Chapter 10 #5
Just to make sure, I state, “I am going to turn.” And I do so, facing this breathtaking young woman in a light blue long-sleeved shirt, the thing too tight for her own good, her wretched sneakers back on, her long black hair pulled to one side of her shoulder, her complexion flushed.
I offer my palm, and she hesitates for a second before sliding her hand into mine, clutching her bag on the other side.
I lead us to the elevator, running my thumb over the back of her hand as we wait in silence.
No small-talk nonsense. No awkward need to fill the void with words.
Finally, someone who speaks the same language as me.
I try to resist it, but as the metal doors slide to the sides, I lace our fingers, sensing her fingers letting me in, the touch intimate, igniting a fire in the metal cage that grows by the minute.
A mental tick of the clock begins in my mind, as if the rest of my life has just started over.
Ella Brooks.
Creature of silence.
Walking mystery. “Tristan, I can’t. You’re you, and I’m… Let’s not pretend this is a fair game.”
“You’re right. It is never a fair game. You have been holding my attention and my thoughts hostage since the moment I saw you.
I am just a man trying to forget that, Ella, but how does one forget an angel when granted the gift of meeting one?
” Her eyes drop to my lips, a shake of her head betraying her torment.
“But…you don’t even know me.”
“I did my research.” She frowns, but her anger does not last, shame keeping us company as she hides her eyes behind her palms.
“Hey, what are you hiding from?”
She signs, “What…what do you know?”
“Is there anything you would not want someone to know?”
“My life isn’t pretty, Tristan. It isn’t like yours.”
“You say so, and somehow you have managed to outrank every woman I have ever met.”
“I lost my mom when I was six, and my father is ill, stuck in a bed while my stepmother acts like he doesn’t exist. My stepsisters aren’t any better, the three of them living as if I were invisible.
All I do is clean and do their chores, from sunrise to sunset.
That is all I do, and then I come here.”
“Didn’t your father own Brooks Residential Group and sell it for millions?” She nods.
“Yes, but ever since he married my stepmother, it seems like it has vanished. She grants him the bare minimum of care and cuts me off from studying. I thought I could, since she let me study for a year, but I guess once she saw how much they needed me at home, with my father’s state getting worse by the day…
” She pauses, her eyes glistening. “She must have thought it was not worth the expense. Now I work at night, here, saving it all to pay for better care for my dad, better nurses and equipment, and enough to study next year.” Her signs sink into me like venom, and I get the urge to steal her away into a world where she would never have to worry about all of this.
“Let me fix this,” I tell her, even if it sounds more like a vow.
“It isn’t yours to fix,” she signs.
“You can work here if your dignity demands it, but as of tonight, I will transfer enough money into your bank account for you to study next year and pay for whatever your father needs.”
“Tristan, don’t. This isn’t why I told you.”
“I know. Trust me, I can recognize someone trying to use me when I see one. You are not one of them, Ella. Plain as day. Let me help you, please.”
“No, I’m sorry, Tristan, but I can’t accept; that’s not how I was raised.”
“Ella…”
“Please, you have to understand. Don’t make it harder than it is to refuse.” A tear falls slowly on her bruised cheek. “I need this job; I can’t rely on anyone else, please.”
“Okay, okay,” I say, softer. I’ll need to find another way to help her if she’s insisting on refusing my help.
“I appreciate you wanting to help, really. But…it’s complicated. You never know what dawn will bring. I have to take care of myself. No one will come to save me.” So she can’t trust anyone but herself…that I understand. If she trusted me fully, then she’d let me help her. Copy that.
My fingertips roam over her jaw, the promise of her sweet as honey.
“Let me at least drive you back home then.” To my surprise, she does not argue or put up a fight, which I take as a win.
“Okay,” she says silently as I imagine what her voice could sound like.
Breathy, dry, and shy, a tone so low only the one paying attention could hear.
