Now, even though I was near-panicking, my interest was piqued. What did I need, beyond the obvious?
I raised my fist and knocked, then slowly pushed the door open. I couldn’t look at either of them, so I kept my eyes focused on the floor. I found the over-stuffed chair and sat quickly, hoping they wouldn’t make me talk.
“How are you feeling?”
“O-o-o-okay,” I lied in answer to Robin’s question.
“I have something for you.”
I looked up when I heard Stephen’s words. I thought of all of the Christmas gifts he liked to buy. Sometimes he was like Jane and couldn’t contain himself. He would give us some early just to see our reaction.
Gifts made me uncomfortable. He always put a lot of thought into what he gave us, but there were very few material things I wanted. Accepting them the first few years had been difficult, but I learned that refusing gifts hurt people’s feelings. It only took a few tears from Jane, a downcast look from David, and a simple sigh from Kate before I realized how my uncomfortable reactions could affect others.
As much as I didn’t want to, I needed to speak up. “B-but it’s n-n-not Ch-Chr-Christmas y-yet.”
Stephen couldn’t seem to look at me for more than a few seconds at a time. Whatever it was he wanted to give me obviously made him nervous.
“It’s not a present, Elliott.” He sighed. “Or maybe it is, I don’t know.”
I watched his hand as he slid something across his desk to me.
“It’s important for you to understand that the decision to give you this has weighed on Stephen for weeks,” Robin said quietly, looking from me and back to him.
I thought she would continue, but it was Stephen who spoke next. “I only found it two weeks ago. I’ve been searching for anything that might help you, and someone finally responded.”
Now I was really confused. It took me a few seconds before I moved, forcing my body to get back up and wishing I hadn’t sat down in the first place.
I walked over to the desk and saw that Stephen’s hand was on a CD. I reached for it, relieved when his hand slipped away.
Both of them were looking at me as I took it and I felt very insecure and vulnerable. I grabbed the CD and left the room without being excused, but I needed to get away.
Once back in the safety of my room, I powered up my computer, eager to see whatever was on this disk that had made Stephen so upset and unsure of himself. Even though my laptop was top-of-the line, it seemed to take forever to boot up.
I inserted the disk. The media player automatically popped up and asked if I wanted to play the file named 122495. I clicked “yes” and instantly I was consumed.
I forgot about the flu. I forgot about my pounding head. I forgot that Sophie wasn’t here and that I missed her. I forgot about what happened in my bedroom back in Chicago ten years ago.
My eyes were glued to the screen, and all else ceased to matter.
The world around me dissolved.
I only took that shift at work because they said they really needed help and I needed a distraction. Plus, they said it’d be a short shift. I’d called and Elliott was sleeping, so I thought it would be no big deal, but five o’clock came and went. I didn’t give a shit if these people needed food for Christmas or not. They shouldn’t have waited until the last minute.
It was a quarter till six when I finally clocked out. At that point, I practically ran to the SUV that waited for me. Tom asked about work. I responded quickly and then requested that he drive as fast as possible.
Of course, he was clueless and asked why I was in such a hurry, but all I said in response was that Elliott, who carried the weight of the freaking world on his shoulders, was waiting for me.
I felt horrible. Like complete and utter shit. On the one day Elliott probably needed me the most, I went to work. I made no sense. I was the world’s worst decision-maker.
He’d been sleeping and Jane said that he’d probably be out of it until late, but I shouldn’t have gone in anyway. I should have waited on Elliott’s couch so that I was the first thing he saw when he woke up.
“You need to eat.”
“What?” I turned to look directly at Tom.
“You’ve been at work and it’s dinner time. You have diabetes,” he said slowly, almost as if he was laying out the facts to a child. “You have to eat.”
“But Elliott …”
“‘But Elliott’ nothing.” He stopped as if to emphasize his next word. “Sophie. Sophie has a condition that can kill her. Sophie has to monitor her blood sugar. Sophie has to remember to care for herself first and other people later.”
I turned back around to stare out of the window and rolled my eyes. “Talking to Wallace much?” His words sounded just like something she would say.
“No, actually I came up with those thoughts all on my own.”
“You’re killing me, you know?”
I didn’t look at him, but I could tell his face was probably a little red as he said, “No, I’m trying to make sure you don’t die.”
“But today’s Elliott’s …”
He cut me off again and I had to grit my teeth so I wouldn’t explode in rude and hateful expletives.
“It’s a quick trip to the restaurant and then I’ll drop you off.”
“But Tom,” I began again, obviously wanting him to change his mind.
“But nothing. You’re eating.”
I pouted and felt like I was five as I waited for my chicken breast and salad.
“What happened to your hands?”
I looked down at my arms resting on the table and saw the light, fading bruises that Elliott’s hands had made. He hadn’t meant to do it. When he was like that, I didn’t think he even realized that he was holding my hands, much less hurting them.
