Because of Ellison (13 page)

“We can do that. I can be that friend.” I was resolute in my
offer and she smiled at the sound of it. She pushed up on her tiptoes and
lightly kissed me on the cheek. Reaching up to wipe away the tears under her
eyes, she said, “Well, now that I’m done acting stupid, we should probably get
back.”

We walked out of the woods and just before we approached the
bonfire, I grabbed her arm and turned her to me. “I’m driving you home tonight,
El. I won’t drink anymore and I’ll be okay to drive once we leave. I don’t want
to hear any argument about it, so just know that I’ll be the one driving you
home tonight. Okay?”

She didn’t answer for a few seconds while she stood there
and stared at me. “Fine. You can drive me home.”

I smiled.

Up down, up down, dip
…

Up down, up down, dip
…

Holy shit, this sucked. Painting the exterior of a house is
probably the most monotonous and grueling task a person can perform at the
beginning of the Florida summer. With sweat dripping down my head, I was
finishing up the last walls of the house. After I finished this, all I had left
was the trim and the house would be done. There was a light at the end of my
105-degree tunnel and I was happy to finally have it in sight.

And I was proud

After the primer provided a solid foundation, I’d painted on
the next layer; the outside skin, the beauty that would project the personality
of its occupants, and the part that every person would see. It was the outward
reflection of the stability and strength of the job. And, to me at least, it
had to be perfect.

I’m not going to explain to you why that
is
important, but I will say that if you missed the significance, then you haven’t
been paying attention to the story.

It had been a week since the bonfire. As I’d demanded, I’d
driven El home that night. Lily had opted to ride with Ryan, and Finn had
grudgingly accepted a ride with Jake. That left El and me alone for a long and
awkward ride back to our houses. Not much was said between us, except for the
occasional directions and warnings about an animal in the road. There were a
lot of them, by the way. It was like playing a game of “Frogger” the entire way
back. Luckily, we didn’t hit anything and that was a blessing considering how
upset I knew Ellison would have become.

I didn’t go on the hike Ellison and I had planned for the
following day. I woke up early as usual, thanks to Lily and Bill, but I went to
work painting the house instead. When everybody had left the property, I’d
reached for the radio at one point — but I couldn’t turn it on when I’d
tried. I just couldn’t hit the button. Ellison’s words about silence played in
my head and I made a choice to endure my thoughts for several hours rather than
having angry, angst-filled ballads blasted in my ears.

That sucked as well. Thinking. It really was a form of
torture I was inflicting on myself. But, I think it might have done me some
good after all. It was actually quite disturbing to discover I really didn’t
care about anything. Nothing was important to me — but me. And now,
Ellison was as well. I couldn’t ignore that annoying fact, but the epiphany was
still the same. I was wasting my life. I was filling it up with pointless
distractions and I was partying to cover up the boredom and pain I was
suffering. And I felt like a pathetic little bitch to admit it.

Ellison had said to find something that interested me,
something that I wanted to explore. There was nothing. I didn’t have an
emotional connection to anything and I worried that I’d end up laid out on some
shrink’s couch because something needed to be fixed in my head. I needed to
find that connection to something and for the week it took me to paint the house,
I’d scoured my brain in search of it. But no matter how hard I tried, I
couldn’t find it.

“It’s looking really good, Hunter.”

Ellison. I knew her voice. It was imprinted in my thoughts and
seared into my memory. It was musical. It was a sound I would never be able to
hear enough. I was seriously starting to lose it and it was driving me fucking
mad. It had to be an infection of some sort. I had to be sick. Because there
was no other reason why I should be feeling what I was for this girl.

Turning towards her, I reached up to wipe some sweat from my
forehead. She laughed and pointed.

“You just smeared paint all over your head. The light blue
looks good on you.”

Well, shit, it’s
better than the pink calamine lotion …

She was dressed in her hiking gear and her bags hung off her
shoulders. The two devil beasts were at her feet, but luckily, they were too
tired from the hike to mess up the job I’d just finished. I had to thank nature
for that small favor.

