“Look, I promised I’m not going to take so long here and then I will take you home,” Daniel said as he pulled up the driveway of Clara’s home.
I didn’t say anything because I knew he wasn’t going to stick to his word.
“You can go in and see Clara,” I told him. “I’m just going to stay in the car.”
“I don’t think so. Come on in, Ellie.”
I forced myself out of the car, still clutching hold of the CDs I brought close to my chest. I followed my brother as we walked up the steps of his girlfriend’s home. Clara’s parents were filthy rich and lived in some mansion in Bel Air. Daniel worked in an office in the city for something. Not really sure what he does. Never paid much attention to what he does, but I know he works for some big company that Clara’s dad owns. Clara works as Daniel’s secretary.
Wait. Now I remember what Clara’s dad does. He owns some car company, selling the most expensive cars like Ferraris.
Clara opened the door before my brother even rang the doorbell. Clara looked a little slutty in her short denim shirt and white camisole. Her long blonde hair was hanging loose past her shoulders and green eyes sparkled when she saw Daniel. Ignoring me, she wrapped her arms around Daniel, kissing him.
I looked down at my feet so I didn’t have to watch them lip lock.
Clara invited us inside. Well, she really invited Daniel in since she didn’t really say anything to me, but I followed them both inside.
Even though I have been to Clara’s house a couple of times when my family had been invited over for dinner, I never quite feel comfortable stepping their home. My family lives in the Beverley Hills area, but we don’t own a luxury mansion like Clara’s family. Walking into their own was like walking into those houses they show in the movies. Each room was huge with a gigantic staircase and the floors were so clean without any specks of dust at all. There was even a huge chandelier hanging above the ceiling near the staircase as you walk through the front door.
I heard the pattering feet of Clara’s Chihuahua running across the clean marble floor. As soon as the dog saw us he began barking. I swear I hate that dog. It never shuts up.
“Tinker, quiet,” Clara said. “It’s just Daniel.” She picked up her annoying dog off the floor.
“And Ellie,” I added softly.
Daniel patted Tinker. “Hey boy, how are you?”
Tinker licked his hand. Clara then put her dog down and he ran off somewhere. I think he ran off to the kitchen.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” she asked my brother.
“Yeah.” He turned to me. “You will be alright on your own, Ellie?”
I didn’t answer him.
“I won’t be too long, Ell. Just sit in the living room.”
“And no feet on the couch,” Clara added before they ran up the stairs together.
I just stood there for a moment, still staring up at the staircase even after they had disappeared. After a few minutes I forced myself to turn away and walked into the living room, or should I say the white room because almost everything in the room was white. There was a bit of colour in some places but white stood out more – the walls, marble floor, and the couch. The only colour I could see was a pot plant in a corner of the room, a massive bookcase, a few magazines were sitting on the glass coffee table, a peach colour rug sat on the floor underneath the couches and table, and a huge Plasma TV hangs on the wall.
I sat down on the white leather couch, grabbing the crimson red cushion that was there and hugged it to my chest. I held on it for a second before placing it back on the couch. I place the CDs on my lap and pulled out James’ letter from my pocket. I looked around me to make sure no one was around and then opened it. As I read it, I could hear James’ voice in my head as if he was reading the letter to me.
Dear Ellie.
I guess that this is the last letter I’m writing to you before I’m released. I can’t believe that I have been in here for two years and I’m glad that I don’t have to do the full sentence. I’m half excited that I’m finally being released and I can’t wait to see you again. The other half, well I don’t really want to go home. I can imagine what my dad is going to do once I return.
Not exactly sure what I’m going to do once I’m released. I’m definitely looking forward in seeing you and looking forward in catching up with everything that has happened in the past year. Hopefully nothing will stop us from hanging out together. Your family is definitely going to forbid you from seeing me, but I know you aren’t going to listen to a thing they say. Maybe we could hang out in our usual hang out once I’m released. I definitely don’t want you to come around to my place. Who knows what my dad is going to do with you there.
Do you still get the nightmares? I still have them even though it was almost three years ago. I still don’t tell anyone about the nightmares because I know they wouldn’t understand. You still don’t tell anyone about your nightmares either, do you? Maybe we could talk about them once I’m released, not that I really want to but it might help us. I wish I had my music here with me because I know it would help me block out the dream. I may not show it, but I feel as I’m slowly losing my mind without listening to music.
