Because of Ellison (24 page)

“I don’t know. I was just thinking that you were right. I
should live life like that — well not exactly like that, but at least how
I want. I don’t want to go home, El. I don’t want to leave
you,
I don’t want to leave Lily and Bill. I feel like I’m leaving my family —
my actual family. I’m going to back to live an apartment off campus, by myself,
and I have no desire to be there.”

“You have to go to college, Hunter … ”

I put a finger over her mouth to silence her. “I know I have
to go to college. But I don’t have to go to Harvard. I don’t have to follow in
my father’s footsteps and become everything they want
..
I can go anywhere in this world and become what I want. I can go to school here
just as easily as I can go to school there. You’re the one who told me that. I
don’t see any difference about where I choose to go to school.”

It was slight, but I could see her
head
shake
in disagreement with what I was saying. So I pushed harder. “El,
you need people by your side right now. With everything that’s going on with
your dad … ”

“Exactly, Hunter!
With everything that’s
going on with my dad.
It’s going to get ugly. I don’t know if you
realize how bad it’s going to get, but you don’t need to be worrying yourself
with my situation or Lily’s or Bill’s while you’re in school. That’s why I’m
not starting right away. I know better than to attempt it.”

“I know, El and that’s why I should be around. Not only will
you need help, but so will Lily and Bill when they find out. Henry is family to
them as well.”

“So you’d be dropping class and homework and everything else
every time you thought I needed something. No, Hunter. I can’t do that to you.
Your focus needs to be on school; not on what’s going on here.” Tears welled in
her eyes and she pulled apart from me entirely. Her arms immediately wrapped
around her mid-section. When she’d stepped farther away, she continued. “You
have a full scholarship to a top university. You have a brain that can do
amazing things with the information you’ll learn there. You need to be there.
You need to become something incredible, in whatever the hell field you choose,
and you need to make a difference because you’re the type of person who can.”

“I’ll start late … ”

“Hunter, please. Please don’t make me feel any worse about
this than I already do.” She looked down at her feet and spoke quietly when she
admitted, “I’m mad at everything right now. I’m mad at cancer itself, if that
makes any sense. I’m mad that it’s taking my dad’s life, I’m mad that it’s
taking my dad from me and that it’s affecting my brother and everyone else. I’m
mad because I feel helpless to do anything but prepare as best I can for it.
It’s like a damn tornado and the minute you hear sirens, the only thing you can
do his hide and wait as it mows you down. So, I can’t stop that shit. But I can
stop this. I can keep it from altering your life in any way. You need to go.
Don’t worry about me. We’ll talk over whatever social site you want, but we’ll
do it while you’re in Massachusetts being brilliant like you are supposed to
be.”

I slowly walked up to her. Arguments to what she said
slammed against my thoughts, but I knew better than to voice them. Ellison had
made up her mind and it was like punching your way through a brick wall to try
and get her to change it. We would end up fighting, and that was the last thing
I wanted to happen between us before I left.

Reaching her, I noticed the tears that streamed lightly down
her cheeks. My hand moved to brush them away and my thumb ran over her lips.
Her sad blue eyes locked with mine almost instantly after I’d touched her.

“Why can’t I just stay here and love you?” A single tear
broke free of my eye. I felt it make its path down my cheek. It grew cold
against the heat of my skin and my body trembled from the strength it took for
me to keep the rest of the tears to follow in its path. I was pleading with her
with that one sentence. I knew something was wrong with what I was doing. My
heart felt like it had been placed in a vice and I struggled to breath around
the pain that was constricting my chest.

When she saw me cry, her tears fell harder and her face contorted
from the sobs she was attempting to choke back. She tried to look away, but I
grabbed her chin and pulled her face back to me. Leaning down slowly, I placed
a kiss on the tears staining her cheeks. She continued staring up at me. Her
body was completely still. When my mouth fell on hers she didn’t step away like
I swore she would. She stepped forward, hesitantly wrapping her hands around my
neck while I took her into my arms. My tongue brushed across her mouth and when
she deepened the kiss, my heart fell into my feet. This was her way of saying
goodbye. It was her way of taking the last chance she had to love me and
actually doing something with it. I couldn’t hold it back any longer and we
both cried during that kiss, our combined tears sliding along our mouths,
adding salt to the taste of our lips.

