Page 99 of The Two Halves of My Heart

Chapter 31

Oliver

It rained.

Of course, it did. It couldn’t be a bright day to mark the funeral of my little brother.

It felt like I’d lost a part of myself. I’d wake up, or have this weird sensation that I’d forgotten something, but I hadn’t. Maddison wasn’t with us anymore. I had travelled for years with no contact and had only felt the loss of Grace. But this, this had a permanence that I couldn’t escape. None of us could, and it hurt.

Mum had Dad for support. Or rather they had each other. He was their baby boy, and the pain of their loss was enough to cripple me. It was a palpable presence in the house, a thick fog that had rolled in and suffocated everything.

So, I looked after Grace.

She was a shell those first few days.

The police had arrived and had taken over the scene where Maddison had been killed, and we provided a statement, or rather, I offered an account, which Grace confirmed. She was lost in her own pain, and no one was getting any details out of her.

The police opened an investigation due to the nature of the death, and I gave them everything I knew, including the details about the man who was in charge and had tried to speak to Grace after the fight. Explaining what happened to my mum, and watching as she took the news, piecing together the series of events, crushed me. Her grief-stricken face looked at me for answers, but I couldn’t give her any. It was paralysing.

A few days before the funeral, I had a visitor. Leo came to see me. I’d recognised him from that night, and he explained that he was Maddison’s friend. He’d confessed the whole story of what happened the day he died—said he wanted to do right by Mads and Grace. I forced him to take the information to the police, and that gave them some of the answers I hadn’t been able to.

It also made me question what the hell Maddison had been thinking.

Grace was his light. The love of his life. He’d never put her in danger or risk her. Yet, he’d made a bargain with her father to fix the fight. It just didn’t go down that way. I vowed never to tell her the truth. She’d carried enough questions and guilt about his death, and I refused to burden her further by including her father as a part of it. Not yet, at least.

Through the rain, I kept my hand locked in Grace’s. Her mum and my parents flanked us, like pillars keeping us all standing. She was motionless, except for the gentle rise of her shoulders as she cried softly. Her controlled sorrow was nothing like the sounds that had pierced through the air after she’d first seen his body lying covered in the ring. Those screams would haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life.

She refused to move after the service, maintaining her vigil over his grave.

She was broken.

Not only did I have to come to terms with the death of my brother, but also at losing the girl who’d held both of our hearts. And there was nothing I could do.

Somehow, the days slipped past, and a new reality dawned, one where I returned to London and to the job I needed. Grace started her new position nearer home. I missed her smile, her laugh, and the wonder in her eyes when she spoke about everything and nothing.

I’d been missing her for years, and the glimpse I’d had was too brief and clouded with pain. We hadn’t talked. Not properly, and we’d both fallen into our own sorrow. And my biggest fear was that this grief was an insurmountable object that neither of us could pass and still come out whole on the other side.

At night, I thought of all the times I’d wished that Maddison hadn’t loved Grace and hoped that he’d pick any of the other girls he could have chosen. And I was immediately struck with shame because I knew I’d never have given her up if that were the case. Yet, I was so angry about what he’d done. Angry that he wasn’t here to answer the questions I had about those last days and why he’d sold Grace out.

A few weeks after the funeral, the police informed me that they had charged Mike Kenner with manslaughter and further crimes all relating to his underground ring and other seedy activities. It made me wonder what Mads might have got himself into if he’d come out of that fight alive.

Mum and Dad knew that the person responsible for Maddison’s death would be prosecuted—they needed the closure—but they didn’t know the connection to Grace. It might be something I confessed in the future, but right now, she didn’t need to hear it, and that weight of knowledge would be mine to bear alone. Maddison would get justice, and that was all that mattered.

Most of my messages to Grace went unanswered, but I didn’t stop sending them. She needed to know I was here for her, and, looking out for her was a distraction from my own pain.

Weeks moved by at an excruciating pace. I spent my days longing for the weekend so I could visit home, and then when I was there, with Mum, Dad, and sometimes Grace, the pain was so visceral that I longed to be back in London. I felt trapped between supporting the people I loved and my own suffering.

The fog of sadness that descended on the house after his death hadn’t left. And it sucked any sense of life from the place. Mum spent her days staring out of the window or pretending that everything was okay—the two extremes she now lived in.

Nothing felt familiar anymore. And as much as I wanted us to repair the damage that Maddison’s death had caused, I didn’t know how to do it.

I continued to support Grace, even when she didn’t want it. Somewhere in those last few weeks, it had become unbearable to imagine life returning to how it had been before Maddison’s death—her moving on with her life, all but forgetting about me.

The centre of my chest felt like a hollow vacuum, empty of life and love when my mind wandered. It was selfish and cruel, but I wanted her to remember that she loved me, too, and not just feel the pain of her loss.

I’d had enough of doing the right thing to spare other’s feelings at the cost of my own. If Maddison’s death had taught me one thing, it was that you couldn’t put your own feelings on hold because tomorrow might never come. I’d buried my true feelings for too long.

The weather was perpetually bleak, but it didn’t stop me from going to stand by his gravesite. The churchyard was always quiet, and despite the hundreds of graves, there was only ever one other person I’d seen visiting. But not today.

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