Page 51 of Unspoken Words
I knew what she was doing, and I wasn’t going to be coerced. In the years we’d known each other she’d managed to help me see life from various colourful angles, and I loved her dearly for it, but when it came to playing basketball, she was trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, something that just … was.
Picking up the ball from the seat, I rolled it back to her—lawn bowls style—watching with gritted teeth as it stopped at her feet. She stared at it for a second then bent down and picked it up, her fingers white from her intense grip. Ellie’s eyes found mine, mint cold and piercing like shards of ice. I felt their sting and nearly shivered as she wrenched her arm back and launched the ball directly at my head.
My reflexes kicked in right before impact, and I caught it, leather burning the palms of my hands, a sensation foreign and yet familiar.
“Take the shot,” she hissed.
Her snake-like demeanour shocked the shit out of me. It was so unlike her, and all I could do was blink.
“It’s time, Connor,” she added, her shoulders slumping. “Just take the shot. Please. It will be good for you. I know it will.”
I threw it back to her. “No.”
“JUST TAKE THE SHOT!” she screamed, hurling it back.
Again, my grip on the leather when I caught it was almost painful, so I closed my eyes for a second and tried desperately to calm down, the hammering of my pulse a sure sign I was a ticking time bomb on the verge of exploding and, Ellie, the fuse that would just not extinguish no matter how hard I blew.
“Why won’t you take it?” she pleaded. “What are you scared of? It’s just a ball and a hoop.”
My fingers tensed.
“Aaron’s gone, Connor. He’s been gone for over five years. Please just let this last piece of him go. You’ll be so much better off if you do.”
Locking my eyes with hers, I stepped forward, stopping less than a couple of feet away. “The last time I took a shot, it rebounded and hit Aaron in the head. He collapsed, and the next thing I knew he was dying. So, no,” I said, pushing the ball into her chest. “I willnevertake another shot.”
Chapter Fourteen
Connor
Ileft Ellie in her drivewaydespite her pleas for me to ‘come back’. I’d had enough of her button-pushing bullshit. I didn’t want to hear it anymore. What she didn’t realise was that reactions have reasons, and mine are my own. I don’t have to explain or justify every single one of them for her. I wasn’t broken or bent where Aaron was concerned, and I didn’t need fixing. The indentations my best friend left on my life would always be there, and I would smooth them out when and how I saw fit. Ellie would have to deal with it. There was no alternative.
Lining up a lone rock on the footpath as I made my way home, I kicked it with force and nearly stumbled when a familiar voice came out of nowhere.
“Damn! What did that rock do to you?”
I snapped my head in the direction of the voice and found Lilah’s legs dangling from an ancient branch of a chestnut tree, the centrepiece of her front yard.
“What are you doing up there?” I asked, ducking under the branch.
“Spendin’ time with me, myself, and I. Wanna join?”
Her offer wasn’t all that tempting due to my foul mood and the fact I could only take Lilah in small doses, but I didn’t have a decent excuse at the ready so reached up and hoisted myself into the tree.
“Cool little hide-out you have here.”
“Thanks. Trees are good company.” She rubbed her cheek against the trunk. “And they smell good too.”
I chuckled quietly, but I wasn’t really in the mood for playful chitchat.
“So what was that all about?”
“What?”
“The rock abuse.”
I shrugged. “It got in my way.”
“Right. Do you do that to everyone and everything that gets in your way?”