I better end the letter here. It’s lights out in a few seconds. See you when I get out, Ellie.
James
I smiled at the letter. Tomorrow he was coming home and reading the letter made me feel like he was already home. It’s true. I never told anyone about the nightmares that I had. I did once when I was forced to see a psychologist after what happened. It was supposed to make me move on what happened, but I hardly ever talked to her about it. When I told her about the nightmare to the psychologist, she didn’t really help me. She seemed bored, like she didn’t care about my situation and that she didn’t care about her job, and the only reason why she was here was to get paid and pretend to listen to me.
At one time I told her that James was innocent. She told me he wasn’t and that he knew what he was doing. I yelled back at her saying that you don’t know what happened and that you weren’t there. I walked out of her office, and from that moment on I never returned. I refused to go. I felt like no one understood me nor did they care what happened. So I never talked about my nightmares or what happened to anyone. I kept it all to myself. That’s when I turned to music to escape everything, just like the way James does it.
Music seemed to understand me more than the people around me. The lyrics probably didn’t really match the situation at times, but listening to it made me forget everything. I suddenly became like James, always wanting my iPod with me so I always had something to listen to. If I felt like breaking down, I would put the earphones on and crank up the volume, drowning out the world around me.
But eventually I knew I couldn’t keep everything inside of me. Shortly after James was sentenced to juvie, I began writing to him to see how he was doing and told him about my nightmares. He told me his, but we never really discuss them into detail. We just told each other what we dreamt.
I reread the letter over and over again. It was the only thing comforting me since I didn’t have my iPod with me at the current moment.
“Ellie?” I heard my brother’s voice.
I quickly folded the letter and put it back into the envelope, putting it back into the pocket of my hoodie.
Daniel walked in. “Hey, ready to go?”
Clara walked up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist.
I stood up from the couch. Without saying anything I walked past them and out the door. I walked down the stairs and over to Daniel’s car, leaning my back against it. Daniel appeared at the top of the steps with Clara, making out. I rolled my eyes.
After a minute or two, Daniel pulled away from her and unlocked the car, climbing in.
Our parents still weren’t home. I know that Dad was working and I think Mom went shopping, not exactly sure where she was. I walked inside the house and headed up to my room.
“You aren’t planning to sneak out, are you?”
“No. I’m just going up to my room.”
I disappeared into my room, putting the Nickelback CD on. I put the other CD into the bag where I put all of James’ CDs in, and then placed James’ letter in a box that I kept in my wardrobe with all of his other letters. I had a lock on it so no one could get in except for me. I then lay down on my bed and just listened to the music.
I stayed in my room all afternoon, not wanting to emerge from this room and go downstairs to my family. I could smell my mother’s cooking all the way from the kitchen and my stomach grumbled, realising I didn’t really ate lunch. I could go downstairs to have a snack, but Mom would just tell me off for eating something before dinner.
Mom soon called the household to dinner. Mom had put together a bake dinner. I stuffed the potatoes into my mouth, trying to block out the conservation between my parents and brother, talking about Clara. No one bothered to ask me anything.
My cell phone began ringing. Everyone stopped talking and looked at me. I don’t get many phone calls. Well, I don’t really get any at all. Without even knowing who was calling, I knew it was James.
I’m meant to hang up the phone and call back later according to my parents’ rules. But since it was James, I knew there will be no other time. He was only allowed one phone call.
I excused myself from the table. My dad told me to sit back down but I ignored him. I quickly headed outside.
“Hey, James,” I answered, closing the sliding door.
“Hey, how did you know it was me?” he asked.
I smiled. “I knew it would be you since you’re the only one who calls me.” I sat down on the steps of the back deck.
“And you’re the only one who would be willing enough to pick up the phone to talk to me. I asked the guards if I could make my last phone call for tonight. I chose to call you because I knew there would be no point in calling my dad.”
I felt his pain through the phone. “Do you think he would talk to you if you were to call him?”
“He will. But you don’t want to know the kind of things that he would end up saying.”
“You don’t know what kind of things people say about you or about me.”
“I can imagine but it’s probably not as bad as what my dad would say. Anyway, did you get my letter?”
