by Rose Fall
"That reminds me, where's my mother?"
"I convinced her to go to the beach house and get some rest. I hid her phone, so she’s stranded!" Rachel smiled proudly.
A sent her a grateful smile. "How'd she get there?" I asked curiously.
"We took her," Ash replied. I gathered the other part of that “we” was Julian judging by the look Rachel gave me.
"Lovely woman," Julian smiled. Either he was being sarcastic or my mother had had a personality change. I heard Lauren snort at the comment.
I sighed, "When can I get out of here?"
"Not tonight," Rachel answered.
I groaned.
"Eli, Julian and I are going to take Lauren to the beach house‒"
I laughed as I watched Lauren protest fervently, as much as she didn't want to be here, she certainly didn't want to be alone with my mother.
"We'll bring you back some more food."
I couldn't help smiling when I heard Rachel groan again, like Ash’s “we”s somehow offended her personally. I waved back at Julian and Ash, smiling as Lauren angrily trudged behind them.
I turned when I heard Rachel clear her throat. "Probably shouldn't have eaten that so fast," she muttered. She walked out quickly, closing the door behind her.
‘That was convenient.’
I smiled awkwardly at Jessie.
"I didn't cry," he said.
"Well I sure hope not."
"But I was worried."
I looked down at the box of chocolates in my lap, suddenly fascinated by them. I heard the screeching of the chair as he took Rachel’s place.
"Eeeellllliiiii," he sing-songed, dragging out the syllables in my name.
"Hmmm?" I asked, not looking up.
He snatched the box from me. "Would you stop ignoring me?"
"I'm not," I mumbled. I glanced up at him for just a second to prove my point before staring back down at my lap and fidgeting with the fabric of the hospital gown.
I shifted uncomfortably when he placed his hand on mine, stopping the drumming of my fingers on my thigh. I remembered how quickly he had removed it the last time; I couldn’t deny that something had changed.
He lifted my chin so that I was looking directly into his eyes. It was unlike me to be so shy, but I knew what was coming. I’d been trying to avoid it for a while now, but it wasn’t like I could exactly walk out right now.
I stared, eyes alarmingly wide as his hand moved to my cheek.
His eyes were filled with an intensity that seemed completely foreign to me, especially from him. Jessie, who never took anything seriously, who was always laughing and joking. Jessie who was always so reluctant to tell me anything that meant something, was staring at me like he’d found a treasure map in my eyes. Specks of his crystal blue eyes sparkled as if they were little fireworks displays. The gasp that came out of me sounded distant, as if it were from someone else. And I was thinking of the two voices raging in my head, the one telling me to snap out of it had never been so easily overpowered. I was so entranced by the one telling me I should never blink; I found myself paralyzed by it. I was thinking of the irony. I’d never been so afraid of my own emotions, and I’d never been so at peace with being afraid.
And then he kissed me.
I just sat there like a dead fish, frozen in shock. He took a long breath when he finally pulled away. I realized I'd been holding mine the whole time.
He stood abruptly, the look on his face was completely…panicked.
I stared blankly as he pushed the chair away from the bed, running his hands through his hair like he was contemplating pulling all of it out. He stood and marched towards the door, then he turned and looked back at me with that alarmed expression again, and quickly walked out. You would have thought I had razor blades for lips.
---
"We're back!"
I jumped in surprise when I saw Ash and Julian at the door.
She handed me a large box of pizza, which I took gratefully. Eating all that pizza would help keep me from wallowing in self-pity, even just for a little while.
"Eli… are you okay?” Ash asked, referring to the way I was eating. An uncomfortable silence hung in the air.
I stopped chewing, looking up at her with a mouth full of pizza.
"Why don't you go get her something to drink? I think all that pizza might get stuck," Julian said to Ash, all the while staring at me apprehensively.
Ash nodded at Julian before leaving again.
Julian and stared at each other. I was grateful to him, for somehow knowing that I didn’t want to fall apart in front of Ash, but I wished he would leave too.
"Are you gonna cry?" He asked.
"Why would I be crying?" I mumbled through another mouth full.
"I don't know, but your eyes are getting all watery..."
I chewed slowly and continued staring at him.
"Jessie's acting weirder than usual."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with it?"
"Because you're crying..."
"I'm not crying," I yelled, dropping the pizza I'd suddenly lost my appetite for.
"Okay, there's...liquid coming from your eyes that indicates emotional distress..."
"He kissed me," I confessed without knowing why.
"That bad? I keep telling him to brush his teeth."
I laughed, despite the fact that I was crying. He handed me a box of tissues by a side table, which I took gratefully.
“Thank you. I just need to get out of here; these past few days have really sucked,” I admitted before blowing my nose.
He nodded sympathetically, but remained silent. I didn’t blame him, I wouldn’t know what to say to me either.
"I got you iced tea...Eli?"
I looked up at a confused Ash.
"Terrible allergies, have you been keeping track of the pollen count? It's through the roof," Julian said to her in explanation. I smiled gratefully.
