Reach Out to Me

|Chapter 7|

Out of the corner of his eye, Elías saw a tall guy running over to their direction and breathed a sigh of relief. Finally. Someone who would help.

"Mark, I go to the bathroom for one second and I come back to see you about to start a fight," said the guy who just came, shaking his head at his friend's behavior. "I am so sorry for anything trouble Mark caused. He gets angry when he's drunk sometimes."

Elías was pretty sure the last couple of things Mark did were the result of a sober mind, but he didn't care. As long as Mark got the hell out of his face, everything was peachy.

"It's okay," London said. Elías was confused. He would expect London to be the least okay in this whole situation. Maybe she just wanted the whole thing to be done.

As the two guys walked away, Elías turned towards London.

"Hey, you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," London said, waving him off. "I've had things like this happen to me all the time. I had it under control."

It certainly didn't look like it was under control. It was more like things were about to blow up.

"Hey, Eli!" Minjoon called out as he walked towards Elías , hand in hand with Ava. They looked so happy together that Elías caught himself smiling with them too.

"What?"

"Ava and I are going to go to her apartment. You going to be okay here?"

"Yeah. I'm going to head out soon too."

"Alright, see you later," Minjoon said as he left.

"Aw, they would make such a cute couple," commented London. She rested her head on her upturned palms, watching the two of them walk out.

"Yeah.." said Elías, lost in thought. Being with Ava would be good for Minjoon. He was already beginning to see that. Besides, at least Minjoon wouldn't bother him every Saturday to come here with him.

Elías and London stayed talking at the comedy club for the next half hour. As Elías was driving home, he thought more about the confrontation with the drunk guy.

Something felt off about the whole situation. As he thought more about it, the more he noticed how off character London's response was. As someone who was in an abusive relationship, he would have thought that she would be more triggered by the guy getting physical on her...

Unless she was used to fighting back in that kind of situation. The thuds that he heard in her apartment could have been a result of London hitting back. But wouldn't that have meant that she would have more bruises? Or something as a result of the abuse?

Those thoughts and the countless questions that Elías didn't have answers to plagued his mind until he reached his home. As he got ready for bed, he heard jazz play softly play through the walls of the apartment. Though he heard some indiscernible raised voices, Elías didn't really hear anything out of the ordinary.

He found himself drifting off to sleep with thoughts of London on his mind.

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As he was clearing up his kitchen after dinner the next day, Elías heard someone knock on the door. He put away the last dish and wiped his hands on his apron before looking through the peephole in the door. He wasn't surprised to see it was London. Besides Minjoon, she was the only person he would expect to see at his apartment.

He had been texting back and forth with Minjoon in the morning. Apparently, they had hit it off really well and they were still at Ava's apartment spending time together.

"Hey!" London chirped brightly as Elías opened the door. She was also wearing an apron. But unlike his dark grey apron, hers was a bright yellow, highlighting the streaks of yellow in her dress.

"Hi. How are you doing?" Elías replied, feeling slightly taken aback by her bubbly personality. It was like someone had injected a huge dose of sunshine in her. She was radiating.

"Great, actually. Listen. I made some cake. And I just wanted to invite you over to have some."

"That's really ni-"

"- as a thank you for all things that you've done for me. The elevator thing, the drunk guy at the club." London ticked them off on her fingers, not really noticing that she interrupted Elías .

"Sure, I'd love to," Elías agreed. Now he could see who she was living with. That sounded really stalkerish, but he was really interested to see who her partner was.

The fire alarm blared across the hall. They stared wide eyed at each other before rushing into London's apartment. A column of smoke near the oven marked the place that had turned on the fire alarm.

The oven door creaked open on its own. Elías came to an abrupt stop and remained frozen as he watched the smoke curl out from the oven. Was there a problem with the oven? How did it open on its own?

"What the fuck," he murmured, mostly to himself.

London began fanning the smoke out of the oven as best as she could with a dish towel, not noticing or caring about the oven opening itself. She coughed as the smoke blew into her face.

Smoke was beginning to fill the small kitchen and making it kind of hard to breathe. Elías decided the self operating oven could wait and ran to open the window.

As the smoke dissipated and the fire alarm stopped blaring, Elías and London huddled around the oven, trying to figure out what caused the smoke.

"Shit, I- must have dropped some batter," London said in a hoarse voice and coughed, bending over to catch her breath.

"Here, take a seat," said Elías , leading her to a bar stool away from the remaining smoke. "I'll get you some water."

He filled a glass that he found on the counter with water and brought it back to her.

"Thanks," London said after she drank a bit. "Sorry about that, by the way. I think the oven's getting old too."

"What's not old in this building?"

London chuckled at his response and coughed again. Grabbing the glass, she took another sip of the water.

"Let me get the cake out of the fridge," said London, walking towards the fridge. "You can take a seat on the couch."

While London went to the kitchen, Elías took the time to do some investigating. First off, he didn't notice any signs of anyone living with her. There weren't any jackets lying around that he could see or signs of anyone living in her apartment period. It was spotless.

But it wouldn't make sense if her abuser was living with her and didn't come out when the fire alarm went on. It was possible that he stepped out of the apartment though.

He didn't know what to think. At this point, Elías was plain frustrated with the endless questions he had. He planned on asking her outright what was going on.