All the Little Lights
Page 84

“Lots of me and not much else.”
He shrugged. “They say you photograph what you love the most.”
I picked up his camera, pointed it at him, and snapped a picture. He beamed.
“Do you miss your dad?” I asked, looking through the photos on the digital display.
“He calls once in a while. Probably when he can’t stand feeling like a no-good piece of crap another day. Do you? Miss yours?”
“Every second,” I said, sighing. I stared at the floor. “And I meant what I said. I want you to go to Baylor.”
“I meant what I said about not leaving you here alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“You know what I mean.”
I put his camera back on the table. “You realize I was alone at the Juniper for two years before you showed up again.”
He sighed, frustrated. “You’re already living with Mrs. Mason.”
“Just until you graduate and move.”
All emotion left his face. “So that’s it? You’re just buying time for me so I can go to college? Then you’re going back there?”
“You’re speaking in question marks again.”
“Yeah, I do that when I’m upset. You have zero concern for your own safety. How am I supposed to leave knowing that?”
“You’re such a hypocrite,” I snapped.
He touched his chest. “I’m a hypocrite?”
“You’re saying I shouldn’t put myself in what you perceive to be danger for you, when you’re talking about throwing away your college career for me.”
“Perceive as danger? I have no idea what’s going on in your house, but I know it’s not safe!”
I wrinkled my nose. “It’s not my house.”
“See?” he said, putting down his plate and standing. He pointed at me with his whole hand. “That’s not normal. You’re going to go back and continue to live in a place you don’t consider home.”
“Oklahoma has never felt like home to me.”
He knelt in front of me, holding my legs. “Then come to Texas with me.”
I cupped his cheeks. “I can’t afford it.”
“So get a loan.”
“I can’t afford to pay off a loan. I’m going to have to get a second job so we don’t lose the Juniper.”
“Why would you want to keep it?” he yelled. He stood up and walked away, pacing the floor.
“I don’t! I don’t want to keep it! I don’t want to keep its secrets! I wish I didn’t have to, but I do.”
He turned to me. “Don’t you know, Catherine?”
“What?” I snapped.
“That’s the beauty of a secret. Trust. Trust me with this. Let me help you.”
“You mean I should let you save me.”
He swallowed. “We could save each other.”
I glared at him, angry that he was making my resolve waver. “I’ve already moved out. I’ve already left her so you could keep your scholarship. You can’t ask me for this, too.”
He pointed to the floor. “You’re not safe there; you’ll never be safe there. I can’t pack up and move knowing that. If something happened, I’d be six hours away!”
I set my plate next to me and breathed out a laugh.
“You . . . think this is funny?”
“We sound like my parents.”
Elliott’s shoulders sagged. “Catherine, I’m in love with you. I won’t leave you here.”
I looked away, feeling cornered. “We don’t have to decide tonight.”
“No, but I know you. You’ll put it off until I pack the Chrysler and gas up. Then you’ll tell me you’re not coming. And you know what? I’ll just unpack. I’ll get a job and rent a room at the Juniper.”
I turned to face him. “You . . . you can’t,” I said, shaking my head.
He held his hands out at his sides and then let them fall to his thighs. “I guess neither one of us will have a choice but to stay here.”
I rubbed my temples. “I’m getting a headache. I should probably go home.” When Elliott didn’t respond, I looked up, meeting his gaze. “What?”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you call a place home since freshman year.”
He sat next to me on the bed, looking exhausted. He slid his arm behind my shoulders, pulling me to his side. Sometimes he seemed twice my size—my own personal giant. He’d changed so much since he left the last time, and I imagined when he left again, the next time we saw each other, we’d be strangers. I didn’t want Elliott to be a stranger even more than I didn’t want to go back to the Juniper.
“I can get you something for your headache.”
I shook my head.
Elliott lay back against his pillow, bringing me with him. I let the heat from his chest sink into my cheek, helping every muscle in my body to relax. He ran his fingers through my hair, starting from my temples and moving back to the nape of my neck. Listening to Kay and Leigh fight and then arguing with Elliott was exhausting. I looked up at the tiny white lights strung along his ceiling and closed my eyes, pretending they were stars blurring together just before everything went black.
“Elliott?” Kay said in a soft voice.
I rubbed my eyes and peered up at her. The hardness in her expression was gone, the hate in her eyes absent. She sat on the bed next to her still-sleeping son. Elliott created a large wall between us, his chest rising and falling with each breath.
“Hi, Catherine.”
“Hi,” I said, sitting up on my elbow.
The lampshade cast a dim, yellow glow, and except for the hum of the heater, the room was silent.
She didn’t speak for a full minute, instead spending the time staring at the floor. She fidgeted before she spoke, a trait Elliott emulated often. “You make him happy. I know he loves you. I just don’t know why. No offense.”
“It’s okay. I don’t really know why, either.”
She breathed out a laugh and shook her head. “We’ve had so many fights about Oak Creek, and come to find out, they were all about you.”
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could manage. Elliott shared so many of her features that it was hard to feel anything but love for her.
“He tried to get to you so many times, and it seemed like the harder I fought him to stay, the more he wanted to leave. I thought it was the usual teenage crush, but he was anxious. Irritable. It was like he couldn’t breathe.”
I looked down at Elliott, sleeping on his side, his back to his mother, with one arm around my middle. He looked so peaceful, so different from the boy she described.
“He was just fifteen. Now he’s eighteen, and I spent most of that time either fighting his dad or fighting him. I wasted it. Maybe you’ll find out one day. I hope you do—not anytime soon, but one day. He use to look at me the way he looks at you. Different, of course, but with that same honest, unbreakable love in those big, brown eyes. I know what it’s like to be his favorite person in the whole world. I envy you.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to hear him talk about you,” I said.
She turned her gaze on me. “What do you mean?”
“He’s listened to you. He quotes you sometimes. He thinks you’re wise.”
“Wise, huh?” She looked at the stairs. “Wasn’t expecting that word.” Her expression crumpled. “Catherine, if you love him—and I know you do—you will find a way to get him to go to college. This is his chance.”