A tear slides down Elsie’s cheek and John can tell she’s fighting to keep the sobs at bay.
“You’re hurting inside right now, Angel, and I wish I could take all of that pain away. God, if there was nothing else in this life I could do besides take all of your pain away, I would die a happy man. But all I can do is give you my heart and be here for you, whenever you’re ready. However long it takes, I’ll wait.” Now it’s John who’s fighting with the lump in his throat.
He can feel her slipping away from him, inch by inch, every day, and it’s killing him. The more she slips from his grasp the tighter he holds on. What he’s most afraid of is if he holds her too tightly, will she run?
Elsie turns her face to look out the window at the parking lot. All of these cars, all of these people, and never has she felt so alone.
“Let’s go Mountain Man, I’m starving,” she says trying very hard not to let her voice crack.
*
“Elsie, I was going to wash some clothes, is there any…,” John’s voice trails off when his eyes focus in on the scene he’s just walked in on.
Elsie is in the shower, the air is steamy, but not enough that he can’t see the red dripping down her arm, and covering the stall floor.
“Jesus Christ! Can’t I have any fucking privacy?! Get out and leave me alone!” she screams at him.
He turns and leaves, closing the door behind him. He’s in shock.
What the fuck do I do? Do I leave her in there to do what she feels she needs to? I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK TO DO! he screams at himself, and at no one, in his mind. What good are all the years of training, all those hours of duty and surviving? What’s the point of all that, if he can’t even save the one person, the only woman he’s ever given his heart to? What the fuck good am I?! his mind screams as his hands tear through his hair with complete frustration and fear.
He’s read some literature on cutting and everything says that it’s an addiction and it shouldn’t result in punishment but understanding.
She can slit her fucking wrists, right here, right now! Oh, God, please help me help her, I beg you, for her.
Never in all of his years on the Reservation with his fucked up mother, or his years in the military with bombs and gunfire surrounding him, did he feel this helpless.
John hears the water turn off and the shower door open. There’s movement in the bathroom.
Thank God! John sends out a grateful sigh to the heavens.
He decides it will probably be best to give her some space, so he goes downstairs to keep himself busy.
An hour later, Elsie still hasn’t come down, he hasn’t stopped pacing the floor worried if she’s ok.
Ding dong. It’s the doorbell.
Who the fuck is here? I definitely don’t need this right now, John thinks.
As John walks to answer the door he hears Elsie moving around upstairs.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” John spits out. It’s Rico.
“Elsie called me.” Rico’s voice is calm but authoritative. He’s ready for the confrontation he thinks is coming.
John’s head jerks backwards, as if he were hit with a blow, the words are as powerful as one.
“I’m leaving John,” Elsie’s voice comes softly from behind him.
John turns to see her standing at the foot of the stairs dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and blue, denim, skinny jeans with her red converse. The sneakers make him think of the day of Janie’s 5K run and his heart gets squeezed again. Their first night together.
“Why?” the single word leaves John’s throat in a choke.
“I can’t do this, I’m drowning, and I’m pulling you down with me. I’m dying slowly John, and I can’t keep hurting you. That’s killing me even more,” she whispers as she walks up to him with an agonized expression on her pretty pale face.
“Don’t go, Angel, let me take care of you,” he demands, his eyes pleading with her.
“I have to, Mountain Man. Take care of yourself,” she whispers as she reaches up and traces his lips with her fingers. Elsie slides her hand behind John’s thick neck and pulls his mouth to hers. She brushes her lips softly against his. Their eyes meet, so many things are said with that one long look, before she walks away and closes the door behind her, leaving him alone. The thud of wood against wood rings in his ears, it seems as if his world is collapsing in on him.
*
John’s new lover is scotch, she takes him to a place where he doesn’t need to think, doesn’t need to feel, where every thought, every second, isn’t filled with Elsie, her scent, her laugh, the way her skin feels under his touch. And he can survive as long as scotch is numbing him to the pain.
“Rico,” he says into the phone, after John dialed his number.
“Yeah, Dude,” Rico answers him.
“Make sure Elsie gets to this appointment,” John wonders why his mouth’s not working very well. He concentrates very hard at reading Rico the address and the time.
“Got it, John,” Rico answers him, after the third time he’s read it to him.
“And Rico?”
“Yeah?” he asks patiently.
“Is she ok?” John asks, pushing past that lump in his throat again.
“Yeah, Dude, she’s ok,” he reassures John gently.
“Good, that’s all that matters…,” John replies, before he hangs up the phone, turns the bottle upside down, and empties the scotch into his mouth.
His new lover will block out the images that haunt him, every waking and sleeping moment, of Rico’s hands all over Elsie’s body, sliding inside of her, her lips wrapped around him, her beautiful little
