Chapter 18 Elijah
ELIJAH
Jesus Christ. On the long list of things I didn’t need to see, that was probably at the top.
Easton, sliding her lean body into the tub, her rose-tipped breasts puckered tight from the cool breeze.
Easton, revealing parts of her I’d never seen before and parts of her I thoroughly defiled once upon a time and.
..God, that image is gonna burn itself into my brain.
I retreat to the front porch and slump into the rocking chair beside my grandmother.
“How’s the bath?” my grandmother asks. She isn’t concealing her fury, but when does she ever?
“You know, if you hadn’t insisted on staying, none of this would be happening.”
She clicks her tongue in disagreement. “Yes, it would. Betty is hell-bent on helping Easton, for reasons that escape me. She’d be doing some version of this no matter where we were. And I cannot believe you snapped at me last night.”
“I can’t believe the shit you’ve said to Easton. She’s never done anything to you.”
“She just said I needed a muzzle!”
I raise a brow because, well, Easton sort of had a point.
After a moment, my grandmother shrugs. “Look at the family she’s come from. You think anything I’m saying pierces her armor? She’s tough as nails, that girl.”
She is tough as nails. And I also think there are things that pierce her armor.
In particular, anything that implies she’s wrong somehow—bad, less than.
Easton has spent her entire life figuring out the world and how to move up in it, and sure, she’s smart as hell, but she’s also constantly listening and learning, getting cues from the behavior of others.
Even now, after all this time, I see it in social situations: a one-second lag where she’s watching to see what everyone else does first and then racing to catch up.
But I don’t want to tell my grandmother this because it’d be handing her the keys to the castle: every comment for the rest of the week would be a devastating hit to Easton’s sense of self, preying upon that particular insecurity.
“Grandma, seriously...what’s your problem with her? I understood when she was small, even though it was wildly unfair, but she’s got almost no relationship with her family now.”
Grandma rocks aggressively in her chair. “And does a girl who has no relationship with her family seem like someone who has her head on straight?”
“When it’s her family, then yes. And you know it. You know you’re being unfair, and honestly? It’s beneath you. You’re better than this—than traumatizing a kid sixty years younger than you.”
“A kid with a PhD? I’m sure she’ll be just fine. I didn’t even get to go to college.”
“So is that it? You’re jealous?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snaps, and then her shoulders curve as she sinks into her seat.
“Your father died when he was only a few years older than you,” she says after a moment. “Watching you makes me realize what a baby he still was, how much of his life he had ahead of him.”
“Yeah,” I reply, though I’m not sure how this is relevant.
“I can’t tell you how much that hurts. And I can’t tell you how much I hate to see you not putting down roots, not getting for yourself the things your dad wanted, holding out for something that’s out of reach until it’s too late.”
“It’ll happen eventually,” I reply. “And I don’t see what any of that has to do with the way you treat Easton.”
She shakes her head, then closes her eyes as she releases a sigh. “Don’t you?”