20. Elijah
Sleep was always something I had struggled with. Being kept awake by past events was pretty common for me. It was rare, however, that I didn’t sleep at all; not even for a couple of hours.
I spent all night laying on my bed thinking.
The night started thinking about work, soon followed by the thoughts about my father. Usually, I did whatever I could to get rid of thoughts of him as quickly as possible, but tonight I let them linger. I let the pain cling onto my chest, overwhelming my mind. I allowed the tears I buried deep inside to flow freely now. My sobs were so hard on my chest it was agonising. My brain worked through the timeline of events starting with the good ones, but those hurt just as much. Images of my father taking us fishing or when he would blast music in the living room as he forced us all to have dance parties with him.
He was a man who brought joy to every room he entered. They always say at funerals about how people light up a room–he really did. No matter the day we had at school or my mother had at work, he was always there to make you feel better. You felt happy because he made you feel happy. My life has been filled with darkness since he passed, no one has been able to make me feel better.
There are moments that I feel happy, usually moments when I am around my family. I try to cling onto those moments for as long as I can, but they quickly fade and I am left in the darkness once more. The issue with my family is I’ve never been able to really talk to them about how I feel. Even at my father’s funeral I felt like I had to hold it together for my mother, Lucas, and Alice. They didn’t have Dad to take care of them anymore, so I needed to be the one to step into that role.
I didn’t do the role like my father did; I don’t know how he ever did it. I don’t light up a room when I walk into it. There were no more fishing trips or dance parties. I did my best to make them feel better, but often failed them. The only thing I could do was make sure they were safe, that they were protected. Nobody was going to hurt them whilst I was around. I wasn’t going to let what happened to Dad happen to anyone else. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to step into his place. I felt like I was going to drown under the pressure. I wish someone else had picked up the burden of holding everything together, that someone was taking care of me as I did them. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so dark and scared all the time if I wasn’t spending all my energy being the glue.
As I thought back to the happy days with Dad my chest tightened. When was the last time I spent more than a fleeting moment feeling joy? My thoughts turned to Charlie.
Her personality is similar to my father’s. She walked into a room and it felt like there was joy again. All eyes were on her, or at least mine always were. Even when we were arguing, I just felt better being in her presence. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt since he died. I didn’t know how else to describe it other than feeling safe in her presence.
My thoughts had left my father now and were solely focused on Charlie. I felt my breathing slowing down and the tears soon stopped falling. I wasn’t even physically in her presence and she still made me feel better. I was torn between feeling happy and feeling anxious. I had sworn off the idea of letting anyone close to me like that a long time ago. I was not the guy who asked a woman out or had relationships. I’d never once had a steady relationship with someone and promised myself I never would. Charlie was making me want to rewrite every single one of my rules and it was driving me insane. No matter how much I wanted to break my rules, I wasn’t going to; not for her and not for anyone. I had put these boundaries in my life for a reason.
There were too many people who needed me for me to allow myself to slip.
Whilst I couldn’t allow anything to come into fruition, I could allow myself to dream. I spent the rest of my night thinking thoughts about Charlie, about Theo, about the life I would live if I didn’t have the responsibilities I had. Sleep never came, but these thoughts brought a small glimmer of light to the darkness that had surrounded my night.
The morning eventually came and I stared at the flicker of sun peeking through my curtains. I usually went for a run before my shift, but my body was crying out for rest, so I decided to break my routine. Instead, I found my way to the shower, turning the temperature up to my usual, scalding preference. This time it was not to make me feel something, it was to distract me from the many feelings that went through my head last night. I wanted the aching in my chest to go away.
Heading downstairs I noticed Lucas’ truck was already gone for the day. I made a mental note to check in with him about his hours. Whilst I knew the happy life, full of marriage and kids wasn’t my destiny, I wanted it for my siblings. If Lucas spent all his time working, he would never be able experience all the other things that would make him happy. I wanted him to be happy. I wanted Alice and Violet to be happy, too. I would do whatever it took to make sure they lived the best lives possible.
Knowing I was alone I found myself heading towards the piano, my fingers hovering over the keys as I thought about what to play. Usually, the songs I played were melancholic, but today that just didn’t feel right. I tried to push my mind out of it and let my fingers do the work. For some reason Your Song by Elton John was the first to come out. Feeling a sense of calm washing over me, I played for another thirty minutes before reluctantly making my way to work. There was something about music that made life a little easier, it made me feel like everything was going to be okay. I could get completely lost in it and block out everything else. There was a power in it, I would be completely lost without it.
I spent most of my shift in a complete haze. If Daines noticed something was off, he didn’t say anything. My mind and my heart just weren’t in it today and I was grateful when it ended. I was grateful that tonight was family dinner, that I would get to spend time with them and forget about everything else. Charlie had been consuming my thoughts all day and I was grateful to have some family time planned to distract me from all of it. I wasn’t going to have enough time to go home first, so I texted Lucas that I’d meet him there and swung into the gas station on my way. I grabbed some flowers for Ma and a smaller bunch for Violet. If I dared show up without one for Violet, there would be hell to pay.
I was greeted by Ma’s famous, warm embrace as I walked through the door, handing her the flowers.
I kept Violet’s hidden behind my back as she ran to the door.
“Did you not bring any for me?” Violet asked, frowning and folding her arms in front of her chest.
“You think I would ever forget about you?” I smirked, bringing the flowers round my front and passing them to her.
“You’re the best uncle ever!” she squealed as she took them from me. Lucas loudly cleared his throat behind her and raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t bring me any flowers.” She shrugged at him, laughing as I picked her up. Lucas mouthed suck up behind her back.
My attention was taken away by the sound of women laughing in the dining room as we walked forward. The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. My eyes opened wide as I noticed Charlie across the room. Her eyes turned to meet mine as I walked in before moving down to the flowers in Violet’s hand.
“Look at my pretty flowers!” Violet said loudly, breaking the brief silence in the room.
“Those are so beautiful, Vi,” Charlie said cheerfully. “Roses are my absolute favourites.” Her gaze lifted back up to meet my eyes again as she smiled directly at me. In that moment I felt like it was only the two of us in the room. There could be an infinite number of things happening in that room, but I didn’t care. I was so focused on her.
“Careful, you’re going to make her standards for a future partner ridiculously high,” Alice teased as I put Violet down.
“As they should be!” Charlie interjected. “Maybe you could teach Theo a thing or two for when he’s older.” Charlie winked at me as she said this and I felt like my legs were about to give out.