~Elli~
“More bad news from the front lines of Iraq tonight. A group of insurgents hit a military base on the out skirts of Baghdad early there this morning. Reports say there are three dead and several soldiers wounded. We will report more on this attack as the information comes to us. Thank you, Tom, in other news…”
I stay frozen, facing my television. My jaw is trembling and my heart is filling with sickening dread. My ears refuse to filter in anything further.
“Military base…Baghdad…Three dead, several wounded…” Raiden. Oh God, Raiden.
I hear Jen in my kitchen talking to Dahlia, but I don’t go to them. When I finally realize what’s happened I sprint to my purse, my socks sliding on the hard wood floor. In my haste, I knock my bag to the ground, and everything spills out.
I snatch my phone up and go through my email, nothing.
I check my call log for missed phone calls. Nothing.
I dial the global cell Raiden called me on, but the call doesn’t go through.
I sink to the floor surrounded by the contents of my purse, my phone sitting heavy in my hands. Raiden.
My sluggish mind finally processes that he might really be one of those wounded or dead and the first tear spills over my lashes and splashes down to the screen of my phone, followed by the second that hits my hand. The third and the fourth fall and then as if I’m being strangled by grief so hot and fresh, I stop being able to catch my breath.
I don’t know if he’s okay, I don’t know if he’s dead or wounded or captured. I just don’t know. Once I finally shudder in a breath, despair wrapping its claws around my heart, I start sobbing. Not quietly, but loud body racking sobs.
Jen skates around the corner between the kitchen where I’m rocking myself back and forth on the floor, almost stepping on me, confusion marring her face at my sudden meltdown.
“Omg Elli, what’s wrong? Honey, what happened??” I feel her hands on my back trying to soothe me and I start sobbing harder, close to the point of wailing as if my heart is dying, as if it’s Garrett all over again.
Jen is doing her best to calm me down and find out what happened but I’m slipping further and further into darkness, the pain blinding me and holding me hostage.
I can’t stop hearing his voice in my head, his bourbon deepness, the way he laughs, the way he said my name. How it rumbled through his lips like a reverie, a prayer.
I lean into Jen and she cradles me like a child knowing I need to find a way to stop hysterically sobbing or I’ll slip into an anxiety attack.
No one can help me. I feel helpless not knowing if he’s okay, this is some kind of twisted fresh hell.
Raiden.
Please call me, please email me. Please be okay…please be alive, sweetheart, I can’t lose you too.
Please, I just found you.
Someone to listen to me and to understand where I’m coming from, I send my prayers up to heaven, hoping Raiden isn’t already there staring down at me.
These thoughts keep playing over and over in my head. I can’t do this, not after losing Garrett, I can’t lose someone else to this fucking war.
I won’t survive it.
I don’t even let myself even think about what’s happening to me right now, feeling like this over someone I’ve never met.
Someone I’ve never held.
Someone I’ve never kissed.
Never had the pleasure to love.
My phone rings suddenly, crashing through my sobs and I flinch in Jen’s arms.
I grasp my phone and wipe my eyes to check the number, praying to God that it’s him. Praying this is something good, praying that I can hear his voice again.
The anguish inside only ripping me apart further at the thought that this phone call could be the opposite, it might be too late.
I answer the number I don’t recognize.
With tears in my throat, I say, “Hello?” The line crackles, but then I hear it. Like it was heaven sent I hear his voice.
“Elli, sweet girl.”
A fresh wave of tears cascades down my face, my smile coming through wobbly.
“Raid, Oh God.” I sniff.
He breathes into the phone what sounds like a sigh of relief.
“I needed to hear you,” he says it quietly. What he doesn’t realize is that I feel the same way, tears still making their tracks down my cheeks.
“I needed to hear you too, I was so terrified, they said on the news that soldiers had died and others were wounded, I didn’t know what to do, Raiden.” I sniff back more tears, my voice sounding watery but so relieved.
