Restart

Chapter 5

Everyone always said that running from your problems was never the answer, but sometimes running is the only way that the problem wouldn't get worse. I ran until I got to my destination. I made sure that Xavier want right behind me and I knocked on the door.

Mae answered the door wearing jeans and a plain white shirt. She looked confused to see me then she saw the remnants of tears on my cheeks and around my eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asked and I shook my head furiously, "come in and sit down. I'll get Elliott." I nodded and she went up the stairs. She came back a minute later with Elliott. He scanned the room and speed when he came to me.

"I'm going to go upstairs. Come on up if you need me." In that moment, Mae almost seemed like a comforting mother. She left after I nodded my head, and Elliott sat down next to me. He just sat and stared at me for a couple of minutes.

"What happened? Was it him?" He said "him" with so much anger that he didn't seem like the normal, carefree Elliott that I knew. He sounded like that old neighbor that always was accusing you of trespassing on his property and "destroying" his things and was always threatening you it you didn't get off of his property. He sounded like he was going to pummel Xavier the next time he saw Xavier. He looked like he might even go to Xavier merely for the pleasure of pummeling him. I didn't like this side of Elliott. I wanted my fun and carefree friend back.

When I didn't nod or shake my head, he abruptly stood up, I assumed, to go give Xavier a piece of his mind. I grabbed his hand in an attempt to hold him back but to no avail because he pulled from my grip and resumed on his path to hurt Xavier. I raised myself off of the couch and to his level, or at least as closely as possible given our height difference. I gently set my hand in his and looked into his eyes, trying to calm him down. He slipped his hand out of mine and tried his head the other way.

"Let me go," Elliott commanded as I grabbed his upper arm, which was bigger and more muscular than I had anticipated; he was still looking the other way, "I can't let him get away with this. I just can't. He can't just get away with doing whatever he wants to. You deserve better than that. You deserve better than him." Again, he said "him" in that tone of voice that I didn't like.

"Please," I whispered and even I wasn't sure at first if I had actually said it out loud, or if it was just in my head.

Elliott sat back down on the couch then; that was when I realized that I had spoken to the first person that wasn't Xavier, something that hasn't happened since my parents died. Elliott still had his fingers entwined with mine and he pulled me down onto the couch next to him. I reluctantly sat next to him and looked into his eyes. They looked uncertain; they looked like he wanted to punch someone, probably Xavier, and hug someone at the exact same time. He had anger and sadness in his eyes at the same time.

"Fine, but he needs to know that he isn't just going to get away unscathed. He needs to know that there are consequences in life." He sounded like a parent that found out that their teenager had gone to a party without their permission and had had alcohol, so as a parent, they had to raise their kid to be a good person and listen to their parents. That was before the apocalypse though. Now no one had parents anymore.

"Just let it go, please," I whispered as I started into Elliott's eyes do he could see how much I wanted him to just let it go. He nodded his head and pulled me up off the couch as he got up himself.

I let him pull me up and he led me upstairs to a room where I saw Mae. She nodded to me when she saw me, and Elliott let go of my hand and left me in Mae's capable hands top get cleaned up.

After a quick shower to rinse all of the grime off of my skin, Mae led me to a guest room where I immediately fell asleep on the warm bed. You probably expect me to say that I dreamt about unicorns and lollipops now that I knew that I was safe, but I didn't, dream about unicorns and lollipops that is. I dreamt about hands surrounded by darkness. They were crushing me because they were the size of a house. Then I saw Xavier's face appear through the darkness. He was scowling, then he started laughing and pointing when he saw me. His laughter echoed through the darkness of the dream and I screamed as his hand came down upon me again; he was still laughing as it came down.