Imagining Us

Ch.64- Admission Part I

Esi sat crossed legged on her bed while Porte sat on her desk chair. She said nothing as she waited for him to speak.

He wore a grimace on his face.

"You keep asking me why I don't paint anymore-it's because I don't deserve to," he started. "I don't deserve to be able to let go of all of this. I don't deserve to create anything, but art is so ingrained in me...that I chose something close enough to it but with structure. I chose architecture. "

She watched as his face twisted into a mixture of pain and anger. Esi had seen his work, and she knew that he hadn't done a good job of keeping within those structures because his work was beautiful and filled with elements of him.

"My mom died because of me." He looked away as he spoke. "I know you'll say it's not true, but I can't help but think it is. She told me not to eat the...if I had just listened. I had stomach ache and she came home to take me to the doctor. Dad was working. It's not that she had to-it could have been Teddy or anyone else but that was just my mom-it had to be her."

His eyes turned glassy, and he began to tap his fingers on the arm of the chair.

"I saw the truck before she did," his voice broke. "I saw when she tried to fling her hand backwards to protect me-that was the last thing I saw. Then I was waking up in the hospital with voices around me and monitors beeping. I might have been young, but when I saw my dad's face, I just knew."

Esi's eyes began to prick. She could hear the devastation in his voice, and she wanted to cross the room to comfort him, but a part of her could tell, with how he reluctantly spoke that this was hard for him. Maybe he'd never even spoken about it to anyone. So she would listen to him. She would be there for him if he broke.

"I remember screaming-thrashing against the doctors. I called...I called for her, Esi. My dad tried to grab me, but she never answered-"

Porte's head fell back and he closed his eyes and released a ragged breath. Esi had to grab her sheets with both her hands to keep anchored-she never wanted to see him in this kind of pain.

"I don't know how he stands to look at me-how any of them do. I contributed to his wife's death...to the death of Luke's mother. I'm just glad that Luke wasn't with us in the car."

Esi knew that there was no way that his family blamed him-he wasn't the one driving drunkenly. Porte spoke as if he didn't deserve to grieve, like everyone else had lost a loved one except him.

"It was a rough couple of years for us. Luka and I used to do everything together-it was like I was afraid to even let him out of my sight. My father tried at first, but he was barely even himself anymore. He became so rigid and strict, like a completely different person." Porte's eyes were gazing unseeingly at the ceiling. "Then there was high school where Tash and I became friends. Our families ran in the same circles, but we weren't friends-not until rebelling against our parents encouraged camaraderie."

"We got so close," he reminisced. "Sneaking out, going to parties. I'll admit that I changed-I pushed Luka away and that's not something I'll ever forgive myself for, but I started to feel again. I started to get excited about life. That was what I thought, but I was being a coward-hiding from the truth and my family. The less I saw them, the less real her death was. The less real the havoc I caused was."

Porte stood up and walked towards her bookshelf as he spoke. She knew that he wasn't really paying attention to the titles-he just needed to do something with his hands. He needed his body to move.

"I used to love drawing and painting with mom. Some of the cameras you saw in my room are hers," he continued. "I didn't want to see anything that belonged to her-they were painful reminders, but Natasha encouraged me." Porte smiled ruefully.

"She was so blunt and truthful, sometimes ignorantly. But I think she knew that I needed it. I needed to feel my mom close despite the guilt I felt."

He turned to face Esi, his back now to the shelf. His gaze was so distant. "I drew everywhere-painted everywhere. Do you know how many times they had to repaint the gym wall at my high school? I felt like I was overflowing with creativity. But the more she drew me out, the further it pushed me away from my family. Life became about my friends-"

"Until one day, I didn't have any more."

***

Porte ran a hand through his hair, then came to sit next to her. The bed dipped from his weight, and she automatically shuffled closer to him. Any reservation that she had before was gone. Truthfully, she wasn't mad at him because of her confrontation with Talia-it wasn't his fault. The girl's words had touched a sore spot. That compounded with Andrew had been alot for her to deal with.

She brushed her shoulder against his. An encouragement for him to continue. She was letting him know that she was present. That she was listening.

"She didn't want to go to the party that night, but she'd been arguing with her parents about college. It was a month after graduation. She still hadn't decided which college she was going to," he said softly. "Tash couldn't tell them that she didn't want to go to college. Those things just weren't allowed. She was a free spirit who wanted to explore-to travel."

"I thought a party would cheer her up. There was this guy she was seeing-Tyler. Half of the time I saw him, he was high and I knew he was supplying her. I'll never know what happened between them that night but she pulled me away from the guys and I could see that-that she wasn't okay."

He had to pause, and Esi could see that he was forcing himself to be strong. To not fall apart. She slipped her hand into his, and Porte grasped her hand like it was a lifeline that he needed to keep him present before he got too lost in the past.

"I should have-I should have insisted that I drive." He hit his free hand against his thigh angrily. "She was going so fast because she was so angry. I'd never seen her like that- spouting angrily and erratically. Threatening to run away."

"It was happening all over again. That's how it felt to me when she lost control-they said the car flipped three times. Most of my scars are from that night." He briefly looked down at his hand.

"Talia has always been precise. High strung and driven. As different as the sisters were, they had an enviable closeness. She didn't like that I came between that. For all her obsessiveness, she hates me, and losing Natasha made it worse. Maybe too because it wasn't Natasha alone that she lost."

His statement confused Esi.

"Was there someone else in the car?" she asked.

"I didn't know about the baby-that she was pregnant. Until the autopsy. But Talia knew and she twisted everything. Told her parents that it was mine. They already thought that I was a bad influence-that I was the one giving her the drugs. Neither was true."

"It wasn't like that with us. We never saw each other that way-we were just two people who needed a listening ear and when I lost her, I was at my worst."

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A/N

Stay tuned for part 2!