My lips curled into a grin. “Thanks. Just have to finish the
trim and it’s done. Bill says I can take a break after that for a day or two
before starting on the porch.”

Ellison made a point to look around my shoulder at the porch
in question. When she returned her eyes to me, she laughed and commented, “That
should take you the rest of the summer to complete. Good luck to you.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped me. I knew she was
joking — but not really. The porch was bad, real bad, and there was no
telling what types of dangerous booby traps were hidden within the piles of
crap that covered it.

“What are you planning on doing during your break?”

I watched a bead of sweat slide down from her temple to her
cheek. It shone against her sun kissed skin and I suddenly remembered the salty
taste of her. It was a thought I shouldn’t have been thinking, but I was
thinking it anyway. Nature fucked me again when a gust of wind blew across us
and her scent blanketed me. My body shuddered and my mouth watered. My tongue
flicked out to lick along my lip and her eyes followed the motion. This was the
hardest thing I’d ever done: keeping myself from kissing her was next to
impossible.

“I don’t have any plans yet.” I should have come up with
something … lied … not opened myself up for the invitation I knew was coming.

“Well, you’re welcome to come along with me on the trails.
We could take a shorter one tomorrow and do some fishing. I think you’d have
fun. I’ll invite Lily to come along, but she’s been at Ryan’s a lot lately and
she probably won’t come with us.”

She was lonely without Lily. I could see that and it wasn’t
a good time for her to have nobody. She was hurting. It was obvious in her
demeanor and I wondered if they received some of the test results about her
father.

“Yeah. That would be cool. Do I have to get up at the butt
crack of dawn this time?”

She laughed. “Nope. Although the fish will be biting better
in the early morning than they would at midday. If you actually want to catch
something, it’s best we go early.”

I wanted to catch something. It just wasn’t a damn fish.

“Sounds good. Do I need to bring anything, like a bathing
suit?” I winked and the dimples flew. I couldn’t help it. It was an instinctual
behavior that surfaced whenever Ellison was near me.

The pink that instantly flamed on her cheeks was so fucking
adorable. I never knew why people always wanted to pinch the cheeks of chubby
little poop monsters in the past, but looking down at Ellison now — I
completely understood. When something that adorable is staring a person in the
face, there’s nothing you can do but reach over and touch it.

“That’s probably a good idea. I’ll bring one as well.”

“That is entirely up to you. If you’re more comfortable in
the buff, I won’t complain.” I shrugged. “Seriously, it’s your call.”

Her smile was brilliant. “You’ve never seen me in the
complete buff, Hunter — unless of course there’s something your creepy
stalker ass isn’t telling me.”

It was comfortable. Our encounter. Even though there’d been
distant tension in the past week, we were immediately able to fall back into
step with one another. And I was fucking ecstatic about it.

“Well, see you tomorrow, then. I’ll come by in the morning
to grab you around six. Or is that too early?”

I shook my head. She could have picked me up at three in the
morning and it wouldn’t have made a difference. If she was going somewhere and
she wanted me to tag along, there wasn’t a damn thing on this planet that would
stop me.

~
    
~
    
~

I’m not going to get into the details of what happened on
that first fishing trip. Let’s just say it ended in a couple of stitches in my
back from where’d I caught my skin with the hook I was trying to cast. It
wasn’t a pretty picture and it makes me look like a punk, so I’m not going to
talk about it. One thing was for sure, television had lied and fishing was not
as fun as it looked.

