by E Cleveland
“Can I help?” She looks up at me from where she’s sitting on the floor. Her knees are propped up and she’s leaning back against the wood wall, the absolute picture of serenity. Since I’ve met her, she’s never looked more relaxed. More at home.
“No, it’s not going to take long. I’ll be right back.” I pull on my parka and my forehead prickles with sweat. I can’t believe how toasty we’ve made this place. If it gets much warmer, we’ll have to strip down. She can always wear her bikini again; that was a good look. Or even better, nothing at all.
I force myself to stop remembering the soft curves of her naked form. To stop thinking about how good her smooth, warm body felt next to mine. I grab my pot and go out into the bitter cold night.
Instantly, I go from overheating to freezing as a swirl of icy pellets sweeps up and whips into my face. I drop my head and step down from the porch, quickly filling my pot overflowing with packed snow. I work quickly, trying to turtle into my parka to protect myself from the plunging temperature.
Grabbing the full pot, I take the porch stairs two at a time and burst back into the house like an explosion as another burst of icy air helps push me through the door.
“Oh my God, it looks so bad out there!” Elsie stands up and stares at the solid pellets of hail that the wind gusted onto the floor.
“It’s a lot nicer in here,” I agree and dump the snow in the basin. “I’ll be back,” I inform her.
“Don’t go back out there,” she pleads, “we have more than enough water.”
“One more pot.” I don’t wait for her response. It’s not a negotiation. I brave the punishing weather one more time, filling the pot quickly, and go back inside. I throw this one on the propane stove and crank it up. My numb skin warms up and I drop my winter gear to the floor and step closer to the fire, waiting for my fingers to have feeling again.
“There, no big deal. Now we can enjoy the evening.” I smile.
“It’s so terrible out there. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t found me.” She peers out the window and shudders. As if just by looking, she can feel the cold creeping over her.
“Well, I’ll put it this way. You wouldn’t be surprising the search and rescue team with your beautiful smile like you will once this passes.”
Elsie’s eyes slide from the window to me. Her full lips twist up and her cheeks flush. “You think I have a beautiful smile?” She looks down at the floor, hiding her bright blue eyes under her long lashes.
Why do girls do this? She knows she’s pretty, why does she need to hear me say it? “Isn’t that what your Instagram cult thinks?” I walk over to the stove and check on the stew, ignoring her attempt to fish for a compliment.
“That’s not really what I’m known for. I don’t think I have any pictures of me smiling, actually. Do I?” She wonders out loud.
“Well, why not?” I plunge the ladle into the pot and pour it into our mismatched bowls.
“I don’t think that’s what most of my followers want. They want to see my ass, mostly.” She shrugs.
Irritation rises up inside me like the tendrils of steam whirling up from our bowls. “Why would you want that? Why do you want a bunch of strangers staring at your body?”
“It’s hard to explain,” she mumbles. “Hey, that smells amazing. I can’t wait to try it.” She changes the subject.
I’m happy to let it go. I don’t want to think of a bunch of faceless Internet dicks staring at Elsie’s perfect ass anyway. Not because I’m jealous. Well, mostly not. But because she’s so much more than that. I hate that she can’t see what she has to offer.
“You’re gonna love it.” I bring our bowls to the small table on the other side of the counter. It reminds me of the bistro style tables we had set up on the patio in the summers at my parent’s restaurant.
My mind flickers over the memories of all the celebrations we had there. Holidays, anniversaries, and my favorites were always the birthday parties. From the time I was learning to walk up until the year I had to shut the doors for good, I had every single birthday at the restaurant.
I remember how the loyal patrons grew every year, making my Happy Birthday song fuller and louder every year. I never wanted anything else. No pin the tail on the donkey or elaborate themed parties. I loved the tradition of my mother making me my favorite manicotti and being surrounded by the love of family.
I thought I found that again with Farrah. That her and I would create our own memories with a house full of children and Italian recipes I still know by heart to this day.
Back before she dropped a bombshell and blew up my life. Before she turned my career and my life into a joke. Before I went from US Army strong to “lame cuck.”
The memory fades, but the pain never seems to. I look down and realize I’m clutching the whiskey bottle tight. Elsie is watching me. I can’t even remember what we were talking about.
“I’ll get us some drinks.” I clear my throat. “It’s time to celebrate.” I force a weak smile.
“How old are you?” She sits down at the table.
“Twenty-nine.” I crack open the bottle and pour us each some liquor. “How old are you?” I realize I have no clue. She looks very young, but from her career and her mention of her failed engagement, I’ve always assumed she had more life experience than her youthful face lets on.
“Twenty-three.”
I pick up my spoon. “Okay, let’s eat!”
Elsie furrows her eyebrows together, but she takes a spoonful of stew and only pauses for a moment before trying it. Her eyes light up and the smile that I’m secretly glad I don’t have to share with the world spreads over her face.
“It’s so good. Wow, I can’t believe you made something so delicious out here.” She doesn’t wait for me to say anything, digging back in with enthusiasm. Pride fills my chest and I watch her take another bite and close her eyes like her senses are overwhelmed.
