{If I Could Fly - One Direction}
...Pay attention, I hope that you listen, 'cause I let my guard down, right now I'm completely defenceless, for your eyes only, I'll show you my heart, for when you're lonely, and forget who you are, I'm missing half of me when we're apart...
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July 26th - Elliot's POV.
Under the weight of the words that closed up my throat, I felt lost in the moments between what I wanted to say and what I actually articulated. She sat like a jack-in-the-box, leaving me on edge, as I waited for her to explode into life. She was quiet. Unbearably so.
How could I say it? How could I tell her the truth and drag her fully into the darkness with me? I had no choice. She had to know the truth.
The diner was quiet, a few customers were sporadically seated in various booths, and the neon light flickered in the window. Time ticked on, and I knew it would come out of me, and I would crumble. There was a knot inside of me I had to undo, but the only way to do that was to try and right these wrongs.
I've made mistakes, and I've tried to fix them time and again, yet I always get sucked back into the deception of a better life. Was this a better life? I felt my hands quake like the tremors before an earthquake rips cities and homes and lives apart? Was this what I wanted? To see the girl I love sitting in front of me, as my hands shook before I ripped her life into shreds?
I had muttered the polite 'thanks for coming' when she walked in the door, her eyes bright and apprehensive as they looked up at me, the caramel sparkle of her eyes that always melted me when I looked into them. Still, the tension between us meant that niceties were not necessary anymore.
Sitting in front of her, I knew that this was the moment I had worked so hard to avoid. This was the moment I had never wanted to come true. In the nights when I would wake in a cold sweat, this scene that lay before me was the setting of every nightmare.
She had once told me that if I wanted to be with her, I had to be the one to fight for her. As much as I have known that in my heart I was fighting for her, with every breath, a part of me was crying out to keep quiet, to keep her oblivious, but the reality was coming at us all too quickly.
It was too late to keep quiet. It was too late to pretend that everything would work out. My girl was in danger, and it was all because she loved the wrong boy.
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{AVA}
The cab ride into town was filled with awkward silences and my seatbelt vibrating with my heart hammering against my ribcage, threatening to burst free. I gripped my heart tightly, to make sure I knew I had my life in my hands and that, naively, I had some control.
With each step on the concrete ground, it all felt like a dream. I had a feeling that I was, in fact, not entirely cognisant. It was like I was being pulled magnetically to my appointed destination. Each step aligned with my heartbeat, shaky and uneven. Had Bodhi already blurted out what Elliot wanted to say or was there more to this tangled web that I had found myself dancing and trapping myself in?
I could see him sitting at the booth near the far window, his posture slightly hunched and his face unreadable, yet the tremors of his hands told me all I needed to know. Readying myself to face the unknown, I swung open the door and made my way to his table, the air in my lungs scarcely stopping the imminent waves of panic. He sat in his usual black-shirt from work, and I had chosen to wear one of my favourite periwinkle blue babydoll dresses, no cardigan, and my hair fell around my shoulders. He regarded me the way he always had before, his eyes taking a mental picture so that he would know the details to draw if he ever wanted to.
"Do you want to order something?" He asked slowly, like edging around a time-bomb.
"I'm not that hungry." I shook my head, my hands clasped under the table.
He fidgeted relentlessly as he tripped over each attempt to speak, restarting and catching his breath. He looked enervated with every attempt to spit out whatever was so urgent that he needed to say. I tried to be patient, my face neutral ad calm.
"It's just that... Well... God, I didn't think it'd be this hard." His hands held on to the small salt and pepper containers on the table, practically shaking the entire wooden frame. I let my hands wander to his to hold them steady, and his eyes finally looked right at me, piercing me through like a knife.
"Why don't I start?" I said, hoping to calm his nerves. He nodded timidly. "I've learned a lot about people this Summer. People I thought I knew everything about had surprised me. It's hard to know if you really know anyone at all sometimes, and even when life seems to be getting somewhere, it has to get complicated. That's just how it works. I know it's not easy to let people in..." I began rambling, venting almost, as I felt the heat of his gaze on my lips as they moved with my every word.
"I want to let you in. I want you to know me." He breathed out, squeezing my hand that was in his grasp across the table.
"You have these walls that are so hard to tear down, and it's like there's nothing I can do to make you trust me." It was true. In all the time I'd known him, he never spoke about his past or his family, even minor details that a stranger would divulge.
"I trust you with my life, Ava." He retorted.
"Then why did you push me away? What is it?" I needed to know.
"It's my life. It's easy to look at me and see some club employee who wants a better life, and it's easy to dismiss me. I liked that to most people I went under the radar. It was simpler... But you saw me and knew that there's so much more that's under my exterior. There's good and bad, but mostly bad. Things I'm not proud of. Things I have to do to survive. Things that make my skin crawl and make me hate myself for doing them. Why would I want anyone, especially someone as special as you, know about them?"
