||"Somewhere in his body--perhaps in the marrow of his bones--he would continue to feel her absence."||
"Can I share an anecdote with you?" Elijah asked, setting an old journal down on the table between them.
Wanda, having been tempted to skip their session today, agreed without hesitation. She wasn't quite ready to start talking yet this early in the morning.
Elijah began his story, his voice earnest and concise, and Wanda felt encouraged by it. She felt compelled to do the same once it was her turn to speak.
"I was always too smart for my own good," he continued, scratching at his beard, and it wasn't until this very moment that she realized that he hadn't shaved in some time. The hair around his jaw and chin was growing in nicely, shaping him in a way. "My father used to tell me that I read too much, and that one day there would be nothing left for me to learn." A laugh rumbled through him, shifting his face from handsome to beautiful. "I actually believed him for a time, but that never stopped me from reading."
Wanda couldn't help but smile with him. But then, his expression turned bleak, and that beautiful face drooped down, and all that was left was the handsome man who was too smart for his own good.
"When I was in middle school, I found this book on grief in the library, strewn about on the floor with a dozen other discarded words, left behind like it didn't matter." Elijah stared now at the journal. "I'd picked it up and stuffed it in my backpack, and I remember being full of adrenaline because I thought I was going to get in trouble for not checking it out properly. By the time I got the courage to leave the building, I was sweating all over."
By this point, Wanda was completely immersed in his story. She wasn't sure where he was going with it, but she listened regardless.
"In the safety of my room, I finally pulled it out of my bag and opened it up. I stayed up all night reading it. I knew there was an underlying message there, one meant to make the reader feel better, but, I couldn't find it, and because of this, I got very mad--irritated, actually."
His eyes moved away from the journal, and he glanced at her for a second before looking away again. Wanda thought he looked embarrassed, perhaps wondering if he should continue his story, but when he made no effort to resume, Wanda pushed him on.
She worried he wasn't going to, but he did.
"I wanted to understand people, to know why they did things and perhaps even prevent them from harming themselves in the process." Elijah picked up the journal. "So I studied harder than everyone in my class; I snuck into lectures and wrote down everything the Professor's said and wrote. I was already racking up college credits and writing thesis papers on Cognitive Psychology by the time I graduated high school."
His story. This was his story.
"Within a few years I had multiple degrees in my pocket, and instead of listening in on lectures, I was the one giving them, grading papers and answering questions."
Wanda wasn't as tired as she had been when she'd first walked in not that long ago. Now, she was purely fascinated by this man who she knew nothing about, only gathering bits where she could. Now she felt like she had opened a door to his life, being given the chance to observe and understand--even if it was just for a little while--the man who she'd been talking to these last few weeks.
"You found your purpose?" she asked him. "Helping others?"
Elijah frowned, but he displayed it as a smile. "Yes, I believe this is what I was meant to do."
A tang of guilt rose up inside of her, forcing her to remember the first day she'd met him, and how she'd been so unnecessarily rude. He was here, with her, when he could have been at home. She hadn't thought of that till now.
