Set Fire to the Rain

All the tests, x-rays and scans that the dr.’s had done on me at the hospital came back normal. There was no sign of a concussion or head injury, thank god, and no broken, fractured, splintered or any other injury to my bones. Diagnosis was that I should watch for any signs of blacking/greying out, dizziness, or lightheadedness and if anything like that started to happen, I should come right back in. As of right now though, everything was checking out fine, and I just had bumps and bruises. Shannon had been a nervous wreck pacing the floors and driving the poor nurses and dr.’s nuts with his questions. He tried to hold my hand on a couple of occasions and I pretended not notice or to have an itch, pulling my hands away in the opposite direction from his. Giving up, he sat back not attempting to touch me in any way when the orderlies had brought me back from one of the scans, just watching the floor deep in thought for a little while with his hands clasped together in front of him tapping his feet on the grey linoleum floor. Shannon asked his questions, thoroughly interrogating the poor young man, but I was in no mood to ask, so it was better this way. There wasn’t much said other than that, he just sat there, distant, his whole demeanor changing from what it had been right before we came back to the examining room. The second I rejected him, again, his attitude changed. It wasn’t like he sat with a frown on his face or something; it was something that when he looked up at me, there was a hint of something in his eyes that I caught. I don’t know how to explain it.

Finally, hours later, I was released from the ER, Shannon went to get the car from the parking garage, and picked me up from the front of the rear of the hospital where the ER was located, and we were on our home. We made phone a call to my place and let JT know how things went with the hospital asking him to call his Uncle and fill him in on everything since, I refused to call him right now. I am still furious with my brother, and it may take me a few days before I have calmed down enough to talk to him again. JT agreed to call Jack for me, and also said he would call my parents too thankfully. Shannon talked to him briefly then hung up. I hadn’t really been paying any attention to what he had been saying, I was off in my own world. After Shannon hung up, I dialed the number for MJ telling her what the drs had said at the hospital, in a shortened version. I know that she was trying to spend as much time as possible with Evan before he left tonight, so I wanted to end this call asap. After that call was over, I decided instead of calling Kym and the rest of the group, I sent a general text to everyone. It was easier to do that instead of having to make a million phone calls. Setting my cell phone into my bag, once that was done, an uncomfortable silence filled the air between us as we drove along. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover how it felt in the car. You could cut the tension in the air with a fucking knife. While I sat in the passenger seat, and Shannon once again volunteered to drive, I found myself staring out the window, with my mind drifting off the second the car started to move, the image of the haunting look in Shannon’s eyes at the hospital continued to plague my thoughts. He was hurt that I was pulling away; I don’t know how to feel about that since we weren’t a couple. There should be no problems here. Deep down, I was only doing what I felt was best for everyone involved. One of the last things I remember thinking about before falling asleep was Shannon’s disappointed face as we sat in the ER exam room together. I must have fallen asleep for a little while because the next thing I knew, I was being woken up by Shannon.

“Eliza, wake up we need to talk.” Shannon said in a gruff tone.

When I opened my eyes and looked around, we weren’t at my house; we were at the beach, about 35 minutes away from my house. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and the sun was set low in the sky. Turning slightly towards Shannon, I asked him, “What are we doing here?”

“Like I said, we need to talk. I didn’t want to go back to your place because I figured Jack and JT would be there and I didn’t want to be interrupted by them. I need to know what the hell is going on here.” Gesturing with his hands between the two of us with his right hand, he was wearing a pair of his designer sunglasses; he had a slight beard growing, and was wearing his black leather jacket. I could tell he was frustrated. Then he reached up taking the glasses off and placed them on top of the dashboard.

“There is nothing going on here.” I said in a raised voice back to him making the same hand gesture between us.

“Hahahahaha! Really? Are you actually going to sit there and look me in the eye and say that with a straight face Sweetheart? Because you and I both know that there is absolutely something going on here.” Shannon laughed at me.

“We are friends Shannon. Just friends. You are going home next week to LA and leaving me here. And that’s fine, I’m not asking for anything, ok. You have your life, and I have mine. This is exactly what I wanted. No strings, no relationship, it’s the perfect situation, so David would keep his fucking distance and leave everyone alone. No one would get hurt, so just leave it alone, alright!” Throwing my hands in the air I yelled at him, then I threw open my door and slammed it shut behind me, I took off jogging onto the beach. No direction in my head, I didn’t even know what I was trying to run from.

“Eliza, wait!” Shannon yelled from behind me. Hearing his car door slam shut, then I could hear his footsteps sifting through the sand. “El, please stop!”

My pace was slow to begin with and I didn’t get very far because of how soar I was, so I wasn’t surprised when I began to slow down and fell to my knees in the sand trying to catch my breath. The warmth of Shannon’s arms were around me in seconds and he was whispering into my ear “Are you going to run from me again?” I shook my head no, as an answer. I was too tired and my body hurt too damned much to run again, especially in the sand. “Ok, now you are going to listen to me. Come on let’s take a walk.”

Standing up and moving in front of me, he reached down and pulled me up slowly to stand next to him. For the next few minutes we walked along together quietly, I was listening to the wave’s crashing along the shoreline with the mix of seagull’s squawking around us and the sun hanging in the sky a beautiful shade of red and orange, it was almost perfect and made me smile.

“There it is. I have missed that all day.” Shannon said looking at me from the side.
“Yeah, and what’s that Mr. Leto?” I asked.

“Ugh, don’t call me that! I have missed your smile of course dumbass. Your smile was missing all day today.”

“You are a crazy motherfucker you know that.”

“Yup. It’s true.” He laughed.

