Page 63 of Saving Shepperd

I reached out to Elijah Banks and asked him to meet me for a cup of coffee and some honest conversation. He was definitely curious, if nothing else, and agreed to sit down with me. We met at a downtown coffee shop since he had to drive in from Malibu.

When I arrived, I scanned the café and saw that he had already secured a table and had a steaming cup of something in front of him. A quick look at my watch ensured I wasn’t late, so I assumed he was met with lighter traffic than he expected.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked and offered my hand in greeting.

He gave me a shake and fist bump combination, and I took the seat across from him. “I appreciate you meeting me.”

“Yeah, no worries. Hannah’s family means everything to her, so when you said you wanted to talk about her sister, I made the time.”

“I have to be honest, I’m a little worried this might cause trouble between Shepperd and me because she doesn’t know I’m here. As a general practice, I don’t like doing things behind people’s backs, you know?”

“Then why are you?” he asked bluntly, and it threw me off. I was already on the edge about being there and hoped he would at least pretend what I was doing wasn’t as shitty as it felt.

“Because I care about her,” I blurted. And it was the truth. It was more than just caring about her at this point, but I wasn’t here to confess my feelings to the guy. I needed answers. I needed advice.

He tilted his head to one side, calling me on my shit, and his beachy casual hair flopped over one eye before he pushed it back from his face.

“Yesterday at the birthday party,” I began but pulled up short. How did I even dive into all of this without exposing the information Shepperd confided in me. “What happened to the girls,” I continued while turning my cup in a full circle as though I preferred to drink from the other side. Honestly I was stalling while I figured out what to say and just needed to keep my hands busy.

“Look, man,” he said, and I stilled instantly. His green eyes were piercing as he studied me from across the table. “I’ve been involved with Hannah for a while now. I have to assume I have a lot more backstory from her than you do from Shepperd at this point, right? You guys haven’t been dating that long, have you? Like a month or two?”

“Yeah. I mean, we’ve been talking longer than that. We met at the gym we both go to, but things just got serious when her parents kicked her out. She showed up at my door one night, basically without any other option of where to stay. I was stoked she did, but yeah, it hasn’t been that long.”

“The parentswhat?” he asked incredulously.

I shrugged. “All I know is her side of the story. But yeah, that’s what it boiled down to. I guess they were threatening to send her away to rehab for eating disorders.”

“Would that have been a bad thing?”

I felt defensive immediately but took a minute to relax and not bite the guy’s head off. There were a lot of things I could appreciate about his directness.

“Yes and no. I don’t really think she needs intervention at that level. From what I’ve seen, anyway. Yes, she’s very thin, but I also know she has an incredible appetite when she allows herself to enjoy a meal instead of worrying she’ll be critiqued about it.” Those occasions seemed to be increasing in number, but I kept that detail to myself. “But her eating habits aren’t what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Okay, fair enough. What is it, then?” he asked, but seriously…after yesterday, he had to know where this conversation was going.

“I really care about her, you know? I want to understand what she has going on up here.” I tapped my temple a couple of times. “Why did they both panic and freeze like that yesterday? You can’t tell me that’s a normal reaction. Everyone else except Stella and Vela, of course, ran for safety. Those four froze like statues and put themselves at greater risk by doing so.”

He tilted his head to the side again. “Think about it, dude. What do those four have in common? Isn’t it obvious?”

I sat silent for a moment and gave it some thought. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to draw some parallel between them after seeing them all react so oddly but similarly to each other.

“I think it has something to do with trauma, right? All this is new to me, so I’m trying to understand.”

Elijah nodded. “You’re on the right track. I’ve done a lot of reading about trauma, PTSD, panic, anxiety, and so on. When Hannah and I first got together, I didn’t know shit about mental health outside of what I deal with myself. But I knew it would be best to figure it out. Our therapist has helped a lot too.”

I nodded as he spoke.

“Does Shepperd have a therapist?” he asked.

“Mmm, not that I know of. I mean maybe at some point she has gone, but she isn’t actively seeing someone right now. At least not that I know about.”

“Well, she should be. That’s obvious, right? You both should go, really,” he said with authority, and I couldn’t help but agree. This was way more complicated than I had the tools for.

“She seems resistant to it, so I’m not sure if she’ll do it.”

“There’s no way I believe that she wants to live the way she has been. She seems so angry and in pain. She isolates herself from the family, no matter who tries to reach out. Other than her twin, Maye, I’m not sure she even has any friends.”

I hadn’t even thought of that before, but he was right. The only other person I’d heard her talk about besides her sisters was the one girl she worked with. Joy. But Christ, one thing at a time. This was overwhelming.

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