That is how discreet she is, and I would bet she has spent the majority of her life wishing she could disappear beneath people’s attention.
If she were mine, I would want the whole world to see her.
To pay attention, very carefully. In a sense, if people did not see her purposefully, that would be the last time they ever failed to.
Like I said, I’m not a violent man. But it doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be one.
Taking her hand, I lead her out to the main lounge, where her bag rests on one of the sofas.
I really need to buy her a new one. Would she let me, though?
I have never had to deal with a woman refusing my help.
As refreshing as it is, little does she know that she will have to get used to it.
Her hand escapes mine as she puts her hair behind her ears, fidgeting. What is she trying to tell me?
“I have to change,” she signs. I take a second to process—the blouse, of course.
Turning my back on her, I wait, hearing every movement of fabric as she breathes faster.
When did I ever have to do such a thing?
The sensation is foreign, as no woman has ever asked that from me.
Except Ella is different. I have no doubt her spine is made of steel, but I would bet my life on the fact that she is also as breakable as crystal glass.
And so I will handle her with care. With chivalry.
With the unusual gentleness I have never needed to deploy with any woman.
A snap echoes behind me, and a slight smirk draws on my mouth.
She snapped her fingers for me to hear. That must be the most adorable thing she could do.
Just to make sure, I state, “I am going to turn.” And I do so, facing this breathtaking young woman in a light blue long-sleeved shirt, the thing too tight for her own good, her wretched sneakers back on, her long black hair pulled to one side of her shoulder, her complexion flushed.
I offer my palm, and she hesitates for a second before sliding her hand into mine, clutching her bag on the other side.
I lead us to the elevator, running my thumb over the back of her hand as we wait in silence.
No small-talk nonsense. No awkward need to fill the void with words.
Finally, someone who speaks the same language as me.
I try to resist it, but as the metal doors slide to the sides, I lace our fingers, sensing her fingers letting me in, the touch intimate, igniting a fire in the metal cage that grows by the minute.
A mental tick of the clock begins in my mind, as if the rest of my life has just started over.
Ella Brooks.
Creature of silence.
Walking mystery.
Do you realise what you are doing to me?
Ella
He would not let go of my hand. Holding it tight, our fingers laced like magnets, mocking us for trying to resist the invisible pull.
What am I doing? Why am I letting him drive me home?
I could not meet Ronny’s gaze as I walked out of the lobby.
Would he think so little of me, then? Like Mara does?
I try to put some logic into this, but I cannot.
I cannot because this man is trapping me inside a cocoon of safety, too good to believe and still too good to resist. I have been living dark years, waking up to go on living the same life day after day, until I could no longer distinguish summer from winter.
Ella, clean this.
Ella, sew that.
My knees still hurt from cleaning their bathroom floors.
I have become so starved for affection that I did not realize it until I walked past a policeman around my fifteenth birthday and started crying, standing in the street with an old pink-striped sweater from Valeria’s closet and sneakers with a hole in the sole.
He was quite young, in his thirties, I think, but he had the sort of authority some people can only be born with.
And as if I could smell the sense of protection emanating from him as I crossed the street, I stood before him and let tears roll down my face.
I wanted him to hug me. And it had nothing to do with attraction, but because a hug and a kiss on the forehead from a man like him, even a stranger who knew nothing of my world, would have helped me carry on.
A hug. A you’ve got this. You’re not alone.
Someone, even for a second, has your back.
He did not hug me, and I just stood there awkwardly, compelled by my shame and lack of restraint, before rushing into hiding in the corner of a street, sitting down by a wall between a trash can and a forgotten shopping bag.
I remember clear as day how I longed for a touch, how it could have been synonymous with a rope falling into a well, trapped in the darkness.
Since then, I have developed a trick, in a desperate attempt to soothe myself.
I kneel down, circling my chest with my own two arms, rubbing my palms over my sides, humming sounds of reassurance, tricking myself into thinking I am not completely and utterly alone.