Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XXXV ~ Path

{Blood Sport ~ Sleep Token}

...And somewhere, somewhere the atoms stopped fusing, I'm still your favourite regret, you're my weapon of choosing...

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20th December
Elliot

In the darkened bars or the unrelenting grey sky of the day I was alone with my reckoning. I tore myself to ribbons with regret that I walked away from her and yet the thought of seeing her search me for any hope of remembrance gutted me like a cold knife to the chest. Even to hear her voice waver, the scar across her temple. All my fault. The cowardice in me ran from making her hate me, rather begging her to forget me altogether.

To be a ghost in the periphery of her forgotten mind was a cowardly epitaph I would prefer than to be the villain I was in everyone around her's minds. A life like mine, so violent and fractured, did not deserve to disturb hers. Once, she nearly lost her family. Twice, she nearly lost her life. I could not let there be a third time.

The echo of my footsteps and my jagged breaths gripped my throat with shame, but there was nothing like a strong scotch to soften the swallow.

I told no one of our meeting, of my resignation, of any of it. Instead, I let myself fade into the background of my life, a watcher. I became the shadow in the corner of the room. I was the creak of the floorboard in a home's deep sigh.

Poppy hardly saw me, missed me by seconds, as I evaded her questions. She had a life of her own, built and beautiful to run back to. I could not allow my own selfishness to consume more of her time. Benjamin admitted he had to continue working, and I rainchecked on every coffee date, disappearing into the ether. The nighttime wandering continued, not as obsessively, but I allowed myself to roam in the wee hours when my mind would be most likely to lash me with worries and bite at my grief.

I should have known they'd pincer me one day.

It was almost noon and I had just emerged after hearing the door front door. In my dark navy T-shirt and pants, I waded out into the living room to see my sister, a heavy parka on her as her nose was pink at the tip from the biting cold. Benjamin, suited to the nines was already brewing coffees. They eyed me pointedly, chaining me to the impending conversation I already felt looming.

"Morning," I offered hoarsely, my voice croaky and deep.

"Where have you been?" Poppy pierced, a precise stab into me. "Drinking yourself into next week or wandering the streets asking for god knows what kind of trouble?"

"Poppy, get your coffee," Ben placated her.

"No, thanks," she rushed, pawing him off. "I'm not here to have a coffee date."

"Poppy," I sighed, following her as she moved further into the room, steady and slow as not to spook me. "You're going to have to let me process this the way I'm going to."

"You're on pause, Elliot," she answered. "You're drowning under the weight of something that was not your fault."

"Your sister's right, Elliot," Ben agreed. "It's not like you were driving the car."

"But I didn't stop it from harming her," I countered quickly. "I know, I know you're talking sense but it doesn't stop the... Regret, or shame... Or..."—

"I can't have this kill you," she stifled a cry, holding her breath as she sat down on the L of the sofa, facing me. "Selfish of me, I know, but I can't lose my big brother. Not right now."

"I've been giving this a good think over myself," Benjamin interjected. "Sometimes, at a crossroads, you need to eliminate other roads by just going down the first and most simple one."

"Get to the point, Ben," I pushed.

"Why stay here if things aren't going to... Improve? Say she never gets her memory back?" His voice lowered mournfully as he finished his point, his eyes not meeting mine.

I let the words linger in the air as both of them winced, waiting for my reaction. The pushback. The denial.

"I agree," was all I offered.

"Really?" Poppy questioned me, her brow furrowing. In the afternoon light pressing in through the window, she looked exhausted, pale and clammy, save for the pink of her nose.

"Really," I nodded. "I need to get out of here for a while."

"Stay with me," she jumped up quickly. "Please, come up to the falls and stay. At least till you have more of a permanent plan."

"I couldn't, your place is small as it is, and I wouldn't want to get in the way of you and —Jax," the name of her husband still sounding so foreign to me. The notion at all was still alien.

"There's always my place," Benjamin offered. "I'm all over the east coast for work, so you'd have the run of the place most of the time."

"He needs company," Poppy pushed. "And I"— she cut herself off.

"And you?" I prodded.

"I need you, now more than ever," she smiled cautiously, from me to Ben. Both of us tensed, trying to gauge her meaning, before she said, "I'm pregnant."

"Jesus," Ben exhaled in shock, trying to hold himself together.

I jumped up rushing over to my sister, wrapping her in a huge cuddle. She laughed and even let a small sob bubble over. I felt the stress in her body holding her rigid.

And it was the first time in... I don't know how long that I felt a surge of energy course through me. I felt a bolt of life jolt into me, and there was a road, no endless cross roads. There was just a road.

"You're gonna be a Godfather," she laughed up to me from her small frame.

"How long have you known?" I asked.

"Congratulations, Poppy," Benjamin rounded the sofa to kiss her on the forehead and pull her into a hug. I could see the tears welling up in his eyes as he set his jaw tight to rein them in. I gave him a gentle, knowing nod.

"I just passed the twelve week period," she smiled. "I was pregnant when you came to the falls, but I couldn't be sure if it was... Especially with everything that's happened... I... Elliot there's so much to focus on. There's maybe never going to be answers for you and Ava, there might never be a resolution or the recovery of her memories to right what went wrong that night. But life doesn't end when it feels like it does. This is the middle of your life, sweet brother, and I can't let you miss anymore of it, especially not now," she spoke softly through gentle cries that I echoed.

My sister, in that moment, in her gentle words, reminded me so much of my Mother, and a deep wound in my heart ached. She squeezed my hand and we three cried in the quiet of my apartment.

"I'll come with you, back up North," I nodded. "I've missed out on too much of your life, Pop, I'm not going to be missing for this little one."

"Ben," Poppy smiled, taking his hand in her other one. "Will you come visit?"

"As often as you want," he smiled, returning the gentle squeeze of her hand. "I'm not going anywhere."

"It's funny," I sighed, thoughtfully. "So much has happened to make us so splintered, broken beyond repair to each other. To have this, this bond between the three of us, I..." The emotion welled up within me, and I couldn't let another word out without losing it.

"He took so much," Ben nodded gravely. Tim Beaumont. The dark ghost of all of our nightmares. "But he can't ruin this."

And each of us nodded, a bond cemented, and a road carved.

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