Catherine
“You got an A.” I leaned forward when someone said this very close to my ear. “How the hell?”
Twisting to the left enough to see who was behind me, I saw a blond guy I’d never spoken to before. I’d been in this class for close to two months yet he had never even looked at me until now.
“I got a D,” he complained, looking back down at his paper.
“It’s a topic I’m passionate about.” I shrugged as I slowly began to turn around.
I had not lived or knew anyone who had lived during the time of the Holocaust, but when given the topic “children of the Holocaust” in my History class, I was inspired. The idea of sifting through stories from that time, told through the eyes of children, was intriguing.
“It was disturbing,” the guy said, regaining my attention.
“It’s all disturbing. Imagine the terror of a child being trapped during that time. Imagine the images of what they saw and the sounds they heard. The world around them was chaos, full of nothing but fear and heartache and they were powerless to stop it.”
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
Shaking it off, I turned in my seat and began gathering my things as our professor dismissed the class.
I could hear his feet smacking hard against the floor behind me as he closed the distance between us. “So wait, you’re telling me that you connect with these kids.”
“No one could connect with them unless they, too, were there,” I said without looking back. “What I’m saying is imagine that type of fear. Imagine the life you love being flipped upside down while you’re forced to watch those you love suffer beyond means. You can’t read a few chapters about the Holocaust and expect to write a term paper showing depth. You have to thrust yourself into that time. You have to imagine what you would feel like being powerless.”
When he didn’t respond I looked back at him only to find him staring at my ass instead of listening to what I’d just said.
“Really?” I said, narrowing my eyes. I turned all the way around, blocking his view of my backside.
He shrugged and smiled wide, “Sorry, I’m a guy. We’re programmed that way.”
“You want to know why I got an A and you got a D—that’s why.”
“Because I’m a guy?”
“No, because you’re a pig.”
The guy was about to speak when his back went rigid and his eyes widened just a bit.
“There a problem?” Eli’s arms wrapped around me from behind as he pulled my back securely against him.
“Hey Red,” Mr. Blond said as if he knew Elijah. “There’s no problem here, right?” He looked at me almost like he was begging me to agree.
“We were just discussing our history papers.” I twisted in Elijah’s arms and arched enough to kiss his jaw. “Just telling your friend here that it’s helpful to research the topic first.” When I looked back at Mr. Blond, I almost felt sorry for him. He looked so uncomfortable.
I chose to completely ignore him and redirected Eli’s attention by turning in his arms and placing my palms against his chest. “To what do I owe this surprise visit?”
I ignored the way he still continued to watch over my shoulder. Boys and their need to stake their claim, I thought, rolling my eyes.
“I got out of practice early,” he said, still not looking at me.
“How did you manage that?”
A slow smirk covered his lips as if he had just remembered something. Slowly he pulled his gaze away from the guy he apparently had some type of beef with. “I sacked everyone on the field and Coach said I needed to take off early before I put all his other players on the disabled list.”
“Bully.” He shrugged, only making me laugh.
I absolutely loved how relaxed things had become between us. It was an unexpected twist that I was so thankful for. I felt like I actually had someone to turn to. Even though I still wasn’t quite ready to tell him about my home life or the truth behind the red mark on my jaw the other day, he was still my escape. When I was with Eli I felt like none of that mattered. He managed to make me forget about all my hardships.
I decided I’d tell him soon. When I was finally out and in my own place I’d share my life with him. What worried me most was his reaction to knowing that for the first time in my life, I had been hit by a man.
“I thought I’d take you to grab an early dinner before your shift at Porter’s.”
“What sounds good?”
“You,” he said, brushing a soft teasing kiss over my lips. “But we don’t have time for that because you know I love to make that shit last for a long time. We’ll settle for whatever sounds good to you.”
I casually wrapped my arms around his neck and held him securely, kissing along his jaw and neck. He returned the hug as we stood in the center of the walkway. Students dipped and dodged around us but neither of us cared.
I was exactly where I wanted to be, in the arms of the only person who managed to make me feel safer than I had ever felt before.
***
With a huge duffle bag on my bed I continued to stuff item after item inside, including sweatshirts and sweatpants, though I wasn’t sure I’d be wearing them much once we were inside our tent. I smiled at the thought of spending the next forty-eight hours in Eli’s arms. Falling asleep tucked against his side, waking up securely wrapped in his embrace. It all sounded pretty close to amazing.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
I spun around, placing my hand against my chest as I tried to gain my composure. My heart was racing so fast I thought it might skip right out of me. There my mother stood, an unlit cigarette hanging half out of her mouth. She held a glass of something clear in her hand that I assumed was vodka. She drank that stuff almost nonstop. I wasn’t sure it even got her fully drunk anymore; she was practically immune to it.
“I’m going camping,” I finally said.
I ignored the look of surprise on her face and turned back to place the remaining items still piled on my bed into the bag Elijah lent me. It had his football jersey number—16—on it.
“You’re going camping?” She laughed as if I’d just told her a joke. “You do know there’s spiders and dirt involved when camping.”
I wanted to say I would be fine because I had Eli to kill the bugs and carry me over the mud, but instead chose to ignore her.
“You are definitely like your father.”
We rarely talked of my dad.
“He always enjoyed things like that, camping, fishing, hiking. I thought it was always a waste of time, much like he turned out to be in the end.”
And that was why we rarely talked of him. I hated how she put him down like he was some awful man. The only thing my father ever did that I’m sure he’d regretted was not fighting her harder to gain custody. My mother was a hateful, unhappy, spiteful woman. I’m not sure there was a person on earth who could actually change that.
I didn’t bite back; it would only fuel her. I’d be told once again as I had heard for years that it was my fault her life sucked the way it did. Forget the fact that she was a grown woman and should take responsibility for her actions; her hell lay in the hands of her child. I forced her to be a low life. I forced her to marry a sack of shit and to allow him to control her. It was all my fault she was a whore, his whore. None of those things lay at her feet, oh no, she was the victim here.
Instead I ignored her.
“So you aren’t working this weekend?”
“Nope,” I said, already knowing there would be backlash when my check came in short. But I’d deal with that later. Nothing was going to ruin this weekend for me.
Nothing.