The Elements Series Complete Box Set

by Brittainy Cherry

  I promise.

  “Good.” She grinned, and we started talking about much happier topics.

  “I don’t think I ever asked you what you plan on doing with your life. What’s your career path?” she asked me.

  I’m actually enrolled in school to become a librarian.

  Mrs. Henderson popped the last piece of chocolate into her mouth and gave me a wicked grin. “Well, sweetheart, I urge you to reconsider. If I can be quite frank with you, I think you talk too much to ever work inside of a library. Have you thought about becoming a politician? They talk all day even though they hardly ever have anything much to say.”

  I smiled. The world needed more women like her. The world needed more people who were like the book Persuasion: a perfect blend of profound moments stirred with dashes of entertainment.

  The following Friday, Brooks didn’t come home until two in the morning. It was pouring rain until around that time, and I couldn’t sleep, listening to the storm rolling through. I sat in the living room, listening to Mrs. Boone’s jukebox, playing song after song, waiting for the front door to open.

  When it finally did, I gasped, listening to it slam.

  Version two of Brooks came walking through the door, soaking wet and drunk from his time on the lake. “What the hell is this?” he hissed, looking over at the jukebox. With five large footsteps he went to the machine and unplugged it from the wall. “I don’t want to hear that.”

  Grumpy.

  Whenever I played music around him, he’d always force me to stop.

  I walked over and plugged it back in.

  I did want to hear it.

  He stood up tall and puffed out his chest. “You can’t do that, Maggie. You can’t come here and play that shit.” He unplugged it again, and I plugged it back in. “Goddammit, will you just leave? I don’t want you here. What don’t you get about that? I don’t want you here! You’re driving me insane. I’m sick and tired of this bullshit. I’m sick and tired of you trying to push yourself into my life, to make me feel better, to force me into something I’m not ready for. How fucking dare you?” he hissed, drunk and hurt. “For over twenty years I allowed you to be whatever you had to be to get through whatever you had to get through. I never pushed you, I never pressured you, but now you’re doing all of that to me. When you told me to leave years ago, I left you. I gave you your space. Why can’t you do that? You’re smothering me, trying to save me. But don’t you see? I don’t need you to save me. I don’t want to be saved. I’m done. I just want you to go home. Why can’t you fucking leave me alone?!”

  My body trembled as his words sank in, slapping me hard.

  He turned away, running his fingers through his hair, annoyed, pissed off.

  The angrier he grew, the more annoyed I became. He unplugged the jukebox again, and I plugged it back in.

  Every time I stepped near him, the whiskey on his breath sighed against me. With one final tug of the cord, Brooks shoved the jukebox with his right hand. “Enough! Why? Why the hell won’t you leave me the fuck alone when I let you be all those years ago? Screw your music, and your hope, and your list of things you want to do. If you’re waiting for me, it’s never going to happen, Maggie.” Each word was a hit, each word knocked me back. “You’re wasting your time, so just get the hell out of—”

  “YOU PROMISED!” I screamed, my voice cracking as the words flew through my mouth. My hands flew over my lips, and my stomach tightened. Did I say that? Did those words come from me? Was that my voice? My sounds? My words?

  His brown eyes were perplexed, confused by the sound, by my voice. I was just as confused. He lowered his stare to my lips and stepped in. “Say it again,” he begged.

  “You promised.” I moved closer to him, unable to hide my trembling body. My stare fell to the ground before I looked up. “You promised me you’d be my anchor, and I always promised myself to be yours if you ever needed me. I’m here because of the promises we made, but right now I don’t even know who you are,” I whispered. “The boy I knew wouldn’t yell at me. Never. The boy I knew wouldn’t beat himself down so much.”

  “Maggie.”

  “Brooks.”

  His eyes shut tight at the sound of me saying his name. “Again?” he asked.

  “Brooks,” I murmured.

