Chapter 26 – “Repeat Until Death” - Novo Amor
VIOLET
“REPEAT UNTIL DEATH” - NOVO AMOR
“Elena?” I call, kicking my shoes off by the front door. “How was babysitting Lou?”
Learning from Dahlia that Elena was babysitting here tonight did something to my chest. She’s had a decent relationship with Lou since she moved home almost a year ago, but I know they don’t spend a ton of time alone together.
I think Elena has had a fear of her depression being an influence on the kid.
I think she’s convinced herself that everyone in her life is better off without her. She’s done a damn good job of shutting them out, and any time I watch her interact with her family, it feels like a little broken piece of her is being reformed.
Every moment she breathes life back into her old self is something I feel an immense amount of pride over.
“Good.” Her voice floats to me from the den, sounding like soft, seductive music.
I follow the melody into the small library, finding her sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a pile of books, flipping through them with something I can only describe as nostalgic peace on her face.
“What’re you doing?” I ask, throwing myself down beside her and setting the takeout bag at her feet.
Most days, if I don’t feed her myself, she ends up going to bed on nothing more than raw carrots and sweet pickles.
She’s been a vegetarian for as long as I can remember, but if the mood strikes her right, she’ll house a well-cooked and sauced piece of shellfish, and the restaurant we went to tonight has the best shrimp tacos on the planet.
She’s wearing a pair of leggings that hug her hips beautifully, and a maroon crewneck that reads, I am the devil, and don’t you forget it.
Truth.
“I gave Lou our old copy of The Lightning Thief after I found it on the bottom shelf,” she says. “I wanted to see what other books you’ve kept over the years.”
“All the ones I could.”
She looks up at me, smiling.
“You hungry?” I ask, and her eyes drift toward the bag at her feet. “If not, I can put it in the fridge for later.”
“I actually made dinner for Lou and just ate with her. Spaghetti.” She laughs. “You know, the only thing I do know how to do somewhat well.” Eyes softening, she adds, “But thank you. I appreciate you thinking of me.”
“I’m always thinking of you, Little Vice.” I drop a kiss against her knee, snatching the bag from her feet and standing. “Plus, I plan on getting your appetite up high enough tonight that you’ll need a snack once I’m through with you.”
“Don’t make promises unless you plan to deliver on them, Augustus,” she chimes, flipping back through the pages of an old vampire romance series I remember her being obsessed with in middle school.
“You know, I have copies of everything you’ve written too,” I call from the kitchen as I put her food away.
Footsteps shuffle across the floor as she starts searching for the collection of her titles.
I have every book she’s published, along with any special editions she made.
I have multiple copies of many of them, in fact.
When I moved into this house, I kept coming across random duplicates that somehow got thrown in with all my things.
“Well, I think a couple might be missing, actually,” I say as I return to the den. “Darby scoured the collection not long ago and took copies of every one she hadn’t read ye—”
My words stall, along with the air in my lungs, as I turn the corner, finding Elena on the floor again.
Though this time she’s not nostalgically flipping through the pages of her once-favorite reads.
I can’t tell what book she’s holding, but she has some paperback open on her lap.
Heavy, thick tears stream from her cheeks, one getting caught on her trembling bottom lip.
“Elena,” I rasp, closing the distance between us and squatting in front of her. “What’s wrong?”
I glance down at the page she’s opened to, a red bookmark resting in the crease. Her hand trembles as she brushes her fingers over it, like it’s a memory of some sort.
“He was…” A broken sob escapes her mouth.
“He was reading this before he…” She swallows, composing herself.
“I signed it for him when he came back from Wyoming.” Bile rises in my throat at the look on her face, the fracture in her tone.
“He never finished it.” She shakes her head as her eyes lift to mine, glistening brown and overflowing with tears. “He’ll never know how it ends.”
“The book?” I ask softly, forcing calm in my voice.
She crumbles entirely, chin dipping as tears drip off her cheeks and onto the page. “Everything.”
“Oh, baby.” I bite back my own emotion, refusing to add to her panic, though I feel all the same grief and fear that’s coursing through her too. “Can I touch you?”
