Crazy but Sweet, Sweet but Crazy

55: an early call

Sunday was tolerably torturous.

In the house filled with the scent and haze of Marlboro and Blue Moon, Elliot sat at the dining table, studying.

His head leaning against one end of the couch and his feet propped up on the other end, Landon, with his earphones plugged on, watched movies on his laptop.

Soon enough, empty beer cans, balled up McDonald's paper bags, grey ashes, half-folded cigarettes and stacked-up sushi take-out boxes were littering the coffee table and the circumference around the couch.

By late Sunday afternoon, a Starbucks plastic cup and the cheery smiling of Wendy's logo had joined the growing pile.

"Lay off, clean freak," muttered Landon with a yawn, just as Elliot had been picking up the trash into a big plastic bag. "Hands off."

"Sorry. Did I wake you?"

Taking off an earphone, Landon leveled Elliot with a hard look.

Elliot smiled a little. "Why?"

That small smile. It almost looked like Isabella's.

"You not only have insomnia, do you have memory disorder? You don't remember how I treated you? How can you smile? By the way, you won't get anything being nice to me. I have nothing."

Fuck. Insomnia. Landon realized Elliot hadn't told him about that. He'd found the pills.

The smile faded from Elliot's lips, and he continued picking up the trash. "It's nothing. Just like a cold."

"That person." Flicking some ash into the open mouth of the plastic bag, Landon added, "The one you're waiting for, even though you used the hint of the jewelry shop I gave you. She- or he- isn't going to help you sleep better any time soon, hm?" 

After a pause, Elliot nodded, this time his smile rueful. "Yes."

"So. What did you see? What's the evidence? Why is it that you're not using it to throw dad behind the bars?"

"I don't do it because-"

Pulling out a new cigarette from the pack, Landon snorted.

"I know. I know you don't want to put dad in jail. You love that fucked up man of my- our- father- more than I do. I can never understand you. So what did you see?"

The boy's head was bent, his hair, effectively concealing his eyes.

But from the clamped up mouth, the slight tremor that ran through the hands that tied up the trash bag, and the change in his air, Landon knew.

Elliot had seen enough. More than enough to put their father behind the bars, and maybe for a long time.

"You don't have to tell me."

Plugging his earphone back in, Landon returned his eyes to his screen.

It looked like one word about the evidence, and the growing cracks on the surface of this weakling, were going to break him.

For dinner, Elliot insisted on cooking, underscoring the harmfulness of surviving on takeouts.

Multiple times Landon vehemently rejected, that Elliot looked positively dejected.

Strangely Landon felt like he'd sinned somewhat.

"Okay. I'm not going to be any thankful," emphasized Landon, but Elliot was already in the kitchen, smiling from ear to ear.

Manipulative asshole.

He'd looked tragically melancholy one moment, and absolutely euphoric the next. What an actor.