Old Wounds: Little Battles Part 13

"Ssssso tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

I heard him take a deep breath. "W-w-will you n-not get hhhhigh?"

I spun around, ready to be absolutely and completely p.i.s.sed off at him. I could be high if I wanted to, and I certainly didn't need his permission. Then I saw his face and how absolutely torn he looked, and I couldn't be angry. When I thought about it, I was pretty d.a.m.n sure Elliott would be upset if I got angry with him for asking. Actually, I was oddly proud of him.

"Yeah, fine. I mean, sure." I swallowed hard, wondering how the h.e.l.l I was going to get through an entire day without getting high. Well, I would try anyway. I felt scared looking at Elliott and his all-too-hopeful smile. All this s.h.i.+t was scary. I'd never really wanted to try for anything before and here I was making this pledge.

He came over to me and I turned back around, reaching out for some green chunk of rock on his shelf. I squeezed it tightly in my palm and angled my face away from Elliott. His presence was like the sun, his body radiating heat and light and energy into me.

He held my left hand with both of his, and I squeezed the rock tighter in my right. My breath caught as I felt like giving up everything I'd been holding onto so tightly. I wanted to give him everything inside of me. I wanted the light of his sun to stamp out the coldness of the dark night in my heart.

It was in these moments that my time with Elliott was the most dangerous. It was times like these that he made me feel safe and secure, and it was in these minutes that were ours alone where I gave him everything I never wanted to.

My hair fell like a s.h.i.+eld between us. He took one of his hands away and I squeezed the rock again when I felt his fingertips brush my cheek. I'd told him that I didn't like that, and I wanted to get upset and angry, but I couldn't.

"D-don't hhhide, p-please."

I didn't understand him at all. Why wasn't he trying to get me in his bed? Why would he give a s.h.i.+t if I hid? I turned around, still holding the rock, and lightly pressed my fist into his ribs. I wanted to mold myself to him and undo the b.u.t.tons of his s.h.i.+rt, but as I applied pressure to his side, he took in a sharp breath and closed his eyes tightly.

"What's wrong?" I asked him quietly.

"N-nothing."

Bulls.h.i.+t. Elliott was a terrible liar. His eyes told the truth when his mouth did not. "Why does your side hurt, Elliott?"

He dropped my hand and moved away, but not far. "I-it's o-okay, S-Sophie."

Liar.

"Why can't I hide if you do?"

"I'm n-n-not hhhhhiding." He came back to me and retook my hand, while I squeezed the rock again. "M-my sssside is fine."

It was because of my mutinous body that did whatever it wanted instead of listening to me, that I found myself pressed against him, breathing in his orange earth scent. Careful of his seemingly injured side, I slid my hands around his waist and hugged him.

Measuring my breaths, I kept telling myself that it was okay, that I could be this close to him. I felt like I was moving, even though I was pretty sure I was totally still. He rested his chin on the top of my head, and my heart started racing as I fought desperately between wanting this comfort from him, and needing to be very far away from his touch. This felt so good. Too good.

I wasn't stupid. I recognized the want, the need, for him that had been created within me. But like I told him, it was stupid to want what you couldn't have. Although he was so incredibly willing to give himself to me, what he offered came at such a high price.

If this continued, I'd let him see me; I'd tell him things that even I didn't want to know. Once someone knew something they couldn't ever not know it, and once he was aware of everything, he would leave, so he shouldn't even try.

I pushed away from him, still mindful of the pain in his side. I wanted to go to the other side of the room, a safer place where he wasn't, but he took my hand again and sure enough I was bound to him once more.

He kept me close to him. "Elliott," I exhaled, not entirely sure why I was saying his name like that.

"D-d-don't get hhhhigh tomorrow a-a-and I'll tell you ab-b-bout mmmy r-ribs."

Sat.u.r.day morning was the outright worst Sat.u.r.day morning known to man. I woke up after only a few hours of sleep, wis.h.i.+ng that I had never made that stupid promise to Elliott. I had the perfect opportunity, since Tom was gone by the time I left my room, and I had plenty of pot. It would have helped me fall back to sleep, but the stupid nagging voice inside my head wouldn't let me disappoint Elliott.

I nearly fell to my death on the stupid, slanted stairs in Tom's old-as-s.h.i.+t house. I burned my finger on the coffee burner since the carafe wasn't the correct one for the model, and it took me longer than ever to read my blood sugar so that I could inject my insulin. When I did, I jabbed the lancet in the finger that always hurt and it bled like h.e.l.l. A small red drop found its way onto the knee of my jeans.

I took the bus to the strip mall about a mile from Elliott's house. I could've let him pick me up, and now that I was hoofing it the rest of the way, I wished my stupid, prideful mouth would have accepted when he'd offered to pick me up.

