CHAPTER FORTY #2
James ransacked the haphazardly packed suitcases.
He rifled through his clutter for the medication he sent to Knox to administer to Elliott every six hours.
James always packaged the anxiety prescriptions himself, painstakingly mailing it through their abstrusely convoluted delivery system.
The system that involved hired mailmen. All for Knox to burn it all to the ground with eight phone calls to Finch.
Two visits to the student infirmary in person.
In fairness, Finch couldn’t drive to New York or Philadelphia to make calls. As far as Knox knew, there was no murder either. Knox didn’t know there was a homicide involved. In truth, all he was told was that Elliott needed somewhere to hide after he fled the ceremony as the chosen honorarium.
However, James’s mind refused fairness or truth.
Knox would implode everything.
“None of this is about medication.” Elliott could hardly remain upright. He leaned against the wall; he was buried beneath his endless thoughts. “I will confess on July thirteenth. It won’t impact the debate reception–”
“Forget the debate reception.” James would bolster through the media blitz if it meant Elliott was kept hidden. He would sacrifice everything to protect him. As he’d always done.
All Elliott needed to do was trust him. All James had to do was get rid of the reporter.
“Let’s take a shower. I’ll order in Thai takeout–pad thai with peanuts–it’s your favorite.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Elliott unraveled.
Even in the throes of self-hatred, Elliott’s heart was achingly beautiful, the tragedy in his eyes was worthy of art.
It dawned on James that this might be the last time he would ever lay eyes on Elliott.
Elliott truly intended to turn himself in.
“Lucien’s family doesn’t even know what happened to him. How can I live with that?”
“Do you think Lucien would’ve cared if it were you? Think, Elliott.” James seethed back at him heatedly beneath his breath. “He would’ve moved on with his life. He would’ve hunted after every freshman girl on campus like they were pheasants, if we hadn’t killed him.”
“It’s not about him, it’s about doing the right thing.” Elliott sounded sleepless, senseless. “When I make amends, it’ll fix everything. He’ll leave me at night.”
He’ll leave me at night.
Elliott unlatched his backpack from his shoulder. It was brimmed with journal pages and sketches of Lucien’s mutilated body. “Don’t you regret any of it?”
Not for a moment, James responded in his mind without a single need for thought. However, for Elliott, he had to behave contrite and repentant, like how normal people with a conscience would react. “It pains me, Elliott.”
“It does?” Elliott softly gazed up at him. A sheen of dew on his freckles.
“Of course,” James smiled at him gently. “You’re not alone.”
It was if that was all Elliott needed to hear. He wasn’t insane or isolated in his feelings, James was on this journey with him. They were side by side together in this. Elliott couldn’t abandon him. He was needed.
Warner Hammett, the reporter, only had questions and suspicions. He didn’t know what or who he witnessed. All James needed to do was to get Elliott to climb in bed for the night.
Foolishly, James thought a night of proper sleep would repair Elliott. That the abyss of guilt aching inside of Elliott, devouring every thread of himself, slowly unspooling him inside out, could be cured with a hearty meal and rest.
That Elliott could forget about murder.
Elliott seemed healthier, his cheeks had color in them, his throat had mended in the weeks since the strangulation.
His peachy brown skin still had an attractive complexion beyond the pallor of his soft face.
His smoke brown hair was a bit shorter than it was before.
He looked less like he’d been hit head-on in a collision and more like his old self again. His handsome smile was lopsided.
Yet his eyes told the excruciating truth. The pallid circles beneath his eyes, wan with inner anguish, revealed everything that tormented him. “How have you been? I’ve really missed you, James.”
Words were incapable of expressing the chasmal depth of how greatly James missed Elliott.
The days came and went without consequence.
Weeks bled into each other without notice.
Months burned with hardly any significance.
All James was aware of was the immense loss of the presence of his best friend.
He couldn’t sleep without Elliott’s clothes.
His world had turned monochromatic. With Elliott there now, the atmosphere was warm and brilliant again. James grinned at him. For Elliott’s sake, he lightly punched him. “You’re the birthday boy, I’m supposed to have missed you.”
Elliott was exhausted, but finally in good spirits as he smiled deeper. “I completely forgot it was my birthday. That’s today, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” James slid down the wall beside him. He hadn’t answered Elliott’s first question, but he answered his second. He excavated a leather-bound box out of his pocket. “Happy birthday, Starfall.”
“What is it?” Elliott’s eyes expanded as he learned the astronomically expensive gift was a Henault constellation wristwatch speckled with actual moon dust from space. James had purchased it in Paris. “I can’t accept this, James. It’s too much.”
“Does it fit you?” James asked as if Elliott hadn’t spoken. He wasn’t embarrassed by the steep price, Elliott only turned twenty-one once.
“It fits, but–”
“Then it’s yours.” James patted his shoulder. As Elliott’s mouth formed a protest, James interrupted him. “Don’t be horrible with a gift, Elliott. Accept it.” James pressed his mouth against Elliott’s temple. “Semper una. We will be together soon. That’s all that matters.”
What James didn’t know then was that there was a matrix of secrets that Elliott held within himself like a catacomb. The first secret was that Elliott still planned to meet with the reporter to confess to what happened on July thirteenth. No matter what James said or did.
Elliott would pin the entire murder on himself.
The second secret was that Elliott received more than a cassette, he received letters from the College itself.
The third secret was that Elliott had already decided he would be the payment to the Montclairs.
Elliott would be their honorarium.