Chapter Sixteen
❝So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction.
This is your rebirth.❞
The tide pushed against her.
Here she was, standing under the heat, trying hard but failing to keep her promise to support Travis. And she'd kept a safe distance until the crowd suddenly engulfed her and pushed her forward, making her closer to the ocean than she was before.
The waves were so close. Right there. Don't panic, she told herself. Just push back, and it'll never touch you. Push. Back.
She really couldn't.
Then she felt water droplets on her skin.
Her entire body froze. Suddenly it was hard to breathe. She scratched on her skin hysterically, trying to make it go away, anything to make it go away —
"Whoa!" A familiar voice caught her amidst the noise. "Lenny, is that you?!"
The sight of Zach made her body flood with relief. "Zach!"
"Are you okay?!" She didn't hear him, and he shouted, "Hold on, let's get the fuck outta here first!"
"Agreed!"
With the help of his hand on her elbow, the two managed to get themselves out of the fold. People only pushed harder once El and Zach left their empty spaces. When they found a better spot near the palm trees, she turned to him with curiosity, first and foremost.
"You're not on the waves?"
"Nah," he shrugged, leaning against the tree bark. "Coaches put me into separate groups from your boyfriend after the fight. Which, I'm guessing, was who you were rooting for back there."
She reddened. "Guilty."
"Don't be, we're good." He lowered his voice. "I, uh, wanted to ask you about something."
She tensed. First, because every time they had one-on-one conversations, it was always serious, and involved the Samuels brothers. Second, she already knew that it did.
"It's about Theo, isn't it?"
He nodded gravely. "What did you say to him the other day?"
The other day. The night of Zach's party.
It was a day that was hard to forget.
It had felt like a giant rollercoaster. She was having fun the first hour, talking to Theo for hours. And it had felt like he was finally letting those demons go. But everything changed when that guy Alex came in.
Everything just went downhill from there. She couldn't forget the sound of Theo's voice, recorded in a video Alex tried to show her. It sounded so... cruel. As harsh as razor blades in her ear. Unlike him at all.
But he'd surprised her in that bathroom. Those confessions, his tears... her heart had ached so bad, she wanted to wrap her arms around him. Instead, the two had stayed there for a while, catching their breaths. Meeting each other's eyes every once and a while. Emotionally drained.
When they finally returned, the last of guests were already being ushered away by Zach. His brown eyes were full of pain and heartbreak, but he was also left in the dark.
She certainly knew how that felt when she first met Theo.
"To be honest? Nothing much." She looked up at the sky, the shade a little lighter than the colour of his eyes. "I think all he ever needed was someone to listen, you know?"
Zach nodded numbly. "I still blame myself," he muttered. "I don't know how Alex was there, or how he got invited. It fucks me up."
Alex, as she'd deduced that night, had been one of Theo's "friends" in high school. She'd guessed it the moment he opened his mouth.
"He's not part of the Championships, is he?"
"No, I would've seen him before, and you would have to." She nodded in agreement. "I think someone mentioned he was in college, but I don't know, Len. I'm worried he'll show up again."
"He won't." El squeezed his shoulder, resolution in her soft eyes. "And if he does, we'll be there, for him."
El hadn't really talked to Theo, and neither did Zach. They both felt like Theo needed space to himself, so he'd been cooped up in the apartment ever since. But at least he had his brother.
The three were shocked — and relieved — that Chase hadn't heard anything from that night, waking up the next morning oblivious. Those earmuffs were handy after all.
Now El just had to wait until Theo felt better.
"You know, don't you?" Zach tilted his head. "You know everything."
She was hesitant, but nodded.
"And?"
"And nothing," she said simply. "Nothing of what he told me made think less of him. I won't ignore that he's done a lot of awful things, but I can't just judge him by his mistakes and ignore the rest of him. The better parts of him."
Zach's next words only broke her heart. "That's a first."
***
Later that day, imagine her surprise when she crossed paths with Theo and Chase.
When she first saw them side by side together, she almost couldn't see the family resemblance. It wasn't just their physical appearances, which had a few different quirks she couldn't exactly pinpoint. But it was their personalities. Chase was a bubble of light, totally approachable with a child-like innocence; Theo, however, was dark, sharp and closed off.
They were complete polar opposites.
But now she was starting to see one similarity: something in their stride as they walked towards her, which seemed to say, I am a Samuels and there is nothing more that I believe in than in myself.
"There's my two favourite brothers," she grinned.
