Written In The Stars: Book Two

CHAPTER ONE: DROWNING SORROWS

2010

Elijah closed his eyes in an attempt to stop the room from spinning, using his hand against the wall of his apartment as his guide. His dragging feet kicked away objects in their path, which at this time consisted of most of his living room in fragments.

The fist felt like it was hitting his temples rather than the front door, and Elijah hastened his pace, if only to stop the wretched sound. Instead, he slipped on what was either a former lamp or one of his dishes. When he opened his eyes as the ceramic pierced through his skin, they couldn't focus on the pattern enough to deduce which it was.

He couldn't even bring himself to react to the blood as he picked himself up to lean against the wall. There it was, running down his arm and pooling against his sleeve, soaking into the fabric, and all he could do was stare at it in fascination.

The pain and rage boiling in his stomach and burning a hole through his heart and that deep red cascading down his arm was the only proof Elijah was still alive, despite his best efforts.

Elijah knew if he sobered up enough to properly put himself out of his despair, the love of his life would blame herself. He'd already burdened her with enough of his problems in the two short weeks they had with one another. Elijah wasn't so big of a dick that he'd add his suicide to the list. He'd separated himself from her because she was too good to deal with his hang-ups. Burdening her with this for the rest of her days would just be counterproductive.

When he noticed a shadow hovering over him, Elijah peered up through scrunched eyelids. He hadn't even heard his front door open, yet there Jay was.

"Just M messaged me," Jay told him. "She was worried about you. I guess I can see why. Explains why you stopped showing up for work, and why you won't answer anyone's calls."

Elijah dropped his head back down to continue watching the blood. "As a heads up, if you call her anything more than that, I'm gonna kick the living shit out of you."

Jay lowered himself to the ground in front of him, careful to avoid the shards of glass and ceramic littering the floor. "I don't think you could stand up long enough to kick the living shit out of me right now. Sober Elijah, absolutely. This guy?" Jay let out an insincere chuckle as he poured the last remaining bottle of booze on the wound before wrapping a shirt around it. "I don't think this guy could even make it to the couch four feet away. Since when are you this guy?"

Closing his eyes, Elijah tried his best to do the math. "One week? Two weeks? Somewhere in between. Jesus Christ, man, I don't fucking know. Whenever Thanksgiving was."

"Please don't tell me you've been this drunk since Thanksgiving," Jay pleaded with him.

Elijah shook his head, which was the wrong fucking move given his state. "Not the whole time," he reassured, letting the chuckle out he'd been holding in. "I tend to run out of booze by around 2am, and have to wait till morning."

"I guess this explains why you stayed away from alcohol for so long. And here I thought you were just being paranoid."

Finally opening his eyes, Elijah had to blink a few times before Jay came into focus. "So, what? You gonna leave me too? You should, man. I'm fucking toxic. Madeline was right to want to stay the hell away from me. I'm trash, dude. I'm just useless fucking trash.

"I was never gonna be good enough for that girl. Everyone was too nice to say it out loud, but we all fucking knew it. She may have been my soulmate, but I would have just dragged her down with me if she'd stayed. I'll drag your ass down, too. Did you know I never even graduated from high school?"

Jay let out a slow breath, then dipped his head before shaking it. "I didn't know that."

Elijah leaned his head back against the drywall, feeling the back of his head hit a spot in the wall he punched through. "I never should have kissed her in the first place. Hell, I never should have showed up at her apartment that night. What the fuck was I thinking, man? I had nothing to offer her. I'll never have anything to offer her."

"All she wanted was you, Elijah. I met her once, and I could tell right away. You two had something most people never find."

"Yeah, well," Elijah began as he rubbed at his severely overgrown stubble. "Love doesn't pay the bills, doesn't give you any sort of security, and it sure as shit doesn't erase all my fucking past."

"No, it doesn't," Jay agreed. "But letting your past control you and dictate who you become does erase the potential future you could have had with that girl. But I guess you've already figured that out, haven't you?"

"Fuck you." This wasn't Elijah rewriting the future he could have had, it was simply speeding up the inevitable.

He remembered watching her during graduation and thinking about this big life she was going to have. But his life? Even if he had pushed through the issues of his past to create a future with Madeline, there was still his record. A big life was out of reach as soon as he ended up with that first assault charge.

"Come on, man," Jay continued before he let out a short sigh. "Let me take you to a hospital. Once they patch you up, we'll let the booze wear off, then see if we can't find a rehab center that can take you."

Elijah didn't fucking need rehab. Yes, his father was an alcoholic, as was his father, but they'd spent their entire lives staring down at the bottom of a bottle. Elijah had only been doing that for the last two weeks or so.

 This is what some people did after a breakup, wasn't it? They drank, smashed a couple of things, got angry, then eventually moved on. Except this wasn't just a breakup. He hadn't just lost a girlfriend, Elijah lost his little M&M. He lost his best friend and his purpose.

There was the age old saying that you can't rely on someone else to make you happy, or some shit like that. Before he'd run away on his eighteen birthday, the only happy moments in his life after his mother's death were at the Martin house. Whether it was cleaning the boat with Mitch, helping set the table for Mary, or babysitting Madeline, he was content in that home. Safe. Cared for.

Once he drove away, Elijah was naïve enough to think that was the start to the rest of his life. Leaving that town in his rear and never looking back, just like Mitch told him to, was going to be his salvation. He was going to become the sort of man who would have made his mother proud; would have made the Martin's proud.

Yet here Elijah was. No matter how much distance he'd put between him and that town, he'd still turned out too much, like the monster who plagued his dreams. The disarray and fragmented pieces of his apartment were proof of that. He'd served time in jail and prison for inflicting physical pain on other people, which no doubt caused them some measure of emotional trauma.

Then there were the scattered liquor bottles across the hardwood flooring, along with a trash can full of beer cans. Only time would tell if he was an alcoholic or a regular run-of-the-will drunk, but no matter the case, there was no denying that without the goals he'd set to be someone Madeline would still care for, Elijah was truly becoming his father's son.

If you couldn't rely on someone else to bring you happiness, Elijah was screwed. The only time he felt true, untainted happiness was with Madeline. Until, of course, that happiness grew tainted, just like the rest of his miserable life.

"I don't need a hospital," Elijah muttered. He uncovered his arm from the shirt Jay wrapped around it, and noticed it wasn't that deep a cut. Bled like a son-of-a-bitch, sure, but the bleeding had already died down substantially. "Bleeding already slowed. And I don't need to go to rehab, either," Elijah added in for good measure, realizing his statement might very well have been bullshit.

Jay just shook his head, slid his baseball cap off and tossed it on the floor amongst the debris. "So what the hell do you need, besides a maid?"

A mother. A father who loved him. Both those things he may not have had in a blood related sense, but he did have them in Madeleine's parents. Whether he'd still have them after he broke their daughter's heart was the real question. Elijah wouldn't blame them for keeping their distance now that he turned into a train wreck that'd crashed right into their lives, causing nothing but destruction.

"I need Maddie." It was a confession that came with ease, yet the words had no magic within them. He couldn't erase what he'd done, nor could he erase the facts that tore them apart. "But I'm everything she needs to stay the hell away from."