by M. S. Willis
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.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
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 a
nd 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.
“Ellison, I think we need to turn around. The storm is really bad. It would be dangerous for us to be caught out here.”
There had been many days and nights during the past summer where I’d been introduced to the Florida storm. They came in fast and hard, they ravaged and they destroyed. And, sometimes, they killed. Lightning created fires where it touched and winds knocked over large trees. Two storms had destroyed the progress I’d made on the porch and I’d spent the hours after they passed trying to repair the damage they’d done. It was an exercise in patience on those days where I killed myself working only to have the sudden storm come and fuck up everything I’d worked to accomplish. If that had happened at the beginning of the summer, I would have lost my shit and given up. But, during the months I’d been in Florida, I’d learned that obstacles would happen and that roadblocks were a normal part of life. Character was built in jumping those obstacles and crashing through those roadblocks and I learned to appreciate them for the person they were creating within me.
“Go home if you’re scared, Hunter. You have no obligation to stay.”
The bitter tone of her voice shocked me and I didn’t respond. It was obvious she was determined to go wherever it was that she was going and I had no other choice but to follow her blindly. My weary eyes looked up into the black depths of the clouds above us and I swore that if Ellison wanted me to walk with her into the middle of that storm, I’d do it.
Twenty minutes passed as we walked the narrow path and raindrops started to fall on my shoulders. Light at first, I was able to keep pace with her, but when those drops became heavy, when they landed in my eyes and distorted my vision, I became worried. In the distance, I saw lightning touch the earth and I worried that a fire would ignite from how dry it had been over the past few weeks. Despite the inclement weather, Ellison never slowed her pace. She was going somewhere and nothing was going to stop her from reaching her destination.
Eventually the path she followed broke apart, splitting open into a massive field with a single and small patch of trees in the middle. Ellison hoofed it out onto that field, the lightning illuminating her skin as she went. The thunder was ceaseless and the winds tried to tear the clothes from my body. However, I wouldn’t give up. I pulled my shoulders back and I marched behind Ellison onto that field. The ice cold rain stung against the skin of my face and visibility was getting to the point where I couldn’t see 10 feet in front of me. But I didn’t care. Wherever she was going, it had to be important.
When we reached the edge of the small bundle of trees in the center of the field, I thought she was going to seek shelter. But when her body went down, when she dropped to her knees and when she raised her face into the sky and screamed as loud as she could at that storm, I shattered. My heart, my soul, my mind … all of it broke open and my entire body tensed to see her in so much pain.
I ran to her and dropped to my knees behind her. I didn’t touch her or try to stop her, I just sat there and made sure she knew she wasn’t alone. That was all that mattered. I was letting the same storm that threatened her threaten me because I refused to let her endure it without someone standing beside her.
Lightning flashed around us and I saw it strike the ground not a hundred feet from where we knelt. I pushed up on my knees and attempted to lean over her. I was afraid we’d be struck and I hoped that if it occurred, it would only hurt me. It was a stupid idea and I knew I could never protect her from lightning, but that knowledge wasn’t enough to stop me from trying.
After a few minutes, she stopped. Her entire body went still, and she curled over on herself in the middle of the field where we sat. Her back shook from her sobs and I couldn’t keep from touching her. When I placed my hands on her shoulders, her skin was cold to the touch. She was fucking freezing. I quickly stripped off my jacket and wrapped it around her.
“Ellison, we need to get under the trees. I’m going to pick you up. I’m going to carry you to a place where we can get out of this storm as much as possible.”
She didn’t respond, she just kept crying and whimpering, releasing all the pain she had stored up inside her into the chaos of the storm that surrounded us. I lifted her into my arms and cradled her to my chest. She fell against me like a broken doll and her hand came up to grasp me on the sleeve of my shirt. I moved quickly to seek shelter. I knew it wasn’t wise to hide under trees in a storm, but, given no other choice, it was the only means I had to get her out of the direct wind and rain.
Sitting down against one of the middle trees, I silently held Ellison to my chest. I wrapped my body around her, attempting to warm
her. I was almost completely folded over and it was an uncomfortable position to hold — but I held it anyway. I cried with her under that tree and I waited for her to release everything that she needed to let go so that the wind could carry it off somewhere far where it wouldn’t hurt her anymore.
After a while, the storm’s intensity lessened: the lightning stopped striking the ground around us, the clouds shifted away, and when the rainwaters subsided, Ellison’s storm had also calmed. Her breathing slowed and she eventually moved to push the wet hair from her face. She didn’t speak to me about it at first and I was perfectly fine with her silence.
I watched through the thin canopies of the trees as the moon came into view, accompanied by the appearance of what looked to be millions of stars. I’d never seen the night sky so clearly before and I was in absolute awe of how vast and beautiful the world was when you took a moment to notice it.
Ellison stirred in my arms and I looked down to find her staring at my face. She reached up and placed her palm over the cold and chapped skin of my cheek. The tears that had cascaded down her face only moments before finally eased and only a few still rolled along her skin, reflecting the light of the moon as they traveled.
“Why do you keep chasing after me, Hunter?” I could tell how raw her throat must have been by the scratch in her voice. I was thrown off by her question and it took me a minute to formulate a response.
I didn’t answer her immediately because I felt like everything, all the times we’d spent together, all the smiles we’d shared and the tears that had fallen, and all the years I wanted to share those types of moments with her in the future hinged on my response. Why did I keep chasing after her? To most, she was just another girl in small town who was struggling like the rest of us in an attempt to find a place where she belonged in this world. Most of those people weren’t lucky enough to know her like I’d known her — they hadn’t talked to her, hadn’t been shown the depths that existed within her. Much like the moon and stars that hung above us tonight, Ellison was a light that wasn’t easily contained. She burned bright enough to break through the dense fog I’d walked in my entire life. Because of her, I’d opened my eyes when I hadn’t even been aware they’d been closed — and for that, I’d chase her forever.
