Because of Ellison (19 page)

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.

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.

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.

My mouth crashed against hers and her hands pulled at the
bottom hem of my shirt. I grudgingly broke away from the kiss to allow her to
pull my shirt off. My mouth immediately returned once I’d been freed of the
material and I growled when her nails dragged down the skin of my back. I
didn’t care about anything at the moment but giving her what she needed. I
didn’t care if Henry heard us and walked in to shove the muzzle of his gun up
my ass like he’d threatened previously. If she wanted this, if this would fix
her, this is what she was going to get.