Then again, maybe they would. Heaven only knows how goddamn corrupt shit is here.
Landon moves to sit beside me on the mezzanine, his knees flush against his chest. He runs a hand through his disheveled brown hair and blows out a breath.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” he confesses.
I narrow my eyes. “Do what?”
“This.” He gestures vaguely toward the half-furnished hotel we’ve claimed as our own. “Hiding out. Relying on goddamn Raymond. Being away from Ellie.” His words lower to a whisper, rife with pain.
I know exactly how he feels.
Every day without Ellie is torture. Actually, I think torture is too menial of a word.
It’s death.
I feel as if I’m drowning, falling nonstop into a fathomless abyss where darkness closes in on me from all sides. I open my mouth, and it’s not water that fills it but dirt. I’ve been buried, buried alive, and all I can do is struggle futilely against the oppressive weight cracking my rib cage and cutting off my air supply.
“I love her, you know,” I whisper, focusing on my hands, on the patchwork of scars littering them. They’re hands that have seen shit most people can only begin to comprehend.
“We all do,” Landon reminds me, though not harshly. His voice is gentle, like he’s trying to coax a frightened beast out of hiding.
“No, you don’t understand.” I shake my head in a desperate bid to clear the perpetual fog from my thoughts. “I love her, but I also love you guys.” I clear my throat, feeling immensely awkward. This is venturing dangerously close to sappy territory, which I despise with a passion. “What I’m saying is…I’m okay with this. Whatever this is. This relationship between all of us.” I gesticulate in both directions, as if that allows me to somehow convey everything I can’t articulate out loud. “I love her, she loves you four as well as me, and who the fuck says we can’t all be happy together?” I bark out a harsh laugh. “You guys are my family, and this may be unconventional and weird?—”
“Wearea family,” Landon agrees. When I finally turn to peer at him, I find his silver gaze intent on me, warmth emanating from those metallic depths. “All of us. You, me, Dom, Beckett, Zane, and Ellie. She’s the missing piece. The thing that makes this entire fucked-up relationship work.”
Sometimes, I wonder if we would all still be friends if we didn’t have Ellie in common. We’re all so incredibly different from one another. Zane’s sense of humor makes me want to pluck my eyeballs out, and I’ll never be interested in dresses or fashion like Beckett. Landon and Dominic can both be so goddamn serious. And I’m… I’m just fucked up. There’s no getting around it. I carry a darkness that few understand and only one can tolerate.
But don’t we all have a darkness inside of us?
Ellie’s the light we need to survive this fucked-up world. She’s the goddamn sun, and we’re the hopeless planets orbiting her, unable to do anything else, drawn to her warmth and smile and the way she eddies us up with just one word.
“We’re going to be okay, right?” I ask Landon, a frown curling my lips.
It’s a question Ellie asked time and time again.
Landon doesn’t even hesitate when he says, “Yeah. We’re going to be okay.” Then, lower, he mutters, “As soon as we can get them back.”
I snort and drop my head against the railing behind me. “Who would’ve thought that I would miss Grove Academy?”
“Everything was simpler then,” Landon agrees.
“Do you think Ellie regrets all of this? Regrets us?” Rigid tension crawls up my spine at the thought.
Landon’s mercury eyes sharpen. “What do you mean?”
“A part of me wonders what her life would be like now if we’d never barreled our way into it. Would she be happy? Would she have been able to actually graduate? Would she be checking out colleges or hanging out with friends or seeing guys?” The last thought makes me physically ill, bile scorching my throat.
“I think this was always supposed to happen, as fucked up as that sounds,” Landon tells me. “Aria was entrenched in the Paragons of Prosperity before we ever steamrolled our way into Ellie’s life. And we both know Aria wanted Ellie by her side from the very beginning. She was just waiting until she was old enough to understand. I think that, by being in her life, we have a chance to save her.”
I tap my fingers against my thigh as warmth coalesces in my belly. “I think our girl would’ve found a way to save herself.”
Landon’s lips twitch, and he nods once.
It’s strange to coincide this Ellie with the version of her from only a year ago. That one had been shy and timid, hiding away in the shadows, as if she had any hope of being unremarkable. She became flustered easily, blushed whenever anyone talked to her, and struggled to stand up for herself.
But this Ellie? This Ellie is fierce and strong and empowered. She may still struggle to stand up for herself, but she won’t hesitate to do it for the people she loves. Though I don’t loveeither version of Ellie less, I’m proud of her. Proud of the woman she has become and the steps she took to get there.
Maybe, just maybe, she has finally learned to love herself the way we do.