“Jason!” I shouted, racing into the bar. He was setting up getting ready to open in a few hours.

When he heard his name, he turned to face me. “Jasmine? What’s going on?”

“Is Elliott here?”

“Yeah, he stormed upstairs about ten minutes ago. Why? Is everything okay?”

“No.” I shook my head. “It’s not.” I filled Jason in on everything that had happened, and the worry in his eyes matched my own.

“He’s going to snap,” he told me.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why he needs us right now. He needs us close, otherwise he’ll start building that wall again, but I’m sure he locked the door upstairs.”

Jason grabbed his set of keys. “Don’t worry, I got a spare. Come on.”

We hurried up the stairs, and when we walked inside, there Elliott was, hammering away at his punching bag. He wasn’t wearing boxing gloves. His fists were just pounding into the bag repeatedly, leaving cuts and bruises across his knuckles.

“Brother, what are you doing?” Jason asked, slowly approaching Elliott.

“You can’t just ba-bar-barge in here,” he barked as he continued to hit the bag.

“Eli.” I grimaced. “We were worried about you. That was a lot back at TJ’s. What’s going on in your mind?”

He kept hammering, not replying.

“Eli, talk to us, please,” I urged.

“I don’t want to,” he whispered.

“Come on, man, we’re here,” Jason offered.

“I don’t want you here!” he shouted, hitting the bag one more time before turning to face us. His chest heaved, rising and falling faster and faster. “Leave.”

Jason stood tall. “No.”

Elliott’s wild stare moved to me. “Leave,” he repeated.

I mirrored Jason’s stance. “No.”

He grew angrier and angrier, his breathing erratic, his beautiful eyes filled with madness. “Fine.” He pushed past both of us. “Then I’ll go.”

We called after him, but he wouldn’t turn around. The moment he got outside, he took off running, not looking back once.

* * *

“We looked everywhere, Laura,” Jason told Elliott’s mom on the phone as we sat in his car. We’d just left the last gym we figured Elliott might go to, and we’d had no luck finding him. “We’ll keep looking through.” He paused. “No, really, you stay with TJ. He’ll pop back up. We’ll call if we hear anything. Okay, bye.” He hung up and released a heavy sigh. “Well, this fucking sucks.”

“I can just imagine his mind spinning. It’s breaking my heart…” Elliott had been MIA for hours now, with no word. The sun had set a while ago, and still, he was gone.

“I know, me too. I just can’t imagine where he might be.” He exhaled audibly. “We checked every gym, every jazz bar, hell, even the music corner on Frenchmen Street, and nothing. I literally have no clue…maybe we should wait for him to cool off? I’m sure he’ll return to Daze.”

My mind was racing, and my gut was tight with nerves. “Jason, can we check one more place?” I asked.

He put his car into drive and nodded. “Just tell me where.”

We parked the car and hurried to the alleyway on Frenchmen Street. Jason let out a sigh of relief as we stared at Elliott sitting on top of the dumpster.

“Thank God,” he whispered. “Should we both go or…?”

“I’ll go,” I told him. “If you could let Laura know we found him, that would be great. Thank you for everything.” I pulled him into a hug.

“Of course. Anytime.”

He headed out, and I took a few moments to observe Elliott. His shoulders were rounded, and his hands gripped the edge of the dumpster. He seemed so defeated.

“Hey.” I smiled, walking his way.

He looked up and gave me a broken grin. “Hey.”

“Can I sit with you?”

He took a moment before he scooted over, making room for me to join him. “I’m s-sorry.” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. My mind was…”

“Hurting. Your mind was hurting, and I understand. You just worried us, that’s all.” I lay my head on his shoulder and scooted closer to him. “Talk to me?”

His body shifted a bit before he reached out to take my hand into his. “I just don’t get it. I’ve been going over it in my head all day. I don’t get why she’d w-want to visit him. I don’t get it.”

“Your mother’s a beautiful woman, and she’s smart. She wouldn’t just make this decision without having a solid reason of her own. You know this. You know your mom.”

“She’s too good.”

I shook my head. “We need more people like her. We need more people who are too good.”

He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. “I still don’t understand, though.”

“I know, but maybe that’s the thing, ya know? Maybe it’s not for us to understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“She has her reasons. She didn’t ask you to come over for you to talk her in or out of going. She had already decided, Eli.”

“Then why did she call me?”

“For you to hold her hand.”

He swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “This isn’t about Todd’s or Marie’s healing, is it?”

“No, it’s about your mom’s healing.”

“Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you for not letting me wander too far.”

“Always.” I glanced around the alleyway and listened to the music coming from the bars. “Why did you come back here?” I asked.

“Because I wanted to stay angry. I didn’t want to ease up on my fury about what happened, if that makes sense.”

“It does. Is it hard for you? Being back here?”

“Yes,” he confessed, pulling me closer. “But it’s easier with you. Everything is always easier with you.”