Chapter 4 Elior
Elior
It took a few slow, foggy seconds for my eyes to focus and for the hopelessness to settle in as I realized that once again, I was waking up in this strange, scary place.
My body felt heavy and far away, like it didn’t quite belong to me. Every time I fell asleep, I prayed that when I woke up, I’d be back home, cuddled with Daddy in bed—in a universe where he never broke my heart.
It didn’t feel like anyone was listening to my prayers anymore, though.
It didn’t feel like anyone was listening to me at all.
When I shifted to my side on the small hospital bed, cold air brushed my thighs, and I felt it. The unmistakable smell came next, and my stomach dropped so hard I thought I might be sick.
No.
No, no, no—
Not again.
I froze, a distraught whine crawling up my throat. My face burned, heat flooding up my neck and into my ears until everything felt too tight.
Father would’ve called this a failure of discipline.
A sign of impurity.
I knew he was right because clearly something was so, so deeply wrong with me. I was an adult reduced to wetting the bed every night like a baby. Father had to have been right when he… when he told me what I was. Why else would I be punished like this? Why?
Why couldn’t I have just been good for once?
Tears blurred my vision before I even realized I was crying.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one, my voice barely there. My hands trembled as I curled them into the blanket, knuckles white from tension. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than to just curl up in a ball and disappear forever.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
My heart leapt into my throat. I scrubbed at my eyes, mortified, and tried to pull the blanket tighter around myself, like it could hide what I’d done.
The door opened gently.
“Hey there,” a woman said, her voice soft and calm. She wore pale blue scrubs, her hair pulled back in a loose bun with curly brown wisps escaping around her face. “Good morning, sweetheart. How are you feeling?”
I couldn’t look at her.
“I—” My voice broke. “I’m s-sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She crossed the room without hurrying, without a flicker of irritation, only concern. “Hey,” she said, crouching so she was closer to my eye level. “It’s okay, honey. What’s wrong?”
My face flamed with dreadful shame. “I-I wet myself. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” I whispered shakily.
“Nothing to be upset about, honey. It’s in your chart that you’ve been struggling with some nighttime issues. It’s okay,” she tried to assure me.
I shook my head, tears slipping free. “But I made a mess. Again.”
She glanced at the wet spot on the bed, then back at me, her expression kind and understanding. “Bodies do weird things when they’re under a lot of stress. This happens more often than you think.”
I swallowed, my chest aching. “You’re not mad?”
She smiled, small and real. “No, not even a little.” I sniffled as she kept speaking. “Now, why don’t we get you cleaned up, yeah? I’ll help you if you want, or I can give you privacy. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”
I hesitated, but then nodded, too exhausted to argue. My legs shook when I swung them over the side of the bed, the shame weighing me down with every movement. The woman moved carefully, draping a towel around my shoulders, guiding me without rushing.
The bathroom was bright as usual, the light almost too much. The shower stall was small and open. It was a room I’d gotten too familiar with over the past few days.
“Do you need help with undressing?” she asked, reaching into the stall to turn the water on.
When she looked back at me, I meekly shook my head and stood there with my arms wrapped around myself, staring at the floor.
She nodded, then handed me soap and a clean towel. “Just leave the dirties in the linen bin, okay? I’ll be right outside,” she said. “Take your time.”
The bathroom door closed softly behind her.
Under the spray of warm water, I finally let myself cry. Quiet, shaking sobs that echoed too loudly in the tiny space. I scrubbed at my skin like I could wash the shame away, like if I just tried hard enough, I could be clean again—inside and out.
When I was done, wrapped in the towel and sniffling, she was there again, offering me a fresh gown, clean underwear, and socks, without comment. Back in the room, the bed had been remade—new sheets, crisp and white, with no sign of what had happened.
Like my mess had never existed.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
She squeezed my shoulder gently. “It’s no problem, sweetheart. You ring the call button if you need anything, okay? The floor nurse will be making her rounds soon, too.”
After she left, the room felt too quiet.
I climbed back into bed and curled on my side, fingers clutching the edge of the thin blanket. My chest felt heavy with a sadness so deep that it felt like it was drowning me from the inside out.
I pressed my face into the pillow, breathing in the sterile scent, and cried silently.
