Unquiet (40 page)

“Yikes.”

There didn’t seem to be anything more to say after that. Carey busied himself with putting away the groceries, and Loren, still shaking his head with bemusement, went to take a shower.

ELIOT STOOD
in the hallway, listening as Jeremy talked to his daughter. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but he was heading toward his and Loren’s room when he came upon them.

“I’m so sorry that Daddy and I freaked out and embarrassed you, honey,” Jeremy was saying. “I think it’s just the thought of you being so grown-up—”

“It’s okay, Papa,” Jasmine whispered, and Jeremy put his arm around her shoulders.

“I can’t promise something like that won’t happen again, but we love you, and we’ll try to handle things better in the future. You know you can always call Elise with any questions, though, right?”

“I’m just gonna call Jase. He said I could.”

Eliot smiled at the faint tone of hero worship infusing Jasmine’s voice.

“He’d like that,” Jeremy replied gently. “I know he misses his sisters, and he used to be an EMT, so he knows all about that mysterious stuff. But there’s going to be times you just need to talk to a woman, and Elise has said she’d love to be there for you.” Jasmine nodded, and Jeremy pulled her close. “Love you, Jazzy,” he whispered into her hair.

“Love you, Papa.” They hugged for a long minute, then Jasmine pulled away and headed off, presumably to find her brother. Jeremy sighed, then walked over to where Eliot was leaning against the wall.

“Thanks, man,” Jeremy said. “For being so calm and for being what she needed: a supportive adult.” He snorted in self-deprecation. “Two grown men freaking out over a natural occurrence. Embarrassing her when we should have been excited for her, more understanding.”

“You’re a parent,” Eliot said, warmed by Jeremy’s compliment. “You’re allowed a freak-out or two.”

Jeremy clapped him on the shoulder. “I need to go find my husband,” he said ruefully. “He’s more upset than I am, thinks because he’s a high school teacher he should have been the one to handle it better.”

“Nope,” Eliot replied, his tone firm. “When it’s your own daughter, all bets are off. You two need to cut yourselves some slack and move on. Believe me, I’m the expert on internalizing mistakes, and no good ever comes of that.”

“I’ll tell him that, Eliot. Thanks again. You’re a good friend.”

With that Jeremy strode off down the hall. Eliot watched him go, his heart full of all his blessings. A husband, friends…. All of the things he’d never thought he’d have.

He let himself into his and Loren’s suite. The air was steamy from a recent shower, scented with Loren’s favorite bodywash and shampoo. Eliot took a deep breath. Smell, one of the most powerful of memory triggers. All during that year of utter darkness, of pain, when madness finally consumed him, swallowed him whole, Loren had blanketed him in protection, tried to infuse him with strength. The impression of strong arms, a deep voice… the scent of sandalwood.

If love had a smell, it would almost certainly be that.

Exactly what happened during that year would be forever lost to him. He did remember Sam’s death, finding his friend cold and stiff on his bench, slumped over to the side, looking like a pile of old dirty rags. Unwanted, uncared for… hopeless. Eliot could easily become Sam. Sam could have been Eliot’s future. No matter what he did, the madness would come for him in the end, so Eliot tried to make himself small, unnoticed. Maybe if he held still long enough, maybe if he didn’t eat, didn’t fucking
breathe
… the madness would pass him by.

Eliot’s world narrowed to a suffocating black darkness, a weight that crushed him, that created a physical pain so excruciating, so bone-deep…. Please, dear God, make it stop.

Eliot didn’t remember the act of finding those pills and taking them, but he remembered sitting on the toilet seat afterward, a soaring sense of relief making him feel lightheaded. It would soon be over—sweet, sweet release. He sat there, taking deep breaths, feeling welcome and blessed numbness start from his feet and spread like molasses up his body, a heaviness that pulled him down into comforting blackness, a blackness that wasn’t suffocating anymore but that cradled him and took all of the pain away. As he slipped under, the scent of sandalwood suddenly filled his nostrils. It was his final conscious breath….

Loren. My love….

He woke up in Desert Grove one day with no idea of how he got there or the journey he took. For weeks afterward he just existed, shuffling to and fro, going where people told him to go. During group therapy Eliot liked to lie on the floor under one of the tables, curled up into a ball, his blanket over his head. Nobody made him come out; nobody made him talk. Some of the other patients in the room with him moaned and cried, some babbled, and some were frighteningly silent.

