“Hey.” Eli lets go of my chin, settles on the bed next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulders, gently pressing so that I’ll lean into him. Because I’m a mess, I do, and feel worse that I’m letting him comfort me. “It’s okay, Emily. For tonight, she’s okay.”
I push down my hurt and rapidly blink to keep the tears away. Eli’s strong. Olivia’s strong. I can be strong, too, but as I go to pull away, Eli only readjusts us so that we’re sitting back against the wall with me still tucked close to him.
“It scared me,” I admit, and hope it’s a plausible explanation for why I’m so messed up because I’m not sure he’d believe that I like her and I’m not sure how I feel about it myself.
“Scared me, too. Each and every time it happens, it scares the shit out of me.” Honesty is etched over his face.
“I have a hard time believing you’re scared of anything. I mean...you’re you.”
He’s a lot like his father, Cyrus. He’s big and he’s strong and basically has an entire army of scary men in black leather who ride motorcycles and carry guns at his disposal.
“I’m scared of a ton of things and all of them have to do with losing the people I love.” He pauses. “I learned a long time ago that I can’t control everything and now I’m learning I can’t control death. Sometimes I feel cursed. Like I get to watch everyone I love slip through my fingers.”
He wanted me. Olivia said he wanted me. I open my mouth to ask if I’m one of the people he’s referring to, if Mom is, but I snap it shut. I don’t know how to ask without divulging that Olivia is sharing secrets with me and I can’t take the respect Eli has for her away over my need to understand my past.
“What?” Eli asks.
“Nothing.”
“No, you were going to say something, what?”
My mind is completely blank. What can I say? What should I say? “I don’t like pulled pork. I don’t like any pork actually. It’s tough and it’s stringy and it’s a pig and...well...pigs gross me out. Which means I don’t like bacon either, so...yeah...that’s it.”
Eli blinks as he tries to understand any of the hot mess that just fell out of my mouth. He pulls on his earlobe and his face contorts as if he’s trying not to laugh. “You ate an entire pulled pork sandwich in Nashville.”
I did. “You were superexcited about me trying it and I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I feel like that’s all I do—hurt you. I don’t want to, but I do. Even when I’m not trying to, it still happens.”
“Emily.” He lowers his head so that we’re eye to eye. “You don’t hurt me.”
“Yeah, I do. Every time I look at you, I see that you’re in pain.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t cause that. It’s something I did to myself. But thank you.”
My forehead furrows. “For what?”
“For telling me something about you.” And he leaves off how he didn’t have to ask a million questions to learn it or how he appreciates how honest I was. Hating pork, it’s simple really, but to Eli, it seems like a lot.
Crap, now I really feel bad. I’ve been here over a month, I’ve known him for seven years and pulled pork is the first real truth he knows about me. Eli and I...maybe we also need time.
A knock on my open door and Oz enters the room. “Cyrus is asking for you, Eli.”
Eli glances over at me as if he’s weighing telling Oz no, but then Oz adds, “I’ll stay with her.” He rests a hip against the door frame of my room with his hands shoved in his pockets and eyes me in a way that suggests he’d like my help.
“I’ll be okay with Oz.”
Eli’s eyebrows pull together in worry, but he quickly stands and kisses the top of my head. He then goes to Oz, cradles one hand around the base of his neck and says, “I owe you.”
Oz nods, Eli leaves, and we study each other. Men in black vests float like ghosts along the hallway. For as many people as there are in the house, there’s only a low mumble of conversation. An occasional distinct voice here and there. No panic. No hustle. No phone call to 911 or distant wail of an ambulance.
Oz watches me as if my gaze on him is the sole thing keeping him upright. Through my window, the clubhouse is lit up and beams of motorcycle lights flash into my room as more people arrive. The roar of engines the lone sound that resembles the actual chaos inside me.
“Why aren’t they taking her to the hospital?” I whisper.
Oz’s head falls back until it hits the door. “Because Olivia has made it clear that she wants to stay here.”
“What? But she needs help. She needs a hospital. She—”
Oz cuts me off. “She wants to die here.”
My mouth drops open, but no sound comes out. Dad’s mentioned this before. Hospice, I think? It’s care for people who are dying. For people who have exhausted all medical options. “But she seems so...alive.”
“Get some jeans on,” he says. “Then meet me outside.”
“Don’t you want to stay? If she’s dying, don’t you want to be here?”
“Do you?” he asks.
No, I don’t and from the way Oz’s blue eyes are begging me to move, I guess he doesn’t, either.
“Where are we going?” I inquire.
Oz glances down the hallway toward Olivia’s room. “Away from here.”