Authors: Lily White,Dawn Robertson
The Good Girl (24 page)
We talked for several hours before I left that day. He begged me to stay in his house, to use what he had to make my life everything it could become. He wanted to give me something to make up for the pain that he’d caused. I knew it was wrong – hell, that it was fucking insane - but I took his offer, returning to the house, cleaning up the crimson puddle that was left behind from the day I’d finally escaped. I locked the basement door, forever hiding away the room that held my cage.
However, almost two years later – once I’d finally graduated, found a job and saved up the money to get a place for Phoenix and me, I moved out, leaving behind the memories, both good and bad, of the time that I’d stayed there.
Gabriel had told me in our time together that I would never be heard from again. He was right. I was a different person – a better person – and the life I left behind became nothing more than a distant memory where the old Eleni died when she was abducted by a man who suffered from a cruel mental illness and an obsession rooted in the past.
* * *
“Hello, Eleni, it’s so good to see you today. And look at little Phoenix! He’s gotten so big!”
Andrea, the elderly nurse that was always stationed at the front desk came around the corner of the large wooden structure to get a better look at my son. Her eyes lit up when she watched him take a few steps and she held her hands to her cheeks, her mouth opened wide in delight and surprise.
“He’s getting so big. Look at him go.” She winked at me and smiled. “He’ll be running before you know it.”
Laughing, I reminded her, “You just saw him last week, Andrea, he isn’t much bigger today than he was then.”
Her face lit up when she bent down to hug him and run her hand over the silk of his ebony black hair. “Oh, nonsense. When they are this young, every day they look different – bigger and more impressive than the day before. Soon, he’ll be just as good looking as his daddy.” She brushed down the wrinkles in her skirt when she stood up. “If not more so.” Another wink and she was rounding the corner of the desk once more to sit down in her chair; her old legs growing tired from the little bit of activity she’d just exerted. Andrea was well beyond retirement age, but she was too much of an angel to give up on the patients in the hospital where she’d worked for so many years.
“It’s a big day for you today, isn’t it? Do you think he’ll be ready? I mean, he’s shown so much progress and I have no doubt that you’ll watch over him like you always have, but he scares me sometimes, Eleni. There’s so much sadness in him. Sometimes I think he makes up things just so he can feel more guilt.”
Nodding my head, I smiled despite the fear I shared with Andrea. I’d worked in this hospital for several months, teaching patients to express themselves through any art form they chose to attempt. Some loved paint, while others preferred nothing more advanced than a pencil or pen. However, with each drawing or painting they produced, a small bit of their soul was revealed to them.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. As long as he stays on his medications, I don’t think we have to fear a relapse.” I picked Phoenix up to sit him on the surface of the desk while I waited for Andrea to retrieve the key to the recreation room where I was headed.
Handing me the key, she smiled again, sympathy alight in her eyes. “I guess it’s time, Eleni. He’s waiting for you.”
Picking Phoenix up from the desk, I held him balanced on my hip when I turned to walk down the long hallway to the rec room. My steps weren’t hurried as I moved, the heels of my shoes echoing through the empty, sterile halls. After what felt like the longest walk I’d ever made, I reached the rec room door, inserting the key into the lock and turning the handle to look upon the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my life.
His head was bent down, his fingers peeking out from where they’d been run through his dark hair. He didn’t look up at first and I didn’t make a sound except for the rhythmic click of my footsteps when I entered the room. Only when the large door thundered shut behind me did he look up, his green eyes startling me like luminous emeralds brought to life by the reflection of the light above him.
Staring at me long and hard, a tear ran down his cheek when he finally turned his attention to the small boy in my arms. I stepped closer, not wanting to disturb him as he gazed upon our son.
“Would you like to hold him?”
Soundlessly, he reached out with his arms and I stepped towards him, pulling Phoenix from my hip to place him in the lap of the man who’d fathered him. Phoenix let out a squeal of delight and reached up with his tiny hands to pull at Gabriel’s ebony hair.
“Hello Phoenix. I see you’ve brought your mommy by to see me today.” After playfully pinching the tip of his son’s nose, he kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you.” His eyes peeked up at me when he continued talking to the small boy in his lap. “Did you see how beautiful she looks today? Like an angel who’s come to rescue me.”
I smiled, my cheeks burning hot from the blush I knew appeared in response to his compliment.
“I’ve come to take you home, Gabriel. You finally get to leave this place.”
He grimaced, but then turned his attention back to Phoenix and I saw pure love flood behind the green of his eyes. Without looking at me, he quietly asked, “Do you think I can do this, Elle? I’m afraid … after everything I did …”
“Stop right there, Gabriel,” I interrupted his train of thought before it could even leave the station. “All of that is in the past, it’s a place we briefly visited but in which we no longer live. It’s behind us as long as we keep our eyes looking forward.”
