Oliver does not remember dates. He doesn't call on birthdays (he forgets his own), he doesn't find any notability in anniversaries, and he purchases his Christmas gifts sometime around December 27th. He knows the numbers for holidays in theory, but doesn't have the mindset to keep track of them. All dates come and go in the same twenty-four hours and Oliver doesn't see the point in differentiation.

But Oliver always remembers May 23rd.

With the distinction of being the only date he remembers comes a unique form of celebration: closed blinds, empty bottles, ignored phone calls, broken glasses, and a pity party not often extended beyond the floor of his bedroom. He doesn't send out invitations.

It's only fair this year that the one day Oliver remembers should be the day his universe erases. The flight from LA to Beijing departs on May 22nd, arrives May 24th and leaves the date in the middle lost somewhere in the jet stream. It's torture but it's not his preferred form of penance.

He celebrates early and it's minute forty-two of the thirteen hour flight when Oliver pukes into the small toilet of the private plane. And in a way it's a relief, an excuse to not share the fervency bouncing around the plane. It's starting! They're going to China! England! France! The movie is tracking huge! The expectation of underlying exclamation marks is exhausting and Oliver would really prefer to spend the remainder of the flight with his head in the toilet. Instead he emerges from the bathroom a few minutes later with a sheepish grin and an apology with just the right amount of carefully constructed embarrassment. He blames the turbulence on take-off, the fact that he's an anxious and nauseous flyer is no small secret, and ignores the reality that his stomach was merely protesting yesterday's consumption of whiskey. He ignores the way his publicist's eyes narrow and instead makes a lame joke to deflect any tension. Airplane food, am I right? The laughter in response is small but effective. There's an evident relief in the air as the conversations around him return and Oliver is grateful for the small escape his bulky noise-cancelling headphones promise him as he collapses back into his seat.

It's the politest form of a do not disturb sign that Oliver can manage but someone still taps his shoulder lightly a few minutes later and he's forced to open his eyes. It's a member of the crew and Oliver pulls down his headphones and quirks an eyebrow at the woman standing in front of him. She's younger than he is, and her eyes are earnest and kind enough to make him overlook the eagerness. She wants to help, she thinks she can. There's a bottle of pills in one hand, a bottle of water in the other, and thousands of flying tips picked up from experience ready to go at the tip of her tongue.

Only the problem today isn't the flying, it's the fact that it's May 23rd and that means Oliver isn't sure he wouldn't prefer the plane to crash.

That's not what she wants to hear though and Oliver knows it's better to be exactly what's expected of you. So instead he takes her offerings of pills (Dramamine and it's drowsy kind, thank god) and water and makes a joke about how she's just worried he's going to deface more of her plane. She hesitates as he takes the pills before telling him if there's anything else he needs to let her know. He thanks her, and it's genuine, but there's still a relief when she leaves and Oliver can pull his headphones back over his ears. This time his hood follows and he leans his head back and does his best to look asleep.

He doesn't sleep, mostly. There's enough alcohol still in his system to mix with the Dramamine to force slumber but it's not enough to pull him down farther than that murky stage between sleep and awake for very long. Instead he finds himself swimming about in memories and dreams, sometimes unsure of which is which. There's Katie showing up on his doorstep with a duffle bag at her feet and a guitar strapped to her back, a wild but determined look in her eyes as she asks him if he is up for a drive out to LA. There's sitting in the hospital waiting room with his head in his hands for eighteen straight hours not knowing that it was already over. There's Katie's barking laugh as they lay huddled in the back of their crappy car and Oliver asks if she thinks they should get their dining room remodeled. There's the look in Katie's mom's eyes as she tells him they want to bury Katie on Long Island and there's the knowledge that what she is really saying is this is all his fault. There's the ring sitting at the back of his closet at home that Katie never got to see.

Sometime around hour eight he's woken up and given a plate of food that he's forced to eat and it takes everything in him not to scream in frustration at everyone talking happily around him. He doesn't want to be here. It's not that Oliver's ungrateful, that he doesn't realize this is the opportunity of a lifetime and he should be kissing the fucking feet of anyone who had any part of turning this into a reality. It's just that he wishes, selfishly and desperately, that this could all maybe just happen next week instead. He wants to be drunk and belligerent and spend the weekend hating every part of him that thinks he has any right to pity himself.

There's always something bubbling within him, the urge to tell a stranger that looks at him to fuck off and the desire to to treat everything like the big fucking pointless joke it is. And it would be easy, too easy, to give into it. Oliver's done it before. An entire press tour suffering at the hands of his hurt as he channels it into anger and bitterness. Being the asshole is an act he plays well. There's part of him that knows that the anger is probably who he really is. That maybe the rest of it is when he's really pretending.

The plane lands in Beijing on May 24th and Oliver knows it's time to keep pretending. And even though he know he shouldn't, he can't help but be a little proud of himself that he does.