When I looked at them, I realized that I had quite a few marks on them from my wrists to my fingers. I pulled down the gray thermal shirt I wore under my hideous work shirt until nothing but the tips of my fingers showed.
“Nothing.”
I refused to look at Tom while he just stared at me. He was waiting for more information but I wouldn’t give it to him. He would just blame Elliott and he didn’t understand.
Finally he could obviously take it no longer and spoke. “If Elliott’s hurting you …”
Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that we had established the right to cut each other off when speaking because if I’d let him finish his sentence, I would have completely freaked out on him. “Elliott’s not capable of hurting me.”
“What happened to your arms, then?”
“Have you met Elliott?” I was being sarcastic, trying to draw Tom’s attention to Elliott’s mild-mannered behavior.
“Yes, I have,” he said, his voice low and hard, “and I found the day he broke someone’s jaw particularly enlightening in regards to his capabilities. From what I heard, he had to be pulled off of that boy.”
My stomach tightened. “Chris deserved it.”
“Deserving a punch and being put in the hospital are two different things. You keep saying that the Anderson kid deserved it from both Elliott and Jace, but you won’t tell me why.” He shook his head. “But that’s beside the point. Elliott is quite capable of hurting you and so I’ll repeat my question, what happened to your hands?”
“Ohhhh,” I said, drawing out the word and making it drip with all of the anger I felt. “I see, so you want to obsess about a couple of bruises from him holding my hands. I get it. This is what you need to fixate on to alleviate yourself of guilt for not bothering to care that I know pain way beyond a few bruises. Tell me, Tom, where was all this concern when I was black and blue because your fucking wife used her fists and feet, and whatever else she could find, to make me hurt?”
He looked away and I
leaned close to him.
“If I knew you had this much parental concern in you, I would have taken pictures of all the marks she left when she slammed me into the walls. I could’ve e-mailed you pictures of my tongue the day she burned it. I could have …”
“I’m just trying to protect you, Bunny.” He was looking me in the eyes now.
“I don’t need shit from you and thinking that you’ll ever protect me from anything is wishful thinking on your part. Elliott had an instinctive reaction, his hands tightened, and he didn’t mean to do it.”
We both quieted when the waitress dropped off our food.
I ignored Tom as I ate my dinner, but as he began talking again, ignoring him was difficult.
“I’m not going to stop being concerned about you, but if you say that Elliott hasn’t hurt you, then I’ll let it go.”
“He hasn’t.”
Tom nodded. “But if you come home with any more bruises, I’ll …”
I didn’t need to listen to the rest. I knew it would be nothing more than masculine overprotectiveness with thinly veiled threats to hurt Elliott.
At this point, all I wanted was to choke down this poorly executed excuse for nutrition and go to see my boyfriend. I had no idea what his day had been like, but I knew that he usually had some real trouble pulling himself up out of heavy shit like today represented.
It was dark when I rang the Daltons’ doorbell. My stomach hurt and I felt like the worst girlfriend on the planet. Of all the days for me to screw up!
David opened the door. I didn’t look at him; I just invited myself inside and headed up the stairs. When I reached Elliott’s door, I knocked quietly. I probably should have stopped to get some kind of status report before seeing him, but I felt desperate to let him know that I was here and I was incredibly sorry for leaving him hanging like this.
I knocked again and a few seconds later, the door opened slowly.
“Elliott,” I began quickly, and launched myself at him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think that I would be …”
“SSSSophie?”
I stopped talking, pulled away and looked at him. He was wearing the same pajamas I’d left him in. His hair was messy, and he looked confused. Maybe he still had a fever. Maybe he didn’t even know what today was.
Or maybe he was sedated or …
I glanced at his hands, tightly curled at his side. If he was sedated, they would be open and loose.
“W-w-what are you d-d-doing here?”
“What?” It was all I could ask. All day I’d hated myself for leaving him alone and now it seemed like he didn’t even notice.
He stood there like a statue, his eyes tired and his mouth hanging open. I put my hands on his stomach and pushed him a little, hoping to wake him up. “Elliott?”
He took a deep breath and blinked. Suddenly he grabbed my hands and pulled me inside his room. Then he shut and locked the door behind us. I was surprised to find myself pressed against the door, enveloped by his arms.
It wasn’t a chaste embrace. His face was buried in the crook of my neck, his tongue and lips doing absolutely mind-numbing things to my skin. His hands were greedy at my waist and hips and I tried my best to balance how badly I wanted to just go with it and how the logical part of my brain screamed at me to make him stop.
I wasn’t scared for myself, but for him. He wasn’t like this. This wasn’t Elliott. More and more he was using this kind of thing to distract me but I had to wonder with the importance of the day if he was now using it to distract himself.
He lifted me up, his hands holding me up under my thighs, and his body pressing into me. I couldn’t think about anything other than his warm body and how long it had been since I had …
Damn.