I could see the doubt flash across his expression and I knelt down to place one hand on his knee and the other on the back of our son.
“We’ve battled our demons, Gabriel. They’re dead, remember? They can’t hurt us anymore.”
“I know.” His voice was choked by the fear that caused his hands to tremble.
I rubbed my hand along the calf of his leg, attempting to soothe him with my touch and my words. Keeping my voice calm and serene, I reminded him, “It’s like I’ve told you before; I agree that everything that happened was for a reason. The accident, the loss of our parents – the fact that we were brought together again later on in life to create what was meant to be – our son, Gabriel – he was the reason for all of it. You weren’t left alive to be tortured, you were left alive so we could create a miracle – together.”
A smile peeked out from his lips and his beautiful eyes looked up at our son, glistening from the tears that welled before rolling down the perfection of his cheeks. He was extraordinary, a tortured soul that somehow found the strength to fix himself despite the scars that still marred his skin beneath the bleak lines of the tattoos he had inked to cover them.
Placing my hand in his, I stood up, pulled him to his feet and laughed when he bounced Phoenix up and down, causing the small boy to giggle with delight.
Tears fell down my face when I looked up at him. “You’re ready and I’ll be there for you every step of the way.”
Nodding, he grabbed the small bag beside the table, lifting it with the one arm, while continuing to hold Phoenix in the other. Solemnly, we walked hand in hand through the halls, stopping once to say goodbye to Andrea before walking through the large glass doors out into a life that we would build for our son.
The drive home was long, the half hour drive seemingly endless because of the suffocating silence in the car. I wanted to talk to him, to remind him of everything he accomplished, but I was afraid to disturb him as he prepared to begin his life once again.
When we reached the house, I parked the car in the driveway, not moving immediately so as to give him time to acclimate to the view of the house where he’d held me.
“I don’t think I can do this, Elle. I don’t think I can go back in there.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “It’ll take time to adjust, Gabriel, I know that. But, in time, you’ll see that you have the strength to endure, to live and rebuild everything you allowed to fall down around you. I’ll be there for you. I won’t leave you alone. But you have to face this house – the memories. You have to remember what happened so you can make sure that you’ll never let it happen again.”
“What if I fail … what if …”
I placed my finger on his lips, effectively silencing his worries and his words. “I won’t let you. We can be a family, Gabriel. You don’t have to hide anymore or be scared of the world. You can have life inside you – the same type of life that I had in me – the life you wanted but thought you could never have.
Finally, after what felt like forever, he breathed out a heavy sigh and we got out of the car, grabbed Phoenix and walked into the house where it had all began. As we crossed the threshold, I reached out to grab his arm, spinning him to look in my direction and pushed up on my toes to kiss him on his lips.
“I can’t stay with you, Gabriel. I mean, I’ll be here for a few hours, but I can’t live with you – not yet.”
Nodding his head, he wrapped his arm around me and walked me farther into the house towards the living room. Stopping suddenly, his eyes grew wide when he saw the gift I’d left him above the fireplace mantle.
It was a picture I’d painted of us – me, Gabriel and Phoenix – sitting together in a sunlit field, flowers surrounding our bodies as we lounged on a blanket in the middle of the thick grass. Removing his hand from around my shoulder, he walked slowly towards it, reaching up to brush his finger across the paint before turning back to me with a question in his eyes.
I laughed softly, happy to see the surprise and love behind his expression. “It’s our future, Gabriel. Every time you feel like you’re slipping, like you’re falling back into memories that will do nobody good, I want you to look at this – to know that there is a family waiting for you out there. One you helped create – and one who will save you as much as you saved them.
His head turned once again to glance at the painting. Returning his attention to me, he walked back to my side, grabbing my hand and pulling me down on the couch to sit beside him.
“For you … us … I’ll do this for us.”
I stayed with Gabriel for several hours before leaving for the evening. I planned to see him every day that I didn’t have work and every night when I did. I was worried about his recovery, but hopeful that, in time, the nightmare that brought us together would be a distant memory, no longer weighing down our thoughts or overshadowing the bright future that lay before us.
As I drove my son and myself home, I laughed at the way life worked – the irony that from tragedy, a beautiful future could be born. The road we both traveled was painful, it was littered with potholes and roadblocks, it was painful in parts and unbearable in others, but we survived. We learned how to love others and ourselves, and we created a beautiful soul that would go on to become something better than we had ever been.
It was a nightmare that became a dream, pain that became happiness, and a journey that would forever be imbedded in our thoughts.
It was fucked up. I was crude. But it was our story.
And given the ending – the light that was born to smother the bleak darkness – I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
I was, and forever would be, Gabriel’s Good Girl.
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