Chapter 1-6: Lost Boy

“Have you seen Eli?”

Lily looked up from the book she was reading that rested on her bent knees.

“No actually, I haven’t. I thought he’d be wherever you were. What’s up?”

“Eh, I don’t know. I was kind of an asshole to him and I want to apologize.”

She slid a picture into the crease where the pages met, marking her place and setting it on the table beside her.

“What happened?”

“I just told you…”

“No. You told me you were an asshole but not why.”

“I just was okay. He just wanted to talk and I basically told him that if he had something wrong he could shove it. He didn’t, or at least that’s what he said. I just feel bad.”

Lily’s lips were in a slanted half frown, like she was disappointed that this little soiree was too uneventful to interrupt her reading.

“Try the roof. He likes it up there.”

“Thanks, Lily.”

She took the stairs to the roof and the door had been propped open with a cement block. She could hear the breeze and the cars, but something else too. Music. She pushed the door open further and stepped over the block, finding that Lily’s prediction was an accurate one.

“Hey…”

She didn’t catch the song that was playing before he turned it off. He didn’t say anything to her and the smile she was giving him evaporated within a few seconds of his silent treatment.

“Eli, I wanted to apolo---“

“Who are you?”

“What?”

He repeated himself.

“I’m Holland…Eli, are you okay?”

He turned to look at her and she could see his face soften, and she wondered if that’s why he was avoiding her, because he wanted to stay upset. Like being upset was easier than whatever else was going on in his head.

“I know your name. I’m talking about who you are. Did you just pretend to be a nice girl and then turn into an ass when that frat boy comes around?”

She sighed, resting her hands firmly on the same ledge that almost assisted in her death. She knew she had upset him but she was taken aback by the question. She felt differently around Jesse than she did Eli, she couldn’t deny that. But she was still her.

“People act differently around different people.”

“Only if they want to give the impression they’re something that they’re not.”

“I don’t think it works like that. And how would you know anyways? Are you stalking me or something?”

His voice was low and disgruntled, the veins in his arms were bulging against his skin because his fists were balled so tight. He wanted to throw something, but there was nothing. The only other thing on the roof with him was her.

“Don’t fucking say that.”

The tone in his voice and the way he stepped over to her, close enough to feel the heat of his body, made her mouth run dry. She had her back against the ledge and his hands were on either side of her. It was like the neurons that told her heart to beat normally short circuited and it went into a mismatched overdrive inside her chest.

His face was blank, but his eyes weren’t. They were looking at her, and there was something raw behind them that she couldn’t place. It was unfamiliar, something she’d never seen in anyone’s eyes ever. She finally spoke so quietly for if a car were to zoom by, it would be lost in the roar of the engine.

“Eli…You’re scaring me.”

The lull hush of her voice swam through his ears and his frame seemed to recoil to something apologetic. The almost trance like state he was in was gone. It was just him and her. His eyes darted back and forth between his arms’ location and returned to her face that was inches away from his. His arms dropped, one at his side and the other running down over his mouth.

“I-I need to go,” he muttered, matching the amplitude of a few seconds prior, however; there was something in his voice that was not in hers. Shame.

“I’m sorry, Holland.”

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Holland sat across from Lily who was rambling about different things, the food, her voices, her book, and Holland would nod every so often to give the impression that she was devoted to the conversation. But the entire time she was looking at Eli who was eating alone across the dining room. He usually sat with them, they were even at the table she had first met him at. It was a thing with them.

“So do you know why he’s not sitting over here? Holland? Holland!”

“What?”

“Jesus, I’m gonna start calling you the stalker.”

“You call him a stalker?”

“He knows I’m joking.”

“I…I don’t know then.”

Lily pointed her fork in the direction of Holland’s face, her eyes squinted.

“You’re such a bad liar. How did you never get busted for as long as you did?”

She gave the fork wielder a look as she tossed away her trash. Her eyes made their way over her shoulder before wondering what would happen if she went over there. But she didn’t like leaving that to the imagination. She slid into the chair across from him and stared at the features on his face, particularly his scar. It was faded, so it was old. It stretched its way from his crystallized eye almost to his lips. She looked at those for longer than she thought she had.

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you. We’re friends. And friends do this weird thing called talking. Lily and I do it all the time. We should try it.”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Every imaginary sign that he was holding up had a bold ‘Fuck off’ across it with flashing lights. It was in his posture, his tone, his lack of eye contact, everything.

You cornered me and you’re the one who doesn’t want to talk?

She scoffed. She didn’t try to hide it. She was too busy trying to keep herself occupied from her own thoughts to sit pretty. She got up and scraped the chair along the tile before manhandling it against the table.

"Fine."

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It had been a week of silence. Eli had avoided her presence like the plague and Jesse was somewhere that wasn’t here. He said he would be back soon but he took the word soon as seriously as cable companies do. She was just used to it with him. She shouldn’t have been, but she was.

Her fingers punched in his number and there was nothing but his voicemail on the other end. A reminder and an ‘I miss you’ was all that she left. What else was there to say?

There was ‘I love you.’

But she didn’t feel like saying that. Sure, she meant it when they were in the hallway. Because he was around, and she could feel it. He made her feel it. But every time he left it was smothered by more silence. The deafening kind that makes you want to scream or bang pots and pans together just so you can stop hearing your pulse beat in your ears.

It was storming outside, hard. Hail was falling and the wind was trying to strip the leaves off of every tree while the rain poured in sheets. Lights flickered above her head as she sat on a couch, listening to the now issued tornado touchdown twenty miles away on the television. The nurses and orderlies came out and corralled all the patients into a safe area, paying more attention to the ones who needed it.

They told them to sit against the concrete wall until instructed otherwise and the only spot left was the one next to Eli.

Great.

She slid down the wall next to him but he was stoic.

“What, no ‘Get away from me?’”

His eyes moved in her direction but nothing else did. She sighed softly, resting her head against the white painted concrete. Her legs were crossed and her hands rested in her lap.

“I take bigger risks with him, if that’s not obvious. He just brings out that kind of side of me. But I’m still nice. I’m just different around you, not to mention you're meeting me in a really climactic time in my life. Adventure is fun, sure, but I can relax with you. Who I am, no matter who I’m with, is still the same. Both of those people are still me. Or the shell of what I used to be. I don't really know me, so maybe that's why you feel like you don't either.”

“You can’t relax with tall guy?”

“Holy shit, it speaks.”

The corner of his mouth elevated and she thought she even heard a chuckle out of him.

“It’s Jesse, by the way.”

“I like tall guy.”

“Well it’s not the most original but that’s fair. And no I can’t, not really. He always wants to do something or go somewhere, hence the drugs. I just wanted to keep up so I could be with him. Kinda backfired, didn’t it?”

This time, he laughed. And he looked at her, with those same eyes that had looked at her that night he stood in the doorway. All was okay, for a brief moment. The silence was filled with static.

They sat in between the concrete walls for at least two hours, not taking anything less than precautionary measures. She yawned and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. Her ombre toned hair fell into her face and he gently tucked it behind her ear, his fingertips lingering at her jaw for a blip of time. She looked up at him, placed a kiss on his cheek and nuzzled back into his shoulder, which was surprisingly comfortable. Or perhaps she was just that tired.

Tired of the silence.

But now, she could finally get some sleep.