I held the rock from the night before in my right fist. I wondered if he missed it, or if he even knew that I had it.

He looked so good in jeans and a light blue t-s.h.i.+rt when he opened the door. He was so much more comfortable in his own home than he was at school. Then he grabbed his coat as we went to the quiet greenhouse, and I was amazed by how warm it was in there. I looked at the plants, which were no longer sprouts but actual plants, and I immediately felt like s.h.i.+t.

If I'd been high, I wouldn't have felt like the worst person on the planet.

"I'm sorry."

"Ffffor w-what?"

"I'm not really fair to you, am I?" He looked at me, questioningly. "You give more than you get from me."

Elliott shook his head. "Y-you g-give a-a-a llllot."

His eyes said he was lying. "Your lies make baby Jesus cry, Elliott. I'm a bad lab partner."

I almost regretted trying to lighten the mood just a little when he looked down, but then his mouth slowly turned up into a smile.

"I haven't gotten high all day, you know," I whispered.

What the h.e.l.l did I want? Diabetic cookies and a gold star that said "Elliott Dalton approved?"

Then I realized that my reward was the beautiful smile that rarely graced his face, and I wanted to bask in it forever, but I remembered he promised me something in return. "So, what happened to your side?"

The smile faded and he shook his head. "C-C-C-Ch-Chr-Chris."

"What the f.u.c.k did he do?"

Again, Elliott shook his head and he held up a hand as if to tell me that his ribs didn't hurt that badly. "Hhhe j-just hhhhit me."

"Why?" My teeth were clenched. I wanted to hurt Anderson.

"D-does hhhhe n-need a reason?"

No matter how much I yearned to beat the s.h.i.+t out of Chris for hurting Elliott, we spoke no more of it. It was obviously a subject Elliott didn't want to talk about, and I was pretty sure it was because he was embarra.s.sed. I wished he wasn't embarra.s.sed. I wished he'd just kick the s.h.i.+t out of the guy and get it over with.

We went inside and started cooking dinner.

"You made your own barbeque sauce?"

David's loud question shook me out of my quiet thoughts as I stared at my food. I'd been trying to avoid too much talking. I wasn't high at all, and it was incredibly difficult to hold much of a conversation with anyone.

I cleared my throat. "Uh, yeah, all you really need is tomatoes, hickory smoke, mola.s.ses, and a couple of spices."

I wanted dinner to be over so that I could go back up to Elliott's room with him. Alone.

"You have an artful eye for plating, Sophie," Jane said. "The colors and shapes are beautiful."

"Yeah, whatever." She could stop saying s.h.i.+t like that any time now.

It wasn't until I was in the solace of Elliott's room that I was comfortable again, and it was with that comfort that I was sitting on his couch with him beside me.

It was incredibly new to me, because every single cell in my body was directing me to climb into his lap, lock my arms around him, and wriggle around until we were naked and attached to each other. The only things that kept my hands off of him were how incredibly nervous he looked, and the fact that he hadn't touched me.

It was ridiculous. I could be riding him right now, but no, I was stone-cold sober, sitting next to him with no part of my body touching him.

When Elliott took a deep breath, I focused on his face. He put his hand on my cheek, brus.h.i.+ng my hair back before it was actually there.

"Y-you're sss...o...b..beautiful, S-S-Sophie."

Suddenly, I was very far from Elliott's room...

It was dusk and despite the air being on, my room was way too hot and humid after baking in the Florida sun all day. It was stuffy and uncomfortable.

He was touching my face and it was almost painful. I felt like I couldn't breathe. I didn't want him to touch me because the very nearness of him caused my blood to grow icy, making the heat of my room contrast with my incredibly cold body.

s.h.i.+vers involuntarily a.s.saulted me and I swallowed hard against the fear this man created by simply touching my cheek the way he was. His seemingly tender action would only s.h.i.+ft into its polar opposite soon. It confused me, and I had no idea if I was supposed to feel comfort from him, or if I should antic.i.p.ate the moment when he would change.

Because it was going to come.

When he spoke, it was like millions of fire ants crawling up my back. I hated his voice. I hated the feel of his breath across my skin. I wanted to move; I wanted to jump off of my bed and run for the door. I wanted to hide in the closet or under the bed, even though I knew that I was too big and that he would find me. I wanted to run out the front door and never come back. I wanted to run all the way to Maryland. I wanted to make him stop touching me like that, but I couldn't move, because, as usual, my body had shut down and it was all I could do to keep my heart beating and my lungs breathing.

So I was trapped inside my body as I waited for him to do what he always did.

But I so desperately wanted him to stop touching my face.

"Mmm. You are so beautiful. Did you know that, Sophie? Do you know how simply beautiful you are?"

I shook my head, my mouth unwilling to move, to talk, even if I had the voice to speak.

"Smile for me, Sophie. There's nothing to be sad about."