“I told you that you’d love it.” I smirk.
“Mmmm,” she agrees, her eyes still closed and her head tilted back.
It makes me happy to take care of her. To look out for her. For some reason, I get the feeling she’s not really used to that. “So, tell me about yourself,” I pry, eager to learn more about her.
The smile fades from her plump, pink lips and her spoon hovers mid-air. “There’s nothing to tell, really.”
She’s lying.
“Come on,” I push. “All there is to your life is an ex-fiancé and an Instagram account? I’m not buying it.” I watch as she battles her emotions.
“No,” she barely breathes the word. “Unfortunately, there’s more.”
Normally I don’t pry. I’d tell someone to fuck off if they were digging into my past like this. However, I can’t shake the insatiable desire to know more about her. I want to hear it all. I want to feel like I’ve been with her for every detail of her life. There for the loves, the heartbreaks, the ups and downs. I need to know.
She sighs. “I don’t want to be a downer.”
“Please.” I reach across the table and grab her hand. “You can trust me.”
19
Elsie
I look down at my dwindling bowl of stew and take a deep breath. I want to trust Sawyer, but my past isn’t something I share easily. I haven’t even told Ben much about my life. Yet, when I look in his eyes, I see an earnest concern for me that I never saw in Ben’s. He doesn’t want the salacious details to entertain himself; he wants to know the real me. The one I’ve been trying to hide for longer than I’d like to admit.
“I’m a foster kid, I was put in the system when I was eleven by child services,” I blurt out.
“I’m sorry, that couldn’t have been easy for you,” Sawyer answers.
“No, it wasn’t,” I admit. “Most kids are taken when they’re younger and it’s easier to place them because people like cute, little kids. Not a lot of people like taking on a pre-teen girl. They cost more for one, and they usually have a lot of
scars. Like sexual abuse and shit like that.”
Sawyer’s face twists like I stabbed him.
“That’s not what happened to me,” I reassure him and he breathes a sigh of relief.
“Anyway, a lot of women don’t want to take on an older girl because they have this messed up idea that you’re going to seduce their husbands. Isn’t that fucked up?”
My mind flashes angrily to the first house I was placed in. How, when she found out her husband liked to drink and make me watch him jerk off after she passed out in a drunken stupor, she acted like I made him do it.
Like it wasn’t some predator taking advantage of a vulnerable kid. Instead, I must have been “begging him for it.” My cheeks flush with the same shame I felt then. Like I was just dirty and unlovable. Like no one could ever want me in their lives unless I could do something for them.
“Did your parents die?” Sawyer intrudes on my dark thoughts.
“No, that probably would’ve been better,” I confess.
“Don’t say that,” his voice rumbles with anger.
“I know that sounds terrible,” I blurt the words as his eyebrows cinch together in a frown. “They were meth heads. They made it themselves for some guy who sold it for them. He split the cash with them, so they were happy. But then they got into it too, bad. They were high all the time and screwed him over by giving him a bad batch and he was pissed. He told them they owed him his money back or he’d kill them.” The words pour out of me like I’m sitting in a confession box. I’m guessing the booze is helping all this bubble out of my mouth.
“But you said they didn’t die?” Sawyer tries to piece together my story.
“No, they decided to try to sell me to get the cash. Like my parents were my pimp.”
“What the fuck?” Sawyer’s face contorts with rage.
“Yeah, lucky for me they were both fucking idiots.” The memory flashes back to me.
“You look beautiful, honey, look at yourself.” Mom nodded at my reflection in the mirror. I smiled at my heavy makeup, feeling like a princess. It was the first time in months that she had been so nice to me. I wanted the moment to drag on forever. For her to do my hair and makeup, like we were a couple of girls at a sleepover. It felt magical.
“Thanks for making me look so beautiful, Mommy. I love you.” I looked at her, beaming.
“What?” She looked down at her cheap wristwatch. “Yep, for sure. Love you too, honey.” Her voice was rushed. “Okay, we don’t have much time, baby, there’s a man coming here to take you out,” she explained hurriedly.
“What? Where is he taking me?” Worry twisted in my gut. My biggest fear was coming true. I was being taken away.
“On a little drive. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to stay in a hotel room, if you’re lucky.” She fluffed up my hair, and I leaned back against her like she was giving me a warm hug.
“What are you doing? Sit up straight,” she snapped at me. “Listen, just do what he wants, okay? It won’t be that bad if you go along with it, you understand?”
I didn’t. But I pretended to. I didn’t want our time together to end. I wanted my mom to talk to me forever.
“Good girl.” She smiled at me and my heart fluttered, desperate for her praise.
Our apartment buzzer rang and Mom ran over to answer it. “That’s him. Okay, come here, come here!” she demanded.
I stood with her at the door as the strange man came in and examined me. He was tall and scary looking with a scar under his eye and dirty clothes.
“So, she’s fresh? Never been with anyone?” he questioned my mother as I stood wilting under his angry gaze.
“Yep, she’s intact. So, it’s two grand for the night,” Mom negotiated.
