The understanding look in Lily’s eye made me feel better because I thought, for once, someone was listening to what I was trying to tell them. Ever since I’d left El on that road, I was pissed off at myself for not having chased her down to make her listen. Sure, it wouldn’t have worked and, in fact, it would have just pissed her off more; but at least I would have tried, at least she would have known my side of the story — my complete side of the story. But like a pathetic bitch, I let her walk away and I may have lost the opportunity to repair what needed to be fixed between us.
“Well, I think El should hear that. But, she’s not at a point where you should approach her on it, Hunter. Something’s been going on with Ellison — even more than this thing with you. She hasn’t been herself lately. She’s sad, or scared, or I don’t know … she’s serious. All the time. I don’t know what’s bothering her, but I can’t let you push yourself on her. You’re going to have to give her time to come to you.”
I looked over towards Ellison’s bedroom window. I hadn’t been able to sleep for shit last night. All I could think about was the fact that the girl of my dreams was sleeping within a thousand feet of where I lay. I couldn’t stand that I wasn’t lying beside her. I fantasized about getting up, sneaking over to her window, breaking in and telling her everything I wanted her to know. There were even two occasions where I physically got up from my bed and got dressed to go over there. But, I didn’t go. Even with the picture of what her face looked like when she walked down that road playing in my head, I couldn’t go to her. I was too scared. Both times I lay back down and hugged the pillow to my chest. I imagined she was sleeping beside me and fell asleep with the imaginary Ellison by my side.
“I know what you’re saying, Lily, and I’ll be patient.” Reaching out, I hugged her to me. I turned around to start clearing the porch and I picked up a pile of towels that had been thrown down near the stairs. “Are these trash or what?”
“Yeah, I think Daddy just used those for cleaning up chemicals. You should probably throw them out.”
Tossing the sodden pile of towels on the grass I reached down and picked up the remaining towel. Something thick was beneath the towel and I turned it over to investigate. My eyes set on what looked like black tubing …
That was — until the head popped up.
“Holy fucking shit!”
I’ll admit it. I screamed like a little girl at that moment and I dropped that towel like it was on fire. My flight down the stairs wasn’t too graceful either, because my foot went through the rotting wood of the first step and launched me face first across the lawn. I didn’t let the grass burn across my cheek faze me and I popped back up and ran like hell until I thought I was far enough away that the little fucker couldn’t slither after me. I had no shame either. I was fully aware that I’d left Lily alone — but we were talking about a snake and that made it every man for himself.
Lily’s laughter gave away the fact that she wasn’t too scared of being on the porch with the incredibly large, most likely poisonous snake. “I told you there was a snake!” I could barely understand what she was saying because she couldn’t stop laughing. “Yep, I recall saying ‘oh look, there’s a burrow’. But noooooo, Mr. City Boy knew better than me.”
She kept babbling her inane nonsense as she stood up to grab a broom. Bending over, she lifted the towel and threw it in the pile on the grass. I couldn’t see exactly what was going on because of the low wall of the porch, but Lily looked like she was poking at the beast with the broom. I finally saw the snake slither along the porch while Lily pushed at it and eventually the damn thing stood up at least three feet in the fucking air.
Okay. I’m going to do it. I’m going to man up and admit that another girlish scream may have escaped me at that moment. Don’t judge. You would have screamed too.
“Watch out, Lily, that thing’s about to fucking eat you!” Lily looked over at me like I was an idiot and continued pushing at the snake with the broom. Eventually, it lowered itself back to the ground and disappeared under the house where Lily had found that hole.
“You can come back now, Hunter. It’s safe.” When I finally returned, she explained, “It’s called a racer. It’s perfectly fucking harmless. When it raises up like that it’s just trying to move along faster.” She chuckled again and grabbed one of the garbage bags out of the box. She was still laughing at me an hour later when we’d finished clearing out a good portion of the junk.
“Whatever, Lily, it’s not funny anymore.”
She giggled. “Oh … no. You’re wrong there. It’s still pretty fucking funny.”
I was embarrassed as shit and I was pissed off.
And I fucking despised nature.
Chapter Fifteen
Ellison
“I’m sorry to tell you this, Ms. James, but your father is a very sick man. The scans that we performed indicated that his cancer is metastatic; meaning, it’s traveled to other places in his body. He’s developed some tumors in his bones.”
My mind refused to process what the doctor was telling me.
“Well, okay, so what do we do? Does he need surgery, or chemo or radiation or what? I mean, whatever it is that’ll fix this, just go ahead and sign him up and tell me when to have him here.”
The doctor’s expression never changed. It was all business all the time with this guy and his face wasn’t giving away anything that he was thinking. I waited for what felt like forever for him to smile and tell me there was some ridiculously expensive medical procedure that would save my father’s life. I knew he would worry that I wouldn’t have the money, and I’d convince him that no matter what, I’d make sure the bill was paid. He was then supposed to smile and tell me that it was a common surgery and that any bonehead doctor could perform it because it was so simple, and I was supposed to breathe out a sigh of relief and know that my father was going to be okay. That’s how this was supposed to happen.