She nods, and I gently take the book from her lap, setting it down beside us before leaning back against the bookcase and pulling her into my arms.
I wrap one arm around her shoulders, spreading my legs to make space for her to sit between them. Her face falls into my neck, hand knotting in the fabric of my shirt. I don’t know what else to do except hush her choked sobs and brush my fingers through her hair.
I think the hardest part of grief is that it’s not only unpredictable but unrelenting.
No matter how much time passes, it never goes away.
You’re encouraged to move through it and search for some semblance of normal, but nobody talks about the way you’re forced to do so while constantly tiptoeing around triggers for the rest of your life.
Something so simple like finding a book they were reading, or seeing an ad for their favorite cereal brand, hearing someone recommend their favorite movie—it can send you into an unexpected spiral, no matter how much time has passed.
It’s impossible to plan for these moments, because some days we’re strong and we wade through them like they’re nothing more than a rough gust of wind. Other times, we’re hit with a hurricane of agony, and no amount of shelter can shield us from the destruction.
“Do you remember that fantasy show he loved?” I ask hoarsely, working to keep my tone steady and gentle. “The one that took us all by surprise because he hated dragons and sorcerers and all that shit.”
“He liked it because he thought that one actress was hot,” she murmurs against my chest, and I rumble a low laugh at the words.
“Right.” I nod, rubbing her back. “I know you didn’t watch it, but the series ended a couple of years ago.
I had no idea until I saw an ad for the finale come across the television one day.
” A stinging sensation begins to clog my throat, and I work to swallow it down, but it doesn’t stop my voice from trembling as I continue, “I had a complete breakdown that day. I canceled all my appointments and stayed home to binge the entire final season. I watched the finale when it premiered that night and…” I choke on a laugh, feeling tears slip down my cheeks.
“It was fucking terrible. The whole show was ruined in that final season. He would’ve been so pissed. ”
Elena lifts her head, blinking through tears. Her brows knit when she realizes I’m crying, too, and she silently lifts a hand to wipe them from my face.
“I didn’t see it coming. I had been okay for months.
No night terrors or panic attacks. I’d stopped seeing him in my head every time I closed my eyes…
I thought I was starting to heal.” I sigh.
“But that one ad, that one trigger, it sent me down a dark spiral. I missed him a lot that day, and when I was done watching it, I only missed him more. I was angry at the television show, angry at the producers and actors and directors. It felt like they were doing him a disservice, as misplaced as that anger might sound.”
I cup her face and wipe away her tears too.
“That night I sat outside on the back porch, and for the first time since he died, I… I just talked to him. I told him all about the ending of the show and how terrible it was. I told him how much I missed him, and how pissed off I was at our parents for the way they treat me now. Told him how much I was missing you,” I admit, brushing her hair away from her face. “You can talk to him, too, you know?”
Her eyes mist over with a distant, contemplative expression before she responds with a shallow shake of her head, murmuring, “I don’t think he’d want to hear from me.”
“How could you ever think that, Elena?” I ask, tightening my hold on her thigh just slightly, drawing her attention back to the room—back to me. “What happened that morning?”
We’ve never talked about it, the morning that he died.
The conversation I know he had with her just before he confronted me at the beach, though I don’t know the details of it.
I’ve never told her about the last words I spoke to him, either, or what it felt like to realize he’d disappeared from the water, the terror of watching him be pulled from it minutes too late.
That’s not something I’ll ever share with anyone. That is a horror to harbor on my own. I wouldn’t force the terror of that vision onto another person.
She lifts her gaze, tortured espresso-colored eyes slicing through me. “I… I can’t.”
“Someday, will you?” I ask. “Tell me everything?”
I don’t know how we’ll ever make it through this—whatever this is—if she doesn’t.
She nods against my chest.
“Come sit outside with me.” I gently nudge her to sit up, rising to my feet behind her before I reach out my hand.
To my surprise, she takes it, allowing me to haul her up too.
“You don’t have to talk to him directly if you don’t want to, but you can talk to me.
Tell me something you’d like him to know, even if it’s simple, even if it’s pointless. ”