“And I can do whatever I want, right? All the stuff I emailed you about?” He glanced over at my father watching TV in the other room, willfully oblivious to the whole scene.
“Yep, that’s right. Whatever you want,” she chirped.
“Great.” He grabbed me by the arm roughly and took me out in the hall as my mother slammed the door behind us.
My feet squeaked in my worn sneakers against the linoleum floor as he guided me down the hallway and around the corner into the arms of a female police officer.
I was too confused to make a sound.
“We’ve got them,” the man nodded at her.
“Come here, honey, I’ve got you.” The woman wrapped her arms around me and I buried my face against her.
Suddenly a swarm of police ran up the stairwell and down the hall to my parents’ apartment. There was a lot of screaming and commotion as they hauled my folks out in cuffs and dragged them down the hall.
I cried against the woman holding me, confused and scared that I’d done something terrible. Desperate for her embrace. Desperate for any love I could get.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I kept crying over and over.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all over now,” the officer soothed me. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was rotten. Unlovable. Why else was all this happening?
I shake my head and drop my spoon into my bowl with a clang as the tears stream down my face with the memory. “They tried to set it up, but they just put up an ad on Craigslist like a couple of morons,” I sob. “They got busted in a sting operation and arrested for child prostitution and drugs. They’re still locked up.” I choke on my words.
“I’m so sorry.” Sawyer jumps up from his chair and pulls me up into his arms as I cry. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, like I did the day they took my parents away.
“So am I,” I cry.
20
Sawyer
I hold her tight against my chest, angry that she ever had to endure that betrayal by her own parents. By the two people in the world who were supposed to do anything to protect her.
Elsie sniffles as her tears flow. No wonder she’s so obsessed with the approval of strangers. Her parents obviously never gave a shit. What kind of fucking monsters would try to sell their own daughter? Anger bubbles through my veins. For a moment, I consider hunting them down and putting a bullet in their brains like you would for any diseased animal. We wouldn’t let a rabid wolf run around the forest, spreading their sickness, but it’s okay when people do it?
“Have you ever seen them since?” My voice is hoarse, weighed down by the sadness I feel for the little girl she once was. I wish I knew her then. That I could’ve saved her from those experiences.
“No, they were charged and found guilty. I’ve never visited them in prison. At first, it was because my foster family wouldn’t take me.” She hangs her head and I run my hand over her silky hair. “You know what’s really sad? Even after all that, I begged, I mean really begged that first family to take me to see them. I was devastated when they said they wouldn’t. I mean, completely crushed.” She looks up at me and tears fall down her cheeks every time she blinks. I gently wipe them away with my thumbs, wishing I could erase her wounds as easily as I can make her tears disappear.
“I was devastated to be away from them. All I wanted was to be with them. I told myself they would love me more once they were in prison, you know?” Her chin trembles as she tries to sputter the words. “That it had been the drugs that made them act that way, but then one day I finally had a meltdown about my foster parents not taking me to see Mom on visitation day and they lost it on me. They told me my parents didn’t want anything to do with me. Even though they were clean, even though they had time to think about their mistakes, they still didn’t want me to… to… bother them.” She hunches forward, like the weight of her sorrow broke her back and I hold her up.
I won’t let her collapse. I will be her strength when she has none left.
“They just didn’t love me,” she sobs and I can hear the pain of the confused child she once was, in her voice. “They never loved me,” she barely utters the words.
Guilt swirls through me like the Arctic cyclones of wind outside the door. Not just for how ha
rshly I’ve treated her, or how much time I’ve spent judging her. I mean, a little bit for those things, but mostly it’s guilt for my own happy childhood. For the love I grew up never questioning. My parents lived for two things, me and their restaurant and it was always in that order.
I understand now how Elsie and I could have such a different take on The Catcher in the Rye. She already spent her entire life as the outsider. An outsider in her own family. She has lived the pain; she has carried that burden. I never felt that until the thing with Farrah. I chose to turn my back on society, deciding to live alone in the woods. Elsie was never given the option. She was cast away like a piece of trash.
“Hey, I want to do something for you, okay?” I murmur with my cheek pressed against her. Quickly, I kiss the top of her head and look down at her. “I think you’ll like it.” I smile.
Elsie looks up at me with her red-rimmed eyes, confused. “What is it?”
“Wait a sec.” Crossing the floor, I pick up the large pot of water from the stove. I pour it into the basin by the fire, filling up the old-fashioned washing bucket halfway. “I know you’ve been missing taking a shower, so I put together the next best thing.” I hold out my free hand toward the dented basin like I’m offering her a brand-new car.
“You made me a bath?” She sniffles.
“Yep, it’s pretty warm too. Climb in, you’ll feel a lot better.”
I drop the empty pot by the door and Elsie walks over to the edge of her bathtub, peering inside uncertainly. I scrubbed it out earlier, but it’s still in rough shape.
Pink spreads over her cheeks and a sparkle returns to her blue eyes, reminding me of the glittery waves on the lake under the summer sun.
“You did this for me?” she whispers.