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chapter twenty down the drain
Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.
Alex feels like she's just going through the motions. Scrub, squeeze, rinse, repeat. Over and over again until there's no dirt left. Disassociate so you don't have to think about the cliffside ever again. Let the world fade into the background and your thoughts swirl down the drain. Don't let them know how much this has affected you. You're alive, you're alive, you're alive.
"Are you okay?" El asks, gently, breaking Alex from her cycle.
Alex pauses with the rag hovering just inches away from El's face, her hand trembling slightly, but she tries to ignore the telltale tremor. El sits on the edge of the bathtub, small hands clinging to the sides and holding her upright. Alex stands on her knees in front of the small girl. El looks better than she did when they brought her home on the back of Mike's bike. The blood has stopped dripping from her nose, and she's able to hold herself up now, but Alex can still see the exhaustion in her wide brown eyes. Alex has scrubbed most of the dirt away, revealing El's pale, almost porcelain skin. But El is not as fragile as porcelain. She has proven that time and time again. El is so much more than just a girl. She is so much more than they will ever be. Alex thinks that El might as well be something greater than a God. But even Gods get tired. Even Gods fall every once and a while. El needs to recharge just like the rest of them.
The boys wait patiently for them in the basement just beyond the door. Alex doesn't know how long they have been shut in the bathroom. It could have been minutes or it could have been hours. But the boys don't say anything. They understand. They're all tired. The girls sit in the bathroom for a long time before Alex starts to help El clean herself up. El breaks down again when the door closes behind them and Alex takes a seat next to her on the ground and brings the girl into her arms, rubbing circles in her back and rocking her back and forth until the sobs subside and El's breathing returns back to normal. They sit there for what seems like hours, taking comfort in each other's company, but Alex remains void of emotions the entire time.
El reaches out and takes Alex's free hand in her own. Alex tries not to wince. The skin on Alex's hands is red and raw from trying to wash the ghost of James's grip down the drain, but she doesn't mind. It's cathartic, scrubbing until her hands are numb because the pain in her hands distracts her from the cataclysm of thoughts that spiral through her head. She's still exhausted—they all are. She still feels the pain shooting through the arm twisted behind her back. Jame's grip around her wrist has left faint bruises around her wrist, still tender to the touch, but just barely formed. There's a small tremor in her fingers, and small cuts litter the palms of her hands and the skin over her knees from the gravel. Alex has wiped away the blood but that does not eradicate the sting. She still feels James's arm around her throat. She shakes her head and pushes this to the back of her mind. They have bigger things to worry about than her pain. They're alive right now and that's all that matters. They are alive, but not safe. Safety is a mere speck in the distance. It slips through their fingers like sand.
