Ellison
I blinked and the entire world tilted on its axis, and the continents have disappeared. Hemispheres have shifted. Summer has become winter. Day has become night.
We’re downstairs again and Drix is someone else. He’s closed off, he’s pacing, and when my cell vibrated with a text from my parents to video chat with them soon, he told me I needed to leave so I could talk to them. In a matter of mere minutes, I’ve changed my clothes, and I’m back out in the hallway. Holiday is there, waiting for me, wide-eyed. “What happened?”
“The youth performing arts school withdrew their offer.”
Holiday spits out a few unintelligible words, then tries again. “Why?”
“Because of his past. Where is he?”
“Out back. He went out back.”
I’m down the hallway, out the door, and the sunlight that hurts my eyes feels wrong. It shouldn’t be a blue and happy day. Not when Drix is in pain. He closes the trunk of my car that’s parked next to the garage and glances up at me. “I put your bag in.”
My stomach sinks. He really does want me to leave, and that crushes my heart. Last night we were so close, and now it feels as if there are oceans between us. “You want me to go?”
He rolls his neck. “Are you going to video chat with your parents at my house?”
I can’t. He knows I can’t, and somehow that makes me feel ashamed. As if I’m not proud to have him by my side, but I am proud. “I can tell them we’re together.”
“And then what?”
I stay silent because I don’t know what would happen next.
“You think they’re going to let us date? You think they’re going to let you walk into the next fund-raiser with me on your arm instead of Andrew? You think I’ll ever be able to hold your hand, twirl you on the dance floor, kiss you in front of anyone?”
Tears fill my eyes because I know the answer, and each of his questions is like falling through a mirror into broken glass.
“For the rest of my life, I will always be the guy who robbed a convenience store. I will always be my past. I will always be my mistakes. I will never be anything more.”
“That’s not true!” I exclaim. “You’re more than that. You’re so much more!”
“And only five other people see that. I’m changed because of your dad, but I’m also damned because of your dad. I will always be the mistake.”
“You are not a mistake!”
Drix swears and my lower lip trembles. He strides around the car, and I expect him to keep walking, past me and into the house, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gathers me into his arms. One hand pressed against my back, the other guides my head into his chest. I collapse into him, holding on as tight as I can because he needs me and I need him. We need each other.
“I don’t know how to fix this,” I whisper, “but we’re stronger together, Drix. I promise we are. Please don’t give up on us. Please don’t give up on yourself.”
“I don’t know,” he says into my hair. “I don’t know where to go from here. I don’t know how to be the man you deserve when we can’t even be seen together in public. I don’t know who I am, especially when I’m never going to be anything more than who I was.”
My cell vibrates again and I know it’s my parents. It’s their insistence to see me, to know I’m okay, to know that I’m following orders like the good little daughter they want me to be.
Drix kisses the side of my head, steps back, and it feels to dismissive. “You need to go.”
“I’ll stay,” I say.
“I don’t need your parents breathing down my neck because they figure out we’re together. I’ve got enough problems, and I don’t need you adding to them.”
His words punch me in the stomach, and I wait for the apology, but one doesn’t come. There won’t be one, because he means what he says. Our relationship is a problem. He has said it time and time again—I’m dangerous.
“I gotta go,” Drix says. “I just...got to go.”
He tosses my car keys to me, and he leaves. Across the yard, jumping the fence and disappearing into Dominic’s garage. My knees go weak as that felt very much like a goodbye.
A hand on my shoulder and Dominic’s standing beside me. “Go. He needs some time.”
“I want to help him.”
“Trust me to take care of him.” He squeezes my shoulder.
From the house, Thor barks and whines from the back door. Drix. He wants Drix, and he doesn’t understand why he’s being left behind.
I use the remote of my car to unlock the doors, and Dominic heads after Drix. Hopelessness floods through me, but I take a deep breath to try to ward it off. The world has to be better than this. There has to be an answer.
I ease into the front seat, turn on my car, drive out of the backyard and onto the street. Music plays on the radio. It’s Drix’s favorite station playing a song I never knew before I met him. Drix had a future in music, and just as quickly as it was given to him, it was taken away. It’s not fair. None of this is fair.
I pause at the stop sign at the corner and as I’m about to take a left...
“Elle.”
I jump. My heart races to my throat, and with shaking fingers, I turn to find blond pigtails, a Spider-Man beanie and an Avenger’s T-shirt. It’s Kellen, and I sigh with relief that I’m not being kidnapped. “What are you doing here?”
“I snuck in when you unlocked your car. I overheard what Drix said. I overheard what happened, and I don’t want Drix to lose anything more. I don’t want him to lose you. I don’t want you to leave him because he didn’t get in.”
He’s not, but as I go to open my mouth to calm her fears, Kellen says, “Drix didn’t do it. He didn’t rob the convenience store. Drix isn’t guilty. He’s innocent and I need you to believe me.”