“Elle, it’s been two days. I know you have a four day weekend and you’re hurting, but honestly two days without doing anything is enough to make me go crazy.” I’d been on the phone with Eric since I woke up this morning. It’d been at least twenty minutes of him asking how I was and trying to convince me to get out of my house. To be completely honest, I felt like maybe I could walk out without crying, but I couldn’t get away from the fear of what’ll happen if I see him.
“But Eric, what if he just comes out of nowhere? What am I supposed to do then, just run away screaming or go up and slap him and then run away screaming?”
“Shut up, Elle,” he said exasperatedly. “Just please get out of the house today. Or what might be even better is if I just picked you up, so we can go climbing. Yeah. I’ll cut work early, and we’re gonna go ok?” I hate when he decides to take time out of his life for me. As much as I really do appreciate it, I felt like it wasn’t worth it. But I’d do this for him. It probably wouldn’t help me, but I’d do it for his sake.
“Eric, you will not be cutting this internship that you worked for just for me. I’ll just run or walk to High Rock and climb for an hour or two ok? It probably won’t work, but I’ll do it so you won’t bug me anymore about it.”
“Fine. If you don’t go, I will yell at you, though. I’ll call Mike and ask if you’re there. You are gonna go and at least try to have fun alright?” Jeez. Even when he’s not here, he’ll be watching me.
“Alright, whatever. I’ll talk to you later ok?” We both hung up and now I have to actually get out of the house after two days and do things. It won’t be that exciting if my eyes are swollen still and my abs hurt from convulsing while crying. I might as well just take an hour give or take to actually remember what it was like to get outta bed. I reluctantly lift the blanket off me and do my usual morning routine at three in the afternoon. Then I finally go downstairs to find something to eat since I barely have in forty-eight hours. I settled for leftover Chinese my mom ordered last night.
After all that prep, I changed into my workout capris, gray V-neck, black sports bra, and Nikes and finally started my walk with gym bag in hand. It’s been awhile since I actually preferred to walk somewhere rather than drive or ride my bike. If anything, I’m kind of preferring it more now. It felt nice just to hear myself think amidst the cold breeze we finally got this month and get the blood flow back in my toes. It gave me more time to reflect on both the good and bad rather than lying in bed fully immersed in the bad.
I’d never admit this to anyone, but a small percentage of my thoughts missed him. Or maybe understood him really. I understood that it was hard to let me in when it was something as serious as his situation coming back to him, but he didn’t need to push me away when I really did want to help. It killed me every day to see his face confused or angry even. It killed me even more when he demanded that I leave him alone. It seems that he never had a mask to hide behind like I did. It made things a bit easier for me because then people never asked questions. But now he should get that since he didn’t have a mask, he caused this. Yes, it was hard, but he should’ve let in the people who cared to help him out.
Can you take your own advice and do that?
Ok, now I understand that I’m starting to sound like a hypocrite. I didn’t need the mask when I had friends who wanted to help pick up the pieces when they fell, but I didn’t want to burden them with my secret. No one wants to burden anyone with a secret like that (or any secret) unless you know they’ll understand. Eric is example number one.
I may not always need the mask, but I don’t need everyone to know everything. That secret stays between the three of us. (Four if you want to count yourself). What felt like ten minutes really was about thirty walking from my house to the gym. Surprisingly, I didn’t feel that tired. If anything I felt a bit stronger. Just a bit. When I got in there I waved “hello” to Mike standing at his usual position at the front desk.
YOU ARE READING
Behind the Clouds
Teen FictionWhat happens when fate causes two messed up people to meet each other? Most likely nothing particularly happy. But what happens when fate decides to give these people a chance at the happiness that's been taken away from them? Seems impossible doe...