I cried and cried and cried until my ribs hurt, and my eyes felt swollen, until the tears slowed into quiet hiccups I couldn’t quite stop. The pillow was damp beneath my cheek, cold and so very unfamiliar.
Everything felt wrong.
It felt as if my soul itself were aching.
Father was gone. They had said he was in jail, but I still didn’t really understand what that meant, even with their explanations.
Jail sounded like another place like this—white walls, locked doors, people watching you all the time.
Maybe Father was in a bed like mine. Maybe he was scared, too.
Maybe he was waiting for someone to come explain things to him in a way he could understand, and no one was.
The thought made my heart throb with pain.
If Father was hurting… wasn’t that my fault?
They’d told me the compound had been completely cleared out—words I didn’t know how to even begin to picture.
I tried to imagine the chapel empty, the benches bare, the hymns stopped halfway through a verse.
I tried to imagine the others scattered somewhere out in the world like seeds thrown too hard.
Did they miss me?
Did they hate me?
Did they think I’d betrayed them the way Father said I had?
I hugged the blanket tighter around myself, curling inward as if, by trying hard enough, I could make myself smaller, quieter, and easier to forgive. My thoughts chased each other in circles, never landing anywhere solid.
And then there was Daddy.
My throat tightened at the thought of him, fresh tears burning behind my eyes. I still couldn’t understand how I felt about him, about what he’d done. All I knew was that when he wasn’t here, everything felt so much worse.
He’d been kind to me. He’d listened. He’d held me when I was scared and told me I was safe.
He’d taken care of my back after Father’s punishment.
He’d gone on my morning walks with me, even knowing the potential repercussions.
He’d said he loved me, and it hadn’t felt like a lie or a trick or a test.
I didn’t understand how love could be something bad, even if it sometimes felt that way. I didn’t understand why wanting him made people frown and whisper and write things down on their little clipboards. I didn’t understand why they thought taking him away would help me.
All it did was make everything worse.
I was still upset with him. I was still confused and hurt about what he’d done. I didn’t know which things about him were true and which were lies. But even so, I wanted his comfort. I felt so, so alone here. No one ever understood what I was trying to say.
No one understood me.
My need for comfort had started outweighing my need to push him away.
My gaze drifted to the door again, even though I knew he wouldn’t be there. I still listened for his footsteps, for his voice, for the way the room seemed to settle when he walked in. My body felt like it was constantly reaching for him, like a limb that had been cut off but still ached anyway.
“Daddy,” I whispered into the empty room, my voice barely more than breath.
Saying that word hurt, but not saying it hurt even more.
I wanted him to sit on the edge of the bed and brush my hair back.
I wanted him to tell me I wasn’t bad, that I wasn’t being punished, that this wasn’t my fault.
I wanted him to explain everything in a way that made sense.
Everyone else confused me with big words and concepts I had no way of understanding.
If Jace knew I wouldn’t be able to understand, he’d just tell me that and promise that he would handle things.
He made things so simple. I loved that about him.
I wanted him to take me home—even… even if that word meant something different now—and make it all better the way he promised he would.
But the door stayed closed.
The machines kept beeping.
And I lay there, alone, trying not to believe the quiet voice in my head that whispered maybe this was what I deserved.
* * *
“Just five minutes, please,” a voice begged from the hallway. It was Jace. I couldn’t see him, but I’d recognize his voice anywhere.
My head lifted from the pillow I’d been resting on as I looked to the closed door of my little room.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him today.
Everything was still so jumbled up in my head.
One minute, I wanted him, and the next, I didn’t.
One minute, he was Daddy in my head, and the next, he was just Jace.
There was a low murmur outside—voices I couldn’t quite make out. One of them was Patel’s.
“I just need to see him,” Jace said. “Please. I have to talk to him.”
Silence.
Then Patel’s voice, clipped. “He denied your visit earlier.”
“I know, I know. Please just ask him. Tell him I need to apologize.”
There were a few more seconds of charged silence, then the door clicked open. Patel stepped in, shutting out Jace behind him.
“I assume you heard through the door. Do you want me to tell him to fuck off?”
“I… He said he wants to apologize?”
Patel’s lips twisted. “So he said.”
