Choke on the Drama

I heard a soft knock on my door so I shut my journal and left it lying on bed before getting up and pulled the door open.  Jeremy smiled, pulling me into a hug.  I hadn't seen him in a few days because we'd both been busy so it was nice.

"Come on in, let's chat,"  I said, pulling my door open wider to allow him inside.  He stepped into my room, plopped down onto my bed then gave my journal a curious glance.  "Don't even think about it!"  I stated, snatching it up and stuffing it into one of my bags, he knew that's where I kept the songs that I wrote.

Jer huffed and rolled his eyes, as I sat down next to him.  "So I saw that guy ambush you after the show.  What was up with that?  I thought you said you didn't have a boyfriend."

"Why?  Are you jealous?"  I teased him, knowing that he thought of me as a little sister, and was honestly just curious.  "One of them was my brother, another my brother's boyfriend.  The other two were just his friends that he brought along.  He's trying to adopt me so he wanted us to all get to know each other better,"  The last part came out before I could stop myself.

"Wait, Ellie, adopt you?  What the hell are you talking about?  Your parents-"

"Are monsters!"  I cut him off.  I knew I could trust him.  He had given me no reason not to and though I had only known him for nearly a month it didn't seem like it could hurt me in the long run.  "My father, he beats me, my mother, she drinks herself nearly to death.  For fucks sake the man used to molest me!"  And that's when I slapped my hand over my mouth, angry tears pouring out of my eyes at the betrayal.  Why couldn't my mouth just stay shut?

Jeremy didn't say anything, he just opened his arms, waiting for me to join him on my bed and I didn't hesitate.  He leaned against my headboard and I curled up with him.  He let me cry myself out before he spoke again.

"Have you told anyone else?"

"No.  I didn't even really decide to tell you.  It just sort of popped out,"  I told him honestly, sighing and taking a deep breath.  "It feels better though, now that I did say something.  That's why Alex wants to adopt me though because he knows.  Well about the hitting anyway.  I don't know if he knows about....  the other stuff."

"Well, do you think you'd like it better staying with him?"  Jer asked me, twirling a small bit of my hair around his finger.

"Yes, I do.  Very much.  I'd like to stay with him right this very moment if I could.  He's so sweet, Jer.  And he's got a cute friend.  A cute friend with a lot more guts than I thought he had."

"Looks like my little Ellie has a crush on someone,"  He teased me, chuckling, then he became serious again.  "Ellie, if your parents aren't good to you and you know that things will be different with him, I think you should go.  Of course it won't be easy-"

"I know.  We have a family friend who's a lawyer.  He's working on settling things.  That's sort of why I've been avoiding you a little these past few days.  I've been really nervous about how this turns out.  Because if my father doesn't agree I'll have hell to pay when I go home."

"Well, frankly I do believe that you could win the case were it taken to court if you have any type of proof that what you say is true.  Not that I don't believe you!"  He quickly added on, looking down at my face.  "It's just that were this to be taken to court, you'd have to have proof not just your say so.  And if your dad realizes that, he may agree to let you go peacefully."

I thought about what Jeremy was saying.  I had plenty of pictures of me as a kid, bruised up in places that weren't where an average kid would have bumped their knee.  My parents had often tried to get rid of them, but I kept hiding them.  I also had a picture my old babysitter took of me when I was three or four.  I had a huge cast on my arm.  My father had snapped it in half like a twig.  I know they say you can't remember things from when you're that little, but you don't forget you mother holding you down while your father tells you he's going to snap every little bone in your body.

And that was when I realized I'd started crying again.  Jeremy, pulled the blanket on the bed over us and kept telling me everything was going to be alright

----------

My eyes fluttered open and the first thing I saw was a little note on the pillow next to me.

Sorry for leaving you by yourself, Ellie.  I went to grab us some breakfast.  I won't be gone long.

Love, Jer

I smiled and then remembered the events of the previous night.  I felt certain that he wasn't going to treat me the same anymore.  I shrugged it off, yawned, stretched, and then got up.  I picked out a fairly comfortable outfit because I knew that I'd be spending the day in the studio after I ate breakfast with Jer.  I took the clothes into the bathroom with me then quickly took a shower and got dressed.

When I left the bathroom Jeremy was sitting on my bed again with breakfast spread out on it for us to eat.

Much to my surprise everything was completely normal.  We laughed, joked, ate, then parted ways as we headed to record the songs we'd be singing later on in the week.

Wednesday approached with lightning speed and I knew it was because Jack and Alex would be returning.  I was excited to spend more time with my brother, but horrified that Jack had identified me from our previous encounter.  I could only pray that he wouldn't tell Alex.

Around noon I dressed casually, Damien would dress me over again anyway, and left my hotel to head to the studio.  On my way exiting the lobby I ran into Alex and Jack who were on their way up to surprise me.  I was planning on walking to the studio because the weather was nice out but they drove me instead.

Jack made sure that we were always touching, the entire afternoon.  Never anything too obvious, usually just draping his arm over my shoulders.  I loved it.  His arms, shoulders, chest, abdomen were all so built.  You could easily see it through the tight band tee he wore.  It was difficult to keep my eyes off of him, but I was worried that Alex would notice.

"Do you ever remember mom singing to you?"  Alex suddenly asked me as we sat together in the lounge with a few of the other contestants that had shown up early as well.

"Yeah, but I was little,"  I answered.  "Why do you ask?"

"I just can't remember it.  I was hoping you might,"  Alex said, shaking his head slightly, trying to shrug it off.

"It was that little French song about the bird, 'alouette, gentille alouette' something like that I think,"  Lies.  I remembered every word of the song.  How though I had no idea.

Alex nodded, having that lightbulb look across his face, "Alouette, je te plumerai,"  He continued.

For the next few lines I sang it to him and he echoed it back, just like you were supposed to sing it.  Somehow it made us both smile, even though it wasn't exactly happy.  Well, it was, but then it just went wrong. 

"Alex, I need to talk to you about Dad,"  I said quietly, not entirely sure why I suddenly wanted so bad to tell him the truth.

"What is it?  Did he threaten you?  Tell you not to come with me?  That you can't or that he won't let you?"  He jumped to conclusions of course.

"No.  We'll talk about it after I go on,"  Clearly my voice was solemn enough to make him choose not to press the matter.  But it was going to be hard.  I couldn't do it now because I'd just cry like when I told Jeremy.  It was a little sad that he knew before my own brother did, though it was also sad that I'd known him for longer than I'd known my own brother.

Either way, Alex needed to know the truth about our father and I was going to have to tell him.