The engine for the plane started behind us and I forced
myself to break away from the kiss knowing that Lily would come bouncing back
at any second. My entire body tensed to look down at Ellison knowing it would
be the last time I’d see her in person for a long time.

“I’ll be in touch with you as soon as I get home. Keep your
phone on and try and check the computer every once in a while, okay.”

She smiled. “Sure thing.”

My eyebrow arched in disbelief that she would actually do as
I’d asked. When Lily finally returned, I turned to her and said, “Hey, Lil,
make sure Ellison checks her computer and phone every day. She says she will
but I’m not sure I trust her.”

Lily smiled brightly and put her arm around Ellison who then
rolled her eyes. “Are you serious? You’re
siking
Lily
on me? That’s unfair.”

My
shit eating
grin took up the
majority of my face at that moment. “I figured it would be a reliable method to
ensure my interests were met.”

They both laughed just before Lily lost the smile on her
face when she realized it was time to say goodbye. She walked up and hugged me
tightly. Looking up, she lightly patted me on the cheek. “You be good up there.
Don’t do anything stupid, and please, for the love of all things holy, please
do not go anywhere near ‘Crack Whore Barbie’. That woman is nothing but
aggravating and I’m really upset you stopped me from whipping her ass.”

My smile was genuine as I looked down at my tiny, yet
surprisingly intimidating cousin. “I’ll keep my distance. I can guarantee that.
She’s going to school in New York so I won’t even be in the same state as her.”

“Well, thank God for small miracles. Alright, Cuz, I’ll talk
to you soon.” She hugged me once more and walked away to wait in Ellison’s Jeep.

I stared at Ellison while she looked everywhere but me. It
crushed me to see her fighting so hard against what she was feeling.

“So, I guess it’s time.”

She looked at me finally after I’d spoken to her. “Yeah.”
She stepped toward me and reached down to take my hand. Absently, her finger
spun the silver ring around mine. “You take care of yourself up there, Hunter.
Have fun, live life, but do it in a way where you’re not hurting yourself. Just
be smart about what you do from now on.”

“I will. You’ll get to hear all about it every day when I’m
constantly texting and emailing.” Smiling sadly, I leaned down to place a kiss
on her forehead. She nodded, sniffled, and then stepped away from me.

“Aright, I’m going to make the first move and get the hell
out of here. Have a safe flight. I’ll talk to you when you get home.” She spun
on her heel and didn’t give me time to respond. I could tell it took all her
strength to keep taking each step away from me and as the distance was put
between us, my heart beat a little bit slower and a little bit longer to watch
her walk away.

Grabbing the bags from the ground, I made my way to the
plane. The pilot stood at the top of the stairs and smiled down at me as I
approached. “Good to see you again, Mr. McCormick. Did you enjoy your time in
Florida?”

I put one foot in front of the other as I forced myself up
those steps. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Ellison climb up in her
Jeep. The brake lights quickly flashed and flickered away as she sped toward
the exit runway. As she made her way out, her tires squealed while they ripped
through the sand, and howled when they found purchase on the underlying
asphalt. I heard the pilot above me gasp into his open palm at the sight of it.

He chuckled after a second and commented, “It’s a good thing
that girl is not your pilot; you’d never see New York!” He turned to enter the
plane. Blowing out a deep breath, I lifted my feet up another three steps and
boarded a plane that would take me over a thousand miles from where I wanted to
be.

~
    
~
    
~

The flight back sucked because I couldn’t sleep the entire
way. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I got home from the airport
because I’d never been at the house and awake when the sun was shining. After exiting
the flight, I waited patiently for my father to pick me up. Fifteen minutes
passed and finally I saw the cherry apple red Porsche come pulling up to the
curb. I folded myself into the small car and my father hit the gas faster than
I could pull on my seat belt.

