“Her apartment, over the garage, well it’s completely black inside. She’d skipped three days of school.” The surrounding tables lap up every word, those surrounding tables, the ones who had laughed with me before. “The place smelled of feces. There was an entire kitchen’s worth of food wrappers scattered across the floor. When I found her, Miss Elly was naked in the bathtub covered in vomit. She’d gorged herself to the point of vomiting. There was blood everywhere. My sister’s a freak…her thighs are all cut up to hell because she tried to perform her own liposuction. Did she tell you that? It’s why no guys ever want to sleep with her…because she’s so revolting.”
“Just get the fuck out of here.” Benton’s words don’t match his tone, too calm, and I can’t tell what is going on in his head. Mad at me? Mad at her?
“Oh, I’m not finished. Did she tell you the only man to ever sleep with her she had to whore herself out to? He didn’t want her after that. She was so bad he had to let the whole school know. And she ended up naked on the internet. Cost my mother so much money to get that video taken down. It’s why she did it. You should have read the comments.”
My friends’ stricken faces tell me everything. They tell me that I’ve been shoved to the outside again. They tell me it doesn’t matter that only ten minutes ago they were happy to have me back. They tell me I’ll never fit in anywhere so long as Cricket and Dinah can find me. And finally, finally my goddamned feet decide to move. And I run. For the first time in how long, I’m not even able to cry. Not able to start the tears and not able to stop my feet. I have to keep going. I have to keep going. And I head back to the apartment.
Chapter 49
Elle
Once again the conscious blackout hits, and hits hard with me tearing through the cupboards of Errol and Sabrina’s kitchen. I fall to my knees, ripping open packages—shoveling everything into my mouth—shoveling and shoveling until I gag and puke and puke some more. I wipe my chin. I am ugly. I’m ugly and have to change the ugliness. It doesn’t matter how. I just have to change the ugliness.
The trail of puke and food wrappers follows me into their bathroom. I fumble through the medicine cabinet pulling everything down, letting everything fall into the sink until I’m holding Errol’s razor.
Errol’s razor.
Errol’s razor.
Errol’s razor.
And start hacking at the scarred flesh of my thighs, right through my jeans. Hacking, Errol’s razor…The fabric frays first, but eventually the red starts to seep through. Deep red seeps through. And if I can just keep cutting I can change the ugliness. I can change the ugliness. Change the ugly hacking hacking Errol’s razor…
“Elle, fuck! What are you doing?” I have to tune him out.
Change the ugly change the ugly…“Go away…just go away.” He tries to shake my shoulders but I swat him back. I have to swat him back. Change the ugly…
“I’m not gonna let you—”
“I have to change the ugly, Ben! I have to change the ugly.” Damn him for showing up here. Now he dives at me, dives to my side, wrangling my arms, wrestling the razor from my clenched hand.
“Babe, don’t—don’t do this to yourself.” He can’t cry. It’s not his turn. But he does, his tears splash down, mixing with red seeping through my jeans. And he shakes me, shaking and shaking me. “You gonna let your sister get to you?” She already has. Can’t he see she already has? His angry sobs drown me, and I slump forward.
“I’m weak.”
“You’re not weak. You are not weak.” Ben cradles me in his arms, putting pressure on the cuts with a towel grabbed off the bar on the wall, rocking us back and forth, back and forth, trying to calm me down, and trying to calm himself down. “You’re smart and you’re wonderful…and you’re beautiful and you’re wonderful…and you’re wonderful. Please don’t do this, please.” Snot bubbles and red-rimmed eyes are bad enough. His face contorted. But when his voice cracks, my soul cracks. “Do you know why I call you Brontë?”
“Just go away.”
“I won’t go away. Answer me, do you know why I call you Brontë?”
“Because I always carried around Jane Eyre.”
“No. I started calling you Brontë not because you carried that book around, but because she wrote a story about a woman who never gave up. Jane Eyre faced hardship after hardship and never gave up. You are a writer too, Elle. And your story is about a woman who never gives up. Despite all the shit you’ve been through, you keep going.
“I will not leave you. I will never leave you. Shit, Elle…I love you. But I can’t fix this for you, you have to fix this. You have to want to fix this. I’ll be here for you, but you have to want to be fixed.” And then Ben does the bravest thing I’ve ever seen. He pulls his phone from his pocket dialing 911, and then he hands the phone to me.
***
Sirens and medics and gurneys, they speed around me, Ben holds my hand. Admission, stiches, and pain shots, Ben holds my hand. When the doctors talk to us, when I agree to get help, and when I sign the papers committing myself to get that help, Ben holds my hand.
***
We’ll be separated for a time. No visitors while I start my treatments, but he assures me the first day he’s allowed to come visit, he’ll be with me again. And right up until he has to leave me, Ben holds my hand.
Chapter 50
Ben
“Can I hug her? Kiss her?” I wait patiently—on the outside—for the doctor to answer me. He nods.
“Whatever she’s comfortable with. She may not want to be touched yet. Please don’t make her feel bad for it. She needs your encouragement. Understand?”