Theo caught her eye, and she had to catch her breath. There was something different. Like a light in his eyes — something that had been lacking since the day that they met. More thoughtful. She couldn't describe the exact change in words so much as how she felt it.
"Stop with the lies," he quipped easily back.
"True, you caught me. I only have one favourite brother."
He rolled his eyes when she made a big point of winking at Chase.
For the majority of the time, she sat with them on their makeshift blanket, watching the two silently. Now she realised why Theo was so protective of him. Why Chase was harder to face.
It was because every time he saw his little brother, he thought of the boy who killed himself. All the names Theo had called him, he had imagined the same names that'd be called to his little brother.
The mere thought of it hurt.
But she didn't mention anything about it. Not about that night. For the brothers were bonding like they'd never had before. It was only the littlest of things — Chase had a strong argument that his potato chip looked like Texas, to which Theo argued that it didn't and questioned how his little brother would know because they've never been to Texas. Chase let out a cheeky remark about how he'd studied the size and shape of every U.S. state and how Theo should really consider his education. El gave Chase a loud high-five.
She didn't miss the little smile that formed in Theo's mouth.
There it was again, the light in his eyes. Like the storms had finally cleared. Clouds were reappearing. The waves had calmed down.
"What are you staring at?"
She blinked, then blushed when she realised he was looking at her. Chase was casually munching on his potato chips in the background. "Your eyes," she started, "they're — "
El stopped herself. When she first said those words, it was merely a curious observation. Now, truly knowing him, in the way that she had been for the past few weeks... it didn't feel as idle. She found herself trying to find the right words to say.
"What about them?" he asked slowly.
"They're..." she bit her lip. Oh, stars, just say it. "They're a beautiful colour."
Something in his demeanour shifted, but she couldn't pick up on it because he dropped his head down the next second, at a loss of words. She nudged his shoulder playfully, hoping to diffuse the tension.
"Come on, when are you ever going to learn how to take a compliment?"
He saw her cheeky smile that was aimed at him, and let out a nervous laugh. "The day you stop dropping those compliments out of nowhere."
"People love compliments," she refuted.
"I'm not like most people."
She paused, her voice softer. "You're not, aren't you?" There was a silence between them, then, before she lost the courage: "Hey, I got you something."
Theo raised his eyebrows as she fumbled through her duffel bag, quickly pulling out the gift she had bought earlier that day. And in her hands was a box set of colour pencils, a collection of pastel palettes and neutral tones and neon shades, all in perfectly good shape.
At first, Theo just stared at it, caught off guard by the variety of colours. Then he flickered his eyes to her. "These are brand new."
"So they are."
"Why?" He was genuinely baffled.
"Your sketchbook doesn't have colour," she cleared her throat, looking up at him. "I figured you... you might want to use them. To colour them. Your sketches. So they could be colourful."
Great vocabulary, Eleanor.
He hesitated. If she had given it to the old Theo before, he would've scoffed at her. Ignored her. Probably glared at her a little bit more for good measure. But this was the new Theo.
Or maybe it was the Theo that he was finally willing to show to her.
Their skins faintly brushed as he leaned in to take them, and she had to pull back as quickly as the rush came coursing through her veins. She felt the same knot in her stomach and the race of her heartbeat.
Oblivious to the fact that the boy felt it, too.
"Thank you," he said quietly.
Her smile turned shy. "It's nothing. You deserve it." Their eyes met, and that tether between them sparked again, but she coughed. "Well, I should, uh, go."
She didn't have anywhere else to go. Not back to the Championships, where the crowd was wild and the waves were close. Not to Anchor's, where she promised herself a day off, a promise she always ended up breaking. But anywhere else without Theo's eyes on hers.
He blinked. "Yeah, yeah, of course. You should... yeah." He scratched his neck awkwardly, then waved a casual hand. "You're busy and all, I get it. You can go now."
"For a second I thought you were happy to get rid of me."
"Don't think too hard, McKinney."
She laughed, tilting her head back.
Despite the sudden nerves, she liked that he was getting better. Healthier. Happier, even if smiling wasn't his forte. Maybe whoever that Alex guy was — maybe he'd done a service. Theo had to face his demons after all, however harsh and brutal it was.
He was a far cry from the boy stumbling through the darkness. Now, his eyes were brighter in a way that brightened his entire being.
She knew, this time, that it would last.
A/N:
Is it just me or do I love it when El and Zach personally interact with each other?