And then the morning I’d been changing the dressings on her ribs and she’d reached out and traced my hands, my fingers. I’d felt a disjointed sense of distress, but the longer she’d touched me, the more a yearning rose in my soul, so strong it took my breath. It was the first time I’d enjoyed another person’s touch since I was a little boy. And though I was still slightly scared, I also undeniably longed for more. I wanted to feel her touch again. I wanted her to stay. When she left, I wanted her to want to come back. To me. If only to see the sunrises …
Don’t lie to yourself, Gabriel. You’re falling in love with her. Maybe you’ve already fallen.
Was I? Was this what it felt like to fall in love? A sort of agonizing joy? Or was it just that Eloise was going to make it harder than most, and I knew that and still didn’t care?
Eloise.
God, I’d felt like I might fall over when she told me her name. What were the odds?
And what was the strange pull that made me feel like we belonged together? Was I a fool? And if the answer was yes, did I care enough to do anything about it? No. Somehow being a fool for Ellie felt like it’d be worth it. Even this tearing inside reminded me that I was alive. Not only that, I was living. I was taking chances, following my heart, willing to risk being hurt for a broken girl too scared to stake a claim to anything at all, most especially me.
She is going to hurt you, Gabriel. You know that, right?
Yes. Yes, I suppose I did know that. And yet I was still all in.
A few days after George had stopped by, I found one of my mother’s favorite decorations in the attic and hung it in Ellie’s room in the evening, knowing she kept the shade open so that the first light of dawn would wake her. The next morning, just as a slip of sun began to show above the horizon, instead of going straight to the patio, I went to her room and knocked softly on the door.
“Come in.”
I found her standing in the middle of the room, leaning on her crutches, a look of joyful wonder on her face as she looked around at the rainbows scattered on the walls. Her gaze found mine. “How did you do it?” Her voice was breathy and soft.
I smiled, pointing to the crystal hanging from the window. “It’s a prism. My mom used to have it hung in our kitchen.” I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms loosely, completely captivated by her obvious delight. “When you were feverish, you kept mentioning rainbows. I thought … I thought you might like it.”
She tilted her head. “What makes them?”
I smiled, slightly surprised that she’d never seen a prism before. I almost said something about refracted light, but decided the uncomplicated answer held more magic. “Just sunlight.”
She looked over at me as if she knew I was simplifying the explanation but smiled anyway. “Sunlight,” she repeated, a note of wistfulness in her tone. She stared at me for a moment and then looked around again, limping over to the wall, where she leaned her crutches against the bed and used both hands to cup one of the rainbows in her palms. She looked back over her shoulder at me and smiled, bigger and brighter than the rainbow she held in her hands.
Ah, sweet Christ. Ellie’s smile. I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.
Her smile faded, but her eyes remained soft as she turned and picked up her crutches again. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We took our usual spots out on the patio after pouring our coffee, and she let out a comfortable sigh and stretched her casted leg slightly where it rested on another chair. I took that as a good sign that it was healing well and wasn’t paining her as much. Her expression looked more peaceful than it had the previous mornings. Her facial injuries were looking better every day, her beauty now more obvious than the abuse she’d received. There was only a yellowish bruise on her right cheekbone and a scab along her jaw where a cut was still healing. And, God, I loved her face without makeup, loved the clean prettiness of it, the delicate grace, the way I could see what was really her and not some phony product meant to exaggerate and enhance a face that needed no such thing. Eloise was beautiful in a way that told me she’d always be at her loveliest first thing in the morning, bathed in dawn’s soft glow, her eyes vulnerable and still full of dreams. My blood heated at the vision. But I turned my mind from those thoughts…they’d come to no good, not now, not for me and not for her.
“Time for work?” she asked.
I chuckled. “You mean time for you to watch me work?”
Her carefree expression slipped. “I’d be more useful around here if I could.”
“I know that, Ellie. I was only teasing you. I don’t expect you to do anything more than heal.”
She looked uncertain, and I regretted making her feel that way. In actuality, I liked that she kept me company while I worked. Sculpting could be a lonely job, and although it was easy for me to lose myself in my work, while I was doing the labor that didn’t require a lot of focus, I loved having her there to talk to. Although so far we’d mostly spent time discussing what I was doing and what tools did what, I hoped that the intimacy of that time would cause Ellie to open up to me a little bit—eventually.
I had brought a lounge chair into the garage, and that’s where she sat while I worked, a blanket draped over her legs. She was still weak, and I could tell that her ribs still caused her pain. Not that she complained. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible. Even so, she usually only lasted a couple of hours before she was ready to return to bed, where she slept the afternoon away, waking for dinner and maybe a TV show and then back to bed. To be able to sleep so much meant her body was healing.
As I helped her get settled in the lounge chair, I thought about all the things she’d said while she’d had a fever and was on a strong dose of pain medication. She’d called out for her mama a lot, and she’d also talked about someone named Mrs. Hollyfield, red Popsicles, and rainbows. I wondered what it all meant. Eloise. She was full of so many mysteries, full of so much pain. I heard it in her fear-filled voice as she cried in the night, calling out to people I imagined long gone. People she’d once loved, if the tears that rolled down her cheeks when she dreamed of them were any indication.
I smiled over at her as I began chipping away at the cherub. “I think he’s a boy,” I said, running my hands over the stone that had taken shape in the last few days.
She tilted her head, obviously knowing immediately whom I was talking about. “Yes, I think so, too. What should we name him?”
I chuckled. “I don’t usually name my pieces.”
“You don’t? Why?”
I shrugged, a tremor of unease running through me. What I’d told her wasn’t completely true. I’d named my work once … and never since. But that was different. “Just never thought of it. What would you name him?”
She sucked on her full bottom lip, and a shivery feeling ran down my spine, my muscles tightening. I cleared my throat, trying to lead myself away from dangerous places.
“William.”
I smiled. “William? Why William?”
She shrugged one shoulder, looking slightly embarrassed. “I don’t know. I just always liked that name.”
“William it is. What do you think of your name, Will?” I tilted my head, pretending to listen. “He likes it.”