“She’s only ever had my encouragement, Dr. Peters.” He stares at me, holding me in appraisal, the graying hair at his temples crinkling from his scrutiny.
“You’re the only one she’s allowing to see her just now.” There’s a firm, fatherly set to his jaw. This man is a good doctor. I can tell he cares for his patients. And I can also tell by the inflection in his voice that they’ve talked about me. Finally he shoves his hands in the pockets of his white lab jacket covering his sharp powder blue dress shirt, gray slacks and gray tie, and turns to walk out of the reception area. “Follow me,” he says.
We walk down a long hallway to a set of double doors where the doctor swipes his badge. A green light blinks on the little card reader, and we hear a buzz from the doors unlocking. He pulls them open and I follow him through.
Nerves build in my gut the closer we walk to her room. It’s been six weeks since I’ve seen my Brontë. Six weeks since she sat bleeding on the floor of Bri and Errol’s bathroom when I found her. That image will stay with me for the rest of my life. The love of my life broken and bleeding with me powerless to stop it. God, I miss her.
When we stop in front of her room, my hands are shaking so violently I shove them in my pockets so the doctor doesn’t see them and maybe change his mind about letting me visit. He knocks once and opens the door. There she is, my Elle, my Brontë, sitting on the edge of her bed. She looks nervous, wringing her hands together, fingers turning white. Dr. Peters steps closer to her, putting his hand to her arm.
“Is this okay?” She nods yes. Thank you, Jesus, she nods yes. “Well then, I’ll leave you to it.” He walks out the door, closing it behind him.
Elle and I just stare at each other for a good full minute not speaking. She looks beautiful but nervous as hell. “I’ve missed you,” I tell her honestly. She smiles, visibly releasing a breath she’s been holding. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I wasn’t so sure. There’s a lot wrong in my head, Ben.” She’s too far away. Much too far, so I close the distance in just a couple of steps, arms held out ready to hold her, but I stop just shy. She needs to let me know it’s okay.
“Can I hug you, baby?”
My beautiful girlfriend smiles at me, and it’s the fucking most perfect, most wonderful thing I’ve seen in six weeks. Her, in my arms again. The world makes sense.
She has some problems. She can get through them, we can get through them as long as we’re together.
“Dr. Peters and I have been talking. Thank you for signing that paper, for allowing me to be a part of your recovery.”
“I thought…just in case…but Ben, I don’t want to be an obligation. You don’t have to be here if I’m too much or you don’t feel the same about me. I won’t blame you or hold it against you.”
“Elle Rhiannon Dinninger, listen good. You will never be an obligation. It’s my privilege to love you. I’m here because I want to be, because I miss you, because my world is wrong without you next to me.”
She places her delicate hand against my cheek, pressing as I lean into her touch. Then she guides my head down to meet hers, kissing me with soft, powerful purpose. When we break apart she opens her eyes, they’re glistening like she’s holding back tears. I hope good tears. Tears that make her understand how truthful I am about us. Grabbing Elle’s hand, I walk around to the head of the bed, sitting down, resting my back against the headboard, and pull her onto my lap. Her head rests against my collar as I hold her.
I love this woman.
Acknowledgement
Right now I’m living my dream. Putting a book out, or more to the point, sharing my work with readers is a heady feeling. Writing isn’t just a job or a hobby, it’s a calling. No really. It is. Someone would be insane to start down this path for any other reason. And although it may seem like a solitary endeavor, I have to tell you, it’s far from it.
So many people have come on the journey with me, whether they intended to or not. First to my boys, you two are the greatest encouragement I could ever hope to have. Seriously. You are still my biggest cheerleaders. You’ve heard, “Not now. Mom’s working!” so many times, I bet you hear it while you sleep. It’s become a mantra of sorts in our house. But I love you both endlessly and could not be here without your continued support.
Now that the mushy stuff is out of the way, I have to give props to the rest of my family. They have helped immeasurably, whether babysitting while I attended classes so I could hone my skills, keeping the boys busy so I could reach a deadline, or serving as beta readers. Autumn Reyes (my sister) you provided the exact feedback I needed to end this puppy properly.
Being a crit partner is one of the most important jobs in bringing a book to life. A proper crit partner will keep you from sounding like a troglodyte or worse, a buffoon, once you decide your manuscript is ready to start querying. Mine is my BFF Heather Young-Nichols. We met as barely teenagers, bonded over our love of writing, even back then, and I’m not sharing her.
The second leg of the journey I’ve been joined by my publisher who saw something in the work I put so much of myself into, and all the people who helped make it happen. My cover designer, you blew my mind. And my editor. Rachel, you taught me some good lessons about the editing process. Only one “this” here. I counted. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
About the Author
Sarah lives in Michigan with her two very loud, yet lovable sons. Although she lives in a house, she’d gladly take up residence in her favorite bookstore. Partly to get away from the noise and partly because, hey, it’s a bookstore. Preferably if her local bookstore was located somewhere warm year round.
In Sarah's world all books have kissing and end in some form of HEA.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/SarahZoltonArthurWrites
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/sarahez74
Website:
http://sarahzoltonarthur.wix.com/sarahzoltonarthur
Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) Page 24