  When he opened his eyes, I was closer. My fingers landed against his chest. “Brooks…please, don’t do this. Don’t keep pushing me away. I want to help you, but you keep punching me each day with your anger, your hurt, and I can’t take anymore. I can’t keep being your punching bag. Don’t do this to yourself,” I begged. “Don’t make yourself drown. It’s too much, and I should know. I’ve been drowning for years. You’re sitting here killing yourself each second, as if you were alone, but you’re not.” I took his hands and placed them against my chest. “I’m here. I’m here for you, but you gotta stop punching me with your words. You gotta stop acting like I’m the enemy in all of this.”

  I dropped his hands, and he kept staring, stunned by my voice perhaps? Or maybe by the words my mouth produced.

  “It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be really hard. I’m not backing down, but you don’t get to treat me like that, Brooks. You don’t get to become something you’re not. You’re not a monster. You’re the complete opposite of a monster. You’re gentle, and kind, and funny, and my best friend. You know this. So, I’m not leaving here until you find it again,” I said.

  “Find what?”

  I placed my hands against his chest, and gave him a gentle kiss on his cheek as I whispered. “Your voice.”

  37

  Brooks

  You promised.

  Her voice. Her first words in years, and they were directed toward me due to her frustration. The truth behind those words kept me up all night. Along with the sound of her voice. I hated the fact that her voice came out when she was angered and hurting. I hated how I was the one who pulled her to that level.

  What had I become?

  “Maggie,” I whispered around five in the morning. I tapped her shoulder slightly as she lay asleep in bed. “Maggie, wake up.”

  She stirred for a moment, before yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She raised an eyebrow, puzzled.

  “I know it’s early, but can I show you something?”

  She nodded, and I wondered if I’d imagined her sounds earlier that night. She climbed out of bed, and I led her to the back of the cabin, down the dock, where I sat down. She joined me, sitting beside me.

  Tilting her head, she narrowed her eyes at me, confused.

  “Number sixty-seven on your to-do list. Watch a sunrise or sunset over the water.”

  A small sigh escaped her lips, and she looked up at the dark sky that was slowly beginning to wake.

  “You toss and turn in your sleep at night,” she said.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Do you wake in sweats, too? Sometimes does it feel like you’re drowning in the water and even though you know it’s not really happening, it feels like you’re there again?”

  Quick nods. “Yes. Yes. Exactly. It’s hard to describe what’s been happening in my head. Everyone kept telling me I’d bounce right back, but the memories, the voices in my head…”

  “They’re real. The voices. The flashes. The fears. All of it is real, Brooks, and no matter how often you try to describe it to a person who’s never been in a trauma, they won’t get it. What happened to you had to be terrifying. I know about the tossing and turning. I know about the sweats. I know how it feels as if it’s happening nonstop, every second of every day.”

  My head lowered. “It’s been like that since you were ten?”

  “Uh-huh. That’s why I couldn’t leave you. I know what it’s like to be afraid to begin again.”

  “I feel stupid for my actions now…selfish. You’ve been dealing with this all your life, and never once were you cold. You never turned against anyone. I’ve been so shitty to you, Magnet. I’m sorry.”

&nbs
p; She shrugged. “Everyone deals with trauma differently. Just because I reacted to my issues in a different manner doesn’t mean you had to react the same way. What happened to you was traumatic, and I completely get you being afraid of music, because of what happened to you. You feel cheated. The one thing you love, you can’t yet have. But you’ll get there, Brooks. You’ll find your way.”

  “I picked up my guitar the other day. It was just sitting in the corner of the room, and out of habit, I picked it up, and then remembered I couldn’t play. So instead of getting sad, I just got angry. I got drunk to stop the hurt. But after the buzz faded, the hurt was still there.”

  “It’s going to hurt. It’s painful, it’s hard, and it just freaking hurts. It hurts for so long that sometimes you think the hurting will never fade. That’s kind of the beautiful part in the hurting, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The strength you find to keep going on. Even on the mornings when you think you won’t make it, by nightfall you realized that you could. That’s my favorite thing about life—that no matter what, it keeps moving on.”

  “What’s your least favorite thing about life?” I asked.