But still he obediently went until one day he felt like sitting in a chair. Then another day he felt like talking, his voice rusty and hoarse from disuse. Progress.

And when Eliot at last emerged from the darkness into the light, when he could breathe again, when a cautious hope had taken root and sprouted tendrils… he and Loren completely lost their way.

Eliot took another deep breath of sandalwood mixed with sea air, noticing the open french doors that led to the balcony. Loren was out there, naked except for the briefest of towels wrapped around his hips. Eliot slipped up behind him, wrapping his arms around Loren’s waist and nuzzling his cheek into the warm skin between his shoulder blades. He was solid, warm… he was
here
.

For a while he hadn’t been.

“What are you thinking about, El?” Loren asked, turning and wrapping Eliot up in his arms. “You’re tense.”

Eliot put his head on Loren’s chest and sighed. “Just thinking about—that year,” he whispered. “How close we came to losing each other.”

Loren tightened his arms. “It’s been on my mind a lot too,” he admitted. “Because we’re here all together, and I know for me it’s making me appreciate even more how blessed I feel these days. How I don’t want to take any of our happiness for granted.”

Eliot nodded, nuzzling his nose and lips against Loren’s damp, warm skin. “Mmm,” he hummed. “So blessed.”

He winced when he thought about how much Loren had lost. While Eliot was in Desert Grove, Loren was fired from his new job teaching police procedure at the academy, his absences too numerous to ignore. Only Rebecca and Fred’s timely financial intervention prevented them from losing their house.

While Eliot got better, Loren’s resentment and anger grew. He was cold, and unapproachable, and threw up walls so thick Eliot despaired of ever breaking through them.

One day after Loren slammed out of the house in a fury over something Eliot did or failed to do—Eliot couldn’t even remember what it was—he called Traci in tears. She and Donovan came right over, and they sat down with him on the back patio.

“He’s human, Eliot,” Traci said gently. “He’s lost his identity as a cop, as a breadwinner, reduced to borrowing money from his mother-in-law.”

Eliot bit his lip, his eyes burning. “Because I’ve been sick. And he did it all for me.”

“Now you’re getting well, and deep down he’s afraid, Eliot.”

“It’s like he’s forgotten how to talk to me, what to do with me,” Eliot whispered. “How to be with me anymore.”

“He’s been so wrapped up in your illness for so long, he hasn’t had a chance to grow,” Donovan said. “He doesn’t know who he is anymore; he’s been so defined by your illness.”

Eliot got up and paced the patio. “He just took a job as mall security,” he said. “And he dresses in that ridiculous uniform and heads off to work. And he used to be a fucking
detective
. He calls himself ‘Loren Smith, Mall Cop.’” Eliot could hear the anguish in his own voice.

Traci winced. “Oh, honey, sounds like maybe he’s got the martyr thing going on. You’ve got to nip that in the bud right now, Eliot.”

“How?” Eliot asked helplessly. “I’m trying to do everything right, and it’s not enough for him anymore. I have completely fucked up his life.”

He was surprised when Traci stood up and shook him, hard. “Stop that, Eliot Devlin! You have an illness that you can’t help and don’t want. None of this is your fault, okay?”

Donovan leaned forward and braced his elbows on his knees. “But Loren’s well-being is important too. He hasn’t bailed, and he’s not going to bail, Eliot. But what he’s going to do is get even more bitter and more resentful, and it’ll eat away at everything until one day you won’t have much left to save.”

“I think you need to leave him, baby,” Traci said softly. “Give him room to breathe and find himself again.”

“Oh, that makes perfect sense,” Eliot cried. “After he’s done so much for me, then I walk out on him? No, I won’t do it.”

“I’m not talking about a permanent dumping of his ass, El,” Traci retorted. “Move out for a little while, give him some space. Show him you’re okay, that you don’t need him to be your martyr.”

After a few more miserable weeks, Eliot was finally convinced, and one day he packed a bag and waited in the living room for Loren to get home. He tensed as the garage door went up, and then Loren came in, bellowing, “Hey, El! Exciting day! I busted a shoplifter at the fucking GameStop!” The mocking tone, the bitterness, convinced Eliot once and for all he was doing the right thing, and he stood up clutching his bag, trembling.

