The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  Mama’s head lowered. “Goodbye, Mrs. Boone.”

  She had sent my boyfriend and my best friend away from me, and I couldn’t understand what I’d done to deserve it. I started pounding against the closest wall to get Mama’s attention. See me. Notice me!

  She turned, unmoved by my sounds. “Go to your room, Maggie.”

  No. I pounded more and more, and she charged at me, wrapping her arms around me. No!

  “Stop it,” she ordered. “You think about the kind of life you’d give Brooks. Do you really want him to give up his dreams to stay here with you? How do you think you could be in a relationship with him when he’s traveling the world, making a life for himself? Why would you do that to him? This isn’t right for you, or him. He deserves more than dates in this house. You deserve to be alone so you can get fixed.”

  Get fixed?

  What if I wasn’t broken? What if this was just me?

  Where was Daddy? I needed him to come home. I needed him to try to make sense of Mama’s mind. I needed him to fix this. I kept struggling in her hold as she dragged me up the stairs. “This is for your own good, Maggie. I’m sorry, but this is for your own good.”

  I resisted, but she wouldn’t let me go. She wouldn’t let me free. I blinked my eyes and saw him. The devil.

  He apologized for hurting me, apologized for pushing a few fingers into the side of my neck, making it harder and harder for me to find my next breaths.

  “Mom! Let her go!” Calvin said, coming out of his room. He tried to get Mama off of me, but she shoved him away.

  “Stay out of this, Calvin. Your sister is fine.”

  No, I’m not. You’re hurting me.

  Cheryl came out, and I saw the fear in her eyes. I was certain she saw it in my stare too.

  Help me.

  “Mom,” she started, but Mama shut her up quick, too.

  She dragged me to my room and shoved me inside. With haste, she shut the door, then held it closed from the outside. “You’ll see, Maggie. I’m doing this for you. I’m protecting you.”

  What was wrong with her? Why was she acting so insane? I pounded on the door, trying my best to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. I shoved my body against it, over and over again. Let me out! Let me out! My hands wrapped around my neck, and I could feel him there with me. He was choking me; he was going to kill me. Let me out, let me out!

  I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe…I didn’t know what other option I had.

  I didn’t know what else I could do, so I did the only thing that came to mind.

  I fell to the floor.

  I lay face down on the carpet.

  I opened my mouth.

  And I screamed.

  21

  Maggie

  I blinked.

  The door flew open and Daddy charged toward me. I was tucked in the corner of my room, my hands slammed against my earlobes.

  I blinked.

  Mama followed in after him, and he flew around, screaming at her, telling her to leave.

  Blink.

  Mama cried and tried to get near me, but Calvin and Cheryl held her back.

  Blink.

  Daddy bent down, staring me in the eyes, checking if I was okay. “Maggie?” he whispered. He choked on air. “Maggie.”

  Blink.

  He combed through my hair, lifted me up.

  “Let me near her,” Mama begged.

  Daddy laid me in my bed and then ushered Mama out of the room.

  Blink.

  I could feel him. It felt so real. He was choking me again. He was taking my air. He was back. It was real. It was real…

  Blink.

  Daddy left the room to go scream at Mama. All they did was scream. Calvin and Cheryl came into my room.

  Blink.

  The two climbed into bed with me and wrapped their arms around me. They held me tight as I shook in their grips.

  Blink.

  Cheryl kept telling me I was fine, and Calvin kept agreeing as I cried into my sheets, shaking, feeling broken, confused. Scared. So scared.

  Shh…

  Shh…

  Why did Mama do that? Why did she drag me? Why did the devil do that? Why did he kill that woman? Why did he try to kill me?

  Blink.

  I shut my eyes. I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t want to blink anymore. I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to see, but I still saw. I saw him. I felt him. I tasted him. I saw Mama, too. I saw her. I felt her. I loved her.

  I hated her.

  Why did she hurt me?

  Why did she send away the things I loved?

  Everything grew darker.

  Everything became shadows.

  Everything went black.

  22

  Maggie

  “You okay today, Magnet?” Brooks asked, standing in my doorway. He hadn’t been allowed into our house for the past week, and since Mama wasn’t home, I assumed Daddy had let him in. Mama had gone to stay with her sister for a few days, a request Daddy had made. I was happy she disappeared for a while.

  Seeing Brooks standing there, leaning against my doorframe, broke my heart.

  How was it possible?

  How could you miss someone who was only steps away from you?

  He didn’t ask to come into my room like usual; he stayed there with his hands stuffed into his pockets. “We fly out in the morning. We fly out to meet with the producer, to talk about our future.” He smiled, but it felt more like a frown. That made me sadder than I had known I could be. Music was his dream, and his dream was coming true, yet still, he seemed so sad.

  I’m so proud of you.

  He snickered and looked down at the ground, sniffling. “What’s going on, Maggie May? In your head?”

  I don’t know.

  He stepped into my bedroom. “Do you love me?”

  Yes.

  “But you don’t want to be with me?”

