Page 90 of Plight
I hadn’t eaten properly for weeks. Every time I tried, the process seemed pointless. I couldn’t taste, smell … feel. I couldn’t do. Losing Danielle, yet again, was all I could think about, and it was slowing killing me. She’d been fucking her roommate — a friend she was happy to fuck — and I’d never even seen it coming. I was too obnoxious and self-involved in my own quest for her that I’d forgotten the art of a good blindsight, something I didn’t experience all too often. It had really knocked me down and was keeping me there, my struggle to get up and move on from it, painstakingly difficult. But I knew I had to, eventually, perhaps after the garden was finished and I wouldn’t have to see her. But then that notion tore me to shreds even more so, because what was killing me the most was that I’d let our friendship slip through my fingers, again, and not being able to see her beautiful smile or hear her sweet voice was the worst punishment imaginable.
Today wasn’t about Danielle, though, and it wasn’t about me either. Today was about Mr Hillier and his selfless act of courage. It was about paying our respects the best way we knew how; by celebrating the hero he was in a place built in his memory.
“Everyone will start to arrive soon,” Mum said, her head on my shoulder. We were seated on the park bench overlooking the completed Hillier Community Garden.
I wrapped my arm around her and hugged her tight. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?”
“Yes. I created you, didn’t I?”
I chuckled. “Yeah, but you created her, too.” I gestured to my sister as she sat on the other side of Mum.
Laura handed us both a takeaway cup of coffee. “What’s he winging about this time? Let me guess … Danielle? Honestly, it serves you right. I did warn you that your stupid, immature game would backfire and hurt you all.”
I snapped my head in her direction. “Stay the fuck out of it, Laura.”
“Elliot! Don’t speak to your sister like that.” Mum’s head turned from side to side, looking between us both, her brows pinched with concern. “What’s she talking about, Elliot? What’s going on?”
“Nothing. She has no idea what she’s talking about.”
“Sure I do. Your engagement was an elaborate ruse, and it has blown up in both your faces. I mean, seriously, Elliot, what did you expect? You’re not kids anymore. You’re adults, and you can’t play the ridiculous games you both so often played. People get hurt, clearly.”
I went to speak but dropped my head to my hands instead. “It wasn’t a game. It was real. I love her.”
“I never said you loving her wasn’t real. But the engagement, yeah, that was a sham.”
“I don’t understand,” Mum pleaded. “Why would it have been a sham?”
“It wasn’t.” Deep down, I truly believed that our engagement wasn’t a sham. When I put that Cheezel ring on her finger twenty-two years ago, I meant it. “It wasn’t a sham, but it is over.”
Mum’s hand rubbed soothing circles on my back. “Why, sweetheart? What happened?”
“I’m no good for her. All I do is remind her of a time I let her down and nearly killed us both.”
“What? What are you talking about, Elliot?”
“He’s talking about the storm,” Laura groaned, sounding both annoyed and disinterested. “Which is, again, ridiculous.”
Mum turned to my sister. “Stop being a pretentious bitch. I love you dearly, but you’re not helping right now.”
“Fine,” she said, standing up. “But I will say this, little brother, you and Danielle are two peas in a very rare pod from a very rare tree that, sometimes, I wish I could just cut down. You were both made for one another; back then, in between, now, and forever. Cut the crap, stop the childish games, and sort it out once and for all, yeah?”
She flashed her insistent eyes at me, unblinking, then walked off, tilting her head back while sipping her coffee, the morning sunlight bouncing from her face and highlighting her black hair. I loved her, but she pissed me off, and pretentious or not, she was bloody right.
“She’s right,” I said, scrubbing my face and sitting upright. “But that doesn’t mean I can fix this.”
“Why not?” Mum lightly patted my back. “You fix things all the time.”
“How so?”
“You solve cases. Sooooo, solve this one.”
I turned my head to her, a smile spreading across my face. “You really are amazing, Mum. I don’t think I tell you enough.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think you do either.”
“No, I mean it.” I swept my hand in front of us, toward the immaculate garden with it’s winding yellow brick path, manicured garden beds, feature tree, playground, glasshouse and shed. “Look what you and Jeanette have accomplished.”
“Elliot, this was all you. You fought the demolition, and you paid for the entire thing. You’re the amazing one. Why can’t you just accept that?”
