Page 38 of Ominous: Part 1
“You have a question?” I counter, seeing Eli rubbing his thumb over his chin before he drops his hand back to the shifter. I’m glad the A/C is blasting to keep the windshield clear from fog. It helps keep my sweating at bay.
“How do you think I see you?”
I tip my head, catching his eye as I ball my free hand into a fist, my bag on the floorboard at my feet. I kick it, just a little, shifting it onto its side. “Really? That’s your question?” I don’t know what I expected. My favorite song, worst memory, maybe how I seehim.But howdoeshe see me? I’m not sure how to answer, mainly because I have no idea. I could be a project, a challenge, something to poke and prod because he’s bored.
Blue gum flashes between his teeth as he brings his eyes back to the road. “Yes.” He sounds very smug, like he knows it’s a difficult thing to answer. “That’s my question.”
I lean my head against the leather seat, staring at the rain splattering the windshield, oddly enough goingupinstead of down, almost as if it’s dispersing away from the glass and out of his line of sight. Like it’s easier to see through. Vaguely, I recall Sebastian putting something on my windshield before, he claimed it would repel rain. It was two years ago, when I first started driving and he wasn’t so… messed up. Maybe he was then, too. He just hid it better.
I wonder if Eli applied the repellent himself or if someone did it for him.
“I don’t know.” As I say the words, I know they’re a cop out, but trying to imagine how he views me makes me feel uncomfortable, which is probably why he asked. “Obviously you don’t think I’mboringyet, or I wouldn’t be in the car with you right now.”
“Okay, so that’s how Idon’tsee you…” He trails off and I want to smack the grin off of his face when our eyes briefly connect, more thunder rumbling outside, rain coming down in sheets. The wind feels as if it might blow the car off the road, but Eli seems to have no problem managing it. He isn’t egotistical about it, either, the way he keeps a low speed, plenty of space between him and the bright red brake lights in front of us.
“Now get your fine ass back in here.”Those words I pretended to loathe echo in my head.
I feel myself growing warmer, but I still speak, clearing my throat before I do. “You think I’m attractive.” I can’t say any other word. “Hot” or “sexy” or “cute” would sound juvenile and Eli seems to be anything but that. My palms are sweaty, but if I just focus on the back-and-forth track of the windshield wipers, I can get this question over with. “Shy.” I think of how he commented on my blushing. Then other voices seem to intrude, voices that aren’t his. “Maybe naïve. Socially inept.” I can’t seem to stop spilling out negative, self-deprecating adjectives, all from my own brain. “A hermit. Clumsy. Not very good at makeup.” I laugh, but I loathe myself for it. “I sweat too much. Lame, because I just spent an entire day watching you wrestle, and I don’t even know you.” I don’t want him to stop me, and he doesn’t. He’s silent, music playing beneath the roar of the storm, but I can’t make out the words, and I don’t care. It’s like now I’ve started, I can’t really stop. “You probably think I’m easy to manipulate and that’s why you’re doing it, and maybe I’m just some pet project, a mouse to play with until you get bored and squish me between your fingers.” The image plays in my head, and I feel sick. Not physically. Just, of myself. Like if I could get out of this car and go back to my room and do my homework and keep myself small and—
“Are you done?”
His voice is jarring, the coldness of his tone bringing me back to right now, here, in this moment at a blurry stoplight.
I turn my head to see him staring right back at me, expression blank.
“Yes.” I whisper the word, disgusted with myself.
The light changes to green, and I see it out of the corner of my eye, our gazes still locked, but he doesn’t move. Not at first. Then, slowly, the muscles in his forearms twitch, then jump, and he’s shifting gears, driving through the intersection as he turns his head away from me.
“What’s the darkest thought you’ve ever had?”
I don’t know if I’m gutted he didn’t say anything about my answer to his first question, or giddy with relief. The feeling is hard to parse, the way it’s a physical ache in my stomach. I leave it in the past and when I speak again, it’s with a false note ofI’m fine.
“The darkest thought I’ve ever had about someone else, or…”Myself,is what I don’t say. I think I want to counter his question with a question, so I feel more in control.
His fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on the wheel, but I see the way his knuckles blanch. For some reason, it’s like I’ve won something, and I have no idea what it is.
“Yourself.” It sounds as if he’s unsure. As if he really hadn’t thought about it and would’ve liked me to answer both. I wonder if he’ll waste his next question on asking me about my worst thoughts on other people.
But I’m a little distracted with the worst thought I’ve ever had about myself, beneath the way I tore me down just moments ago. I have a more morbid thought, one I know will distract him from all of my own insecurities I just vomited up for him to dissect.
Still, I’m reluctant to share it. I want to go with something easier to stomach. To deflect, I say, “You tell me first.”
He smiles. “That’s not how this game is going to go.”
“It is if you want an answer.”
“God, you are fucking stubborn.” It sounds kind of like a compliment, the way he says it. But before I can respond, he keeps talking. “I won’t tell you the worst, but I’ll give you something better. Something I did when I was a kid.”
I’m eager for the insight because I can’t imagine Eli as a child. I assume he’s eighteen, based on the script tattoo on his arm I still haven’t been able to read, and I briefly wonder if I’m older than him. I turned eighteen September seventh, earlier this month. But it seems like we’ve skipped right past ages and into something far more intense.
Eli glances at me. His grip loosens then tightens on the wheel, and I stare at his rings while he speaks. “I almost drowned my neighbor.”
I’m not sure what I expected to hear, but if he was trying to throw me off, he succeeded. My mind is kind of blank, and I blink a few times, like clearing my vision will give me room to dissect his words. All I can come up with is a strangled sort of,“Excuse me?”
He lifts one shoulder up in a lazy shrug, eyes back on the road. “I was a bad kid.” He says it without any emotion. “It was a long time ago. It was a birthday party. I just… pushed him.” He glances my way once. “He’s okay, though. He was in diapers. I think they helped buoyed him a second so his mom could save him. So, come on. Tell me your worst thought about yourself, I promise I won’t judge you.”
In diapers. Jesus Christ.I think of asking all kinds of things about the incident, but I know he won’t answer me.