I smiled like he told me to, but it wasn't real. I couldn't even remember what a real smile felt like.

He rubbed his thumb over my lower lip and I looked away until I found the crack in the drywall. A small spider had set up shop there, its webbing covering the corner.

"There, that's better." Both of his incredibly large hands cupped my face, his thumbs stroking my lips. "Now open your mouth a little."

"Please," I finally whispered, not knowing exactly where the courage to speak had come from. "I don't want to."

He s.h.i.+fted my face so that I couldn't look at the happy little spider hidden away in its little crack. I had to focus on his mouth.

"Don't make me tell your mother how bad you've been, Sophie. You know she doesn't like it when she finds out exactly how bad you really are."

I tensed and held my breath. "But it..." I stopped speaking as he put his hands in my hair, his fingers tightening.

I blinked rapidly, my hand immediately coming up to bat Elliott's away from my face.

"Stop f.u.c.king touching my face."

He sat up straight, looking panicked and scared. "I-I'm sssssssorry."

I felt so sick. I didn't want him to look at me like that, but I couldn't stop him. My stomach churned and clenched. All of my muscles ached and I realized how tightly coiled they were.

With every ounce of energy I had, I launched myself off of his couch and flung open the door, which was quite tricky because Elliott always locked it. Across the hall, I found the bathroom and emptied the dinner I'd just eaten into the toilet. Even after my stomach was empty, I kept heaving.

When it finally stopped, I rinsed my mouth with water, then swished several times with the mouthwash I'd found on the counter. The burn of the acid felt good against the raw portions of my tongue and cheeks.

I opened up the medicine cabinet and found the Mecca of prescription drugs. There were s.h.i.+tloads of brown bottles packed into this tiny little cabinet. I searched through them until I found some with names I knew. Then I played eeny-meeny-miney-moe for which one I would actually take.

When I had the two large white pills in my hand, I downed one, not even needing water to get that s.h.i.+t into my belly. The other one I crushed up with the handle of someone's green toothbrush and snorted that s.h.i.+t as quickly as I could.

I pocketed a few more pills, not enough for anyone to notice they were missing right away, and then I sank down to the floor to wait for the numbness to kick in. It was going to kick in hard. I knew that. I wanted that. I needed that.

As he whispered in my ear to be quiet, I vaguely felt bad for breaking my promise to Elliott, but I needed that man's voice to get the h.e.l.l out of my head, because I didn't want to be quiet, and I wanted to stop feeling his ghost fingers tickling my cheek and rubbing over my lips.

I sat in Elliott's car, staring at Tom's house for far too long. Whatever the h.e.l.l I'd snorted had hit me like a ton of bricks and all I wanted to do was sit still and become a tree. My body rooted itself to the pa.s.senger seat. That s.h.i.+t had effectively taken away all thoughts of whatever it was that I didn't want to think about.

But as I turned to look at him, knowing that he knew I was high now, the disappointment pushed through that blissful numb. I was trying to be good for him, but I wasn't good. I wished he'd just go away. Why couldn't he just figure me out and decide that I was too messed up for him? I'd broken my promise and I knew that Elliott would never break any promise he ever made. Especially not to me.

He didn't hide from the bulls.h.i.+t, he saturated himself in it. He was so much stronger than I was.

"I'm ssssssorry."

"What?" I asked, my chest feeling heavier than it probably should have. "What are you sorry for?"

Holy s.h.i.+t, the look in his eyes made me want to cry. Would I even be capable of crying? I'd stopped that s.h.i.+t a long time ago and I wondered if I had any tears left to shed.

"I'm f.u.c.ked up, Elliott." I nodded slowly. "I'm fully aware of that. Are you?"

"Am I-I-I fffffff..."

"Are you aware that I'm f.u.c.ked up?" Elliott's eyes danced around my face until he nodded, looking ashamed of his admission. "Then you should be running away from me." He shook his head. I took a deep breath. "So what are you sorry for?" I asked as I bit the inside of my cheek.

"I upset y-you. I shhhhouldn't hhave t-t-t-t-t..."

If it was possible, I felt even s.h.i.+ttier because someone like Elliott was worried that he'd upset me because he'd touched my face. If only I'd been a normal girl! He deserved a normal girl. A girl who could let herself be touched. Who wanted to be touched. A girl who didn't think about messed-up s.h.i.+t all the time. A girl who wasn't too wrapped up in her own pain to give a s.h.i.+t about anyone else.

He deserved more than me. He deserved better than me.

"Elliott," I said, trying to calm down so I wouldn't upset him further because I hated when he looked so lost and panicked, "I'm the screw-up here, okay? You didn't do anything to cause me to..." I licked my lips, not really wanting to talk anymore. "I have to go now."

"W-w-w-why did you get hhhigh?"