“Um…”
“If you want to see him, I’ll be right outside the entire time,” he said, his voice softening just a hair.
“O-okay, he can come in,” I murmured.
Patel looked like he wanted to say something, but just gave a short nod before slipping back out into the hallway.
I listened as he relayed my agreement to Jace.
“Five minutes. You raise your voice, you guilt him, or you pressure him in any way, and I’m calling security. That’ll be after I drag your ass out of there. Got it?”
“Yeah, understood,” Jace acquiesced. “Whatever gets me in that room.”
Not a minute later, the door opened.
Jace entered looking a decade older than he actually was.
His beautiful dark hair was uncombed, drawn back into a messy half-ponytail.
Shadows darkened his face, making him appear like he’d gone days without sleep.
His beard was much thicker than it usually was, like he hadn’t been grooming himself to his normal standards.
He stopped just inside the room, his eyes desperately roaming up and down my body as if to check for anything wrong.
“Thank you for letting me in,” he said quietly.
My throat tightened. I didn’t answer.
He swallowed and nodded, like he’d expected that.
“That’s okay. You don’t have to talk. I’ll do the talking.
I’ll—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again.
“Fuck. I’m so sorry. And I know I already said sorry,” he continued, taking one careful step closer, then stopping again when my shoulders tensed.
“But I need you to hear it without me… without me being like I was. I know I scared you.”
His eyes shone, bright and feverish. I looked away from that intense stare, not wanting to get sucked in by it.
“I’m sorry for how I acted that day. I should’ve been thinking more about you and what you needed at that moment. Instead, I was selfish. I’ve been selfish the whole time I’ve known you, honestly. I lied to you so that I could have you.”
He stepped forward slowly, carefully watching my reaction, then sank to his knees beside the bed.
The motion knocked the breath from my lungs.
“Jace—” I whispered before I could stop myself.
“I’ve never in my life put someone else’s needs above my own.”
I frowned slightly. That didn’t sound… good.
He leaned forward just enough to rest his forearms on the mattress, not touching me.
“It’s new to me—the feelings I have for you. I should’ve been better to you from the start, and baby, I’m so fucking sorry that I wasn’t. But these weeks have torn me apart. I need you, El. I can’t fucking live without you.”
My heart squeezed.
“I’m losing you,” he went on quietly, “and I guess I deserve that. But I can’t walk away from you. Please, let me learn to put you first. Let me try to fix this. I will do anything—fucking anything—to earn back my place in your life. Anything, baby.”
“I don’t know if I can believe you,” I said softly. Saying it felt like pushing on a bruise.
He shifted closer on his knees, eyes never leaving my face.
“Let me prove to you that you can. I don’t need you to forgive me, now or ever.
I just need you to give me another chance.
Please, cherub. I will do anything you ask.
I’ll break my fucking leg if that’s what you want.
Nothing compares to the fucking agony of losing you. ”
I let out a silent gasp.
He hesitated, then said, almost violently earnest, “If you give me this chance, I’ll make sure you don’t regret it. Please… I can’t let you go. I’m begging you.”
My breath came shallow.
Part of me wanted to reach for him. Part of me wanted to disappear into the mattress and never feel anything again.
“I don’t know who you are,” I said, my voice trembling. “I don’t know which parts of you were real.”
“Give me the chance to show you who I am.” He bowed his head, forehead pressing briefly to the edge of the bed like a penitent.
Silence stretched between us, thick and fragile.
Patel was just outside the room, ready to pull Jace away the second this tipped too far.
“Please,” Jace said quietly, his eyes burning.
My chest hurt so badly I thought it might split open.
I didn’t know if this was love or obsession or something twisted and tangled in between.
All I knew was that when he knelt there, I couldn’t deny how much I missed him—how much I loved him.
“I… can’t promise anything,” I whispered.
Relief crashed over his face.
“That’s okay,” he said quickly. “You don’t need to do anything.”
I turned my face into the pillow, exhausted and overwhelmed. “I’m tired now.”
“Okay,” he said gently. “Okay, baby. I’ll let you rest.”
Then he left.
And I lay there, heart racing, wondering if letting him back in—even just a little—was the biggest mistake of my life… or the hope that I’d needed in order to keep going.