  She lowered her head for a minute in thought, before looking back at the sky. “That no matter what, it keeps moving on.”

  My hand rested on the dock, and when her fingers found their way to me, we locked our hold together and looked up at the awakening cotton candy sky.

  “I’m sorry.” I cleared my throat, feeling foolish. “I’m sorry for how cold and rude I’ve been, Maggie. You didn’t deserve any of that. I was just trying to push you away as I self-destructed. I didn’t want you to be around as it happened. The water was up to my neck, and I was ready to go under. Then, your voice pulled me up. Your voice saved me. I’m still pretty broken, but I made you a promise. I promised you one day I’d show you the world, and that’s what I’m going to do. I can’t swear that I won’t have bad days, but I promise I’ll fight for the good ones. I’ll fight for you, Magnet. The same way you fought for me.”

  “You stayed by my side for twenty years, Brooks. I think I can handle you having a few rocky days.” She laughed, and I was in love with the sound. “Besides, you’ve seen my darkness. It’s only fair that I’d be able to see yours, too.”

  “Your voice, Maggie…I don’t think you understand what it does to me.”

  She laughed, and I fell more in love with her. “I wondered what I’d sound like. Do you like it?”

  “Like it? I love it.”

  “It’s not too…” She wiggled in her seat and scrunched her nose. “Squeaky? Or childish?” She deepened her voice to an unnatural volume. “I stood in the mirror last night practicing my seductive voice. Do you like it?”

  I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You like it, don’t you?” she said, deep as hell and awkward as all get out. “You think this voice is sexy. You totally want to bang me.”

  “I mean, yeah, but the voice could go. You sound like you’ve smoked fifty packs of cigarettes a day.”

  She started giggling and nudged me in the arm. We laughed and talked as if the communicating back and forth without a board was normal for us. It was effortless. Truth was, if I could’ve sat quietly and listened to her voice for the rest of my life, I would’ve been happy.

  She scooted closer to me as the sun started rising. “You okay today, Brooks?” she whispered, sending chills down my spine, asking me the question I’d asked her almost every single day of her life.

  I squeezed her hand twice. Yes.

  We didn’t speak another word.

  Five minutes before she sat on my dock, I was completely lost.

  Five minutes sitting across from her, I began to remember my way home.

  Maggie still tossed and turned at night, too. Not as much as she used to, but still, she had nights of darkness that came her way. One night as we slept beside one another, I awakened to the sound of her dismay. She was whispering something to herself, her body drenched in sweat. I wouldn’t wake her because I knew there was nothing worse than being pulled out of one’s nightmares before they were ready to leave. I waited for her to come back to me.

  When she did, she gasped, opening her eyes, and I was right there to offer comfort. For a moment her hands flew to her neck, but she took deep inhales and exhales to relax herself. It seemed over the years, she was better at easing her own panics.

  “You’re okay,” I promised. “I’m here.”

  Maggie sat up and combed her hair behind her ears.

  “On a scale of one to ten, how bad?” I asked.

  “Eight.”

  I kissed her forehead.

  “Did I wake you?” she questioned.

  “No.”

  She smiled. “Liar.” She shifted around in the sheets and pulled her knees up to her chest, fidgeting nonstop. I could see that part of her mind was still living in her nightmare.

  “Tell me what you need,” I said. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Just hold me,” she replied. Her eyes shut.

  I scooted in closer and wrapped my arms around her. My chin rested against the top of her head as I held her.

  I moved my lips to her forehead, giving her a gentle kiss. My lips lingered to her tears, and I softly kissed those away. My lips then moved to her mouth as I watched her inhale and exhale. My eyes shut as my lips grazed against hers. She grazed against mine. Her breaths became mine, and mine fell into hers. “You are okay tonight,” I promised her. And if she wasn’t she would be by morning. Either way, I wasn’t leaving her side.

  She pushed her lips against mine, pressing her fingers against my chest. My tongue swept against her bottom lip before I sucked gently.

  “I had a nightmare, too,” I told her. “I felt like I was drowning again.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she whispered.

