“Where did all the pictures go?” Elian asked, walking into the living room. He looked bad. The worst I had seen him. I had been sleeping over at his house. He seemed to rest better there than here. He was impatient in my apartment.
He paced a lot. Never still. Jittery and on edge.
It irritated me.
“I packed them away,” I replied, taking note of the pronounced shadows beneath his eyes and the way the green had stopped dancing a long time ago.
It made me sad.
Sad.
Sad.
Empty and confused.
Dark and shrouded.
Where had Elian Beyer gone?
“I think I got fired today,” he announced. His voice tired. Unemotional.
Not caring.
“You got fired?” I asked, not surprised. He hadn’t been going to work. He hadn’t been doing much except for loving me.
He loved me with a dying heart.
“George asked me to leave. Told me to go home.” His laugh was joyless. Void. There was no happiness there.
Elian turned in a circle in my living room. Turning. Turning. Never stopping. Dizzy. Falling over. Collapsing on my couch.
“Should I go home, Layna? Where would I go? To you?” he barked. His laugh taunting. Cruel.
He was angry.
At me.
“You came here, Elian. You tell me,” I threw back at him. I had to be careful. I should be patient. He was unraveling. Quickly. I didn’t have much time. To stop him. To stop myself.
Frozen thudding in my chest.
“What’s wrong with me?” he agonized. Miserable.
“Nothing,” I swore, sitting down beside him. Pulling him in. Holding him close. Mine. Always mine.
Elian laid his head on my chest. His ear over my heart. “I had been holding on for so long. I had a life. Friends. A job. People liked me. Now what am I? What have you made me become?”
He blamed me. He should. I’ve ruined him. I hated it. But I meant to. It’s what I had to do.
“Let me tell you a story, Elian,” I whispered into his ear. His lips pressed firm on the column of my throat. Tongue wet. Tasting and devouring.
“Tell me,” he begged.
“About a girl named Layna. She wanted to be a star. But her father said she never would be…”
“Would you come with me on a trip?” I asked sometime later. Elian had drifted off to sleep for a few minutes. Not long enough for him to feel rested but now he was much more calm.
More rational.
Maybe my story helped him.
The way they had always helped me.
“Where do you want to go?” he asked, his voice soft. Aching.
I sighed. How would I tell him? What would he do? How would he react?
I had a feeling he would need this as much as I did.
“To see my father.” Elian stilled in my arms but he didn’t pull away.
“Where’s my phone? I can hear it ringing,” he said excitedly. Patting his pockets.
I framed his face with my hands. “Listen, Elian. I want to see my father. And I think you should come with me.”
He shook his head. His too-long hair falling in his eyes that no longer danced.
“I don’t. I won’t.” He began to shake, and I dug my fingers into his cheeks. Holding him still.
“Come with me.” I breathed him in.
Tears hot and fierce fell from his eyes. Splashing on my hands. Staining the skin with their exhausted anguish.
“We both need to confront the man that made us.”
“I won’t, Layna,” he warned. His eyes flashing for the first time in weeks.
“I won’t see him.” He pulled away, my fingers grasping, not finding purchase.
“Elian—”
“But I’ll come with you. I’ll be there when you go in and I’ll wait for you to come out. And I’ll help you rid yourself of the monster and the hold you seem to think he has on you.”
The monster’s hold. It wasn’t in my head. It was in my soul.
Elian had no idea…
“Thank you,” I smiled. Elian reached for me just as I reached for him. And we lost ourselves in each other.
On this cusp of the end.