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Kathleen looks at me, waiting for more and I shake my head. “It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated, Elijah?”
“My feelings about her, about everything. I’m just so angry, so blinded and depressed and confused. She took everything from me.”
“Okay, well that makes sense. Have you contemplated anything serious, revenge, getting back at her, anything of the like?”
“No. I haven’t had time to think about the future or think about how I’m going to deal with her. I can’t think without knowing if I’ll be able to play hockey again, if I’ll be able to ever go back to normal.”
“What do you want your normal to look like?”
I pause to think. Well, isn’t that fucking obvious? How things used to be, right? “I want to be back on the team. I don’t need this break. I’m not my father. I’m not a drug addict, and I’m sure as hell not a dealer, okay?”
“You’ll never be your father, Elijah,” she says. “You are so much more.”
Despite how hard I fight it, tears fall, and she waits in silence until I wipe them away.
“Tell me,” I beg. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
“Sometimes, I find in moments like these it’s best to bare yourself to the world with raw honesty, with discomfort. I think maybe you need to drop your idea of what’s normal and reconsider the things that are most important to you and your future. Do you see yourself not talking to Taylor ever again? Do you see yourself dropping the team and dropping out of college? I’d say, if the answer to those questions is no, then go out there and show them who you are, show them that you’re there to stay.”
“You make it sound easy,” I say.
She gives me a sweet smile, tucking a strand of her short gray hair behind her ears. “Darling, nothing is easy. But we do it anyway, right?”
30
TAYLOR CROMWELL
Imanaged to get my classes online for the foreseeable future, but that doesn’t mean I have the capacity to complete the work on my own. I haven’t eaten in days, and I feel like, truly, I don’t deserve to. I’m not sure what I deserve anymore other than loneliness. During the day, I hear Elijah walking the halls, sometimes stopping outside my door for what feels like hours. He just stands there, and I stand on the other side, watching the shadow of his feet. I wonder if he’s contemplating murdering me as he stands there…contemplating coming into my room and just ending it all.
I’ve been without a phone for a couple days now, too. I’ve been using my laptop to get news and check my media. That’s how I found that Elijah has already been replaced by the second line center indefinitely. I wonder if he’s in an investigation or permanently off the team. I wonder if he is doing online school now like me. I heard him leave the house once Friday morning, but now it’s Monday afternoon. I snuck down to get water and some crackers Saturday evening, and I’ve been living off that since.
King has been my loyal companion. He’s the only one who can stand to look at me after what I’ve done. I thought I was being clever and just. not realizing that what I posted would make it past campus socials and onto platforms like Buzzfeed. I’d be mortified if my fake cheating scandal was posted on Buzzfeed. So much that I’m not sure I wouldn’t have thought about hurting myself. My heart sinks. I hope Elijah hasn’t thought about that.
I never got the chance to tell him about Derek, but I’m pretty sure it’s far too late to make any sort of conversation with him without it turning violent. The parents should be home soon, in time for Thanksgiving and the last thing I want to do is pretend to play nice in front of the whole family over a meal. I’ll probably have to tell Dad what’s going on eventually. And maybe Mom, too.
With school being online now, I changed my shift to work weekday mornings off and on to avoid working the same schedule as Stephanie. Hopefully, in time, she can forgive me. Olive, too. I assume Elijah has told everyone he can by now that I’m the one who put the camera in his room, that I’m the freak who recorded him.
I doze off and wake up a few hours later past sunset. My room is dark, but I can see the shadow of Elijah’s feet outside my door again. I decide that I need to say something to him, say anything that can resemble an apology worthy for something so horrible.
My socks shuffle across my floor, and I creak open my door to find him standing there. He looks surprised that I’ve broken our silent war and welcomed him into my room. He wears the same sweats I saw him in last Friday.
“Elijah,” I whisper his name like it’s a ticking time bomb. I wait for the inevitable flood of cursing and torture.
“You,” he whispers, his voice hoarse. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t utter another word or sound.
“Me,” I say. “Me. I’m—I—can never say how sorry I am. I’m not even really sure how to say it without sounding like I don’t mean it.”
He walks in and sits on my unmade bed in the dark. My LED lights flicker on and illuminate us in warm purple lighting.
“You actually… you hate me?” he whispers.
“No,” I say rushing over to him, tears already spilling. How is he so calm? Why won’t he just fucking scream at me?
“I’m not perfect,” he says, looking at me. “I’ve been trying to find the right words for days now.”
I sit down on the rug in front of him on my knees.