After that craptacular adventure, Ellison decided it would
be best that I was introduced to her leisure activities slowly and easily.
Hiking took up the majority of our time. It was a simple activity that didn’t
require the use of pointy objects. It’s not that I was a klutz by any means,
but Ellison finally realized my issues with nature and all the things it had to
offer. The walks were good. It was rare that I did anything stupid and after
the first few times, I was able to pace her with no problem. We talked a lot
during those walks — about life, about love, and about things I’d never
discussed with another person. Her ability to pull information out of me was
astounding and I learned more about myself in those hours with her than I had
the entire 19 years I’d been alive. She had a simple outlook on life. There
were no complications or strings when it came to what she considered was
happiness. She told me numerous times that I had to find what mattered. That I
had to keep looking and keep exploring, but that I shouldn’t stop experiencing
life while I searched for it. It killed me at times to be around her. She
didn’t have much in life and she’d been dealt a pretty crappy hand when it came
to what happened to her mother. But she never stopped smiling and she wouldn’t
stop trying to rescue me from something I didn’t even know was threatening me
to begin with. At times, I thought she knew me better than I knew myself, and I
was entirely thankful for her insight.

“It’s been a month. I’m surprised Bill hasn’t gotten on to
you about getting that porch finished.” She walked in front of me as usual and
my eyes were following the highlighted pieces of blonde that wound through her
braid. Everything about her amazed me — even the color of her hair.

“Yeah, well he said something about the hikes being good for
me so he hasn’t made it much of an issue. I’m sure he’d be less giving if I was
just sitting around doing nothing all day.”

Bill encouraged my friendship with Ellison, and Lily did as
well. But they were the only ones. Finn was still nice when he saw me around,
and Jake was too oblivious to care, but Henry still gave me the evil eye every
time he spotted me. He hadn’t threatened me again and I was thankful for that,
but I’d hoped he would warm up to me after seeing that I had no ill intentions
towards his daughter. He didn’t. But he didn’t come between us either and I
could respect him for that. He was letting Ellison choose for herself and I
appreciated that he wasn’t trying to tell her what to do like her brother and
ex-boyfriend seemed to do often.

“Here we are! Thank god, because it’s really hot today.”
Ellison ran towards the spring, while stripping off her shirt and shorts and
she jumped immediately into the water. I could imagine the shock of the cold
water against her skin, and I hated the fact I’d have to experience it as well,
but I knew eventually I’d be happy to be cooled down. My clothes were soaked
with sweat and the sun shone down without any cloud cover to give us shade. But
it was a beautiful day and I was spending it with a beautiful girl. You
wouldn’t catch me complaining.

She splashed through the water in a tiny blue bikini and the
light colored straw hat she’d been wearing on the hike. A thin necklace of
beads hung around her neck and they bounced over her breasts from her movement
through the water. My attraction to Ellison didn’t decrease with the amount of
time we’d been spending together — it only increased — and just the
sight of her was enough to light a fire under my skin that was painful to
endure. I kept to my word though and I never tried to push the line of
friendship that she’d asked for the night of the bonfire.

Stripping my shirt and shorts off, I stepped into the water
wearing the bathing suit I’d worn underneath my clothes. Ellison looked up at
me for a moment, but then turned to swim farther out to watch the fish I knew
she loved. We’d brought snorkels with us a couple of times and I had to admit:
it was magical to swim within the school and to watch the waves of
their
brightly colored bodies edge in around us. It was like
existing in an entirely different world and I was glad to share it with her. It
was our world that summer; it was our moment together.

Swimming out to her, I floated beside her and we watched the
fish swirl beneath us. Every once in a while, you’d see a turtle swim through
the herd and Ellison would gasp each time — even though she’d seen it a
million times before. Her innocent excitement was compelling, it was
attractive, and it was something I’d never known I’d been missing in other
people.

“That was a big one, huh? Makes you wonder how they swim
around as easily as they do with that giant shell on their back. Guess the
webbed toes help.”

I didn’t answer right away and she reached out to grab my
hand. “Everything okay?” Her touch sent electric pulses shooting up my arms and
I flinched in response to how sudden she’d done it. Turning to her, I squeezed
her hand in mine and pulled her quickly to wrap her in a hug.