Because of Ellison (30 page)

My stomach hurt and I felt sick to hear him say it. I wasn’t
sure how I was able to cry after all the crying I’d been doing over the past
weeks, but somehow, my body found a way to produce tears and I could feel them
slowly trailing down my cheeks.

“You were the one thing, Hunter — the one thing that
my dad’s illness didn’t destroy. The one thing that I was able to protect and
the one victory I had over all of this. You ruined that for me by coming back.”
My voice cracked as I spoke, but I wanted him to understand how I felt.

He looked at me for a long time. His eyes searched my face
and my body — and they briefly flicked to look at my father before
locking back to mine. His voice was quiet but deep, the timbre carrying
perfectly as he slowly responded. “Have you ever stopped to think about that
for a second, El? You are bound and determined to have at least the one victory
by protecting me — but to accomplish that task, you’re pushing me
completely away in the process. So, while you may be winning one small thing,
you’re losing something much bigger than you realized.”

My breath caught and my heart constricted at what he was
saying.

“School will be there when I get back to it, wherever I end
up going, it’ll be there. You need me now and I need to be here for you now. We
need each other. I know you were lying out there when you said you didn’t love
me. You’re a horrible liar.”

I chuckled. He was right - I was a horrible liar.

His finger came to tilt my chin up to face him. Whispering,
he said, “I’m not going to kiss you in front of your father, but know that if
we were anywhere else, that is exactly what I would be doing to you right now.
So, I’m going to bed to keep myself from doing what I want to do at this
moment. Please — I’m begging you - get some sleep as well.”

I sniffled and tried to blink back an errant tear. “I will.”

He smiled as he released my chin and turned to walk into the
hall that led to my bedroom. I watched him as he moved and when he was out of
sight, I went around the room to turn off all the lights but the ones on the
tree. I sat down in a recliner next to my father’s bed and reached out to hold
his hand in mine. My eyelids were heavy and my vision was fuzzy from exhaustion
but I couldn’t help and stare at the tree for a little while before falling
asleep. Decorating it was the last thing I would ever do for my father.

~
    
~
    
~

The first thing I noticed was how cold his hand was in mine.
Standing up, I saw that a red glow emanated from behind the curtains. The sun
had just crested over the horizon, providing just enough light that I could see
around the room. Pushing up from my chair, I moved to my father’s bedside and
looked down at his face. His eyes didn’t move from sleep beneath his lids and I
placed my hand on his chest to find that he wasn’t breathing. Quickly I moved
my hand to his neck and I couldn’t find a pulse. I almost collapsed right there
on the bed when I realized he was gone.

The numbness returned almost instantly. I felt shattered,
broken and out of touch with everything. I felt disconnected and reality had
altered and shifted, leaving me behind in a world that no longer existed. It
was a moment when the adrenaline left the body because the battle had been
fought and all the emotions you’d been holding back came rushing through in a
painful and suffocating wave, draining you of every drop of energy you had
left. And even though I knew those emotions existed, I couldn’t connect enough
to feel them. It was clinical and cold and it felt like a protective bubble of
sorts. A soft place where I could float and my mind or heart could be protected
from the full brunt of the impact. I’d just lost a friend, a parent and the
only person I could rely on for advice and support. He wouldn’t be there to
walk me down the
aisle,
he wouldn’t be there to know
my children. But even through the numbness, one emotion did force its way
through me. I was suddenly terrified of everything.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring at him, but when
I’d sat there long enough, I pushed up from the bed and slowly walked in the
direction of my bedroom. The door squeaked when it opened and I padded through
the dark room and crawled up onto the bed. I lay my body over Hunter’s and my
cheek rested against his chest so I could listen to his heartbeat. The movement
from his breathing soothed me. I cherished the feel of his body beneath me in
that moment and I buried my face against him so that all I could smell was
him
. My hands came up to grasp the sides of his shirt when I
curled into a tight ball beside him. I was hiding in him — again.

“Ellison?” He sounded out of it when he first woke up, but
within seconds he was more alert. “El, what’s wrong?”

I didn’t answer at first — couldn’t say it out loud
because, to do so, would make it real.

“Ellison?” He shook me and then pushed up on his elbow to try
and look at my face. “What happened?”

I sounded like a fucking robot when I finally answered, “My
dad … he died.”

Hunter

Sitting up, I tried to process what she’d just said to me. I
wanted to ask her to repeat it, but, at the same time, I didn’t want to make
her say it again. Not something like that. I pulled her body against mine and I
noticed how still she was in my arms, every muscle in her body was tense.

“What do you need me to do, El? Whatever you need, please,
just tell me what to do.”

“I need you to wake up
Jake ….”

I jumped to hear her voice. I was expecting her to fight
against me helping, to pull her usual obstinate bullshit, but she didn’t even
attempt.

“There’s a phone number to the nurse and the funeral home
written down on a piece of paper. He needs to call them.” She sounded distant
and lost.

Reluctantly, I rolled her to lay her on the mattress and I
stood up. I moved to exit the room and she said, “When you get done with that,
will you come back … please.”

I nodded ‘yes’ and she curled up into a ball, hugging a
pillow to her chest.

Walking down the hall to get her brother, I couldn’t help
but peek into the living room to look at Henry’s bed. I couldn’t imagine what
El was going through and I hated to admit that I was glad she’d asked me to go
back to her room — the last thing I wanted to do was walk in that living
room and see Henry up close. I didn’t know if I could handle it.

Jake was obviously upset when I woke him up, so I tried to
calm him down enough to get him to make the calls. Once he was able to go take
care of it, I returned to El’s room. I crawled behind her on the bed and pulled
her to me. She didn’t say anything and I could tell she wasn’t sleeping either.
I stayed quiet as I held her. Within an hour, the nurse had arrived and needed
to speak with Ellison. I woke her up and stayed with her as she dealt with all
the details. Once the funeral home had arrived, Ellison was filling out
paperwork for them and I took the opportunity to speak to the nurse privately.

