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JANUARY 15TH, 2018 — ❝ MY GHOST, WHERE'D YOU GO? ❞
On New Years day, Nikolai was discharged out of the hospital.
His surgery for the tumor was on Christmas, and it had gone successfully. Since then, he'd been recovering in the hospital for the last remaining days of 2017, and since he'd been discharged, Eloise had been taking care of him.
Tom was off on the tour for Early Man still, and although they weren't talking as much as they liked, they were . . . Okay.
But Eloise felt like a ghost without him.
She'd gotten so used to having him around everyday. In fact, he'd practically moved back into her house, and then wherever one of them went, the other followed. And since Nikolai had been touring the country and the world, Eloise hadn't had the restriction of taking care of her father.
But now that her father was in his sixties, and was recovering from the many things that had happened to him in the hospital, he'd developed a new stubbornness against taking his medicine.
Nikolai was sprawled out on the recliner in the living room, and Eloise was sitting in a chair not too far away from him, a small paperback in her hands. During emotionally straining times, Eloise always pulled out her comfort read--Eragon.
Her father's medicine was on the small end-table next to her, or in the fridge. She hoped that he'd get out of this weird, stubborn phase, but there were no guarantees. She knew she'd probably become the same way when she was old. Stubborn. Refusing to actually help themselves get better, because they think they're strong enough to heal themselves naturally somehow.
She'd been caught in her book when her father started groaning, and she sat forward, checking her watch. Time for him to--hopefully--take his medicine. If she was lucky.
"Eloise--" Nikolai coughed, and she helped him drink out of his cup. "--What time is it?"
"Two o'clock. Time for you to take your medicine," Eloise replied, and he groaned, and whined, "I don't want to. I feel like it just makes me sleep all the time."
"I know, but it's making you better," She said, "it's trying to help you regain the hours that you lose when you stay up all night."
"It's not my fault I'm an insomniac!" Nikolai sighed, waving his arms around. "I have trouble sleeping, it's from college, I can't help it."
Eloise set the glass of water off to the side, and then brought her father's arms down, resting them in his lap. "I know, dad, I know. You can't help it. But that's what the medicine is for--to help it. To help you start a normal sleep schedule again."
Nikolai grumbled, sitting up. Eloise opened up the pill bottle, and shook out a pill into her hand. She closed her fist around it as she closed the bottle, and then grabbed the cup of water. Rolling his eyes, Nikolai held out his hand, opening his palm for the pill. Eloise handed it to him, and he was about to put it in his mouth when he said, "Do I have to take this?"
"Dad." Eloise leaned towards him, and said, "I will literally kick your ass if you don't take this pill."
He grumbled again, and then put it in his mouth, taking the glass of water and swallowing it down. He downed the rest of the water, and handed the cup back to Eloise. Wrapping himself up in his blanket again, he leaned back into his recliner. "Darling, do you think you could hand me the remote? I want to see what's on the news."
After silently handing him the remote, Eloise kissed her father on his forehead, saying, "I promise this is to make you better."
She rounded his recliner, and went into the kitchen, filling the glass up with water again. Her mind wandered back to Tom, and what he was doing at this moment.
Part of her hoped he was missing her as much as she was missing him.
But, alas, who knew?
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The day stretched on in a boring silence between Nikolai and Eloise.
She turned off the TV after her father had fallen asleep again, and she finished Eragon a few hours after that.
While her dad was sleeping, she wandered around the house, completely bored. All of her friends were either: working, or out of town. Busy, essentially. And she was alone here, and silently hating it.
She wandered upstairs, and down the hallway, towards a room she hardly went in anymore, unless it was to clean it. But as she opened the door, she knew she needed two things:
One, to clean out the room.
And two, some closure.
So Eloise returned downstairs, found the old boxes stuffed away in her office, and started packing up her aunt's belongings.
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Eight boxes, varying in size, were needed to pack up everything of her aunt's.
When Eloise had time and the opportunity, she was going to take them over to her storage shed, where she had some of her furniture stored, and some photo albums and other belongings.
She went back to the living room, switching out Eragon for Nevernight. She wanted so badly to transfer from this world to another, and live someone else's life for some time.
But after some time, Eloise set her book down, and looked around. She got up, and made sure her father was sleeping, and then went outside.
The night sky displayed hundreds of twinkling stars, and she kept the screen door closed so then she could hear if her father woke.
The last time she was his caretaker, was right after her ex-fiancé broke up. Now that she was with Tom, she hardly gave any thought to Nicolas, but now, now that was alone right now . . .
She'd been so desperate. So desperately wanting love, after seeing what her mother did to her family. Eloise had wanted to find The One, and live happily ever after with them. But, of course, Nicolas was not 'The One.'
Even if he proposed.
He hurt you, Eloise's mind reminded her. He took away your choice, and was going to take you away from your father.
Eloise had never really asked her father how he'd broken his ankle, but he'd broken it, causing for Eloise to go to her father, rather than the airport. If she had gone off to the airport, she and Nicolas would've flown all the way over to Colorado, gotten married, and she probably would've given up her career to take care of the kids that he so desperately wanted.
Nikolai had tried to his best to befriend Nicolas, who usually ended up ignoring Eloise's father after awkward conversations with each other. So when Nikolai broke his ankle, she didn't even question how it happened--she just realized that she needed a reason of some sort to get out of the relationship, and it just so happened to be her father.
