Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XXVII ~ Invisible

{Ulysses ~ Josh Garrels}

...I've been shipwrecked, and left for dead, and I have seen the darkest sights, everyone I've loved seems like a stranger in the night, but oh my heart still burns, tells me to return, and search the fading light...

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25th November 

ELLIOT

     Sleeping through the daylight served its purpose in the waiting. But it left me wandering through the moonlit rooms of my apartment, alone with my thoughts when everyone else wasn't there to distract me from them. 

     Benjamin took time off work to sit with me, talk to me, try and play video games that I refused to sit through. Every day his face was the same when I asked about Ava. 

     "No change."

     Poppy came and went, bringing clean clothes from home and more and more suitcases each time. She was quieter, knowing I didn't have it in me to go through the details again. Especially not in the past few days. 

     It had rained for most of the day, or so I was told, and the skyline of the city glistened in the lights, glowing in the window. I checked my phone. 

     3 am. 

     Poppy was asleep on the couch, and Benjamin had gone back to his apartment for the night. I felt like I was being watched over, kept in check, the way they took shifts watching me. The world, for me, had seemed to come to a halt. Everything felt meaningless until I knew one way or the other the fate that would unfold for Ava. 

     I've got to get out of here, I told myself. 

      Grabbing my keys, my shoes and a jacket, I held my breath when passing my sleeping sister. She turned a little as the floorboard creaked under me, the weight of my body on the floor trying to disappear out into the night nearly spoiling my plan. But she didn't wake. She settled again in her dreaming. 

     I knew sleep would not come for me. So, instead, I wanted to run. To walk away from the apartment. I wanted to clean out my own mind from the memories and events, especially from the last few days. To be invisible and disappear. 

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23rd November

ELLIOT

     Every day I had asked, and every day I had been given a different answer.

      When can I see her? When would be best? Any time will do, I told them.

     But each time, there was a reason not to come. Too many visitors today. Scans being done. Even Benjamin and Poppy were trying to get me to think of anything else. 

     Eat something. You need daylight, let's go for a walk. 

     I think the worst idea was going to see a movie. Even I knew Benjamin didn't mean it, but I had rejected all other offers, and he was running out of ideas.