I smiled, wishing that James could see it. “Yes, I have. I got it today.”
I heard the sliding door opened. I turned around to see Mom standing there. “Ellie, who are you talking to?” she asked.
“Nobody.”
“Well, if it’s nobody, could you please come back indoors and finish your dinner?”
“Can you give me a second, please Mom? I promise I won’t take too long.”
Mom stared at me. “Oh, alright. Five more minutes, Ellie, and then I want you to come back in.” She disappeared inside.
I turned my attention back to James. “I’m sorry about that.”
“It’s okay. You know you can go if you want,” James told me.
I shook my head. “No, it’s okay. I want to talk to you. Hearing your voice makes me feel better.”
Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew James was smiling on the other end of the phone. Since I have gotten to know him I realised that he has never really smiled in his life, not until he officially met me and whenever he is around me he would give me this amazing smile. I can still picture that smile in my head right now.
I heard someone mumbling in the background. James answered okay to them and then turned back to me. “I have two minutes left before I have to hang up.”
Disappointment rush through me, wishing that neither of us had to go and that we could talk all night to each other.
“Okay. I’m going to try and sneak out tomorrow to see you,” I told him.
“Your family still isn’t allowing you to go out on your own?”
“No, and I’m tired of getting treated like a little kid. I’m not even allowed to travel to work on my own, even if I do have a car. I have to have someone drive me to and from there. It’s totally ridiculous how overprotective my family has become.”
I heard mumbling again. “Ellie, I have to go. I will see you tomorrow. Goodnight.”
He hung up the phone. I sat there for a few minutes, staring into mid-air with my cell phone still pressed up against my ear. I eventually stood up and headed back inside, re-joining my family at the table.
“Who was that on the phone, Ellie?” Dad asked me.
“Nobody,” I answered, picking up my knife and fork, cutting the steak.
“Didn’t seem like nobody and you know the rules that you can’t answer the phone while at the table.”
“Sorry. It’s just I had to accept the call because I wouldn’t be able to return the call.”
“Who was on the phone?”
I chewed my steak slowly, knowing the fact that Dad wasn’t going to end this conservation so quickly. He was going to keep asking me who was on the other end, and I knew if he knew it was James, all hell will probably break. Dad will be yelling at me and wanting to know how long I have been keeping in contact with him and may even take away my phone so James couldn’t call me. I still couldn’t see the big deal about wanting to stay in contact with James. He never done anything wrong so there was no need for me to just block him out of my life.
I knew I had to lie. I hated lying, but it was the only way so Dad couldn’t give me this whole lecture on why I shouldn’t be associating with James Waters.
“It was just a friend,” I answered without making any eye contact with my family. I knew they will want to know what kind of friend so I added, “It’s just someone I work with.” Truthfully I didn’t really associate much with my workmates.
The conservation was left there and we ate dinner in silence. It felt totally weird how one moment everyone was talking and then just after I receive a phone call everything is silent.
It was my turn to do the dishes. I hate doing them, but I had no choice to do it. I listened to my iPod as I did it and thought about James. I never really thought about listening to music while doing the washing up before. Not until I spent one night with James for dinner at his place. His dad was out getting drunk and it was just us two. There was some leftover meatloaf that he had made from the night before and we sat in the kitchen eating it. As soon as we finished eating, he switched on the radio that he had in the kitchen. Rather than just standing and being totally bored with the idea of doing the dishes, he began singing along to LMFAO’s song Sexy and I Know It as it came on the radio. I started laughing as he danced a little to it and then got me to do the same. I was shy about singing and dancing in front of it. I don’t like singing and dancing in front of anyone. But I did, and it took away the boredom of cleaning up the dishes, even though it took a little longer.
I didn’t dance or sing like we did that night. I didn’t have the guts to do it unless it was in my own room. James only does it when his dad isn’t home. And even though I wasn’t dancing around like some lunatic, I just enjoyed the pop music I was listening to as it kept my mind off how boring doing the dishes was. It also blocked out the sound of the soccer game Dad and Daniel were watching on television.
Once I finished the dishes I headed up to my room. I was tired and I wanted a goodnight’s rest when James returns home tomorrow. I lay there in my bed with a smile on my face, glad that he was going to be release. Whatever happens, I hope he doesn’t have to be put back into jail again.