  I closed my eyes and saw the water. I felt it. It felt so real, so cold, so close. Then Maggie kissed my lips and reminded me that I didn’t have to drown alone. “Yes,” I replied.

  “Tell me what it felt like,” she said, her voice filled with care. “Tell me what it felt like in the water.”

  “Panic. It happened so fast, but in my head it felt like slow motion. My mind spun as I tried to get back to the boat,” I said.

  Her lips moved to the scar on my neck, and she kissed it gently, before moving down my shoulder blade.

  “When the propeller struck me the first time, I was certain that was it. I knew I was going to die. That sounds dramatic for me to say now—”

  Maggie cut in. “There’s nothing dramatic about that.”

  “Now, I have the nightmares and it all feels as if it’s happening again. I feel the cold water. I feel the propeller in my skin and wake up expecting to bleed.” I held my arm out, staring at my injured hand.

  Her lips trailed down my left arm, and I tensed up the closer she grew to my hand. “What does it feel like?” she asked, resting her kiss on my forearm.

  “There’s still this kind of phantom pain that happens. It feels as if someone is clamping against the finger super tight while setting a blowtorch to it. That comes and goes, though. When I get cold, my hand turns purple. I hate the scars. They are a constant reminder of what happened.”

  “Everyone has scars. Some people are just better at hiding them.”

  I smiled and kissed her forehead. “Honestly I think the anxiety and flashbacks are the worst part.”

  Her eyes grew heavy. “Yeah. I know what you mean.” She sat up and bit her bottom lip. “Is it okay if I talk about my scars, too?”

  “Of course.”

  Maggie’s voice was timid. I saw the fear in her eyes from the idea of speaking to life what had happened in the woods all those years ago. I’d known how hard it was going to be for her, but even with her voice shaking, she still spoke.

  “Her name was Julia. Sometimes my memory tried to convince me her name was Julie, but it wasn’t. It was definitely Julia,” she sai
d.

  “Who?”

  “The woman who died in the woods.”

  I sat up straighter, too, more alert.

  “Her name was Julia, and she was leaving her husband.” She told me every piece of detail that had happened. She told me how he looked, she told me the color of Julia’s hair, her panic, her cries. She recalled the scents, his touch, his voice. For over twenty years Maggie relived her horror over and over again, never forgetting a piece of it. As she kept going, her body began shaking, but she didn’t stop. She continued telling me the story of the day that changed her life. I listened, growing angry, and scared, and sad for her. I couldn’t imagine seeing the things she saw as a child. I couldn’t imagine moving past watching someone be murdered before my eyes.

  “I thought I was going to die, too, Brooks. The same way you thought your life was ending—that’s what I felt. It could’ve easily gone that way, too. If you had fallen forward, the propeller could’ve taken your life. If I didn’t get away from the man, he would’ve killed me.”

  “How did you get away?”

  Her eyelashes fluttered, and her eyes glimmered. “You called my name, scaring him off. You saved my life.”

  “Well, I guess we’re even, because you saved mine, too.”

  We stayed up until sunrise, talking about the traumas, speaking out all of the hurts and fears we both faced. Even though it was hard, it was needed for us both. It was freeing, speaking into life our troubles. Many parts of that night were tough, and sometimes we had to pause to take five minutes to remind ourselves to breathe. Yet, I was thankful for it all, the quiet moments and the painful ones, too. I was thankful for her willingness to allow me to bleed out against her. I was thankful for her bleeding out onto my soul.

  “Kiss me,” she ordered.

  I did as she said.

  We were two souls praying to be rescued, yet with each kiss we delivered, the waters grew higher. She bit my bottom lip, and I groaned into her. She wrapped her body around my waist, and I held her in my arms. Her hips pressed hard against me, as if she were trying to hold on to me even more. My right hand moved to her chest, and I grasped her breast before moving my mouth to her neck, sucking her, biting her, needing her. Her fingers dug deep into the back of me, almost as if she were clawing into my entire existence.