Chapter Twenty-Four [Eli]

Today is a strange day.

For one, I sleep through my alarm. Elliott has to come into my room, knocking on my door to wake me up. That's the easy part. Getting up is the tougher task.

I have better mornings and worse mornings. Today, I feel a stagnant kind of heaviness I haven't felt since the earlier days, nearly two years ago, right after my parents died. Even making myself a bowl of dry cereal for breakfast feels like a challenge.

I can feel Elliott's eyes on me as I get my food. He waits for me to sit in front of him before speaking.

"Hey," he starts uneasily. "I know I let it go by without saying anything, but... Mom and Dad's birthdays were last month." He clears his throat. "I didn't say anything because—"

"Its fine."

"Is it?"

I stare at my breakfast, which feels less and less appetizing the more I look at it. I don't answer his hesitant question. Somehow I don't really trust myself to speak.

"Are you fine?" Elliott asks after a few moments of silence, sounding like he's forcing himself to come off more assertive.

"Mhm."

"You sure?"

"Yes. I'm cool, Elliott." I still can't quite look at him.

"Okay." He doesn't sound convinced. "How's school?"

"We don't have to do this," I murmur.

"It's your senior year," my brother says. But his tone is just as uncomfortable as mine. "I feel like Mom and Dad would have tried to have this conversation with you if they were here."

"They're not, though."

I finally meet his gaze. How can he look so much like Dad? The grey in his eyes is that exact same shade — same color, same shape, same expression, same everything. The same eyes that used to gaze at me as we played hockey on the weekends. Without the smiling lines.

I can see the bobbing motion of his Adam's apple before he speaks, "I was supposed to be your guardian." Is that a statement? An accusation? An admission of defeat? "If you want to talk... about school, or hockey—"

"I'm fine. School's great. Hockey's awesome. Gotta go."

I don't finish my breakfast, but I don't think I could have eaten it. Even before Elliott tried to have this conversation, it felt like my stomach was collapsing into itself.

Owen and Olivia leave the Holmes residence together, and the three of us walk in mildly uncomfortable silence. When Dean joins us halfway, he and Owen talk without really trying to get me to join in. Today, it's a welcomed gesture.

My brain filters all of my classes out, and I fall asleep in the middle of the last morning period. The teacher wakes me up when everyone's clearing the classroom. She looks angry at first, but after taking a careful look at my face her expression melts into something more akin to disappointment and she lets me go.

Lunch is a blur of background noise and I don't even register my way from the cafeteria to my Trig class. I just want the day to be over.

There's no practice today, so I'm heading straight to work. It's a Monday, so there should be little to no movement. Plus, Hannah is sick. That means I have to cover the whole dining area, but at least there's no chit chat. Still, I have a dull headache radiating off my forehead when I leave.

I walk home from Lake City, the way long and cold despite the threat of Spring in the air. When I'm finally on my street, limbs numb from the crisp air and the strain of the walk, I see movement behind the living room window.

Elliott's home.

My feet react mechanically and I take a turn to Dean's street instead. It takes me little over five minutes to get there, but instead of walking up to the front door and knocking I just keep walking, circling the whole block before I'm right back where I started in my street. But I don't want to go home either. So I knock on the next door over instead.

Olivia opens.

"Owen isn't here."

"Didn't come to see him."

"My parents are out too," she tells me, resting her hip against the door frame with her hand still on the door. Her thick brown curls are tied back away from her face and atop her head. Her big brown eyes assess me with care, as though waiting for my reaction.

"Can we talk?"

She tilts her head, hesitating. Pressing her lips together and looking down at the floor, she nods. "Sure. Come inside." She steps aside to let me in.

I walk uncertainly into the house as she closes the door, then follow her out the foyer into the living room. She doesn't sit on the couch, or tell me to get comfortable. Instead, we both stand inside, face to face, her arms crossed over her chest, my hands shoved into my jacket pockets. It's much warmer inside and I'm starting to feel too hot with the extra layer, but I don't take it off.

I also don't speak.

"Did you have something to say, or were you just overwhelmed by an intense urge to stand in my living room and stare at me?"

That rips a silent, pitiful almost-laugh out of me with no real feeling behind it, because I'm being really weird and I know it, but I also can't really figure out why I'm here.

Olie snorts when another beat of silence goes by and I realize that's not true. I do know why I'm here. I just can't get the words out. Which really sucks. Because this is what Olie and I had going that was different from what I have with my brother, the guys from the team, or even Dean and Owen. All these people that make awkward attempts of reaching out and talking to me.

But with Olie it was easier. She made it easier and for a while I felt like that was what really made the difference last year. That fact that, somehow, for no obvious reason, she became the person I felt I could talk to. It was the perfect balance of someone familiar enough to inspire trust, but with whom I had never been too close that I worried I could disappoint her or break some kind of previous expectation.

And now, here I am, without knowing what to say to her.

"Do you kinda hate me right now?"

She cocks an eyebrow at me. "Not really."

I shrug. "Do you completely hate me?"

She laughs, loosening her arms to let them fall to her sides. "I don't hate you, Eli."

I nod. "M' sorry," I mumble lamely.

It's her turn to nod. She doesn't add anything to that nod though, waiting for me to say more.

"I shouldn't have... I don't..." When did getting full sentences out become this hard? I take a deep breath in. "There were better ways to handle our situation."

"True."

I shake my head, struggling to say what I know I need to. I can't speak the words I should, so I'll just try the next best thing. Because that's why it worked so well between us. Whenever I couldn't spell it out in full sentences, half-truths and unfinished thoughts were enough for her. So I'll tell Olie the thing I really need her to know, even if I can't say the other part.

"I wish you were my type. I really do." I breathe out shakily. Her eyes take on a new focus. "You're smart, and beautiful, and funny as hell, and talking to you is..." I gulp. "Even with Owen, I wish so bad that I could return whatever it is you feel for me, but..." I let out a humorless laugh that sounds too strained. "I don't even know how to say it."

Not without saying what I don't want to admit out loud. Not without revealing what I am not ready for anyone to know yet.

"It's okay," she cuts in. "I understand."

The sobering honesty in her expression surprises me. "Do you?"

I don't think she does. How could she?

But she seems to genuinely ponder on it for a second. "I think so," she says evenly. "At least... I think I understand as much as I have to, for now. And what I don't, we can talk about when you're ready."

I don't like the shrewdness that has taken over her eyes. But I also can't bring myself to look away.

"You sure?"

She snorts. "Please. So what if I have a tiny crush on you?" She holds her thumb and index finger half an inch apart in front of my face, to emphasize what she's saying. "You can't really blame me. You're kind of awesome." She shrugs, with a bright, honest smile. "But I really like what we have right now, and I don't want to ruin it."

I nod.

"I've had crushes before. I'll find a new one in a couple of weeks." She winks. "My romantic attentions are as focused as the pictures my mom takes on her phone."

That pulls a small smile out of me. "As long as it's not another hockey player. Your brother would kill him."

Olivia snorts. "He'd have to go through me first."

***

So. Still not a happy Eli, but an Eli that got some form of resolution. What did you think of his talk with Olivia? Did you expect something like this to happen?

Any expectations for next chapter in Liam's POV?

I'm finally getting some progress on the final chapters (only 3 left to finalize), so I should be able to mark this story as complete by the end of next week :)

If you liked this chapter, I'd really appreciate if you could leave a vote or a comment. Thank you for reading!!