  I hesitated to write, because I knew my words would be confusing to him. I couldn’t be with Brooks, especially now. He had his dream finally coming to life, and the last thing he needed was for me to interrupt it with my issues. How could we date, with my parents falling apart? How could we be in love, with him halfway across the country? Even though I hated it, Mama was right. Brooks did deserve more than me. He deserved to be loved out loud, and my love was a whisper in the wind that obviously only he could hear.

  He cleared his throat, my nonresponse seeming like all the words he was afraid to hear. “Do you love me?” he asked again.

  I do.

  He turned away from me for a second and wiped at his eyes. When he turned back, he gave me a tight smile and walked over to me. “Can I hold your hands?”

  I held them out, and when he wrapped his fingers with mine, I felt it—the feeling of home rushing through me. A building with walls wasn’t a home. Home was the place where the warmest kinds of love lived between two people. Brooks was home to me.

  It took everything for me to not cry.

  “You know that moment when you discover a new song? You think, no big deal, you’ve heard a lot of new songs, and this one’s gonna be like all the rest, but when the introduction hits your ears and it rockets through you, you feel it in your bones. Then when it hits the chorus, you know. You just know. You know that song is going to change you forever. You’ll never be able to remember your life without those rhythms, those lyrics, those chords. When the song ends, you race to replay it, and each time you hear it, it’s better than you remembered. How is that possible? How could the same words mean more and more each time? You play it over and over again until it’s ingrained in you, until it races through your body, becoming the flow that makes your heart beat.”

  My hands trembled in his, and his trembled in mine. We moved in closer, and he rested his forehead against mine.

  “Maggie May, you’re my favorite song.”

  I couldn’t fight the tears, and he couldn’t fight his, as our faces rested against one an
other. “I’m so torn right now, Maggie. A part of me wants to go to Los Angeles and chase the dream, but another part of me knows you are the dream. You’re it. So tell me what you want. Tell me you want me. I’ll stay. I swear, I’ll stay.”

  I stepped back from him, dropping his hands.

  His dream was in Los Angeles.

  Mama was right.

  I was no kind of life for him.

  I wasn’t his dream. I was his waking nightmare.

  “Tell me to stay, and I’ll stay,” he begged. “Tell me to go, and I’ll go, but don’t keep me here in limbo, Maggie May. Don’t let me leave, not knowing. Don’t make me swim in unknown waters, because I’m certain the unknown is where I’ll drown.”

  Go.

  He read the words on my board, and I saw the switch in his eyes. He seemed shocked by my response. Hurt. Broken. The look of despair in his eyes stunned me. I rushed over to him and started trying to pull him into a hug.

  “Stop, Maggie. It’s fine.”

  No. It wasn’t. He was hurting because of me. He was breaking, because I’d broken him. Please. I need you to understand. Please.

  I held up my hand.

  Five minutes.

  That’s all I needed. Five more minutes.

  He sighed and nodded. “Okay. Five minutes.”

  I pulled him into a hug and forced him to hold me.

  He choked out a cough. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. We were happy.”

  I held him tighter and looked up at him. Our lips grazed against one another, and we kissed. We kissed softly first, and then harder. We kissed with our hopes and our apologies all at once. It amazed me how in the past, five minutes had felt like forever, but in that moment, five minutes was a blur.

  “Maggie May,” Brooks whispered, his voice cracking. “How did you do that? How did you break my heart and fix it all at once, with just one kiss?”

  I felt it, too. Whenever our lips found each other, the kisses hurt and healed. We were thunderstorms and sunlight all at once. How did we do that to one another? Why did we do it? And how were we ever supposed to truly say goodbye?

  He touched the anchor necklace I hadn’t taken off in years before he let me go and stepped backward. “I can’t stay here…I gotta go. I gotta let you go.” Within seconds he walked out of my bedroom and out of my life.

  After he left, Cheryl came and sat beside me on my bed. “Why did you do that, Maggie? Why did you let him go?”

  I leaned against my sister and rested my head on her shoulder, unsure how to answer. It felt wrong in my chest, letting him walk away, but he had to go after his dreams without me. When you loved someone, you let them fly away, even if you weren’t on the same flight.

  “It’s not fair,” she said. “Because the way he looks at you, and the way you look at him—that’s my dream. That’s what I want someday.”

  I parted my lips to speak, but nothing came out. I gave Cheryl a sloppy smile, and she gave me a frown.

  “I figured out what kind of activist I want to be,” my sister told me, taking my hand into hers. “I want to fight for you, for people like you. I want to fight for those who don’t have a voice, but are screaming to be heard.”

  Calvin and the guys were asked to stay out in Los Angeles for a few more days. They’d been offered a recording deal with Rave Records, and I could almost feel their excitement all the way from the west coast.

  Brooks called me to share the news. “I know we aren’t supposed to be talking…but…we did it, Magnet.” His voice was so low. “We did it. We got a deal. In a few weeks, it will be official, and we’ll be signing with Rave. You did this for us. You made this happen.”

  Tears rolled down my cheeks. I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted this amazing thing to happen for them. Those boys deserved it. They deserved everything that came to them.