"Tim has you working for him; I know that much," I said through gritted teeth.
"He uses me for all of his biddings. He's not just a businessman like he wants everyone to think he is. He's a--"
"Gangster. I know." I cut him off.
"What? Who told you?" He was clearly shocked, so I knew that this was what he wanted to tell me.
"Bodhi." Elliot's face paled.
"Ava, before you start accusing me of anything, hear me out." He retracted his hands from mine, leaving only cold air that filled the space where his hands were.
"I found out my brother is a recovering drug addict and that he's been getting his drugs from somewhere in the club all Summer. Then I remember you getting mysterious packages of money, some of which I had to fucking give you, and you expect me not to put two and two together?"
"I would never do that to him, or you." There was an anger in his voice which made me see how serious he was being.
"So what do you do then? What's the money for?" I demanded to know.
"His associates. He sends me to see them, so they give him things for the club. Small things, cheaper equipment, some simple things, others not so legit, but he carries drugs and other things through the club on the down-low. He needs the club to survive, and that was how he does it." Elliot's voice rambled on at a million miles an hour as he tried to explain himself so that I could understand.
I remembered the night I played cards with My Dad and Tim and, in their drunkenness, Tim had spoken about how far he would go to keep the thing that made him happiest. Was he talking about the club? Was he trying to tell me?
"I'm sorry for thinking it was you who was giving Bodhi the drugs." A small worry had decreased in my mind, but that didn't make everything magically okay.
"Can I ask you something?" He asked, outstretching his hand for mine to hold.
"Anything." I nodded. I felt like we were finally getting somewhere.
"Why are you helping Tim?" His voice shook.
"He... He came by to see me, and he spoke about giving you the money, and I knew there was something not quite right. He was so intimidating, and he had the power to take my Dad's job away and to take your job away, I felt like I had no choice." I squeezed his hand tightly, grateful for the comfort it gave me.
"But he didn't outright threaten you?" He pressed, his eyebrows furrowing seriously in thought.
"Did he have to? You can't honestly tell me he wouldn't make your life difficult for his own benefit? I've seen how you are around him. You lose yourself under his shadow, and it makes me so angry!"
The thought of how Elliot could never look in his eyes when he spoke to him and was constantly working overtime in the months I spent there. It was clear he was a powerful man, and with Benjamin and even Tim himself banging on and on about Elliot's 'debt' being paid to them, it was no wonder he worked so hard especially now that I knew how crooked Tim really was.
"I know, Ava." He sighed. "It's just that I can't have you getting hurt, that's why I've never told you anything."
"Why does everyone think I need constant protecting?" I was beginning to become frustrated, and I just wanted the final pieces of the puzzle to fall into place so I could see everything as it is. I didn't want to defragment everything.
"It's not that. It's that if you were hurt, or something were to happen, it would be partly my fault and I'd never be able to forgive myself." His eyes lowered to the table as he shrank into himself. There was a grave tone to his voice, and I instinctively pulled my hands away.
"What is it, Elliot? You wouldn't just bring me out here so you could tell me what I already know."
"You know I'm leaving, right?"
"Yeah?"
"I finally saved up enough cash to leave and actually do something with my life. I'd worked for fucking hours and hours every day to make this much cash, and finally, I can say I'm ready... Or at least, I was..." He trailed off, clenching his jaw and inhaling a deep breath.
"What happened?" I pleaded to know.
"You happened." He met my gaze, and I felt the electricity burn like an electric shock through my veins.
"What?" I asked, the air being knocked out of my lungs.
"You came with that money, and I realised what Tim was doing. Giving me a reason to stay. He isn't stupid. He knows I love you and that if I leave he won't have the person who kept his whole scheme running smoothly." He spat the words with such anger.
Elliot had finally reached the point of getting on with his life, and because of Tim holding me like a puppet on a string, he couldn't leave.
"But, I can leave with my family. You can leave with us, and Poppy too. He can't make you stay!" The half-empty diner was quiet, and I was all too aware of our conversation being at risk of others listening in.
"He can, Ava," Elliot whispered defeatedly.
"There's something you're not telling me, and I need to be honest with me, or else I can't help! I'm in this now, and I'm not going to leave you stranded with him ruling your life."
Across the table, I saw the pretence fall, and his guard crumbled. I was in awe of his raw emotion that welled up in his eyes, threatening to fall and take me with it.
"I owe him a debt. From a long time ago."
And he told me, and I listened like a child to a bedtime story, hooked on his every word. He led me into the darkness.
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