“Welcome back, Hunter. How did it go down there?”

His tone of voice told me that even though he was asking how
I liked my trip, he didn’t really care about my answer either way. He was going
through the formalities of conversation typically expected of a normal,
well-adjusted family.

“I know you’ve been talking to Bill, so I’m surprised you
even have to ask that question.”

He scoffed at my response but didn’t attempt to speak to me
again the rest of the ride home. Pulling into his garage, I rolled my eyes to
see that he’d added to his collection since I’d been gone. El’s words replayed
in my head and I tried to remember that maybe my father’s fascination with the
cars was a reminder of his youth rather than merely an outward reflection of
his success and wealth.

When I walked through the living room of the main house, my
mother stood up from the couch and crossed the room to hug me. She pulled away
to look up at me and ask, “How’d it go down there?” She seemed genuinely
interested to know.

“It was good. I’d like to spend more time with them now that
I’ve gotten to know them better. Maybe we could fly them up for Thanksgiving in
three months. They could stay the entire four days.”

Yes. I was attempting to corner my mother, but it really
irritated me to think about how they’d all but rejected Bill and Lily and how
they’d done nothing to help, even when Lily’s mom was killed.

My mom fidgeted in front of me. Her hands nervously wrung
over each other and she looked to my father across the room for support.
“Hunter, I don’t think now is a good time to talk about the holidays. I mean,
they are so far away, who knows what will come up between now and then.” She
patted me on the shoulder and walked me towards the French doors at the back of
the house. “What I do need to talk to you about is what you will be taking with
you to Massachusetts. The movers will be here in three days. We’ll need to have
everything sorted and ready to be packed when they arrive.”

I was feeling hostile at that moment and I continued pushing
the issue with Bill. “I’ll be taking everything. That way you can turn it back
into a guest house which will be perfect for when Bill and Lily come visit,
right? They’d have their own place to stay outside of the main house.”

Huffing out a breath, my mother’s hand fell forcefully
against the door handle before she threw the door open in front of me. “Hunter,
I told you, I don’t want to talk about it. If you plan on taking everything,
that’s fine, but the furniture will need to stay. We rented you a fully
furnished apartment near the school. You’ll have no need for anything. Your
father and I wanted to show you how proud we are of you going to school, so we
spared no expense in the home you’ll be staying in while you are there.”

Smiling, she looked up at me like I should be jumping up and
down clapping at her generosity. However, the only thing I was thinking was
that, once again, my parents were throwing out money to appease me, as a
distraction to avoid having anything to do with me as a person. Not once had my
father said he was proud of me. I wouldn’t have cared before the summer, but
now it felt like a slap in the face.

Tightening my grip on my bags, I stepped outside.

“Oh, Hunter. Your father also purchased another car for you
to use.
It’s parked by the guesthouse
. Try not to
destroy it this time.” She smiled again and closed the door.

I looked up at the guesthouse and dreaded the climb to get
to it. However, when I’d halfway tackled the horrid climb, I noticed that it
wasn’t as hard as it used to be. El’s damn hikes had not only straightened out
my thought process, they’d built up my physical stamina. For the first time in
my fucking life, I felt like I could run a marathon without keeling over dead
at mile two.

I pulled my key from my pocket and let myself into the
house, immediately heading back to my bedroom to throw down my bags. When I
walked in the room, all my electronics and credit cards had been returned to
me. They were
layed
out neatly on my bed and in the
center sat a set of keys to the new BMW sitting outside in the driveway.

I picked up my phone almost immediately and plugged it in.
Flicking it on, I quickly typed out a text to Ellison.

Me: Made it home
safely. Miss you guys already.

It was a quick message that was intended to see if she’d
turned her phone on like I’d asked her to do. I hoped for a response, but deep
down, I didn’t expect one.