The Contradiction of Solitude(76)

He reached out again, and this time I let him make contact. I let him touch me. My face. My lips. Always touching.

I wouldn’t give him Elian.

Never Elian.

He was mine.

From that moment in the house, all those years ago.

I just didn’t know exactly what to do with him.

I had to know.

I had to know.

Elian had to know.

“Can we go? To Norton Hill?” It was asking a lot. I knew Elian wanted to go home. To Brecken Forest.

But my home was waiting for me.

Elian frowned. “You want to go to Norton Hill,” he said.

I nodded. I leaned in. Elian leaned in. Irresistible. Unable to help himself.

Our mouths met. Tongues tangled. Teeth bit down. Piercing. Moans. Sighs. From Elian.

Not from me.

We parted. “Take me, Elian. Please.”

He closed his eyes. My forehead against his forehead. Noses brushing. Breath mingling.

He was mine.

And I knew he would take me where I needed to go.

“Okay. How far is it?”

I pulled away. But he still held my hand. He couldn’t let go. But he would have to eventually. It was the only way forward.

Moving on…

“Seven hours,” I told him, looking at the directions on my phone.

Seven hours.

Seven hours to home.

Elian put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. I didn’t look behind me as we drove away.

But I wanted to.



It was two in the afternoon by the time we got on the interstate. I hadn’t been at the prison very long. A little over an hour. But it felt like a lifetime.

A lifetime spent in that gray, plastic chair, talking to the man who had twisted me.

“Do you want to spend the night somewhere? Get some sleep and then head out in the morning?” Elian suggested after an hour on the road.

An hour of silence come and gone.

“No,” I responded.

“Are you sure? You look really tired. Did you sleep it all last night?”

I closed my eyes and laid my head back against the seat. The buzzing filled my head. It invaded my ears. It rendered me deaf to all things.

Bits and pieces.

That’s all I was given.

That’s all my mind would let me have.

Rolling images. Colorless. Except for the red.

Everywhere I saw red.

“Who is she, Daddy?” I covered my mouth with my hand. My stomach rolled and heaved. My eyes burned and flooded.

What was my daddy doing?

Daddy closed his eyes and then opened them. He looked at me with…anticipation.

“You should have stayed in the car, Lay. I told you to.”

I shook my head, my eyes on the girl.

Because that’s all she was.

A girl.

She looked like the girls I would see outside of the high school near our house. She was pretty. With dark hair.

And her eyes.

They were wide.

Panicked.

Tired.

Desperate.

And they were a pretty, pretty green.

“I just want to get there if that’s okay. I want to go home.”

“Home? That’s not your home, Layna. Not anymore.” Elian sounded so angry. Hurt.

He thought my home was in Brecken Forest. With him.

He wrapped himself in fanciful delusions. They clouded his mind. They polluted his vision.

They made things safe.

And comfortable.

It’s where he disappeared to when no one could find him.

When he told his friends that he was seeing his fake family, he was somewhere else.

And when he didn’t go to work he was playing make believe with ghosts.

The pills told the truth. The truth he didn’t expect anyone to see.

His mind was splintered.

Cut into shards.

Nothing was holding them together anymore.

He didn’t yet see how far he had fallen. But he would. Soon.

I would be there to push him off the cliff.

I would be there to watch him crash to the ground.

It’s the least I could do for everything that he was to me.

Everything he had yet to be.

“Just take me to the house, Elian.”

I was tired but I couldn’t sleep.

“Do you want to say something, Amelia?” Daddy asked the girl tied to the chair.

I stood with my back pressed against the wall.

I should have stayed in the car.

Daddy looked at the girl like he loved her. He looked at her the way he always looked at me.

Like she was special.

I hated her.

I wanted to hurt her.

I didn’t want my daddy to look at her like that.

It wasn’t fair.

Daddy pulled the rag from the girl’s mouth, his fingers lingering on her cheek. She flinched away.

Then her pretty, pretty green eyes sought out mine. Wet with tears. Falling on the floor. Mixing with the blood.

“Help me,” she whispered.

I looked at Daddy, but he only smiled at Amelia. At her pretty, pretty face with her pretty, pretty green eyes.

“Help me,” she said again, a little louder.

Was I supposed to help her? Is that why Daddy came here? To set her free?

“Is she okay?” I asked. My voice so young. So small. Swallowed up by the large room and the shadows in the corners.