Seven Sons

Chapter Six

He doesn't speak. Doesn't move. I suddenly feel ill, as though I have done the wrong thing by seeking him out.

"I'm sorry," I say, pulling my dress back down and sliding off the bed. "I shouldn't have come here."

I try to leave but he catches my elbow, turning me to face him. "Wait," he says. "Please. I don't want you to go. I'm just a little ... shocked. I haven't seen you in three years."

I just stand there, feeling pathetic.

"Juliette," he says darkly. "What are you doing here?"

"Sightseeing," I reply with a deadpan face.

He lets go of my elbow and walks to the front of the store. He flips the sign hanging in the door to closed and locks the door, pulling the shade down so nobody can see in.

"My apartment is upstairs," he says, looking at me like my appearance is causing him physical pain. "I think we need to talk."

"And then you'll tattoo me?" I ask hopefully.

He appears to be fighting an inner battle. "If you tell me why you need those scars covered up, then sure, I'll make you the best fucking tattoo you've ever seen."

"I'll tell you why if you promise you won't try and talk me out of it."

He suddenly looks weary. "Let's just go upstairs," he says, "before anyone else finds you here."

I look around the deserted shop, confused as to who exactly is going to find me in a store that is now locked, but I follow him upstairs anyway.

I am pleasantly surprised when I enter the apartment. It is a far cry from the stark white of the store, and feels surprisingly spacious. It has been decorated in a retro style, all black and reds, with hits of canary yellow here and there. There are band posters covering the walls – from a cursory glance, I can see bills for The Ramones, The Rolling Stones and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Knotted beams of polished oak run beneath my feet. There are two low-back, black leather sofas facing each other with a glass coffee table between them and a gloss-black kitchen tucked off to the side.

Elliot walks behind the bench and reappears several moments later with two open bottles of Budweiser.

"Good idea," I say, accepting the one he offers me.

He sits across from me, and I can't help but remember the very first time I saw him after my father died, when he came back to Nebraska.

I'd been puking. At first, Grandma wrote it off as a stomach virus and kept me in bed for the week. But one week slowly crept into two, then three, and I was still sick, still lying in bed all day, and the doctor eventually confirmed what she had secretly feared and what I had never considered.

I heard her on the phone to her grandson, late one night when I couldn't sleep.

"You have to come back here," she pleaded. "It's bad, honey. It's real bad."

She knew everything. She knew what they had done to me. And now, she knew that I carried a lasting reminder of their treachery.

Elliot was there the next day, sitting beside me as I puked into an old tin bowl. He held my blonde hair back as I vomited, pressed a cold flannel to my neck. He cared for me the way I desperately needed someone to care for me.

"What do you want to do?" he asked me. Even then, when I was only fifteen and he was just shy of twenty-three, he treated me like I was the most important person in the world.