She's Broken

Chapter 31

                “Hey, hey,” he said, his voice softening. I took a deep breath and looked up at him. He ran his hands up and down my arms, trying to warn away the goosebumps. It began to work and I was tempted to rest my head against his chest, if it wouldn’t mess up my hair.

                “Sorry,” I stammered and Eli’s expression saddened.

                “Don’t ever apologise to me,” he said. The words hung in the room and I smiled, he followed suit after a moment.

                “You were going to say sorry then, weren’t you?” he asked and I laughed, trying to get rid of the tension.

                “I was,” I admitted and leaned down to get my shoes. I had to grab a pair of Jenna’s heels, considering that I never wore them. When I straightened, I caught Eli looking at my legs. I managed to catch his eye and his cheeks went a deep shade of scarlet. Deciding against saying anything, I slipped into the heels and stood in front of him, checking our height. I grinned, finding that we were nearly the same height, only a few inches in difference.

                “You’re catching up,” he said with a wink and glanced at the wall behind me. I watched him walk over and look at the only picture I had of Finn on the wall. It was from when we were really young, not even ten yet, both playing with our horses in the field. Harley and Tempest were in the background, galloping around and Finn was giving me a piggy back. The picture had frozen our beaming faces, both mid laugh, as I clung onto Finn for dear life. At that moment, he had been my lifeboat, as time had passed; he was the one that had caused me to drown.

                Eli stood in silence, watching over the pictures, looking at Carter, Jenna and Harley.

                “Your childhood looked so normal. So does your room,” he muttered under his breath, avoiding looking at the bed as he turned to face me. I did the impossible and stared down at my bed sheets, fighting off tears to avoid running my makeup.

                “In places it was,” I said, still looking down, shoving away any flashbacks that were attempting to blind me.

                “C’mon,” Eli whispered, sensing my discomfort. “Let’s go.” He offered me his elbow and helped me down the stairs to meet my mum in the landing.

                Just as we came out onto the porch, we heard a honk from the car park. My dad waved his arm out of the window and whistled when he saw my mum. I couldn’t help but smile as Mum grinned and started to hobble down the steps.

                “Oh, Kat!” she exclaimed, taking her foot back from the grass to give me a sad look. I frowned, following down to the bottom step. Her dilemma was obvious, it was also about to become my problem. The mud was stodgy and since the slight flooding we had during the winter, the path that was once there, had gone, leaving a sloppy mess on the bottom of our porch.

                I scrunched up my nose and glanced back up at Eli, who was running his hand through his dark hair. I walked back up the steps and next to Eli. He was chuckling so I hit him in the stomach with my bag. He didn’t even flinch but did look down at the mud and grin at me.