"Well, I'm gonna go…" He said a moment later in response to Ash’s suspicious stare. The way he walked out so quickly reminded me of how his brother had done the same thing not long before.
"Eli?" Ash said hesitantly.
"So, when did you guys become a thing?"
Her wide smile indicated that she had fallen for the distraction.
She shrugged, "I don't know if you can say that. Technically he hasn’t asked me to be his girlfriend."
I raised an eyebrow.
"But he finally kissed me!" ‘Oh great! Just what I wanted to hear,’ I thought.
"Tell me everything!" I tried to sound as excited as she did. I desperately needed a distraction.
Between Ryan and Jessie, I as too busy thinking about my own kisses to hear anything about hers, and apparently I’d done a terrible job of pretending to listen.
"Elle, are you sure you're okay?" She asked with a concerned expression.
I tried to snap out of it, doing my best to sound reassuring, "I'm fine! It sounds like I've missed a lot more than that!" I said, trying to sound like I’d heard something of what she said.
"Well...when we found out you were in the hospital he offered to drive me and then he let me ruin his shirt, and he's a really good listener. He talked to the doctors and he was the one that called your parents, he took care of everything."
"What?" I asked in confusion. "Where was everyone else?"
"Well, Rachel would kill me for saying this, but she was a mess. As soon as the doctors finished checking her out she locked herself in the bathroom, and I think she was crying!" She said the last part with such disbelief, her eyes widening as if she was recounting a story about the time she heard a chicken talk.
"Of course, she doesn't know that I know. Anyway, Jessie didn't get here for a while...I don't know where he was. So it was just me and him."
I nodded.
“Oh! The doctor said you can leave tomorrow if all goes well."
I sighed in relief; I didn’t think I could take much more of this place.
I lay limp as she came to hug me goodbye.
Great.
As exhausted as I was, there was no way I was going to fall asleep. I knew it would be just me and my thoughts for the rest of the night.
I couldn’t face my own shame. I couldn’t believe I’d cried. But I’d been so sure about the way Jessie felt about me. I couldn’t say I trusted him. I never believed him when he said there was nothing going on between him and Rachel. But even so, I was sure that whatever was going on between them didn’t affect us. I was so sure.
I felt stupid, embarrassed, and confused. I mean, even if Jessie was someone I hated, I would have been hurt by that awful expression on his face.
But the worst part was that I wasn’t sure why I was so mad about being wrong. Was it because I was afraid I would lose the bet or was it something entirely different?
How to Ruin Your Own Life
I didn’t see Jessie the next morning. I did see my mother though. She showed up just when I’d fallen asleep, which was very early in the morning. She and Lauren left soon after I got to the beach house. She gave me this lecture about being irresponsible, “Now that I was okay.”
Lauren actually hugged me, and she looked kind of sorry for me. I wondered what had inspired the change. Afterwards, Julian, Ashton, and Rachel were by my side, pretending it was completely natural for all of us to be hanging out.
They catered to my every need. Ash had gone to shower, because apparently she hadn’t done so in a while and Rachel had gone to make lunch, even though I insisted on doing it; I feared a lunch made by Rachel. It was just Julian and I, watching those boring reruns that characterize Saturday morning T.V. I marveled at how strange the entire scene felt.
“So apparently I owe you a big thank-you,” I said.
“For what?” He asked. “The nice view, my jokes, my charisma and charm…”
“God, so much like your brother,” I frowned. “Thanks for handling everything that apparently no one else could.”
“Don’t worry about it, they really did their best. I think Rachel was just really frazzled by the whole thing, and Ash blamed herself. She kept going on about a broken table or something… Anyway, don’t hold it against them, they all really love you.”
I wondered about his emphasis on the “all.”
“Are you feeling better?” He asked.
“If you mean am I going to burst into tears again, then no. I think I’ve gotten over the allergies.”
He raised an eyebrow, “Are you sure about that?”
“Well, I took some Benadryl.” I replied, pretending not to be lost in my own metaphor.
“Maybe you should give pollen a chance, it really cares about you.”
“I leave you two alone for five minutes and you’ve already got your own code? Cute.”
I looked up at Rachel, wearily eyeing the pan she bought with her.
“Hmmm, that smells delicious!” I replied, trying to change the subject.
She only rolled her eyes at me, probably not caring enough to ask.
“I made pot roast!” She exclaimed.
She handed each of us a plate of the thing before sitting down.
I waited for Julian to take the first bite, fearful of what was on my plate. His coughing made me think that was a good decision.
“Oh, Rachel, what’d you say this was again?” Julian asked, putting his plate down.
“Veggie pot roast!” She answered cheerfully.
“Well, gosh darn it,” he said, snapping his fingers as if he truly were disappointed, “I forgot, I’m allergic. Tell Ash I had to go.”
He rushed out before either of us could say anything.
“It can’t be that bad,” Rachel said. Then she took a bite and made a face, one that reminded me of Jessie’s yesterday. “Let’s order takeout!” She said a second after.
“Thanks for trying,” I yelled to her as she left to dump the pan. I placed the plate back down, thanking my lucky stars I didn’t have to try it.