“I’m sorry Ms. James, but you’re father only has a short time to live. We could attempt to extend that time with a combination of chemotherapy and radiation, but it would only be an extension — not a cure.”
That was not how this was supposed to happen.
“What? So, there’s nothing we can do? You’re saying that my dad is going to die — no matter what? I just want to be perfectly clear on what you’re saying, because that’s what it sounded like you just said and there’s no way you can be saying that. It’s … you have to be wrong, right? There are other tests to make sure that we haven’t done yet, right? There has to be.”
I was begging. There was no other way to describe what I was doing at that point but to say I was begging. I could have dropped on my knees at his feet and it wouldn’t have made what I was saying any more like begging. That’s how much I was begging him with the questions I asked.
“I’m sorry, Ms. James. We haven’t told your father the diagnosis as of yet. He’s just now coming out of a mild anesthesia so you can go see him. You’re welcome to be the one to tell him what we found, or if you prefer, I can be there in a few moments to explain.
“No.” I shook my head. “I’ll tell him. It should be me that tells him.”
The doctor nodded and walked off leaving me standing in a waiting room with an audience of sympathetic family members of other patients looking up at me. I didn’t get angry with them for staring, though. I knew that they were only worried that they’d be receiving the same results as well.
Not that I’d imagined it often, but I had imagined how I would react when I was told that I was losing my remaining parent. Losing my mom had been hard enough, but I still didn’t feel like I’d been abandoned. I knew my father was there. I knew there was still someone who was wiser than me, stronger than me and willing to be there for me. So, of course, when I imagined receiving that type of news, I thought I’d be crying — hysterically. I imagined I’d be balled up in the corner of a room somewhere rocking and shaking. What I didn’t imagine would happen is that I would
go completely numb; that I wouldn’t feel anything at all; that some switch in my brain would be thrown; that I’d turn into a pragmatic machine incapable of pain or sorrow. I didn’t imagine that I would be broken.
I steeled my spine and breathed out a large breath to calm myself. I didn’t want daddy seeing me sad. I didn’t want him to know I was scared. I didn’t want him to know I’d gone numb. I wanted him to be in as much peace as he could with the news I was about to give him. I had to be strong — for him.
Walking into the room, I was met with a jovial grin on my father’s face. He was sitting up in bed and waving his hand around in front of him.
“How’re you feeling, Daddy?”
His laughter was unexpected. “Feeling great, baby girl. I don’t know what they gave me, but this shit is great!”
A smile cracked on my lips.
“Well, I have some news for you. I’m afraid it’s not something that I want to tell you.”
His expression became sympathetic. “Oh, baby girl. I know already. I know I’m dying. I’ve known for a while now, I just wanted to wait until the doctors knew as well.” His voice was almost a whisper as he confessed.
For the first time in my life, I saw my father as human. He wasn’t a superhero anymore, impervious to pain, or illness or death. He was just another person, a body that would someday stop working. My reality altered in that moment and I was transferred to a place where my comfortable blanket, my bubble of safety that had always existed around the man before me, was cruelly ripped away and I had to see him for what he was – another man who would one day be nothing more than a memory. I felt exposed and lost, angry and confused.
And then it was lost. The numbness. Somehow, hearing my father admit he knew what was going to happen made it real. It. Was. Real. There wasn’t anywhere I could hide and deny that it was going to happen. And that’s when the dam broke behind my eyes.
My father motioned me to his bed and I sat down beside him. “I’m so sorry, Daddy. I’m so sorry.” His arms wrapped around me and even though he was the one who was dying, he still put his own problem aside to comfort his child.
There’s no feeling more helpless than having to tell someone you love that they are going to go away, that their life is going to end, that they are going to have to walk a journey to some unknown place without you — and that there wasn’t a damn thing you could do about it.
Chapter Sixteen
Hunter
I wasn’t able to sleep again that night. When Ellison and her dad hadn’t returned home by six, I’d figured they were out having a good time. When they hadn’t returned home by 10, I became nervous. But when they hadn’t returned by midnight, I went into full on panic mode.
Around two in the morning, the headlights of Henry’s truck bounced off my bedroom walls. It was so quiet, I was able to hear both truck doors swing open and swing closed, and the same sounds as the front door of their house opened and closed. I could hear Sasha and Bear barking welcome to Ellison and her dad. I jumped up from my bed when the dogs quieted and I quickly threw on some clothes and ran outside. I could see the windows in their kitchen light up as Ellison fed the dogs. I knew when she’d crossed the distance of her house to go into her room because the light turned on there. I knew when she laid down in her bed because the light in her room turned off.
I never felt more like a stalker than I did at that moment, but I couldn’t look away. I walked around to see if the light in Henry’s room was on and my heart jumped to find that he was in bed as well.
I had a decision to make at that moment. I wanted … no … I needed to talk to Ellison. I knew that Lily had warned me to stay away, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to sleep again until I talked to her. But, it had nothing to do with me this time. I knew something was wrong with her. I could feel it. So I made the decision to talk to her. And at the time I’d made that decision, I knew that it was a stupid decision to make. Ironically, however, later on in life, when I remembered that decision, I would realize that it was probably one of the smartest decisions I’d ever made in my life.