“I’m moving out, Loren,” he whispered. “Not forever, just for a little while. I want you to find yourself again. I love you.” And he fled.

As predicted Loren was furiously angry and hurt. In their first phone call afterward, he told Eliot coldly not to ever bother coming back. Eliot was proud he hadn’t broken down, just told Loren again he loved him and he’d be waiting.

Then they didn’t speak at all. Eliot kept as busy as possible with AA meetings, with therapy, with volunteering. Bev welcomed him back to the daycare with open arms, treating him as if the intervening year hadn’t even happened.

One day she approached him, inviting him into her office.

“I’m wondering if you’d be interested in a paid position,” she said, eyes twinkling as Eliot gaped at her, dumbfounded.

“You want to pay me? To do what?”

She steepled her fingers and pressed them to her lips. “Sadly, over the recent years, I’ve become aware of a trending increase in mentally ill homeless youth. A good friend of mine has just gotten a grant to fund a halfway house in the downtown area, and we’re going to partner up together, share in fundraising efforts, referrals, that sort of thing. He tells me he knows you very well, and he can’t think of anyone else he’d want to help him run the day-to-day operations.”

Eliot knew immediately who she was referring to, and a happy smile spread across his face. “Joaquin Makemba? Searchlight Ministries?”

“The very same, my dear. It would be a paid position, although I wouldn’t go out and book your European vacation just yet,” she said, her tone dry. “We can’t afford to pay much, but we have the funding for a small salary for you if you want it.”

Eliot did want it, and he immersed himself in the work, body and soul. Bev was right. The paychecks were miniscule, but they were his. He earned them, and it was so long since he was self-sufficient he’d forgotten how empowering that was.

He fell into a satisfying routine of medication, counseling, fundraising meetings, helping Joaquin scout locations. At his therapist’s urging, he also started daily journaling and mood charting, which forced him to analyze every nuance of what he was feeling.

“I’ve never wanted to do a mood chart before,” he told his therapist ruefully. “Because it felt like I was giving my illness too much power over me by even admitting it existed. All I ever wanted was to be normal.”

“What’s normal to you, Eliot?” she asked.

He shrugged. “How about not being such an epic fuckup? And I’m tired of being afraid all the time.”

Eliot was surprised when she gave a gentle laugh. “And you think so-called ‘normal’ people don’t fuck up occasionally? Don’t get scared of things?”

“Well—”

“You can’t hold yourself to standards that don’t exist, Eliot. Everybody has doubts, fears, struggles. Yours might be a little more challenging than some, but accept that! Surrender to your reality, beat it into submission through sheer acceptance. Respect your illness, but don’t let it run the show.”

It was an eye-opening conversation. Eliot saw every episode, every cycle as a personal failure rather an illness he was coping with and trying to manage. He was in charge, not the black demon, not the madness.

So even though he felt stupid at first, he journaled every day. He mood-charted every morning when he woke up, and just the act of shifting his perceptions, of starting to expect a fucking awesome day instead of cringing in anticipation of a horror show, helped more than he ever dreamed it could.

Regular exercise helped keep his moods stable. He felt like a valuable contributing member of society. He was helping people, making friends—he made friends through the Ministries, and since most of them were recovering alcoholics or drug addicts themselves, they were people he could totally be himself with. Yes, life was good.

It got even better one evening when there was a knock on his mother’s door, and Eliot opened it to see Loren standing there, biting his lower lip, a desperate yet cautious hope in his eyes. Eliot didn’t say a word, just opened his arms, gathered the man he loved to him, and held him close.

Intensive couples’ counseling, baby steps. During their time apart, Loren found a job as a resource officer with the Glendale Police Department, something he was enjoying very much.

“I kind of missed herding punks around,” he said jokingly one day, referring to the time he and Kai ran a community service crew of juvenile delinquents up in Oregon. He was now working closely with detectives in the Glendale Police gang unit, traveling to all the different junior and senior high schools in the area, putting on presentations about drugs and gang activity. One time Kai even came down from Oregon and appeared as a guest speaker, mesmerizing the kids with his story about being involved with a gang and the two hard years he spent in juvie.