Old Wounds: Little Battles Part 33

I'd been preparing for his face to go red, but while he seemed stiff, he didn't appear overly angry or upset finding me in his house, in his daughter's bedroom, on her bed with her.

"She sleeping?"

"Y-y-y-y-yes, ssssssir."

"She's supposed to be grounded, you know."

"Y-y-y-y-yes, sssssir."

He paused. "She doesn't get enough sleep."

While I was working up my response, it turned out I didn't have to. Mr. Young turned as if he was going to head back downstairs, but paused again.

"I'm grabbing lunch and then I'll be leaving again in a half-hour." He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. "You hurt her in any way, Elliott, and I'll find out."

Although he didn't threaten me exactly, it was present, lying subtly under his words and tone. While I wanted to tell him that I would never hurt her, I knew it wouldn't matter to him what I said, so I simply answered him with another, "Y-y-yes, sssir."

I was sure if Sophie had heard what he said, she would've been upset, but as I'd told her before, it was good that he cared so much.

She slept for over an hour after her father had left and woke again with a start, pulling out of my arms and shoving me back. I was against the wall, so there was no place for me to go. She, however, was propelled backwards.

"s.h.i.t."

Instinctively, I reached out to steady her, but instead of grabbing her outright as I had before, I laced my fingers with hers. Eyes wild, Sophie got to her knees and put her hands, still attached to mine, to her chest.

I was silent, just watching her. Sophie was quiet too, except for her breathing as her eyes darted around the room, seeming to search the corners and baseboards. After a moment, she seemed to want me to release her, so I pulled my hands away.

"Hi."

"O-okay?" I wondered what she'd been dreaming about and whether or not it was something she felt she could share.

Sophie got off of the bed, and stretched, then went to the opposite side of the room, the place farthest away from me. While she drummed her fingers against the doorway of her closet, she looked at me again.

"I must have fallen asleep."

I nodded.

"You...should've..."

"You wwwere tired."

I went to stand up, but stopped when she came over to me and crawled up the bed where once more I found her in my arms as she picked at the collar of my shirt, burying her face in it.

"Elliott?"

"Y-yes."

"You make me feel better."

"W-w-where'd you lllearn all this ssstuff about c-cooking?" I asked as we prepared dinner. I still felt incredibly lucky that I'd gotten to spend so many hours with her.

"Food Network," she shrugged and pushed around green peppers, onions, and mushrooms in a sauce pan. "And I took a cooking cla.s.s in ninth grade. It was that or Child Development. Like I said, if I have to cook, I might as well be good at it. You have to help 'educate' and care for children in Child Development. There was no way I was going to do that."

"D-d-did you liiiike your other school?"

She shrugged again. "It was a school, filled with people."

"B-b-but did you like it?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "What about you? Did you like your school in Chicago?"

"N-no." I forced myself not to think about the cruelty of others.

"What happened to your hands? They're bandaged again."

I would tell her what happened without telling her that I bit my hand. I knew better than to pretend that was a normal thing, and I didn't want her to know about it. I would tell her I broke a plate and that was all. I wouldn't mention Scripture either; that seemed to bother her, and I had to admit it was strange and unsettling even to me.

"Robin and S-Steph-phen t-told us they w-wwwere t-together."

She turned off the heat to the saucepan. "Wow, that's...kind of big, but what does it have to do with your hands?"

"I b-b-b-b-b..." I stopped trying when the word wouldn't come.

"Just relax. You get so tense, it's no wonder you have trouble saying stuff sometimes." She stopped what she was doing and looked directly at me. "It's just me, Elliott."

I took a deep breath. It was just Sophie. "I b-b-br-broke a p-plate."

She just looked at me for a long moment before saying, "Well, stop hurting your hands, okay? I like holding them without the bandages and the risk of hurting you."

I couldn't help but smile.

When she slipped one of her hands into mine, I said, "SSSophie?"

"Hmm?" She looked up with a smile.

"You m-mm-make me happy."

Although she was still smiling, it faltered just a bit. "That's because you don't know what's good for you."

I gripped her hand tighter. "You're good fffffor m-me."

She didn't dispute what I said, but she pulled her hand away and returned to cooking.

"Why haven't you answered my e-mail?"

I took a deep breath, but made no effort to answer her. It was a horrible precedent to set if I wanted her to answer all of the questions I posed to her. There were two questions I'd just dodged. She'd asked about the e-mail and why my hands were hurt. I needed to answer one, so I picked the less dangerous of the two.

"They w-w-w-w-w..." Obviously I was having a terrible time speaking.

"Just relax, Elliott."

I was trying to do just that. "They," I began again slowly, "w-w-want m-m-mmmme to sssee a n-new counselor."

"Um, so you can't answer my e-mail because some new..."

I shook my head and sighed, hating that no matter what I did, I could never seem to effectively communicate. I held up my hands. "I b-broke the p-plate b-because I was upsssset."

