25. Lydia
Lydia
I haven’t spoken to Eli in days now. I’ve blocked his number, and I’ve avoided every social media message from several accounts he’s used to contact me on. I can’t do it. I can’t speak to him. I can’t go back.
I spend every day alone. I have no one. No real family—I mean, they try to be a real family, but I don’t know how to fit in here; I don’t know how to connect with any of them.
I have no friends. Everyone has given up on me.
And now there’s no Eli. The one I lost everything for is now gone too.
He left me with nothing and no one. So, fuck it, and fuck him.
I just keep my head down, go to school, do my classwork, come home, do my homework, stare at the fucking walls in this room…
and just wait for the time to pass. Wait for the time to come when I can get as far away from this place as possible.
It’s late, and I’m lying on the couch, watching some dumb reality show, when I hear a knock at the door. It’s almost midnight…and I hate that I know his knock. I can feel my heart beating in my fingertips. I can hear each breath I take. I can see all of the warning sirens going off in my head.
Why is he here?
Despite my fear and my gut feeling to stay still, stay safe. I still find myself walking towards the front door, not wanting him to wake anyone in the house if he starts to get aggressive, trying to get me to the door. I just need him to leave. I need him not to cause a scene.
When I open the door, he’s just standing there, hood up, shoulders slumped, and quiet. He looks up, and even in the dark with only a small porch light shining on his face, I can see how big his pupils are. I let out a sigh, not wanting to deal with this…with him.
“Hey,” he says quietly.
“What do you want?” I ask, cutting the shit introductions.
“Please,” he says, just that, voice completely wrecked. “Just—can we talk? Five minutes. I’ll go after. I swear.”
My knee-jerk reaction is to say no. But I see his eyes, that flat sheen over them. He looks wrong. Not just sad…off. But the pupils already told me that. I don’t want this to get bad, so I give in.
“Outside,” I say. “We can talk outside. I don’t want to wake anyone up.”
He nods too fast. “Yeah. Yeah, outside.”
I step out and pull the door mostly shut behind me, leaving the latch not fully set, because part of me is already afraid and already planning being able to get away from him. We step down into the yard, and I keep my arms crossed, my go-to defense to keep the distance between us.
“What is there to talk about?” I ask.
“I know I fucked up—”
“Fucked up?” I ask, shocked by how little those words sound. “There isn’t a word big enough to describe what you’ve done to me, Eli.”
“I’m sorry.” It comes out almost as a whisper, an acceptance of defeat. “I just wanted to make peace. Let you go. Let you be free of me.”
The way he says it, all soft and genuine, calms me for half a second. He’s always been good at that. Using this softness as a door he can wedge his foot into. I glance back at the dark windows. The house is quiet. I don’t want anyone seeing me like this, stupid enough to be talking to him.
“Really?”
It’s hard to believe the boy who has literally beaten me unconscious when he thought I was going to leave him, is the same one just…letting go now?
“Really. I get it now. I really do.”
His words slur slightly, and the uneasy feeling inside me starts to grow again. It all feels so…off, and strange…all of this. I narrow my eyes at him, trying to solve whatever puzzle is standing in front of me.
“I want you to live your life now, without me.”
There’s something unspoken under the words he’s saying. I just can’t put my finger on what it is.
What kind of trick is this?
I stay quiet and let him choose to fill the space with either silence or more empty words.
“I want to end this fucked up cycle between us. For you.”
I keep studying him. “How high are you?”
“Very,” he tells me truthfully.
I just nod. I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know if this is really a clean break he’s giving me, or just whatever he’s on talking right now. I’m still waiting for the ball to drop.
“Why are you here, Eli? Why not just leave me alone then?”
The way he looks at me physically hurts, like I can suddenly feel every mark he’s ever put on my body…and on my heart.
“I never said I would be able to leave you alone, Lydia. I said I was ending this cycle.”
Now I’m even more confused. “What does that even—”
Before I can get the words out, his hands are on my wrist, tight and rough against my skin. My heart sinks, knowing whatever is about to happen isn’t going to be pretty, knowing I fucked up.
“Let go!” I yell, trying not to be too loud still.
I watch as the switch flips. The soft, caring facade is gone. “Sorry, Lydia. This is the only way.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He starts to pull me towards his car, and every siren is now blaring in my head. I need to get out of this situation. Now.
