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“When you’re off at fashion school you’ll need something as a conversation starter. Take it, please. Or it’ll sit in my wardrobe for the next fifty years.”
She still looks unsure, but the temptation is evident. “Thanks, Miss.” She hugs Elle and pockets the scarf, returning to her group.
They work for about an hour. Elle visits each group to work with them individually and then they all come together at the end and choreograph a ‘spontaneous’ riff-off. The kids all seem to be having a blast, laughing and bantering with each other. My heart feels so full watching Elle with these kids who clearly adore her. They laugh and joke with her, ask her to sing with them and she obliges, with a bright smile. She is so beautiful when she’s happy, always has been, even now with a swollen, purple eye and fat lip. I knew it from the moment I saw her again, but today the feeling just cements itself into my soul. I still love her.
I drive Elle home after the hall is put back, she yawns a few times and I realise that after five days of being housebound and recovering, today must have taken it out of her; the conversations I am dying to have with her are too heavy for the moment. So, I choose mundane conversation.
“Hey, who’s Edward Cullen?”
She turns to me, confused. “What?”
“That Romeo kid said ‘bye, Edward Cullen’ to me when he left.”
She snorts a laugh and when I think she’s going to explain, she just throws her head back and laughs some more, making me raise my eyebrows. When she calms herself, she finally says, “Oh come on, you’re a bisexual millennial. I refuse to believe you’ve never read or watched Twilight.”
“The glitterball?” I ask, incredulous. “That guy compared me to a teenage boy covered in stripper glitter?”
She snorts again, I can’t say I’m too keen on the nickname I’ve been given, but her happiness outweighs any of that. “Well, I think he was just trying to say you look like a vampire, because you look nothing like Edward Cullen…apart from skin tone maybe.” She adds the last bit with a smirk.
“I do not look like a vampire.” I roll my eyes with a smile. I have never cared when people call me a vampire. Kinda liked it to be honest, but I want to keep up her good humour and this conversation.
“Sure you do. You’re like a sexy vampire pirate with the eyeliner and the black nails and everything.”
“You think I’m sexy?” I give her a sideway glance with a smirk, and she just smiles out the window without answering.
“Thanks for tonight,” she says to me as we pull into the underground car park for our building.
“No problem, baby-cakes.”
She rolls her eyes getting out of the car and heads for the elevator.
“How long have you been doing the choir?”
“About two years.”
“What made you start it?”
She shifts uncomfortably as we ascend, piquing my interest, so I turn to face her and tilt her chin to me with a crooked finger. Seeing my questioning look, she swallows and speaks quietly. “You said that if your sister had someone, anyone but you who cared, she might not have gotten into drugs. You said once that there should be a place for kids to go when they don’t want to be at home. All I know is music, so I started a choir. If I can give one kid a safe space to go, I’ve done some good in this world.”
My chest constricts and my eyes sting. She did this for Poppy; for kids like her. Elle listened to an off the hand comment I made years ago and started something to ease heartache. I love her so fucking much. I’m just about to tell her as much but the ding of the elevator and the doors sliding open bring me back to planet earth. I pick up the duffle bag that I had dropped at some pointand link my fingers with hers, she doesn’t complain and follows me to the apartment.
As we are starting to make dinner she asks, “Can I ask you something?” Her voice is small, shy almost, and I don’t love it.
“Of course, baby.” She pauses, her face tells me she’s wondering if she wants to continue with her question. Her eyes start to shimmer with tears, and I set the saucepan down and go to her. “Talk to me, Elle. Don’t shut me out, I can’t take the silence anymore.”
She stretches her neck to look up at me as I’m only a couple of inches away from her. Her sad eyes make me want kiss the pain away, but I wait patiently for her words. “Why did you leave me?”
33
ELLE
My question hangs in the air for several seconds and it feels like the only sound to be heard is the thumping of my heart. Hayden’s jaw works as though he is chewing on his answer, breathing heavily through his nose. Is that anger in his eyes?
“That’s not fair, Elle,” he says unnervingly calm. I think of how to respond but he continues. “I tried constantly for months to contact you. I called you every day for weeks and you never answered. I messaged you multiple times a day until I couldn’t take the silence anymore, and even then, I kept contact at least once a year. I did everything I could, but you wouldn’t hear it.”
I feel the burning at my eyes. He’s right, I ignored him all the times he tried to reach me. I was so broken for so long that I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him. My tears fall as he cups my face and wipes them with the pads of his thumbs. “I…I heard Lance tell Brent that you were going to live with them. I hadn’t seen you since Lance said those things and then you were going to live with him…I didn’t understand.”
“Why didn’t you answer your phone, baby?” he whispers almost rhetorically.
