The Day Before

Eli didn’t say one word to me. Not when I was done blowing air onto my part of the raft (there were four parts, four nozzles for each part), not after I had thrown him the raft to continue with his part, and not when we were ready to leave. Our form of communication were grunts and exasperated sighs. When we were finally in the water, I knew that Eli would be too stubborn to admit he would’ve drowned back there if I hadn’t helped him. So, I decided to be the bigger person, but I was also doing this for us. We couldn’t pick fights with each other, each second of every time we were together. That was too much fighting.

“I’m…sorry.” I softly said, loud enough for him to hear.

He was paddling away from the mall, and I wasn’t quite sure where he was going. After a long drag of silence, I apologized a little bit louder, “Look, I’m really am sorry, I’m genuinely-”

“You’re not the one who’s supposed to be apologizing, Violet.” Eli said.

He caught me off guard, it didn‘t matter that he just cut me off, but for once he wasn‘t being so stubborn. He blew out some air and stopped paddling. He turned to face me, his eyes boring into mine. And all I could do was sit there, shell-shocked.

“I tried saying this once before, but Cove interrupted me…but look I-I’m…sorry,” He paused, then regained himself, “You just got along with everybody so quickly. I thought you were going to kill us all or something. I’m just…not that…good with people…I barely talked to anyone, I mean Charlotte, I‘ve known her the longest so I just talked to her…but anyway, I’m sorry. I really am.” He finished and then looked away. He grabbed the paddle and kept paddling.

He just…apologized to me. Eli actually apologized to me.

I figured that it was time to check out the library, I had to find the recorder and tell Eli about this whole mess.

“Eli, I think I know of a place where we can find answers.”

He looked back at me, still paddling. “Yeah? Where?”

“Keep going straight until you see a building with a blasted hole on the side.”

Eli gave me a funny look for that one.

“What? It’s where I found this tape recorder thing. It can help us, I didn’t listen to the whole thing because of the buzz cut kid and his blond girl…” I said, trying to dignify myself.

“You said it so nonchalantly…” he let out a small laugh. My cheeks became heated, things were better now. We were better now. Thank God.

“Alright, so where is this ‘building with a blasted hole on the side’, anyway?” He looked back at me, a small smile tugging his lips.

“J-j-just keep going straight. It’ll show up, it’s a lone building; nothing for miles.”

“Alright.” We lapsed into silence, but not awkward silence. It was different. As if, we were just thinking about things. And talking would be inconvenient. “You know, I can try to help…if you want…” I trailed off, looking the other way.

“Nah, it’s okay. I need the exercise. I’m not that tired.”

I really wanted to know why weren’t fighting anymore. Was an apology all that it took? I shook my head, it’s okay, we’re going to find answers and then we’ll save Ruth, Cove and Dash.

Charlotte! I remembered about her, about the deal she made with Benji.

“Eli, you know how Benji kidnapped everyone? Well, Charlotte wasn’t kidnapped…”

Eli turned back around, confusion written all over his face.

“Did we leave Charlotte at the mall?” he said in disbelief. “Did you purposely-” he was starting to gain fire.

“No! She left with Benji!” I said, horrified. “What would make you think I would just leave her? I’m not a heartless wench!” I said, mortified now.

“You left on bad terms with her, so I just thought…never mind. So you’re telling me she went with Benji voluntarily?” Skepticism was clearly evident, but I tried to prove it to him. “She made a deal with Benji, he said that if he went with her, he’d get rid of me and-and…” I couldn’t say the last part. I didn’t even know if Eli knew Charlotte liked him. It was pretty obvious, to me anyway.

“…Yeah? Continue.” he stated.

“Uh…”

“Why can’t you tell me?”

“B-because, I don’t think that it would be a good idea.”

“What is she going to do? Kill me and use my blood to bring back the dead or something?”

I snorted, “Now that’s just ridiculous.”

“Just tell me. I’m not gonna get mad or whatever.”

“She, ah, um, she…kind of, sort of, l-likes y-you?” With the way I was dragging it out, you would think that I was confessing to him that I liked him or that I secretly had a shrine of him.

“Huh.” He looked at me funny again, turning back around to paddle.

“I-” I stopped short, looking up at the looming shadow towering above us.

“Eli! Look it’s the library…why is it so big?” I completely forgot what I was going to say, I was too busy trying to look for the blasted hole on the side. Eli navigated the raft to the right, he leaned to the side trying to look for the blasted wall.

“Yep, it’s the library alright.”

We were finally going to get the answers we needed.