In The Eyes of Alessandra

Chapter Three | Remembrance

Elias

Chapter three

(12 Years ago)

The horses were unsettled. I gazed out into the opening of the tack room. The moon casted a faint glow around the hacienda. Trees swayed casting their looming shadows and the light wind was calming with a light chill as summer had begun to come to an end. I peeked outside to find the source. It could've been a coyote trying to get in. They never wandered far from mammals that truly meant no harm. As I began to walk out of the tack room a figure came into view. Their height was small and as the figure made an appearance a girl appeared. She wandered in, her long brown hair cascaded to her right side over her cardigan. She looked around. Her face round signifying her youth, Her cheeks were plush. Her eyes were focused on the horses located on each side in their individual stalls.

Curiously she brought in her surroundings. Her chin jutted out peering into the stalls. Her cheeks were tinted pink from the fresh breeze outside and she clutched her fingers in a fist and brought them up to her lips, blowing out a breath for warmth. She had yet to notice me, but I immediately noticed her. It wasn't often that you saw a girl wandering around on the grounds that belonged to Don Lucio.

I bid back into the tack room. Observing her as she approached a stall, dragging a stool close. She stood on the stool, her feet bending in her flats as she leaned over to look at the horse inside. She clutched her cardigan and then reached down into the left pocket bringing out an apple. With her palm outstretched into the stall, the horse calmly walked towards her, its ears moving and listening to the movements of her gesture. She waited as the horse came closer, nibbling on the apple before biting it in the palm of her hand.

"A snack for you and one for me." She reached into the right side of her cardigan this time, bringing out an orange package and ripping it open. It was a Mexican sweet cake I realized as she bit into it. I shuffled closer to the entrance of the tack room. The girl immediately looked over in my direction, alarmed as I brought myself out from the shadows. She clutched the sweet cake close to her chest, lowering herself from the stool as I kept a distance between us. Her eyes were startled as she calmly chewed on the delicacy.

"I—I'm sorry I didn't realize someone stayed here.." Her eyes looked over at me and took in my attire. I was still in my work clothes. The few shirts I had were worn down and my pants had been covered in dirt from my waist to my ankle. I stood awkwardly, my lanky arms kept at my side, not answering her and knowing the girl could probably smell me from the few feet that stood between us.

She was younger than me by a few years. Our height difference was visible. Her eyes were young, brown and casted down in shyness as we made eye contact. She couldn't be older than 13.

"Do you stay here with them? The horses I mean." She looked over towards the horse stall. Her eyes were captivated by the animal. It was hard to look away from such creatures. Their beauty is undeniably magnificent. We had yet to give it a name, but Don Lucio almost never named the animals. I shook my head, saying yes as I hesitantly walk over.

"Does it have a name?" I looked over peering over the stall door. Not answering the girl as the horse moved around. She grew less shy but still hesitant. Her eyes were curious in a way that a kid showed excitement in seeing something new. It was the same feeling I had felt when I was first brought here.

"No, he does not have one, at least not yet." I smiled as I peered up at her. The sweet cake still in her hand. I knew there were two pieces to it and the second piece was untouched.

"Do you have a name?" I didn't answer. The silence that settled between us elongated but we both just stared at the horse as it wandered within the straw bedding. The girl still held her sweet cake and as I looked over at her out of the corner of my eye, she looked down at it and nudged me with her elbow. The action was alarming yet as I peered down to look at her, the girl's lips were in a genuine smile looking down at the sweet cake between us and her brown eyes peering at me underneath her thick lashes.

"Want one?"

Present Day

The woman before me was a hue of many colors. Pale with only a pinch of the color red on her cheeks that proved she was still alive. Purple enhanced the bruises on her neutral brown skin. Strands of brown hair covered her face as she lay limp, lifeless. Her feet dangled off the edge of the small bed like a corpse in a morgue. Blood and dirt was still etched beneath her fingernails. My nostrils flared as I could still smell the hint of smoke from the burning building. My hand twitched at my side as her chest rose up and down under the blanket. A small ding sound made its way into the room. I patted my pockets immediately, pulling out a cell phone. The screen lit up with a message. An address appeared with a time and date.

I looked up from the screen. Shutting off the phone as she slept with freshly painted bruises and a mind that probably knew more about Moises now that she was engaged to him. She was still young. A beauty in a dark paradise. Molded to take pain.

The past didn't reflect in her eyes. She had seen too much. The truth never hid behind the lines of lies for long in a world where she was raised in. She would admit to the deeds she's done and she was out of reach for what she thought would be her liberation.

....

"When do you think she will wake?"

The smoke from my lit cigarette gathered around me. The white of the smoke extended long enough into the air only for it to fade into nothing.

"If you want to question her again you'll have to wait."

"I don't have that kind of time." I raised my brow at Maya.

"Should've thought about that before..." She gave me a menacing look. The kind that grew with irritation as I paid no mind to the consequences. I was playing with fire, nothing I haven't done before. Only this time it was so much different with the woman sleeping just a few doors down.

"May-

"I hope you know what you've gotten us into." Her gaze swiveled in my direction. Her fist clenched at her side. This was a different kind of game. And it was one I was willing to bet my life on but not Mayas. Never hers.

"You question my motives?"

"I don't care about your motives, it's your sanity I question."

My sanity. I scoffed. As I inhaled and avoided blowing the excess smoke in her direction. She hated the habit and as the years elongated I wanted nothing more than to stop. But sanity didn't let me. There was no such thing. It had been driven out long ago and there was no room for any of it now. This game had been set but there were still pieces that had to be wondered upon. We were just at the start and the end would be her. I would make sure of it.

"Elias, there's something that yo-"

"If it concerns her, I don't want to hear it. I've heard enough." More than enough. Life was a series of undeniable expectations with no reasoning. Everything was too cut throat for that. Death was inevitable, and pain was enduring. I had never known anything else.

"If you have heard enough Eli, haven't you seen just as much? She's not the same girl you seem to remember. She doesn't even recognize you." I clutched the metal bar. Flicking the cigarette to the ground. The taste of nicotine no longer as appealing. Maya appeared closer. Her round freckled face in my view.

"I'm not doing this for her."

"You don't have to do this at all." She cupped my cheek. Her fingers cold against my scarred skin. I looked away from her. No longer being able to look her in the eye. My gaze wandered. Settling on her belly that had yet to reveal itself.

"Rob would have wanted me to."

"Rob is gone. He's gone Elias!" My head snapped up at her. My jaw clenched as she continuously denied that the father of her child was still alive. "You think you can change things by unchanging them Eli, but you can't. Stop trying to." We stood in silence as the wind blew around us. Maya wrapped her coat tighter to her figure. Maya was a woman of semblance. She had never strayed far from her path, at least not until she realized what it was like to endure a person out of love, although she would never admit to it. I looked in her direction. Her jaw clenched and her eyes looking out towards the city that held more than just memories but reminders. 

"For him Maya, I hope you know that for him, I will never stop trying."