Page 55 of Beautiful Trauma
“I love you with everything that I am. I’m begging you to promise me. You’re going to do amazing things. You just have to let yourself live.”
“Promise me you’ll always be there. Even when I’m doing stupid shit.” I sniffled.
“I promise I’ll be with you for as long as you’ll let me.”
“Forever, Elijah,” I said with a deep seriousness.
“Forever.” He nodded. “You just have to keep living.”
Thirty-Two
One hundred and nine days.
It was one hundred and nine days from the day of the accident until the day he died. A few hours after our conversation about the art project, he went to sleep and pretty much slept away the next couple of days. I crawled into bed with him the night before he died, and he woke enough to wrap an arm over me. He kissed my forehead, mumbling “I love you, Katie-kat.”
“I love you, too,” I whispered back, not wanting to fully wake him.
The next morning, I woke up, and he didn’t.
I knew before I opened my eyes that he was gone. His body had lost some of its warmth. I laid next to him, looking at his pale face as tears fell down my own, taking in the last moments I had alone with my best friend. “I miss you already, you motherfucker,” I choked out between sobs. I kissed his cheek and took his hand in mine. “I’m not ready to let you go. How do I get out of this bed and let you go?”
Despite knowing he was no longer really there, I half expected him to answer me.
“I know you want me to live my life and be happy and all that bullshit, but I don’t think I can do that for a while, okay? I need to do this in my own time. It’s going to take me a while to get used to you not being here with me anymore. Please don’t hate me for breaking my promise so soon. I’ll live. I promise. Someday. Just… not today. I love you too much to let you go right now.”
I’m not sure how long I spent in that bed with my dead boyfriend, but it must have been a while because the next thing I remember from that morning was a knock at the door and my sister asking if we were okay.
Nothing was okay. Nothing would ever be okay ever again.
Part Three
Sergio
Thirty-Three
Three days before Eli died.
I sat down in a chair next to the bed that held the man I’d come to know as a friend.
“She’s gonna crash and burn.” Eli’s voice was hoarse. I handed him the cup of water, and he took a few sips. He nodded his thanks, and I put the cup back on the nightstand. “She gets really depressed. Before she hits rock bottom, she will get super slutty. That’s her term, not mine. But she deals with shit with sex, drugs, and music.” His voice wasn’t much clearer despite the water, and he was straining by the end of the sentence.
“So, you want me to stop her from hitting rock bottom?
“No.” He shook his head. “You’ll have to let her do it. And watch. She can’t stop the spiral until she hits a point of desperation and realizes it is time to claw her way back out.”
“And you want me to babysit her?” He nodded in response, so I asked the most logical thing I could, “What does rock bottom look like?”
“Utter disregard for her own well-being.”
“And if she gets there, then what?”
“If she doesn’t see it, put it in her face. She needs to know what she’s fighting for. She will fight for Wyatt.”
The whole situation screwed with me. “Why me? Why not her sister? Or anyone else?”
“Elle isn’t someone Cee goes to for emotional stuff. Honestly, who knows if Elle even has emotions like real people? Mish will be too upset and baby her. Mason’s gonna have his hands full with Wyatt. I already talked to him, and he knows he needs to step in where she can’t.”
“Still, why me?”