I brought my hands from his hair to his shoulders and pushed lightly. He didn’t stop, so I pushed him again with more force, and when his mouth kept moving on the skin of my neck, I finally spoke up. “Stop.”
It took him a long second, but he finally did, pulling his chest away from mine but keeping me deliciously pinned against the door with his hips.
I wanted Elliott Dalton and here he was pressed against me and no real indication that he wanted to stop.
But it was the anniversary of his mother’s death and something inside of me screamed that it wouldn’t be right to let this happen.
I unwrapped my legs from around his hips and pushed on his chest until he let me down. He still didn’t move, so I had to duck around him to get a little space.
“So, um, I’m sorry I’m late.” I thought acting like nothing happened just now was the way to go. “How are you?”
I glanced up. He was looking down at me like he was confused again and I wondered if he was actually inhabiting his body at this point.
“Elliott?” I said, wanting to draw him back to me. “Are you okay?”
Very slowly, he answered me. I could tell that he wasn’t chemically sedated, but something else was at work here. “I’m … ggggood.”
“You are?” I totally didn’t believe that for a second.
“I’ve hhhhhad a g-ggggood day.”
Now I was confused and was sure my face conveyed that.
“W-what?”
I turned to look at him, but he’d moved and I couldn’t see his expression. This shit was weird and I had no experience with stuff this deep. Should I draw attention to his bizarre behavior, or should I pretend like everything was cool?
The room was quiet and tense, so I moved to his computer, intending to put on some music. His iTunes was already open, so I sat down to find something neutral to listen to, but as I studied the opened playlist, my confusion deepened.
“Why do you have like fifty versions of O Holy Night?”
I heard movement, and before I knew what was happening, I turned around to see him quickly moving toward me. Or rather, to the laptop. He moved so fast that his arm sort of hit me as he slammed the top down.
I pushed the chair back and it was a good thing I did, otherwise his retreating elbow would have made contact with my face.
“Jesus. I just asked a question.”
“D-d-d-don’t take the L-LLLLLord’s n-name in vvvvvain.”
What the hell? “Seriously?”
He looked at me then and I gave him a deep questioning look, wondering who the hell had replaced my Elliott with some screwed-up, mindless … I stopped my train of thought. Elliott just got like this sometimes. It wasn’t his fault. I had to remember that it wasn’t his fault.
He retreated to the bed and perched himself on the edge. “Ssssssorry.”
Good. A little life had returned to his eyes.
“What the hell is up?”
I immediately felt like shit because his expression was so pained that I nearly broke from it.
Slowly, he stood back up and moved back over to me. I kept out of his way and watched as he opened up his computer again and then the media player. I wondered what was coming.
With a step back, he stood next to me for a second before he took my hand. I guessed he wanted me to stand up, so I did, letting him lead me to his bed where we both sat on the edge. He stared at the computer screen.
I was so busy looking at him that I forgot the computer was running. “W-w-watch. She’s w-wearing b-b-b-blue.”
He looked star-struck and child-like. I turned to the screen and saw a small-framed woman with red hair in a blue dress sitting very properly on a stool with a microphone in front of her. It was obviously his mother. She looked different than in the photograph, but it was her.
There was another woman with a violin behind her.
“B-b-b-blue is m-m-my ffffffavorite c-color.”
I looked at him. I already knew that, but he was so far removed from the present moment that it would’ve
been useless to tell him.
I’d been focusing on him again, but my breath caught and I had to look at the computer again once she began to sing. Her voice was absolutely, heartbreakingly beautiful and there could be no mistaking where Elliott had gotten his musical talent.
O holy night!
The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of
Our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world
In sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d
And the soul felt its worth.
His lips moved as hers did, right in sync with his mother. I thought perhaps it was just because he so obviously knew the song, but then he pointed at the screen without saying anything. Just then, his mother stood up and smiled.
I said his name cautiously. “How many times have you watched this?”
He didn’t respond and after a while I almost asked again in case he didn’t hear me.
Truly He taught us
To love one another;
His law is love
And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break
For the slave is our brother;
And in His name
All oppression shall cease.
“W-w-wait,” he whispered, his eyes never moving.
And so I did. Long seconds later, a shock of rusty hair darted toward her. Even as she continued to sing, she picked up the little boy and held him to her.
I turned to look at him. “That’s you.”
He nodded, his body curling inward. “That’s mmmme.”
“Elliott?” My heart bled for him.
“I mmmmmiss mmmmmmy mmmmmom,” he choked in a quiet sob.
I tried to take his hand, but he stood up and clicked a button and the whole thing started over.
He just kept sinking into himself as he listened again, his body growing weaker with every word and note. His shoulders shook and I wondered how long it had been since he let himself feel the pain of losing his mother. I knew he wore his pain every day, but it wasn’t like this.
The second time I heard “fall on your knees,” his mother’s voice steady and strong, I saw the tears roll from his eyes and just the sight of them cut into me. His mother seemed to have been his whole life and she took hers right in front of him.
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