and then crumpled it in his hand and stuffed it in his pocket. He looked a little pale as he eventually came outside and handed me some lemonade.

I thought about having an outburst, asking him why he was stuffing my photographs in his pockets, like he was hiding something. But as the words struggled on my tongue all I managed was, "What did you get?" Whilst pointing to his glass.

"Whiskey." He said. He didn't look at me, but instead starred off into the distance as if he was preoccupied with something else. "On the rocks..." He followed it up with, but still didn't bother to look at me.

He was standing right in front of me, one hand holding his glass and the other tucked into his back pocket. "You got a bit of fluff on your jeans..." I said quickley, unable to control my curiosity. I reached forward as if I was going to brush his jeans, when I actually just grabbed the crumpled up ball in his pocket.

He tried to brush me off, followed by trying to snatch it straight from my hand, but I held on tight, and jumped out of my chair, almost knocking it over backwards. "What is this?" I yelled, quickly grabbing a look at it. I had expected something really graphic, maybe a nude photograph, or a picture of someone Oli didn't like, or even a photograph that contained a deep secret that he didn't want me to know. But it was plain. It was just a building.

"A building?" I said, under my breath. I got angry that it wasn't something more exciting, so in embarrassment I raised my voice and yelled at Oli, "Why are you hiding this from me!?"

He lowered his head. "I just thought you weren't ready."

"For what?" I said, my playful notion had now turned into something a lot more cold. "Tell me." I said.

"That's where you fell from. Remember? The building that you fell from..." He raised an eyebrow in explanation. "You took that picture because you loved that abandoned building. It was one of your favourite places around town. We went there all the time to get high and just chill out there. You liked to take photographs of the leftover furniture and the plants that were just left to grow up the walls. It was a nice place... until what happened there. I couldn't bare to look at the damn photograph of it. Not after what happened to you."

I looked him dead in the eye and said, "What actually happened that day?"

He shook his head. "I told you." He exclaimed. I waited until he gave a better answer. He threw himself into the chair beside me. "Listen." He said. "I'll tell you in more detail if you like. But I wasn't there when you fell..." He took a moment to gather himself, took a sip of his whiskey and then scowled. "I woke up in the morning that day, to hear you sobbing your bloody heart out in the bathroom. I went in to comfort you, but you didn't want me there. Every time I asked you what was wrong, you said nothing to me. Absolutely nothing. And then you ran away from me, straight into your dark-room, and started yelling at me, telling me I had ruined your life and shit. And then you started trashing your photographs all over the place in a complete hysteric. You wouldn't stop screaming, and you chucked developer all over me."

Why was I so angry at him? He must have done something. He must have done something horrible to me, because I wasn't the kind of person to throw random tantrums like that all over the place. And for me to chuck my photographs around... something must have seriously upset me. I couldn't even remember a single time in the last five years prior to this, that I had even cried. I moved my body in a way that I now pointed away from him now.

Oli looked at my body language and saw that I was no longer in any form of a happy state with that news. I hesitated, and then mumbled to him, "You don't think..." and then I stopped myself.

"No!" He yelled at me. "It was an accident. You didn't jump. I promise." He said. "I know it because I managed to calm you down. You were okay. If you let me explain... You had this sleepwalking problem, it only started when you began taking drugs, and sometimes you'd wake up in the middle of the night or early morning, and just wander around the house in this dreary state of confusion. When you were in those states, you often got angry or upset with me because you didn't know where you were."

A sleepwalking problem? That just seemed... unbelievable. I didn't trust his story at all. He must have just made that up on the spot. I grabbed my drink, and swept inside, leaving him out there on his own. I sat in the living room now, separate from him, but still with the door open to the garden so that I could make out Oli's figure. He seemed slightly troubled now, his hands were fumbling around looking through all his pockets for a lighter to light the cigarette that hung between his lips.

"I don't believe you." I yelled at him from the living room.

"Let me show you." He said back, exhaling the smoke from his cigarette, and flicking the ash onto the patio.

Notes