She came back when she’d finished. “I followed the recipe,” she said innocently.
“It’s okay! Failed experiments are why we have fast food.”
“Right,” she nodded.
I tried to stand and help her clean up, but my body protested with a frantic throbbing on my left side. I’d been wondering what a bruised rib felt like. Now that the medicine was wearing off, I was about to find out.
“Shit,” I murmured.
“I’ll get your medicine,” she said, rushing towards the kitchen.
A second later she returned with it, a bottle of water and an ice pack in her other hand.
The look on her face reminded me of something I’d been meaning to say. “Rachel…sit.”
She eyed me questioningly. I waited for her to do it anyway.
“You know what happened wasn’t your fault right?”
“Of course not. I’m not the idiot that crashed into you.”
“Okay…but you shouldn’t feel bad for any reason. None of us could have anticipated what happened.”
“All this time I thought I was a psychic!”
The sarcastic comments seemed to confirm my suspicions, that she did feel guilty. Ash said she cried, she slept on a chair for me, and she even made something she thought was pot roast. I was convinced she would do anything I asked of her at the moment.
“Fine, just, don’t feel bad…okay?”
“Yeah, sure,” she replied.
I decided to let it go. Rachel and I were too much alike; I knew that right now her defense mechanisms were so intact, she hadn’t even admitted her feelings to herself.
---
Rachel, Ash, and I ate together. There were no jokes at the expense of one another, no immature jabs. Rachel didn’t even say anything when Ashton said “Julian and I” for the one millionth time. They were almost getting along. Actually, they were kind of just ignoring each other, but that was good enough for me.
“Wow, I should get into accidents more often.”
“That’s not funny,” Ash said sternly.
Rachel was looking down and playing with her food, ignoring us. I wondered if she would ever be able to admit her feelings. I followed her to her room after we’d finished cleaning up. Well, after they’d finished cleaning up.
“Eli, um, look, I hope you’ve learned something from this accident. I…”
I motioned impatiently for her to go on after a long pause.
She sighed, and I was made anxious by the fact that Rachel was actually thinking before she talked.
“Look, Jessie really cares about you, and I was hoping near death experiences chip away at stubbornness because it’s about time you admit that you feel the same. So we can end the bet and he never has to know. You can even say you won,” she smiled.
I couldn’t believe the words that had come out of her mouth. This notion of being happy with a boy was something I’d never imagined hearing off from her.
And Rachel accepting defeat, especially when she seemed to have such a good chance of winning seemed odd. In all the time I’d known her, one thing I knew best about her was that she never lost, not at anything.
I raised a suspicious eyebrow at her, “Who are you and what have you done with Rachel?”
She shrugged.
“Where is the Rachel that thinks all men are cheating assholes that only care about themselves?”
“Maybe I think there are exceptions to the rule.”
“And Jessie would be that exception?” I stared at her in disbelief.
“Would you stop changing the subject? That’s not the point.”
“Are you backing out? Cause you’re afraid you’re gonna lose?”
“What? Grown up Eli!”
“I know how hard it is for you to accept losing.”
“Are you serious? Do you know how lucky you are? He really cares about you, but you know what? He’ not gonna wait around forever
, and when he gets over whatever the hell he sees in you, I’ll be waiting.”
I stomped out of her room as well as I could with my injuries. If she wanted to play, Game on.
---
Some part of me seemed to realize how much of an idiot I was. But there was another part of me, a stronger part that wasn’t ready to face the truth. I knew I’d pushed Rachel’s buttons on purpose. But I didn’t want to call off the bet.
Rachel seemed so sure about Jessie’s feelings for me, but she hadn’t seen the look on his face after he’d kissed me. Even so, I still wanted to win. I wanted to be the one he would fall in love with. I was pretty certain that wasn’t going to happen. And I couldn’t even figure out why I cared anymore. Ryan’s visit had made me realize that I had moved on. So what the hell was I doing?
Some People are So Good at Lying to Themselves
“Hey Elle. How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine,” I said briefly.
I was looking everywhere but at Jessie. Rachel knew that I’d been avoiding him since the hospital, so of course she insisted on inviting him up to my room. Even though I didn’t really want to see him, I was currently lying in bed with an ice pack over my ribs. A captive audience if there ever was any.
“You look tired,” he said as he took a seat by the edge of my bed. He leaned over to place a hand over my forehead like he was checking my temperature. I twisted away.
“Don’t you know you’re not supposed to say that to people?” I asked.
He pulled his hand away, “Still beautiful, just tired,” he smirked.
I kept my eyes on the comforter. From the corner of my eye, I could see him looking around the room.
I drummed my fingers impatiently. I wasn’t sure what he came here to say, though I hoped it would involve some sort of explanation for his behavior at the hospital. I was pretty sure that was why he was stalling.
“Cool room,” he said absently.
“You knit?” He asked as he picked up the hat I’d been working on before the accident. The needles were still tucked inside since I hadn’t finished. I grew anxious that they would fall out as he held it, and for a moment I had to resist the urge to yell at him for picking it up.