Jen is sitting there confused, her eyebrows pinched together and her head tilting to the side.
His voice comes through to me again and it’s a voice I never want to take for granted.
“I can’t talk long but I needed to let you know I was okay,” he pauses. “I think it’s more for my sanity but I couldn’t not call you.” It’s almost like he’s embarrassed.
“Raiden,” I pause, “whatever your last name is,” I say firmly. “You never feel embarrassed for calling me, you have no idea how much I needed you to get ahold of me. Hearing your voice right now is bringing me back to life.”
Jen makes a noise next to me and her jaw pops open. I smile waiting for Raiden to respond. When he does, I swear my heart stops. His voice is so clear and deep it does something to me.
“Sweet girl, I had to get to you. I won’t ever leave you in the dark if I can help it. I promise you that. I have to go now but I will email or call as soon as I can, we have some shit going down here we need to take care of.”
Sweet girl, those two words light my soul on fire. I didn’t realize words could do that to you.
“Okay, just be safe.” I close my eyes soaking up my last minutes with him on the phone.
“And Elli?” he starts.
“Yeah?” I whisper.
“My last name is Michaels.”
Then the line goes dead. Oh, Raiden Michaels what are you doing to me?
I take a deep breath, the first real breath since hearing the news this morning.
Jen clears her throat from beside me.
“You gonna tell me about this juicy development or what?
I giggle, my heart fuller than it has been in so so long it’s almost bursting.
Two bottles of wine later and we are sufficiently drunk, at four in the afternoon. Whose idea was this again?
Jen is caught up to speed on my little friendship with Raiden and proved to be intensely supportive of it, which kind of caught me off guard.
I suppose I’m so used to being regarded a certain way, the broken damaged way, that I find it odd when people don’t treat me like that.
Raiden doesn’t and Jen never has, which I needed to remember.
When you’re shattered into a million little pieces it doesn’t matter if the love and support has been there along. At least not until you are picked up enough to notice who is standing there in solidarity beside you.
In my drunk state, listening to Jen humming along to Ellie Goulding I bob my head, for the first time in what feels like an eon letting myself be free from the burden of Garrett’s death. Something that is always with me is suddenly a lot easier to deal with.
I’m getting up to get another bottle opened when Ellie just speaks to me singing about having someone on her mind.
I spin around nearly falling down, shouting “OMG Jen, this is me right now. Like I don’t even get it, he’s on my mind all the time! It doesn’t make sense!”
I’m badly slurring my words but who cares?
I’m happy and drunk and Ellie Goulding is telling me exactly what is going on in my head right now.
We start scream-singing the lyrics until we end up in a pile on the couch, our sides aching from laughing so hard. Jen props herself up, all pink cheeked and wide eyed, looking like she is going to spill out a revelation.
“Oh no, what are you think…thinking you sneaky lady.” I level her gaze as best I can but there are two of her where there should be one.
“Okay, so like Raiden doesn’t know what you look like…right?”
I narrow my eyes at her, or her general direction anyway.
“Uh, yeah and I don’t know what he looks like either.” Still narrowing my eyes, trying to follow her train of thought. She holds up her hands almost falling over in the process.
“Hear me out…let’s take a selfie.”
My eyes get big and my face splits into a huge grin, how had I not thought of this sooner! Best drunk plan ever.
I grab my phone and click the camera app, aiming it at us I take four pictures. The first two were blurry, of course, due to the drunk.
The last two were okay but looking between them I find the one I really like. My hair looks good, my face is bright, a little pink but I am smiling so hard I almost can’t believe it.
I haven’t seen myself look this…alive since before Garrett died. I don’t know who this Elli is but I think I love her.
I attach the photo to an email titled “Ellie Goulding” and all I say is, “Cause I got you on my mind” and click send.
Descending into wine drunk madness we delight in our perfect drunk selfie and relax into a pile on the couch.