The Walls that Separate Us | E.W.

1• Leave it all behind

  ELLIE

January 2038
Before

   

"Ellie."

    "I'm gettin' you outta here girl. I got ya..."
  The alarms were loud. The voices of the Fireflies were demanding. Joel's arms were burly as he held me right to his chest like his life depended on it.

"Ellie, you listening?"

    "Making a vaccine...would've killed you. So I stopped them."
  

"Ellie!"

I was snapped out of my deep thoughts within a second at Tommy calling my name.

"Huh?" I say absentmindedly and Tommy and I both stop abruptly in our tracks from our patrol as he side-eyes me, already suspecting there's something up.

"What's up?" I ask again as he's silent and his lip slightly curls into a grin. "You alright? You're doin' that thing again when you space out...with your fingers."

I glance down at my knuckles turning white around my ring and pinky finger and allow them to drop to my side. "Oh." Is all I manage to say. Really? That's it?

It's been 18 months since I swore to myself to never speak another word to Joel after I found out he had lied to me for so long about the Fireflies. Since I left him without another word after Saint Mary's. I can't get it out of my head no matter how much I try.

All of the Fireflies, the only people who could've created something to stop all this death...all gone. Deep down, I knew it wouldn't bring Riley back, or Tess. Sam and Henry, the couple who ran away from Jackson two years ago, or even the girl on the Firefly table that I just so happened to replace. But maybe, just maybe...It would've been enough to make my life matter the way it should've been in the beginning.

But Joel took that possibility away from me.

"Is it Joel again?" Fuck me.

A deep sigh escapes my lips as I bring both of those fingers back deep into my palm. "Hey." He says as he takes a step toward me and I watch as he chews on his inner cheek in thought and stares at the ground.

"He's right, y'know."

My brow furrows in confusion at his statement. How could he be right? Right about what?

"There was nothin' that could've saved any of these people, let alone them Fireflies. Things ain't' how they used to be, Ellie." He says and I glance down at my worn down converse and chew on my bottom lip anxiously. As much as I've heard that last part many times before, the thought never actually reaches to the part of my brain that its supposed to. Is there something wrong with me?

"He talked to you?"

"I haven't got a single syllable out of him since...'the fallout'..."He replies in quotation. "I just know it's what he knows."

"What he knows? How could he possibly know how I feel?" Overwhelming frustration runs freely through me and as much as I try to bite back, it seems to dominate my opposed feelings.

He glides a hand over his jaw and sighs, then setting his hand on my shoulder and for a moment, I start to feel sadness overlapping my seemingly never-ending irritability.

"He cares about you more than anything in the world, Ellie. I haven't seen that man crack a smile like he does with you since the damn Dallas Cowboys last won a Super Bowl in '96." Tommy says with a chuckle and a genuine smile creeps it's way onto my lips at the thought.