22. Lydia
Lydia
The room is still dark except for the strip of sunlight painted across the ceiling. Eli’s arm is laid across my body possessively like it always is. The weight feels more overwhelming than any of the bruises I’ve tried to force myself to forget about.
For a minute, I just lie there and listen to his breathing.
If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend we’re still just two kids who fell in love naturally.
Just the girl who never fit in and the popular boy who never wanted the attention…
clinging to each other, happily and blissfully ignorant of the pain that this relationship would bring.
I slide out from under his arm and sit at the foot of the bed, slipping on my sweatshirt, hair still a mess, and my heart feeling like it was slowly breaking inside my chest. I take my phone out, turn my camera on, hit the record button, and flip the phone over, sliding it slightly under the covers.
I know what I’m about to say isn’t going to end pretty, and I need insurance.
Eli shifts behind me, waking up. “You okay?” he asks through that morning grogginess he always has.
Say it. Say it before you lose your nerve.
“We…we need to talk.” The words shake as they come out, but I keep going. “About…us.”
He scoots forward, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay? What is it?”
I tuck my knees to my chest, giving myself a minute to get the courage together. “I don’t think this is working anymore, Eli.”
Silence fills the room. When he speaks again, I can hear the softness already fading. “What does that mean?”
“It means…I think we should break up.” It comes out so quietly, partially from me trying to soften the blow.
He laughs, shocked almost, then rakes his hand through his hair. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shake my head and look away, trying to keep the strength I’ve finally mustered up. “No. I don’t think this is healthy anymore, Eli. I feel so shitty all the time, and I’m constantly walking on eggshells around you, scared that anything I say or do will make you flip out on me. I love you but—”
“No,” he grits out, stopping me. “Are you serious right now? After everything we have together. You want to just what? Throw it all away?”
“I’m not throwing anything away. I truly do love you…but this just isn’t what I want. It’s not how I deserve to be treated.”
His mouth tightens. “I told you I was working on being better. You told me you would stay…that you loved me. You’re still saying you love me. This doesn’t make any sense. Unless…there’s someone else.”
“What? No! Eli, this isn’t about anyone except us. The way you treat me makes me feel like shit! Why don’t you see that?”
Anger, shame, and fear all wrestling with each other in his expression. “I’ve said I was sorry. I’ve said I want to be better for you. I just need you to be patient with me. It doesn’t happen overnight, Lyd.”
“Sorry can’t keep being band-aids on bullet-size holes. Staying with someone and working through normal disagreements is one thing, but Eli, you’ve hurt me in so many different ways. It’s starting to make me resent you.”
“So you’re not in love with me anymore? Is that what you’re saying?”
I don’t know how to answer that. What does it feel like to fall out of love with someone? I feel like there’s been so much pain caused that I can’t love him the same way that I used to.
“I love you, Eli, and I care about you…but—”
He stands, pacing at the foot of the bed in nothing but sweatpants. “Fuck, Lydia!”
His raised voice makes me flinch.
He looks down at me, eyes glassy. “So what, you gonna just move on? Find someone else and forget about me?”
I swallow. “I just want peace, Eli.”
“Please don’t do this.” His voice cracks. “I can’t lose you. I’ll lose my mind without you.”
Please don’t beg. Don’t make this harder.
My hands shake so badly that I have to tuck them under my thighs.
“Eli…I can’t. This just isn’t working any—”
I can’t finish my sentence before I feel the sharp sting in my scalp and a burning pain from being jerked back into the bed by my hair.
“ELI!” I scream.
He wraps his hand further into my hair, making it feel like he has a death grip on me, and pulls my head up, closing the space between our faces.
“You. Can’t. Leave. Me.”
I can’t breathe; I can’t get a full breath in through the panic. It feels like there are bricks being placed on my chest, getting heavier and heavier.
“Eli—Please!”
“Shut the fuck up, Lydia!”
I can’t focus past the pain, past the tears, past the burn in my scalp that’s becoming unbearable. Suddenly, I’m being dragged from the bed down into the ground.
I catch a glimpse of my clock, and the realization hits me that nobody is home. Sarah and Mark are at work, and Huxley is at summer camp. I’m all alone. There’s no one here to help me.
Eli slams me onto my knees, dragging me across the floor.