  “I love you, Maggie,” he whispered before hanging up.

  It was the last time I heard from him. Calvin called to tell the family the producer wanted them to get in the studio to record some samples while they worked on the contracts, and before I knew it, days became weeks, and weeks became months. Their lives started moving on the fast track, and I was frozen still. When September came, the band was invited to be an opening act for The Present Yesterdays on their world tour.

  It seemed that in a blink of an eye, their lives were completely changed.

  I tried my best to stop missing him. I read my books, I took my baths, and I listened to the iPod he’d left behind. I played his guitar, too. It turned out missing someone never became easier, it just became quieter. You learned to live with the longing pain inside you. You mourned the moments you’d shared and allowed yourself to hurt sometimes, too.

  There were so many times I opened my phone and stared at his number, so many times I almost dialed him to check in. I told myself I’d only call once, just to hear his voice, but I never built up the courage to move forward. I knew deep down if I called once, I wouldn’t be able to go without calling him each day to hear his voice again.

  Most days I hardly left my room, afraid of running into Mama.

  She and Daddy were becoming complete strangers right before my eyes. Whenever they were in the same room, one of them left. Before, when Daddy used to leave for work, he’d kiss her forehead, but those kisses were nothing more than a memory now.

  The seasons came, the seasons changed, and whenever the band came back into town, Brooks was nowhere to be found. I thought maybe he had found his next adventure on the road. Perhaps our love was supposed to only be a passing moment in time.

  “It’s on!” Mama hollered one night, running throughout the house. “It’s on!” Everyone came from their rooms, and for the first time in months, my family seemed like one unit as we stood around the radio in the dining room, listening to The Crooks’ first song on the radio. My chest tightened and I gripped the anchor necklace that had never left my neck as I listened to the words I knew. Our song…

  She lies against my chest as her raindrops begin to fall

  She feels so weak, floating aimlessly, slamming against the walls

  Praying for a moment where she won’t begin to drown

  Her heart’s been begging for an answer to the silent hurts her soul keeps bound

  I’ll be your anchor

  I’ll hold you still throughout the night

  I’ll be your steadiness

  during the dark and lonely tides

  I’ll hold you close, I’ll be your light, I’ll promise you’ll be all right

  I’ll be your anchor

  And we’ll get through this fight

  Listening to the words felt like the kiss I’d been craving. The words felt like he’d promised to come back to me. Everyone in the dining room started cheering and hugging—something we hadn’t done in so long. When Mama’s hands wrapped around Daddy’s body, he held her close. I swore I saw it, too, the place where their love used to exist. It was gone in a flash when they separated, but still, I had seen it, which meant somewhere inside them, that love still remained.

  It wasn’t until the night I received a package in the mail that I allowed myself to cry over Brooks leaving.

  A book.

  Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

  Inside the book were yellow Post-its marking the best parts of the book, covered with his handwriting. In the back of the novel was a note, a note I read each day, over and over again for the passing years to come. The note was proof I’d never love another boy again.

  A note to the girl who pushed me away

  By: Brooks Tyler Griffin

  October 22nd, 2018

  Maggie May,

  It’s been two years since I last saw your face. Twenty-four months of missing you, dreaming of you, and wanting you by my side. Everything reminds me of you, and whenever I come back into town, I stay at my brother’s house, unable to face you. If I saw you again, I wouldn’t be able to leave. I know I wouldn’t. My life is moving fast. Some days, I doubt
I can keep up. Other days, I want to quit and come home to you. On those days, I remember how you pushed me away. This is what you wanted, and I have to honor your request.

  Years before I knew what it meant to love you, I lay in your bedroom, holding your hand, and made you a promise. I gave you an anchor necklace and promised I’d be your friend, no matter what. I’ve done a lot of thinking, wondering how I could still be a friend while also respecting your space. This is the best way that came to mind. I’ll keep sending you novels with my thoughts; I hope this helps you remember that you’re never alone. If you ever feel lonely, read the notes in the books.

  If there’s ever a day you call for me, I’ll be there.

  I love you, Magnet, both as a lover and a friend. Those are two things that will never change, even when my heart needs a break.

  Always yours,

  Brooks Tyler

  P.S. I’m always around to listen to your silence.

  A note to the boy who’s on television

  By: Maggie May Riley

  August 1st, 2019

  Brooks,

  I saw you on Good Morning America today. Your hair is longer, isn’t it? Plus, is that a tattoo on your right arm? I couldn’t get a close enough look, but I could’ve sworn it was a tattoo. What is it of? I’m sending back my comments on American Gods by Neil Gaiman. I have a confession, though: I’ve already read it three times before you sent it to me. Seeing your side and your thoughts made it feel like a new read, though. You can’t really go wrong with any of his novels.

  I finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I’m crossing my fingers that you’ll enjoy it. I loved it, but I know you’re not as into period pieces as I am. It’s based around World War II, and while it highlights the effects of war, there’s still such a sweet, charming feel to the story. And it’s hilarious too.