Stolen Voices ✓

December 25th

Waiting as he strips the paper to unveil a new notebook with a coffee-colored moleskine cover, the word Elias engraved on its surface. Next to it is another decorated pen, this one lilac purple with equal frilly details. Fuzzy yellow pom-poms glued around the eraser of it, with googly eyes to pair.

"I figured by now you used up the old one I bought you," she recalls the day at the donut shop. Braving the storm just to get there when she'd delivered him a notebook so they could formally talk to each other. Even if she couldn't hear his low gravelly voice at the time, it was nice to see him responding through words and not interpretations.

"Oh hush now, I brought you this," she pushed a small lilac notebook his way, petite enough he could shove it in his coat pocket. "And this." She adds a pen to the mix, a frilly one with dawn-tinted sparkles decorating its body, a pom tied around the top.

"Now, we can have a conversation that isn't like playing I Spy. Your silence is cute, but if I'm being quite honest, one-sided conversations are tedious." She ushers for him to use it with frantic fingers, kicking her legs under the table in excitement.

"Thank you, I love it, but I don't deserve it," he mumbles, the feeling of blame striking him at once. "I'm so sorry, Mara."

She blinks slowly, her eyebrows furrowed as she shakes her head at him, confused at what he was sorry about.

"If you don't like it, we can change it out. That's what gift receipts are for, weirdo," she chuckles, uneasy at the way he can't look her in the eye. Her hands, cupping under his chin, leveling his eyes with hers, so she knows he is listening, so he is seeing. It is easy to escape one's words when you look away, brushing it off like raindrops on your skin, tears on your cheeks. But staring into their eyes, scorning it into their skin, they have to hear.

"No, it's not that-'' he shakes his head, biting his lip as he takes her hands from his cheeks, holding him in his lap. His mind reflects back to the day his mother had done the same with a weeping lodged in her throat, telling him his aunt had drowned herself in the bathtub. His hands, shaking the same way his mother's had, with the same ounce of tremor in his voice.

"You're scaring me," she laughs humorlessly, twining their fingers, holding onto that rock. As if she can ground them with her touch, feeling every atom between them.

"I got accepted for this internship," he starts, holding her hands as he looks her in her eyes. As if it can make it any easier. This will never be easy, pulling away from somewhen when it physically hurts. As if watching himself drown with no care to stop it, feeling the water in his lungs, struggling to produce words.

"That's amazing, Eli. What's the problem-" she starts, being cut off by Elias's expression.

"It's in New York," he states glumly, his eyes flickering between hers, trying to decipher what she is feeling. He can't tell right now, and that alarms him. She always speaks through her eyes, and he can always understand their own little language. But right now, it is all foreign, the way she just stares impassively for a beat of silence.

Not even static to fill it, just- nothing.

"Okay," she drawls, running a hand through her hair, "well, I will just come out there with you, I guess, I don't know. My friends are in California, but who can't make new friends, right. When is it?"

"I leave in a week," he grinds his teeth.

"When did you find out?" It feels like a punch to the chest, pleading that he will say he found out today or yesterday. They promised no secrets, no lies, nothing that would fluctuate the structure of their archaism. Mara is in a vulnerable position this time around, more conscious of her feelings, more bound to get hurt. She trusts him, and she can only hope he trusts her.

"I found out a few weeks ago," he laments, watching her physical pull away, her hands retracing from him. Visibly detaching herself from him and the situation.

Like a flicker in her eyes, switching the lights on and off. If possible, they become more hazy, more caged off. Elias had seen it happen before when she pushed him away at the hospital and when she pushed him away each time she ran. As if convincing herself she doesn't care so she won't get hurt.

"You...what?" She speaks loudly. "Why didn't you tell me, Elias. We promised no secrets. What? You think I can't handle it?" She is talking rushed, not really thinking, afraid of the detachment she feels. The numbness is worse than pain because despondency reminds her she is alive.

Her emotions are flaring, having to remind herself to ground herself with three inanimate objects around her, two things she can smell, one she can hear.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just didn't want this to end."

"It wouldn't have had to," she declares, "I'm not mad about the internship, Elias, or the fact that it's halfway across the country. It's the fact that you lied that gets me. Because we promised no lies this time, no secrets."

She isn't mad, or sad, or even angry. Maybe she is all of those and can't pick them apart, but really she is disappointed. And Elias can't tell if that hurts more. If he'd rather she scream than look at him so wholly betrayed he feels the cuts to his skin, he feels himself hurting her.

"I tried a thousand times to tell you, it never felt right. But I take the blame, your right, I should have told you," he runs his hands down his face, groaning.

He is an idiot.

"For us to work you need to trust me," she says, placing her hand against his heart, flattening her palm over the fabric of his t-shirt. "You need to trust me here," tapping his forehead with her other hand, "not just here."

"I'm scared to lose you," his hand falls over hers, admitting softly, his palms brushing her knuckles.

"You have to remember it's my first time too, Eli. You're not the only one with new feelings. You're not the only one who's scared. Communication is the only way we will survive," she laments, steadying her breathing.

She isn't going to blow up at him, to destroy everything he lived for. Maybe the old Mara with an act of vengeance would have, the Mara who had nothing to live for and only felt empty. In the almost year she's known him, Mara has matured into the adult she is. Not a child lost in a grown-up world. It took her recognizing her faults to get here, but she did, and she is glad.

Rage, sadness, they are all sentiments that would eventually pass. Mara considers more about if she can live with herself with the aftermath of those emotions. With whatever she did once feeling them if she could look at herself in the mirror and not hate every aspect of her existence.

"What are we gonna do, Mara? I can't just make you leave everyone you love to be with me. That's selfish. Should I just not go? I don't know," He grumbles, holding his head in his hands as she rubs hers up and down his back, pushing away the anxiety.

"You're going to New York, Elias. Because if you don't, you're going to hate yourself, and a part of you is going to hate me too," she whispers against his ear.

"I have a week to pack my bags and be there," he mumbles, pulling her into his lap, so she is straddling him, his hands running up and down her thighs. Staring at the necklace that hangs around her neck, the small E engraved on the other side of it, so she will always have a piece of him with her at all times.

"Which is a week we have to figure it out, whatever happens, happens," she says, her lips finding him in the turmoil, kissing away his torture. And he kisses her back with the same passion, his lips cupping hers tenderly. Agreeing that whatever life brings, they will go with it because they really have no control at this point.

They can only hope that their love is strong enough to fare.

---

Authors Note:

There is only two more chapters left!!

Do you think Mara should go with him? Or should she stay with her friends?

Like, comment, follow.

- Nia

Edited 4/14/22