My knees burn, and I try to steady myself, but I can’t see anything around me.
The tears blur my vision, and the panic taking over doesn’t allow me to think straight.
The only thing I can focus on is the fear and the pain that feels suffocating.
He takes my face in his hand and jerks me, forcing me to look at him. “You’re not leaving me, Lydia. What do I need to do to get that through your head? Do you need me to beat it into you? Is that what it’s gonna take?”
“Why—” I choke out. “Why are you—doing—this!”
The sobs are uncontrollable, almost to the point where I’m unable to speak through them.
“Because baby…you don’t understand…” He makes this noise; it’s almost a laugh, but it sounds too evil to be a laugh, too sinister.
“There is no leaving, Lyd. Where are you gonna go? You said it yourself. Nobody else wants you. You wanna give this up because we’ve had a couple of bad fights?
You’re going to throw away the kind of love we have over a couple of bad days? ”
“This—isn’t—love, Eli.”
He slowly releases my hair, but the pain doesn’t let up. He takes my face in his hands, and I can feel the full-body tremors taking over.
His expression shifts from anger into this sad, broken softness. “You can’t leave me, Lydia. I can’t live without you.”
“This isn’t—okay,” I cry out. “This isn’t—normal. I—don’t want—this!”
His fingers around my face tighten just slightly. “I’m telling you, you don’t understand, Lydia. I think…I think I would literally kill myself if you left me. It would hurt too much.”
I shake my head. Not wanting to register the words he just said. My throat feels like it’s closing, like I can’t get any words out. “Eli—that’s not fucking fair. You can’t say that—”
“I’m fucking serious, Lyd. I will. I’m not doing this without you. I don’t want anyone else. And I’d fucking die before I watched you be with someone else.”
He stands, pacing the room. I quickly tuck into myself, backing up against the bed and bumping into the frame.
My phone falls from the sheets, landing face up on the floor.
Fuck.
Eli looks down, and we both just stare at it. I turn to look at him, and he slowly turns his gaze from the phone to me, holding my stare. His eyes are cold and furious. I don’t know who this boy standing in front of me is. Maybe I never did.
We both lunge for the phone at the same time. He shoves me out of the way, my head smashing into the corner of the bed frame. I quickly clutch my head, putting pressure on the pain, then pull my hand down to see bright red on my palm.
“Fuck, Eli! Why—”
The phone is in his hand, and he’s back in my face with no remorse. I can feel his breath on me, and it makes my skin crawl.
“You were fucking recording me?”
His voice is too calm, too steady. It gives me the most eerie feeling deep in my bones.
“I was just—”
Pain erupts from my face, the blow from his fist pushing me over the edge.
You have to get the fuck out of here.
He’s going to kill you if you don’t get out of here, Lydia.
He hurls the phone against the wall, the plastic and glass shattering. “You stupid bitch! You really love pissing me off, huh?”
The sound of my phone breaking against the wall jolts me into motion. I grab my jeans and phone from the floor, stumbling toward the door.
Eli grabs me by my collar, choking me, but I manage to break free, running out of my room and slamming the door behind me to buy more time. I’m running down the stairs when I hear him call out my name. There’s this calm venom in his tone that scares the hell out of me.
My car keys are in my jeans, and my car is a push start. All I need to do is get there.
I get out the front door, not bothering to close it, too busy running.
I still don’t have any pants on, but I couldn’t care less right now.
I make it to my car, and it automatically unlocks when I reach for the handle.
I don’t hesitate or think twice when I get in, start the car, and put it in reverse.
As soon as I make it to the end of the driveway, I see Eli running towards my car. I quickly wipe the tears blurring my vision so I can see. I don’t think; I just drive. Having no idea where I’m going, just knowing I have to get away from here. Now.
I reach over in the passenger seat, feeling for my phone, praying it still works. When I grab it, I push the side button to turn it on—nothing.
DAMMIT!
I can’t see past the pain, past the fucked up situations I always seem to end up in, the cruel joke that is my life. I throw the phone to the back of my car in the heat of my anger.
How did I end up here? What did I possibly do to deserve what’s been thrown at me?
Through the fog of pain, Eli’s words still hit me hard…his anger, his threats, his sadness. I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know why I feel so torn about it all. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.