I pull back, fighting his hold, but he’s too strong.
My wrist burns from the grip he has on it.
I let out a scream, but it’s only halfway out before his hand is over my mouth, and I’m being dragged to his car.
I can barely breathe, but I put up as much of a fight as I can, knowing my life might actually depend on it right now.
No matter what I do, he still overpowers me. He’s more than twice my size. I don’t have a fighting chance. He shoves me into the car from the driver’s side, pushing me over the console and into the passenger seat, locking the doors and quickly taking off so I don’t have the chance to get out.
“Eli, what the fuck! What are you doing?”
“Just relax,” he says calmly.
“Eli.” My voice comes out high-pitched and strained. “Unlock the doors!”
“It’s okay, Lydia. It’s gonna be okay.”
He doesn’t look at me. His hands are steady at ten and two.
He keeps driving…fast and then faster. The houses blur behind us.
Whatever safety I had is gone. I turn back to look at him, scared.
I’m suddenly thrown back into a memory I’ve tried so hard to get out of my head.
I’m eight years old again, and scared for my life.
It’s the exact same feeling I had back then…
I see my father at the wheel instead of Eli.
Two men who were supposed to protect me…
who ruined me. I snap my attention back to the road in front of us, the dotted lines going by so fast that they look solid, the buildings around us blurring, the car swerving into the opposite side of the road.
I scream every time he jerks the car, trying to right it, and then I watch him pull something from the back seat, the car fully heading towards the curb now.
“Eli!” I scream.
He leans back up and jerks the car away from hitting the sidewalk. I watch as he opens the beer bottle and downs it quickly.
“What are you doing?”
He thrust the bottle out in my direction. “Calm down, babe. Take a sip. You’ll need it.”
I shake my head, tears running down my face. “No.”
He just shrugs and finishes it off before tossing it outside the window, not caring where it lands.
“Slow down. Please. Please slow down, Eli. You’re swerving.”
He doesn’t answer. His face is void of all emotions. My breathing is beyond ragged, and I press my hands to the dash like I can slow the car with the sheer desperate force. “Eli!”
He leans back, one hand flicking off the radio so there’s no noise but the engine and my panicked breathing.
“I told you,” he says calmly. “I can’t live without you. And you don’t just get to—move on.”
“What does that mean?” I have to force every word out through my sobs.
We blow past an intersection. The light was yellow, then red, then gone. I grip the door so hard my fingers cramp. “Let me out. I’ll get out right now. Just pull over.”
He slows to make a turn. It’s slight, but it’s there. I yank the handle and slam my body into the door, and it throws me back, locked. I feel the sob punch up from my stomach.
“Don’t.” His voice changes quickly. It’s not gentle anymore. He pulls something out from the center console and lays it across my thighs. The cold taps my skin. The shape, even in the dark, is still unmistakable. I physically freeze and stop breathing.
“Where did you—” My words are frantic. “Where did you get that?”
He runs it along my thigh, getting closer to my hips. “One of my dad’s. Nice, right?” He tilts his head. The look is wrong, off-kilter. “Don’t be stupid, okay?”
We turn down a side road. Gravel crunches under the tires. There are train tracks right next to us, and past them, all I see are bridges sticking out against the glow of the city skyline. The air smells like chemicals and iron. It’s colder here; the rest of the world feels so far away.
This is it. This is where I die…
Tonight, he puts the last nail in my coffin.
He throws the car in park but leaves the engine running.
He keeps the gun on my lap like a dare, like a leash to keep me under control.
When he finally looks at me, his eyes are wet, and for a second, my brain wants to translate that to him caring.
Then he grins, and I know those tears aren’t for me.
“You know, I loved you,” he says casually, gesturing with the gun in the air. My stomach flips. “I would’ve given you everything, you know? If you would have just…let me.”
“You cheated on me, Eli,” I barely get the words out. “You did that. You hurt me a million times, over and over again. You broke us.”
He looks sad for a moment, then locks the emotions back up, throwing away the key. He hits the gun against the steering wheel hard, making me jump.
“I know,” he shouts. “I fucking know, Lydia! I don’t—” He chokes on the words.
“I don’t know why I fucked up so badly with you.
I just—” He drags a hand down his face. His knuckles are visibly scraped, like he hit something—a brick wall by the looks of it.
“I needed to know you were mine. That you wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t have you leave me.”