She smiled when I approached her and I introduced myself.
“Hey, I’m Hunter, El’s friend. I was hoping you could tell me what I need to do
for her over the next few days. I’m worried about how she’s acting and I’m not
sure if there’s something I should be doing.”

The nurse looked sympathetic when she answered, “Everyone
grieves differently, Hunter. From what I can tell with Ellison, she’s in shock
right now and that’s to be expected. The best thing you can do is let her deal
with this as she sees fit, as long as it’s not in a way that can harm her. Be
there for her, but don’t force yourself on her. I’ve gotten to know her over
these past few weeks. She holds things in, I can see that, but for the next
week or so, let her handle this in a way she feels comfortable — give her
time before trying to push her through it, okay?”

I nodded and waited for everyone to leave. The medical
equipment was left behind and that made the scene more depressing. Ellison sat
on the couch staring off into nothing. Crossing the room, I picked her up and
cradled her to me as I carried her back to her room. We slept for the rest of
the day.

~
    
~
    
~

The next two weeks were busy. I didn’t see Ellison much
because she was dealing with funeral arrangements and financial and estate
matters. While she was busy with those things, I went to the local college and
went through the application process. I hoped that they could offer me a
scholarship much like Harvard. It wasn’t that my family couldn’t afford
school,
it was just that I didn’t want to ask my parents for
another fucking dime. At the time I applied, it was too late to start school
again during the spring semester, so I applied to start the following fall. It
would give me eight months without much to do, but it was the best I could do
with the choices I’d made. I’d been accepted almost immediately, but a decision
was yet to be made regarding the financial arrangements for my education. At
some point, I needed to return up north to collect my stuff from the apartment
my parents had rented for me, but, luckily, I had time to get those
arrangements handled before starting school in Florida.

Ellison and I saw each other in passing and she would
politely stop and talk to me, but she was distant again — almost as if
she operated on autopilot. The energy that normally exuded from her was absent.
The nurse’s words kept replaying in my head and I tried to give Ellison time to
handle her father’s death in a way that was comfortable for her. I couldn’t
understand what she was going through and I searched online trying to find
information that would help me talk to her or interact with her in a way that
was healthy for her.

When I saw her, I wanted to say the normal things: ‘
He’s in a better place, his pain is over,
life goes on
’, but it wasn’t what she needed to hear. Maybe it comforts
some, but it wouldn’t comfort Ellison, she was too unusual to be satisfied with
the standard phrases that accompanied the deaths of the people we love.

I’d cleaned up the campsite I’d erected in the driveway. I
vacillated between keeping up my vigil until she was ready to talk and worrying
that the site would be a reminder of what she’d just gone through. I was angry,
I was frustrated and I had a desire to beat the shit out of something —
anything — just to work out the negativity and powerlessness I’d felt in
the weeks since Henry James died.

Over the course of those weeks, Jake had been coming and
going for work and whatever the hell else it was he did on a daily basis an I
noticed that Finn was showing up with him again, now that Henry was gone. It
pissed me off and I stared his ass down every time I watched him climb out of
Jake’s truck and walk to Ellison’s house. Where the hell was he when she was
taking care of her father? If he really cared about her as much as everybody
said that he did, why hadn’t he been there to help her when I’d been in
Massachusetts? I felt sick to see him coming around again and I wanted nothing
more but to tear into him and call him out for the asshole that he was —
but that wouldn’t help Ellison, so I didn’t.

 
It was Christmas
and Ellison hadn’t stepped foot outside of her house. Jake and Finn were
nowhere to be found and I stood outside Bill’s house looking over in the
direction of Ellison’s window — once again assuming my typical stalker
persona. I’d bought her a small present but I never wrapped it because I didn’t
know if I should give it to her. It was an impossible situation — I
didn’t want her to miss the holiday and, at the same time, I didn’t want to
remind her that the holiday had come and gone and her father hadn’t been there
to spend it with her. I didn’t want her spending the day alone.

Standing outside, I noticed rain clouds gathering in the
sky. The sun was beginning to set in the distance and I gathered my jacket around
my shoulders to try and keep out the chill that was quickly settling around me.

Ellison’s front door opened and I watched as she stepped
outside. She was wearing a thin t-shirt and shorts and I wanted to scream at
her for dressing like that when it was no more that forty degrees outside. She
turned to walk between the houses in the direction of the path she’d cut that
led to the hiking trails behind her house.

“Ellison?” I called after her, but she didn’t acknowledge me
or respond. She just kept walking.

So, we’re back to
this, are we?

As we’d done so many times over the summer, Ellison
disappeared within the brush of the path and I jogged to catch up and follow
along behind her. I didn’t like that she was heading out when it was getting
dark outside and I was pissed that she wasn’t wearing any clothes to protect
her against the cold in the air. It wasn’t my place to say anything, however,
so I diligently followed behind.

Ellison seemed to be in the worst place of all and after we’d
walked for an hour and when there were now thick black clouds rolling along the
darkening skies, she took a turn she’d never made before.

The path she took wasn’t intended for humans. That much was
certain. It was narrow and littered with roots and other obstacles that slapped
me in the shins and face as I passed. Ellison didn’t seem to mind, so neither
did I.

Thunder rolled above our heads and I saw lightning flash
between several of the clouds in the sky. I wanted to call out to Ellison and
demand she return to the house. The storm above us was angry. It was one of
those storms that could take lives where it passed and I didn’t want us to be
caught in the middle of it when we had no shelter from its strength. Ellison
reacted to the cracks of lightning by speeding her pace out towards wherever it
was she was going.