What He Wouldn't Give (Unedited Version)

Chapter Seven: The Month After And The Second Month...

The month after and the second month...

He wanted to scream, yell, take all his anger out on Eli, but at the last minute something made him change his mind. Lowering the broken bottle as he stared at the reflection of himself in the glass, this isn't what he spent a year trying to fix to become again. Eli looked at the man in front of him, letting out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, Luke stormed into the garage and drove off leaving his son alone with broken glass scattered on the floor. A small laugh to his self, the irony of shattered glass was becoming to real. How much longer before it would represent his life again?

Wandering into the living room after a shower Eli looked at the floor with glass, before going to find a broom. Picking up the shards of glass again, how many times would he have to do this? Lost in thought only brought back into reality when the carpet below began to turn red. Looking at his hand a large piece of glass was buried in the palm of his hand slicing in between the heart and the head lines. Swearing he tried to pull the glass out, to no avail it caused him more pain and more blood gushed out of the severe laceration staining the carpet. Not able to call his father he walked to his neighbor, Beth Stevensen, and knocked on her door with his good hand.

"One minute," a gentle voice yelled out.

"It's an emergency." Eli said as the blood kept staining the towel he wrapped around his hand.

After he said that the door opened and a shocking, "Oh my!" came from the elderly woman standing before him.

"What happened Eli?"

"Can you drive to the hospital and I can explain on the way." He said and she motioned him to her car. Sliding into the passenger seat and with Beth in the drivers seat they began the fifteen minute drive to the hospital as Eli began to explain leaving major details out. The two walking into the hospital made people turn heads as the doctor standing at the reception desk looked at the woman who looked over at Eli. After asking what was wrong, Eli unwrapped his hand and showed it to the doctor. The doctor took Eli back into a room while Beth filled out the papers for Eli.

A few hours later Eli walked out into the waiting room and came face to face with someone he wanted to avoid. "What happened Eli?" he asked giving off the impression he cared. After mutter a quick, nothing, he looked to see where Ms. Stevensen went to. 

"I sent her home and thanked her for bringing you here." He said behind Eli.

"Why." Eli was quick to the point.

"I'm your father."

"No! No you haven't earned that right." Eli said then walked out of the building no wanting to create more of a scene than had already been made. The walk home would be about an hour at most half and hour as least, muttering to his self he kept walking and getting lost in thought. Ignoring the pain in his hand he kept walking, more like stumbling down the pavement. Unwanted thoughts bombarded his head, old memories came crashing in like waves, the street lit sidewalk began to blurry as tears threatened to fall towards it. He told himself he couldn't lose it now. "Why'd you have to leave me with him?" he asked to no one in particular. Shutting himself up he rounded his block and saw the haunting view of his house.

Climbing up the porch steps, opening the door and grabbing the painkillers from the bathroom mirror and the escalating the stairs and collapsing onto his bed, he was out. He just wanted to sleep for a while, not forever, but enough to forget how much of a mess his life was, no matter what happened. Like a pin pulled on a hand grenade it was only so long before his life exploding, tumbling back into the chaos.

The next few days were tense, as each person in the house took precautionary steps to avoid each other. Eli just wished things could be normal, but he had no clue what normal was since this was his version of a somewhat normal life. Eli was supposed to head out to band practice, but the King house was preoccupied that night, so Eli invited them over to his house to practice in their basement, Luke was out with his friends from the next state over and wasn't supposed to be back until the end of the week.