Fixing Broken Hearts

38

Warnings:
-Mentions death
-Panic attack

Elliot's POV

~ A Week Later ~

'We the jury find the defendant Elliot Moore not guilty of the offence of manslaughter.'

'Thank you, Jury, for your service today. Court is adjourned.'

I breathed out, my hands on my forehead as my lawyer tapped my shoulder. 'I told you there was nothing to worry about. You did the right thing, and the only thing you could have done.'

I nodded, but still, it didn't feel right at all. I turned around to see Tristan, immediately walking up to him without asking for permission. He opened his arms, and as soon as he did, I fell into them as I began to cry.

'You did the right thing, Elliot,' he reassured me. 'You couldn't do anything else.'

'I'm a murderer,' I stumbled. 'My mother doesn't even look at me anymore.'

'Elliot, you had no other option. It was self defence, you couldn't have done anything differently than you did now. You didn't have a singular intention to kill him, and after the knife was taken, you were no danger for him either.'

I gulped when I tried to swallow, wiping my tears away with a slow movement. 'Will God still love me?'

'More than you can ever imagine. God loves everyone and you haven't even done something wrong. You defended yourself, and Clay, from the monster he became.'

'But he's dead... and I'm alive.'

'If you wouldn't have defended yourself, both Clay and you could have been dead. You couldn't do anything other than what you did.'

The flashbacks hadn't stopped repeating in my head after what happened. Right after I hit my father on the head, because from my perspective, I was convinced he was going to stab me too and end both of our lives, I called the police and an ambulance.

I called Tristan as well, and he arrived before the ambulance did. He focused on Clay, who was bleeding severely from the wound in his stomach and tried to stop the bleeding while I was in shock and couldn't move nor speak anymore.

It was so severe this time that I couldn't move and speak for days and was taken to the hospital to be treated. Soon, they realised my body was healthy and I was send back home, where my mother was quietly sitting on the couch the whole day.

Right after Clay was rushed to the hospital, they took my father too. But while Clay was strong and was fighting for his life as they put him into a coma, our dad passed away due to severe brain injure.

I couldn't stop, and still couldn't, blame myself for what happened. No matter how much I disliked my father, I never meant to kill him. I told the police my story, but because they doubted the seriousness of it, I remembered we had security cameras that pointed towards the place it happened.

After the police watched the scene, they were able to say it was self defence, but I still had to prepare for a court hearing. Gladly, the video tape was enough proof to find me not guilty with, as it showed my father turning towards me after stabbing Clay.

But honestly, pleading not guilty wasn't close to what I needed. I started losing myself more each day, my arms were full of cuts at this point and visiting Clay in the hospital, without knowing if he would wake up, was starting to become a hell as well.

I was pushing everyone away, I lost myself in countless of severe anger outbursts and injured Tristan during one. He didn't get angry at me, but sat with me to calm me down, but I was completely going insane.

I couldn't sleep anymore, started taking a shit ton of calming medication and stopped eating due to the lack of motivation. I started to pass out countless times a day and injured myself so badly that I ended up in the hospital three times in only a week's time.

I didn't want to hurt people around me with my behaviour, but my mother didn't care about me anymore and hadn't gone to Clay once, Clay was in a coma anyway and I was convinced Tristan wouldn't like a murderer and a mentally ill guy like me...

It seemed like every time when I thought my pain wouldn't get worse, my whole life turned a whole 180 degrees and went the complete opposite way. I didn't want to live anymore and honestly, I even overdosed once without telling anyone.

I was even too weak to kill myself and end it all, even though I really wanted to and disappear from this earth. Instead, I stopped sleeping, self harmed and acted out more and more self destructive behaviour to ease the pain inside.

'Elliot, you're staring. Are you okay?' Tristan asked for the third time, shaking my body softly. 'You're unable to speak again, aren't you?'

For some reason, he immediately knew when my body shut down. I more often had a time in which I couldn't speak than when I could, so it wasn't that hard to notice. My traumatic experiences were slowly taking my whole body and mind over. I knew they were going to be the death of me...

Tristan led me outside the court room and made me sit down on a bench, our backs against the wall. He smiled at me and looked around, giving me a gentle kiss on my cheek.

'Elliot, I promise, you're going to improve when you get the help you need. I'm already making such big steps from when I started trauma therapy!'

The episode of intense fear slowly started turning into my whole body locking again. I couldn't move a singular muscle, I couldn't even blink most of the time. Sometimes, even my breathing could stop for minutes, until I started to turn blueish and someone had to hit me on my chest to start my breathing again.

'I'm here with you, El. Keep looking at me and take deep breaths. You can do it, you don't have to hold your breath again.'

I could move one finger and tried to tap his finger to show him I wanted to hold his hand. He quickly understood the hint and grabbed it right away, giving me multiple kisses on the top of it.

'Do you realise how good Clay is doing? They are going to wake him up tonight! Do you remember?'

I couldn't show a reply, but softly tapped his hand. He smiled and cuddled up with me. 'I'm so proud to have such a brave boy as my... something,' he said with a soft chuckle. 'As the guy I'm awfully in love with. That'll be forever, El. I promise.'

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