Saving Ella (10 page)

             
“So, what did you do? Run over her kitty cat? Spill coffee on her Louis Vuitton? Oh My God, please tell me you told her one of her boobs is bigger than the other?” Beth raised me from my thoughts and I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my lips.             

             
“One of her boobs is bigger than the other?” I wondered out loud. I had honestly never noticed, never paid enough attention to those plastic monstrosities. I actually preferred more of a natural appearance, and a little smaller. More like Ella and the thought made me internally groan. What was I thinking?

             
“Good lord, I don’t know. But little miss perfect would be horrified. No doubt she would have organized an appointment with her plastic surgeon for first thing in the morning. That girl is more plastic than a Barbie doll.” I laughed out loud at that one.

“I take it s
he’s no longer on the premises?” I asked.

             
“Gone like yesterday’s news. In fact she left so fast I thought her panties might have been on fire.” Damn Beth had a way with words.

             
“Yeah well, I have no idea what’s going on with her panties nor will I in the future.”

             
“Good to hear, Selena Liander is a bitch. You can do better than that.” Beth picked up the dish rag I had thrown and tossed it on the bench. “Ella came out looking a little pale before, is she alright?”

             
“Yeah, she showed me some scars.” I rubbed my hands over my face, trying to control the rage at seeing her body marked in such a way.

             
“Scars, as in plural?” I nodded and Beth’s frown told me she was thinking the same thing I was, who the hell had hurt her?

             
“I want Dave to talk to her.” Beth shook her head.

             
“She might not want to talk to Dave. She seems to have already established a connection with you. Maybe you should try talking to her again. See if you can get her to open up further. See if you can find out if the asshole who hurt her is in prison and if he’s not we can try putting him there.”

             
“I’m not trained for that kind of thing Beth.” I could already feel the anger growing inside, I needed to go down into the basement for a round on the bag, I was far to tense, the women would see it. It would make them nervous.

             
“You don’t have to be trained to lend an ear. You don’t have to do anything different than what you’ve been doing. Show her she can trust you, let her lean on you.” I nodded and suddenly felt tired. I had only had a few hours’ sleep the night before and this afternoon when I had finally gotten home all I wanted to do was come back to the shelter and check on Ella.

             
“I’ll take first shift tonight. You go calm yourself down and get some shut eye.” She didn’t have to ask me twice.

             
“She opened up tonight she could have flashbacks, nightmares.”              

             
“She had nightmares last night.” Beth’s frank admission shocked me. I hadn’t heard a peep from Ella before my shift ended at 2am.

             
“It was after you went to bed. She didn’t scream out but she was unsettled, crying in her sleep.

             
“Fuck,” I murmured. Many of the women had nightmares, but the fact that Ella was having them really bothered me in a way it shouldn’t have. I was far too drawn to this girl.

             
“I’ll keep an eye on her. Go get some sleep.” I reluctantly left the kitchen and forced myself not to head for the common room. My brain screamed at me to keep a professional distance from Ella. Too bad my heart seemed to have a different plan entirely.

Ell
a
             

The blonde bimbo left in an awful hurry and she didn’t look happy
, and that made me happy. I couldn’t believe I had shown Jax my scars, but a small part of me felt some resemblance to peace for having done so. I had shared something of myself with someone. Few people new about my scars and only two people knew the truth, me and Marcus, fucking Marcus. Was he still looking for me? Surely after all these years he would had given up? Somehow I knew better, Marcus wasn’t the giving up type. I knew he had searched for me in the beginning. Rita had told me that the police came looking for me at the bus station. Luckily for me I had not been there long enough for anyone to be able to make a positive I.D , and that was when Rita earned my loyalty and trust. She didn’t tell them a damn thing. I sighed, I really needed to call her. It had been three months since I had last spoken to Rita using the phone she had bought for me after dragging me out of the bus depot four years ago. She had earned the right to ask how I was and expect an honest reply.

             
I settled at the table beside Eli who was again drawing. For a moment I wondered what had happened to the pictures I had sketched last night. Most likely in the trash I thought. Annie sat beside me and ruffled Eli’s curly brown locks.

             
“Bed time buddy,” she said. Eli groaned. “Go brush your teeth please.” Eli didn’t argue, not once. He slipped off the chair and disappeared into the bathroom.

             
“Jax tells me you will be leaving soon.” Annie looked a little shocked followed quickly with irritation, perhaps not impressed that Jax had been talking about her business. It was sort of an unspoken rule in the shelters, everyone minded their own business.

             
“That’s a good thing it will be good for Eli to have his own place,” I quickly tried to calm the anger that simmered in Annie’s eyes. She took a deep breath and nodded. She was pretty in that girl next door kind of way. She had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose that I had captured in the portrait I had drawn of her the previous night. Her hair wasn’t really one shade in particular, but a combination of many shades, blonde, brown, red with all different hues in between. Her eyes were beautiful, a green that shimmered vividly between blue and emerald. She had the same look all beaten women did, tired and betrayed. Women who had been hurt in such a way held their emotions close and in check. They didn’t want others to see their pain, they didn’t want others to see any weakness, the vulnerability that had been exposed by the man who had hurt them. Fine lines around Annie’s eyes and mouth suggested she had at one time smiled, a lot.

“He’s a good boy, he never once complained when I packed his bag and made him leave behind all his toys. He didn’t deserve that.”
She looked so sad I wanted to give her a hug, but I held back and nodded, giving her the only thing I could, an ear to listen. I knew what it was like to leave behind a home, but leaving mine created a feeling of euphoria. For Eli it must have been confusing and frightening.

