The Contradiction of Solitude(67)

But there were other things that I saw in the quietest moments of the night. While she slept and I could watch her without reservation.

Watched her while she dreamed of things she’d never tell.

She was beautiful. She was complicated. She was always a mystery.

I hoped one day she would finally be mine.

I loved her. Beyond reason. Beyond sanity.

Into madness.

I was wary about this trip. Layna’s unwavering determination to see this through bothered me. Since deciding she was going to finally see her father, her mind wasn’t with me. It was out there. In a place I couldn’t follow.

In a place I never wanted to go.

Her love for the man she called Daddy terrified me.

“Do you have everything?” I asked her as we got into my car. She nodded, tucking long dark hair behind her ears. I watched her, but carefully. I felt ashamed to do so when she was awake.

“I’m scared, Elian,” she said softly, staring out the window as I drove down the gravel driveway. Away from my home. Away from my life.

I glanced at her in surprise. She had seemed so intent. So focused. I hadn’t counted on fear being among the things she felt.

I was pleased with her vulnerability. I was thrilled with her open transparency. For just a moment.

Just one moment…

“I’m scared too,” I admitted. Because I was. I was scared that by leaving Brecken Forest I was turning my back on everything I had created. For good. Forever. That there would be no coming back from this.

I didn’t know what lay ahead. Only what lay behind. And I desperately wanted to go back. To where it was safe.

To where I could pretend I was a man without a past. A man with an easy smile and a quick laugh.

A man people loved and wanted to know even if I never, ever loved in return.

But that man was dead. Buried beside Amelia in the ground.

I had lost him the day Layna entered my life.

And there were times I resented her for it. That I despised how easily she murdered the person I had become.

But then I’d touch her and I’d forget…

We didn’t say anything else. There was no need.

I drove away.

Far.

Far.

Away.



My mom was watching the television. She didn’t know I stood just inside the doorway watching too.

She sobbed and sobbed. I felt sick.

Amelia was dead.

That man had taken her. He had killed her.

She was coming home.

Not to live.

But to be buried.

My parents blamed me. They thought I could have stopped her. That I should have said something sooner about the man I had seen driving by our house.

This was my fault.

My fault.

“Crime scene photos have been released. These images will be graphic in nature.”

My sister’s body. Lying in a field. Her hands missing. Her dead, sightless eyes staring at the sky.

At the stars.

“Amelia!” I couldn’t help but scream.

My mother quickly turned off the television. “Go away, Elian. Just go away,” she said tiredly. She didn’t want to look at me.

Dad never talked to me either.

I had disappeared.

Elian James didn’t exist anymore. He had died the day Amelia went away.

I wished I could change and become someone else. Someone who didn’t have a murdered sister and a heart full of guilt.

Someone different…

“We should find some place to stay for the night. So we can get some sleep before going tomorrow,” I suggested. I felt as though I were talking through a tunnel. Echoing on all sides.

It was hard to stay here, to stay connected, when I realized I was only miles away from the person who had savaged my entire life.

The man who had lied and betrayed the woman I loved.

I hated.

I hated.

But I loved too.

I looked at Layna and tried not to see the monster in her veins. I tried not to kiss her thinking about the blood on her hands through no fault of her own.

Most of the time I succeeded. But it was hard to love Layna and not feel like I was loving him.

“There should be a Best Western nearby. Let’s stop there. I need…” Her voice floated off into nothingness.

I felt her thoughts. I heard her words.

Even though I was surrounded by silence.

We drove through the small, Virginian town without really looking at it. I didn’t register houses or shops. My head, my mind, were somewhere else.

I felt as though the past few months were steadily building. Building. Building.

Towards something big.

I was petrified.

Of the explosion.

Of the aftermath.

What would I be left with?

Would I be left with anything?

My eyes went back to the woman at my side. Compelled. Bound. Unavoidable. My fingers ached. They ached. To touch her. To feel her. When my hands were empty I felt lost. Incomplete.

I couldn’t explain why without her I was so bereft. Even when she was less than a foot away…I craved.

It was wrong.

It was unhealthy.

It was as essential as my beating, beating heart.

Thump. Thump.

Thud.

Yet her father…

My brain started to shut down at the thought of him.