Lover in the Window

Guest Only

Once outside Eli and Raven stand at the door for a moment and scan the property, he holds out his hand.

"Shall we" He smiles a crookedly smile toward Raven.

"We shall" She tightly grabs Eli's hand and they proceed just to the right of the main house across the big yard. Eli's guest house lies 50 feet away.

"That over there is our gazebo, we usually hang out there - after a cookout or something" Eli points to a white gazebo with a black tin roof, it is screened in, leaving only a entrance open, there was a stone walkway leading to the back door of the house and one to the guest house.

"Nice, are you going to show me inside?" She asks as she nudges her elbow into his rib.

Eli let out a nervous laugh, "Sure."

They walk over to the guest house and Eli stops for a second, his heart begins to race.

"Here we are" He opens the door and the smell of cologne and fabric softener passes through the door.

Raven releases Eli's hand and walks ahead of him, slowly turning in a circle looking at her surroundings. A Star Wars poster hangs next to his queen sized bed, a cork board full of pictures hangs above a mahogany desk, on the desk sits a laptop and a pile of papers from Eli's college searching nights, in the floor sits a small metal trash can, overflowing with crumpled papers, a few of which had fell into the floor.

"So, this is Eli Layton's room now, huh?" Raven giggles as she proceeds to the cork board of pictures.

There is pictures of Eli and Eve when they were small, some when they were a little older, lake pictures with some of his friends, a few pictures of him with some girls - ex-girlfriends.

"Oooh, look at you, player." She flashes a wink toward Eli.

Eli feels his face turn red, "those are just good friends, I need to take some of those down soon" his voice is nervous.

"If you say so, Mr. Popularity." She turns and walks over to a corner shelf and spots a football trophy.

"Oh my gosh, you still have this?" Her face lit up with amazement. "I didn't think you would have anything left from back home."

"Yeah, mom was secretly moving some of our things to Aunt Chris' house without anyone knowing for a long time, we went and picked them up shortly after we moved here. It was a big surprise to us all, almost felt like Christmas time." Eli walks over to his desk drawer and pulls out a small black drawstring bag, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

"Remember this?" Eli reaches out his hand, now closed around the bag, she looks down confusingly.

Raven holds her hand out and Eli drops the bag into her hand, she looks up at him - with a half-smile. She opens the bag and inside is a black and red thin poly-cord, tied together at the ends, with five beads on either side, the first two read EL, the middle one was shaped as a heart, and the two on the end read RR.

Ravens mouth opens and her hand flies up over her lips. Her eyes begin to sting, she closes her hand and holds it over her heart.

"Eli, how do you still have this? I completely forgot about it!" her face was somewhere between sad and relieved.

"Mom told us we were going to be leaving that night, so I grabbed it off my nightstand and put it around my neck." Eli says shyly "It was the only thing I took with me. I wore it for a long time after. Probably months."

Raven jumps up and wraps her tiny arms around his neck and kisses him on the temple. He squeezes her small waist and sits her back down.

"You took a part of me with you that night." Raven looks down at the floor, all emotions completely gone from her face. "Literally and emotionally."

Eli feels his heart begins to race again, "I didn't think I was ever going to see you again; it's been eleven years."

"I remember that night like it was yesterday, I watched you all pull out of the driveway." Raven

"I remember, I waved at you, I wanted so bad to run across the street and tell you goodbye." Eli says. "But mom was rushing us."

"I knew something was wrong, but I waited for you to come back - days passed -then days turned into weeks and weeks turned into years."

"You don't know how bad I wanted to go back for you, it's all I could think about in the car. Did I ever tell you we stopped at a hotel on the way here? I thought about calling you from the phone in the room, but I didn't know what I would have said. All those nights we spent together were the best nights of my life. Somewhere in the time we spent together, I'll be truthful, I fell in love. I've always known something; I knew your dad never wanted me to be around you because of my so-called father. The Layton name is a curse in Wayward Bay, but I always had hope that one day we would be together again."

"I swear to god Eli, I've never heard anything sweeter than what you just said to me."

"I wouldn't call it sweet, but at the same time, everything in the entire universe is pulling me back to you."

"Maybe the universe wanted us to spend this night together."

"Wait, I don't think I asked, how did you end up all the way here?" Eli cocks an eyebrow toward her.

"Blair told me she was going out of town and asked me if I wanted to go with her. Of course, I agreed so I could escape reality for a while. But I had no clue where we were even going until we were in your driveway, it never crossed my mind to ask." Raven turns and walks over to Eli's bed.

"She told me this was Eve Layton's house, and I froze, I almost didn't get out. But once we got inside, we talked to Eve for a while, I figured maybe you lived somewhere else or something because I hadn't seen you since we had arrived, soooo.. I finally asked about you." She laughs "Your sister just rolled her eyes and pointed upstairs and said 'he's fine' and continued on about whatever we were talking about prior to that,"

"So how did you end up upstairs at my mom's room?" Eli laughs.

Raven shrugged, "I told your sister I need to use the restroom; she said the one downstairs needed some work done, and told me to use the one upstairs. Once I got up there, I heard your music playing." she sits down on his bed and rubs her hand along his blue comforter, "I had a five-minute-long conversation with myself before I finally talked myself into knocking."

"Guys, where ever the fuck you are, the food is done!" Blair yells out the back door.

"I'm glad you came." Eli laughs and holds out his hand toward her "Let's go eat."