             
“Toys can be replaced. It’s good you got him out, no toy is worth staying,” I whispered.

             
“No, it isn’t, but to a five year old, toys are special. They hold memories, they are important.”

             
“He will have new toys, new memories, perhaps better memories.” Annie smiled, but it was a smile full of regret and bitter memories.

             
“He never saw anything. He heard my husband yell and that frightened him, but I made sure he never saw him hit me. He saw my bruises later of course, I told him I fell or something incredibly ridiculous and he always believed me.” She sighed as she gathered the crayons and paper into a neat pile. “He hasn’t asked about his father once. It’s as if he has accepted without argument that he is no longer a part of our lives.”

             
"Children are far more perceptive than we give them credit for.” When Annie smiled this time it was real, full of hope.

             
“You are very wise for someone so young.” I laughed at that. Annie looked barely a few years older than me. Perhaps she thought I was a child myself. People often assumed I was younger than I was, I was small, my features petite. I guess it was easy to misjudge my age.

             
“Well, I’m twenty-two but I feel a lot older. I guess this sort of life makes us grow up much faster than we are supposed to.” I wondered out loud.

             
Annie quietly slipped away and I grabbed some of Eli’s crayons and began sketching a picture of my new boss, Rebecca. Perhaps if I could save enough money for a sketch book and charcoal I could put some pictures up for sale in the store. Dream on Ella. Stop trying to recapture something that is long gone. I threw the crayon down with a little too much force.

             
Beth reappeared in the common room and I wondered where Jax was. It was confusing to feel like this about a guy. My mission had always been to avoid men altogether, they frightened me, even the ones whose eyes were filled with care and understanding. Men were bigger than me, well, everyone was bigger than me, but men were more powerful. No boy or man had ever captured my attention in the way Jax had, and I hadn’t even kissed him. The fact I found myself wanting to was even more of a shock. Perhaps his honest desire to help me, to ‘rescue’ me is what drew me to him. All girls wanted to feel cherished and wanted, but I knew Jax didn’t want me like that. God I was such a fool.

Shaking my head
I grabbed my backpack and made my way to one of the spare beds at the furthest end of the room. The bathrooms were not handy at this end, but there appeared to be no one in the two beds beside me, which meant if I had nightmares I would hopefully not disturb anyone else. My nights were still haunted with visions of Marcus. I occasionally woke screaming, sometimes crying. I didn’t want these women who were battling their own demons to be witness to mine. I didn’t wish my nightmares on anyone, not even the blonde bimbo Selena. She didn’t realize how lucky she was. The fact she had looked at me with what I can only assume was jealousy was ridiculous, she certainly had nothing to be jealous about. No one wanted my life, not even me. She looked like one of those girls who had it all, and it seemed as though she had Jax too. Though he certainly didn’t seem happy with her tonight, his tone icy cold, his eyes looked at her with frustration and anger. Not the same kind of anger Marcus was consumed with, just irritation. It’s all in the eyes. No one can hide what lies there, but it takes someone special to be able to see it. Most people look at the face as a whole, body language, gage the voice, the words. I blank all that out and concentrate on eyes and Selena’s eyes were fake. She was fake and I couldn’t understand why Jax would want a girl like that. Sighing I pulled the blanket over my head and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable tug into exhaustion, where images of Marcus continued to haunt me.

              Once my shift began I found myself sitting by a dim lamp in the common room, watching Ella. If it didn’t feel so right I might actually feel like some sick crazy perve. This tiny little girl had somehow become an important part of my life. I tried to examine it, look at the situation objectively, compare my need to help her to the need I had to help the other women, the need I had felt to save Sarah. At the end of a long hour of consideration, I decided my want for Ella must be simple, primitive male lust.  Yeah, even that didn’t feel right. Sure I wanted her, but not just that delectable little body, I wanted all of her, heart and soul included and I had never felt that way about any of the other women who came to Mercy’s, especially not Sarah. Shit, this is what the guys I served with called ‘pussy whipped’.

             
With the sun up again I found myself in the kitchen getting the breakfast ready. Mary would be in soon but I thought I’d surprise her and take the initiative to get the ball rolling. Porridge, toast, cereal and fruit, I couldn’t screw that up. The wafting arrival of coconut filled my senses. Ella stood beside me, tousled hair and rumpled clothes, reaching for the freshly brewed coffee.

             
“Porridge, cereal or toast?” I asked. She grumbled and shook her head, taking a long sip of her coffee. She sighed. My girl wasn’t a morning person. My girl? I was not renowned for my possessive tendencies towards women so this ‘claiming’ confused the hell out of me. Furthermore, Ella was not mine. “You’re not leaving without eating, and you’re taking that when you go.” I nodded toward a brown paper bag sitting on the counter. I had made her up some lunch a short while ago. It was the first time I had ever made lunch for someone other than myself. I remembered Mercy making lunches for me as a kid, a sandwich, piece of fruit and museli bar, packed in the same style paper bag.  Admittedly Ella was no kid, but I liked the thought of personally taking care of her, feeding her. She peered in the bag and then looked at me confused.

             
“You made me lunch?” She was completely and utterly bewildered. Her mouth hung open with astonishment. She looked adorable.

             
“You’re acting like no one ever made you lunch before.” Her head slowly shook.

             
“Not since I was ten.” I glanced at her. She looked sad, another glimpse at the real Ella.