Thirty-four #2
Emerson let out a heavy breath. "Macy almost ignored the call from the hospital. She only picked up because Easton answered for her. If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t even know what happened."
That woman was bitter.
“Her boyfriend just broke up with her. That’s why it didn’t take much for her to quick out Eli after he yelled at her.”
"Boo-hoo," Kailey mumbled sarcastically.
We all went to the waiting room to wait for the doctor to come tell us we could see him. In that time my mother had made it to the hospital. Gabriela had filled her and Alan in about everything that went down, so she rushed over here the moment she made it back from her trip.
My mam à bought us all burgers from the place down the street, as well as blankets from the house to keep us warm. She wanted to keep us as comfortable as possible because none of us were going to leave until Eli was ready to be discharged.
My mother even brought food and a blanket for the twins.
Emerson was hesitant when she tried to hand it to her and Easton wouldn’t even move.
Mam à was persistent, though, and the twins eventually took the handouts.
It was like her kindness to them was a foreign concept that they did not know how to navigate.
Another hour went by, and I swore the doctors were leaving us hanging on purpose. I tried to fight it, but I couldn’t help dozing in and out of sleep as we waited forever.
Luckily the waiting did not last much longer. The doctor greeted the twins again with a calm smile. Eli was awake and confused, wanting people to be by his side. He was not ready to be discharged, but he was ready for outside visitors.
I found out the twins had been allowed to enter Eli's room the entire time because they were family, but they simply did not want to. It made my blood boil that Elias was in there all alone unnecessarily. What were his siblings even here for?
Easton and Emerson gave me whiplash. One moment they were showing true care for their brother and then five minutes later they were throwing him under the bus.
They rushed to the hospital, scared and stressed because Eli could have had alcohol poisoning, but it wasn’t enough for them to want to be by his side?
Now they were getting ready to leave without even saying ‘hi’ to him. When I asked why I was met with mumbling and empty shrugs. They could not muster up the courage to face their brother, and I could not tell if that was out of stubbornness or guilt. Sad.
"You go in there first," Ricky said encouragingly. "Alone, in case he’s embarrassed.”
"But you only get five minutes and then I am going because I’ve been waiting forever," Bella said.
I gave the group a sharp nod as the twins came close to me. A little too close, actually. They did not want anyone else to hear what they were about to whisper to me.
"Tell Eli we love him, okay?" Emerson's stare was hard.
"You should tell him yourself."
Easton exhaled forcefully. "Please, Javier. Don’t be difficult."
How I wished they could own up to their faults and treat their brother the way he deserved. When would they finally get over themselves and have at least one productive conversation with him?
I barely got to nod before the twins turned around to make their exit.
My hand trembled as I pulled on the handle of the door. Shit, why was I nervous? It was only Eli.
I entered the room to find him sitting on the bed with his knees pulled to his chest. He had an IV in his arm just like in the ambulance and there were some other machines beeping around him. Standard hospital stuff.
When the door creaked open he turned my way, a weak smile painting his face. God, his face. He had dark circles under his eyes that accompanied the foggy look in them. His hair was messily pressed against his head and his body sagged with exhaustion.
I walked over to him slowly, like walking too fast would make the ground shake and harm him. I took his hand into mine gently.
"Hey," he whispered.
"Hi," I said hoarsely. "How do you feel?"
"No doubt the worst hangover of my life."
I sat on the edge of the bed carefully. I was treating him like he was a fragile piece of glass that could break at any moment, though I wasn’t trying to. "So you remember what happened?"
He rested his chin on his knees. "The nurses told me."
I rubbed the back of his hand with my thumb as Eli rubbed his temple. He was embarrassed by it all, I could tell. His eyes weren’t meeting mine and was chewing on the inside of his cheek.
"Why did you do that, Eli?" I forced myself to ask. It was a difficult question, one that I knew he had no desire to answer. I was hesitant to ask out of fear of the truth, but I couldn’t carry on without getting it off my chest.
His jaw clenched as he stared into the white sheets of the hospital bed, giving me a meaningless shrug for an answer.
"You could have died! I thought that you..." I squeezed his hand and swallowed the lump in my throat. “What if we hadn’t found you and you kept going? We could be in a completely different situation right now.”
"I didn't mean to,” his voice cracked as he spoke.
"Is that the truth? This was all just one huge accident, one moment of weakness?"
Eli parted his lips to speak but his words got caught in his throat. It made my heart sink, was it not an accident? Did I not do a good enough job at proving to Eli that he meant the world to me?
He saw fear in my eyes and gave my hand a tight squeeze. "I did not do it on purpose."
I felt a 'but' coming.
"But I was also curious," he whispered. “About what they would do, how they would react.”
“‘What they would do?’” I muttered to myself as I tried to decipher the meaning in his words. "Macy or the twins?"
Eli scoffed. "I don't care about Macy. It was a long time ago when I came to terms that she will always hate me because she thinks that I am the reason for her sister's death. Nothing will change that. When she kicked me out, I was hurt, but it wasn’t really because of her."
"So your siblings," I clarified. "I know they're bad at showing it, but I do think they care. They told me to tell you that they love you."
Eli tried to sit up, but I gently pushed him back. I did not want him to move a muscle when he was this weak. His brows furrowed. "Yeah? So where are they?"
"They were just here."
"But they couldn't be bothered to stay." Eli’s teeth grinded together in a rough motion. "That shows me how much they care. I care about them, but they only care about each other."
I now believed my sister when she told me the situation with the Richardson siblings was not black and white.
The twins were blinded by what Macy had taught them all their lives.
They were children who lost their parents before they could even talk, of course they would listen to the only parental figure in their life when she tells them who to blame.
But that isn’t fair to Eli.
I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed lightly. He leaned into the hug, wrapping an arm around my side and leaning his head on my shoulder. We existed in comfortable silence, each other's presence being the only thing we needed.
"I have a problem, Javier." he whispered in my ear.
I pulled his head into my chest and kept quiet because nothing felt appropriate to say. I was proud of him for admitting it, but it was not the time to share that. He was reflecting and I needed to be there for him, not risk him feeling bad about it.
Eli felt like shit and I felt like shit for him. To see him so desperately crave affection and be denied it made me sick. He did not deserve that.
When the twins couldn't make up their minds, when Macy blamed him for his parents' deaths, when he was his own worst enemy, I would be there. I would be the constant in his life through the good and the hardship because he was worth it.
Elias pulled back from the hug with a sniff. His eyes were glossy as they searched mine. I did not know what he was searching for, but the slight shaking told me he was apprehensive.
"I love you," Eli confessed with a quiver of his lip.
I blinked at him unexpectedly. Was this real? The guy who had hated my guts since he first met me—who spent our entire four years of high school trying to prove that he was better than me was now saying he loved me?
I had said that I loved him earlier, but I had yet to say it to his face.
Get the words out, Javier. Tell him you love him.
He shifted against me. "You don't have to say it back yet. I just wanted you to know that."
Unable to do anything else, my hands cupped his cheeks as I pressed my lips against his. He reciprocated, leaning into the kiss with a longing like we had been apart for years. My heart swelled as I kissed my rival.
Pulling back from the kiss, I gave him a peck on the forehead. Our foreheads rested against each other gently.
"I love you too, more than you know."