My knuckles tapped on her window. Once … twice … three times. The light never turned on, I didn’t hear her footsteps as she walked across the floor of her room. But I did hear the lock on the window click and I opened it without giving her the opportunity to change her mind.
Crawling in, I knocked over a stack of books she had piled up on a small table. I froze halfway in and halfway out just in case the sound had woken Henry. The last thing I needed was to be staring down the barrel of his gun. Ellison sniffled and when I turned my head to look in her direction, I found nothing but shadow. Damn, her room was dark.
A small voice broke the silence. “Don’t worry. That noise won’t wake up daddy. He’s had a rough day.” Another sniffle.
I crawled the rest of the way in. Stumbling over the scattered books, I moved in the direction of her voice. “Ellison? What’s wrong?” My hands found the edge of her bed and I sat down, grateful to have found her.
“He’s going to die, Hunter.” It was a whisper. Her voice cracked as she said those words and my heart tore apart in my chest.
“My daddy is going to die and I’ll be alone. I’ll be on my own. I’ll have to figure things out myself.”
I reached toward the noise and my palm found the warm and wet skin of her cheek. Absently, my thumb wiped away the tears. “Tell me what happened, El. Just talk and I’ll listen.”
“And dump it all on you? That wouldn’t be fair. It’s my problem, not yours.” She was quiet for a moment and I kept my palm to her cheek desperately waiting to feel her jaw move as she spoke again. “You’ve got enough of your own problems. You sure as hell don’t need mine.”
I inched closer to her and I noticed the bed dip as she moved to sit beside me. “El … right now, you’re obviously hurting and I’m not going to let you hurt alone. You say what you need to say. Pretend I’m not here. Pretend there’s nothing to hear you. I’ll take whatever load you can’t bear and I’ll carry it out of this room when I leave. But dammit, I’m not going to leave you here alone to bear it by yourself. So cry or scream or hit me. You do whatever you need to do. We’ll keep the lights off. You won’t see me, but I’m here for you to use me. Just talk El — don’t think of me as poor pathetic Hunter who needs to straighten out his shit. Just think of me as a way to let go of everything that’s hurting you.” I paused but quietly added, “You’ve been taking care of me since I’ve been here, El; please — just let me take care of you.”
I couldn’t see her face. It was so dark; it felt like I was speaking into a void. Somehow, though, the darkness made it easier. There were no distractions. It was just me and El — our thoughts, our feelings — and the truth of what made us who we are.
She grabbed my hand and pulled me down to lay behind her and it felt like it took forever for her to speak again. The breeze from the fan in her room knocked her scent against me. Her fingertips traced along my hand that was resting on her stomach from where my arm wrapped around her. My body was buzzing to be in her presence — but it wasn’t sexual, it wasn’t anything she could do for me. It was about her — about making her better — about, for once, being there for someone other than myself, no matter how it tore my heart out to do so. It was about love.
I was finally learning what that word meant.
“You know what I need? I need to stop feeling what I’m feeling right now.” I could feel her body turn around and my breath was stolen to know that her face was inches from mine. “I need to feel something different — anything different than this. It’s not the thoughts in my head that are hurting me, it’s the feelings that are consuming me. I need you to help me feel something else.”
Her lips brushed across mine and I should have pulled back — but I was a selfish bastard. She wasn’t thinking straight, she was crushed, and I knew better than to take advantage of that. But I just. couldn’t. pull. away.
Her tongue slid along the crease
of my lips and I opened up allowing her to brush her tongue along mine. Our mouths molded to each other and when a small moan left her mouth to float into my mouth, I shivered. I couldn’t see her, there was nothing but the sounds of our actions to hear, and it made touching her even more amazing. My hands explored her face and my fingers eventually buried themselves into her hair. Our hearts beat against our chests that were plastered against each other. My body was completely obliterated by an emotion I’d never known. It wasn’t lust, it wasn’t a desperate need for a release. It was more than that. So much more and it hurt to feel it. It caused tears to well in my eyes and my mind to shut down for short spurts of time. Her nails dragged along the shirt at my back and I pressed closer to her. When I felt her foot wrap around and her legs spread beneath me, I had to fight to do what I knew was the right thing to do.
Pulling back, I was breathless when I said, “We can’t do this. I’d be an asshole to do this. You’re not thinking clearly right now, Ellie, and I can’t let this happen.” They were the hardest words I’d ever spoken.
The room grew silent again — the only sound was the heavy breathing of our bodies. “You said you’re not here. So, technically, you wouldn’t be an asshole. You’d just be taking care of me in the way I need to be taken care of. Please don’t say no. Just let me lose myself in you for however long I can. Just let me hide in you for a few hours. Please.” If the words that she spoke weren’t enough to destroy me, the sound of her voice was. It was a quiet but desperate plea that she made to me in that moment.
She didn’t need to say another word. If she needed an escape, I would give it to her. And if things had to return to they way they were the next morning, I was going to have to accept it. It didn’t matter if it destroyed me in the process.