"Why do you have to see someone new?"

"B-because sssshe's t-t-too c-c-c-close to mm-mmme n-now."

Sophie took a deep breath and shrugged. "So you'll see a new counselor. It'll be better than having someone who's essentially your stepmother know all your business all the time."

I shook my head vehemently. "I liiiiiike Robin. I d-d-d-don't w-wwwwant..."

"Elliott, breathe, okay? You stop breathing when you get upset, and then your stutter's worse."

I looked down at my shoes. I didn't want her to think about my stutter. I didn't want to have this stutter. I wanted to shed it like an old skin; like something I used to wear but no longer fit. But I couldn't.

I looked back up when Sophie stepped into me, sliding her arms around my waist and locking them at my lower back. Her cheek was pressed against my chest and it felt good. My heart beat out a steady rhythm just for her. I bent my neck, allowing me to lay my cheek on top of her head and together we just stood there for long moments of peace.

"You make me happy too."

After dinner, I was sitting in her rocking chair while she was on her bed, flipping a small paperback book over and over in her hands. I couldn't tell what it was.

"So are we supposed to give some kind of report for the Brussels sprouts?"

I sighed, but smiled anyway. We had discussed this several times, but it was evident that she was having slight issues with her memory. Whether it was because we'd spoken about it when she was on drugs, or that she was no longer doing drugs, I didn't know.

We still hadn't specifically talked about how she'd given up her well-used crutch. I didn't know if it would help or hinder her. To say that I was curious was an understatement. Even though I wanted her to get rid of those aspects of her life that no longer served her, I hadn't expected it to be this easy.

It made me think of my mother. She was so incredibly tied to the drugs that I thought even the mention of being clean and sober would make her run far away. She never attempted to give up heroin as far as I knew. When my father would lecture and preach at the dinner table about the clean and righteous way of living, she always just stared at him. From the look on her face, it seemed as though she was listening, but I knew, even back then she was looking right through him. Her mind would be far away, and she would drink her coffee and nod at regular intervals. When he was finished with his sermon, she would go back to watching me eat and waiting on my father, refilling his gla.s.s of milk or getting him food.

I remembered being very young, looking up at her as she tucked me into bed and asking her why she always had to do what she did. I don't remember her answer, but I do remember the sadness that swept over her face. She hugged me tightly and whispered, "I love you, Ellie-bear."

"Elliott?"

I raised my eyebrows and brought my thoughts back to the present. "Hmmm?"

"You didn't answer about the sprouts."

"Y-yes. W-we have to give a r-r-report."

"So, like, standing in front of the cla.s.s?"

I nodded. It was not my favorite thing and had I not gotten a lab partner, I just wouldn't have gone to school that day.

"What if we just skip?" she asked, as if she'd read my mind.

I smiled. "W-w-we'll l-lllose t-twenty p-points."

"Totally worth it."

Sophie rested back on the bed for a while. She seemed incredibly tired most of the time now. I got on the bed when she asked me to. Of course I felt nervous at the prospect, but it wasn't as if I'd never been on a bed with her, especially since we'd done this just a few hours before.

Just as I thought, we were kissing after less than a minute.

Not that I minded the kissing.

It was the other stuff that was certain to come that made me uncomfortable. So as she sc.r.a.ped her teeth across my Adam's apple, I struggled to come up with questions to distract her.

"SSSSoph-phie?"

"Mmmm, yes?" she answered against my skin, her voice sending pleasant vibrations coursing down my body.

"W-w-w-w-what's the m-m-most beautiful thing you've..."

"You."

"C-c-c-c-c-c..."

"Relax, baby," she whispered before licking my earlobe.

Relaxing was not possible. Although I tried to stifle it, I could no longer hold back a soft moan.

"You're so f.u.c.king hot," she whispered.

Sophie shifted and was practically on top of me, and yet not sitting on me, which was her usual course of action. I had to extract myself from the situation before it was too uncomfortable.

"I c-c-can't."

"d.a.m.n," she said.

I felt horrible as I pulled away and almost jumped up. I wanted to be what she needed, but she couldn't really expect me to know what to do or how to react, because I didn't. I'd never done any of this with anyone before. I didn't even know how to give her what she wanted, and Sophie always wanted. I hadn't even liked Megan, but with Sophie...

I loved Sophie.

"Sorry." She took my hand and pulled me back to the bed. Together we leaned back against the wall. She laid her head back against me, her hands curled into fists.

"I'm sorry that I..." she began, but then her voice trailed off. "I'll do better. I don't want you to...I don't want to make you feel bad, Elliott, and I'm sorry if I..." She looked away. "I've never really met anyone like you."

She buried her face further into my chest and held my hand.

"Tell me about something happy."

"Liiiike w-what?" I asked when I could think of nothing. She shrugged. "W-w-will you come over tomorrow?"

She nodded against my chest.