Black And Blue-E.Buckley (9-1-1)

Eleanor Begins

Eleanor Ivy Blair, born to Jason and Elizabeth Blair. They were a normal, happy family for the first few years of Eleanor's life. Family dinners every night, dinner with her grandparents every Friday night, the picture-perfect family. 

Eleanor was just five years old the first time she witnessed her father hitting her mother. She was too young, she didn't understand what was happening. All she knew was that it started happening on a weekly basis. Sometimes she witnessed it and sometimes she just heard her mother's screams. The next day her father would come home with gifts for her and her mother. He would promise them that he loved that. Say that he was just stressed from work and that he didn't mean it. Yet it continued to happen for years.

One night, when Eleanor was ten years old, she was in her room when she heard her father yelling in the next room and she knew what was about to happen. She jumped out of bed and ran to her parent's room. She hated seeing her mother so sad, hated watching her cry in the kitchen when she thought Eleanor wasn't around. So tonight she decided to do something about it. 

Eleanor ran into the room and just as her father was about to hit her mother she jumped in front of her mother. Her father noticed at the last second and narrowly missed them both. He was furious with Eleanor. He walked her back to her room and locked the door. For the next hour, she had to listen to his shouts and her mother's cries and there was nothing she could do about it.

"You can't do that honey, it could've been so much worse," her mother told her the next day. She made Eleanor promise to never get in the middle of them again. "I don't wanna see you get hurt, my sweet baby." Eleanor didn't like it but she agreed anyway.

When Eleanor was about fifteen she started sneaking out when her parents started fighting. By now she knew the warning signs. She would hide in the gardener's shed for hours until she knew it was over. It became her safe space for many years. She would lay on the bags of soil and stare up at the stars, wishing for a way out.

They had both made it clear that she was not to interfere or there would be consequences so she didn't bother anymore. She felt bad for her mother and she hated her father. But she was older now, she understood more. Though she didn't fully understand what her mother was thinking or going through, she still hated her for staying. She wished her mother would talk to her, and tell her why she stays with him.

Just a few years later, at seventeen, Eleanor attempted to stand up to her father one last time. She screamed at him, told him how much she hated him, and how she wished he wasn't her father. Wished anyone but he was her father. She yelled all the terrible that raced through her head at him. He was so furious. It resulted in Eleanor getting a black eye and a busted lip. 

On that same night, he decided that it was her mother's fault that she acted like that. Her father broke her mother's arm and bruised her face so badly she couldn't see out of one eye. That was the night Eleanor made a promise to herself. A promise to never end up like her mother, to never let a man treat her that way. That was also the night Eleanor decided to leave.

Just a short three years later this promise to herself was broken by the very man who swore to protect her. Eleanor and Michael met during her sophomore year of high school. They soon began dating and were inseparable. Michael was a year older. He took her in the night she left home. He sat on the couch with her, listening to her cry, and promised her that he would never be like her father. It only took him a year to break that promise..

From then on it was like she was right back home, except this time she was in her mother's shoes. Finally, she understood why her mother never left. She was afraid. She feared for her life and the life of her daughter. Eleanor was thankful there was no child in this situation to worry about. And that was her new promise. A promise to never bring a child into this. She never wanted her child to go through what she did. 

Not only did Michael physically and mentally abuse her but he allowed his mother to verbally abuse her. His mother never liked Eleanor. She always told Michael that Eleanor was no good. A troubled girl from a terrible home. Years later Eleanor found out that Michael's mother was her father's mistress. Which was part of the reason she hated Eleanor so much. 

So for years, Eleanor endured the abuse from her father, from Michael, and from Michael's mother. Until one day her savior appeared and found her knight in shining armor. A man who promised to love her and actually meant it. 

Evan Buckley kissed every scar, physically and metaphorically. He saved Eleanor in every way a person can be saved..