“I’m sorry I ran. I don’t even know why I did. And Shannon, I am really, truly sorry that I lied to you. I have never hated doing something so much. I was just so scared, David had threatened your safety, and I couldn’t risk that with any of you.”

“Thank you for that. I can see where you were coming from now that I had a chance to calm down, but please don’t ever lie to me again. You can trust me with anything. And I don’t want to talk about HIM anymore today, he’s taken up too much of our precious time as it is, and he doesn’t deserve it. As far as running from me, it’s alright. But I do get it. What you said it’s all true. With one exception though.” Shannon said with a raised eyebrow, looking at me with a tilt of his head as we continued to walk.

“Ok, and what would that be?”

Shannon stopped walking and looked from side to side in search of any possible onlookers, which there were none, then looked back at me with a smirk, and crooked his finger at me. I shook my head at him slowly. There was no way I was falling for that with this man. I would be in major trouble for sure if I did. A scowl formed on his plump lips and his eyebrows knit together in what became a very determined look upon his beautiful face and once again he crooked his right pointer finger at me. So I once again shook my head slowly from side to side and crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t budging from my spot, no way. Before I could blink, Shannon had grabbed my arms and wrapped them behind my back gently and was holding them together pulling me as close to him as he could possibly get me. Looking down into my eyes, the warmth of his breath on my face, I could feel the vibration in his chest as he spoke his next words to me. “You were wrong when you said that there is nothing going on here. “

I started to once again shake my head, then moving his mouth to within a centimeter of my own, he brushed his lips ever so lightly over mine kissing the outer corner of my mouth, then lightly nipping and kissing along my jaw line, down onto my neck making sure not to hurt me. When he reached the juncture of my collarbone and neck, he continued kissing his way to the outermost edge of my shoulder, while holding my arms together with one hand and using his free hand to push my jacket, sweatshirt and t-shirt out of the way. Shannon nipped and licked at the skin to sooth the pain he had left behind then he would suck skillfully on my sensitive flesh. It was pleasure and pain. Wow, was it a turn on and he knew exactly what he was doing to me. What was he trying to do, prove a point here! I was willing to bet money on it.

Shannon was kissing his way back to the little dip at the bottom of my neck and to the inside of my collarbone, and sucked on the skin there, making me moan out in pleasure involuntarily. “Oh shit, Shann…” I had moaned out loud. At that second I realized the severity of my mistake, but also that I had let things go entirely too far with him. This had to stop right now. My plans were being derailed, and I needed to get back on track right now. I started to try pulling out of his grasp.

“I told you there was something going on here.” Shannon said cockily into my ear. As he began to kiss and nibble on my ear and jaw once again, he had let go of my arms from behind my back and wrapped them around my shoulders and his hands had gone up into my hair.

Placing both of my hands firmly upon his chest, I looked up into his eyes and pushed him as hard as I could away from me. “No, actually there isn’t anything going on here. Nothing more than you and I being really good friends Shannon.” I rasped out.

“Hold on a second? Are you fucking kidding me Eliza! Were you not just standing here having the same experience I was? It seemed to me that you were enjoying yourself. Oh yeah, and a little FYI, you called me Shann, Sweetheart! That has to mean something! Please! Don’t do this…”

“Ok, yes, I called you… that! It was a mistake. I didn’t mean it! I am sorry. What do you expect to happen to me, when you start kissing me the way you do! I haven’t been with a guy in fucking years, literally years! I’m fucking hormonal ok! But there is nothing going on here, and there is no us. You are leaving to go home to LA in a little over a week and I am staying here to live my life. You will go home to yours and have your fun, party and find some sweet single young model with no baggage and I will have been just some pathetic damsel in distress you may/may not have had a non-fling with back east that you know deep down you are better off without. What good could possibly come from anything going on between us, if all that you are going to do anyway, is leave me behind to pick up the pieces of a shattered life by myself with a psychotic ex making sure that every waking moment of my life is spent completely and totally alone or consumed with thoughts of how he is going to fuck with the people I care about that day! Yeah that gives you a great reason to want to be with me. I am not expecting anything from you, no promises, no guarantees, no strings, I just… I …. Alright, here’s the thing, I know myself well enough to know that I can’t get by without you in my life anymore. So I am asking if we could at least be friends. Please, I need you…” I begged as a stray tear ran down my face. Shannon reached a hand over and gently wiped the tears from my face.

Shannon pulled his hand back and we had turned around at this point and started the short walk along the beach back to my car. The sun was setting and the air was cooler, I noticed the tide had begun to come in. The seagulls were landing and taking off all around us as if nothing at all were happening around them. I was waiting for Shannon to respond to what I had said, and the suspense was killing me. He stopped short, bent down and started to dig around in the sand pulling something out with his fingers then jogging towards the water, where he rinsed off whatever it was he had in his hand. He turned around slowly looking up at me with a small smile as he wiped the object on his slightly sandy jeans. I stood and waited for him in the same spot he had left me. Holding his hand out towards me I looked at what he held in his hand, it was a sand dollar. Most times you would find them broken or chipped, but this one was whole, and I had always thought they were beautiful...

“The last thing I ever wanted to do was to push you into anything you weren’t ready for Eliza. And now maybe looking back at things, that’s exactly what I did. I am really very sorry. Sometimes I can’t help but to go for what it is I want, and I wanted to be with you. I can see now that was a mistake, and I can only hope that you will accept my deepest apology.” Lifting the Sand dollar towards me in what I guess was supposed to be a peace offering of sorts. “I would love to be friends, I don’t know if I could go back to having my life without you in it either. It wouldn’t seem normal, and quite honestly, I don’t think I could go a day without talking to you. Just for the record, I am not giving up on you Eliza Cahrter. With that, he handed the sand dollar over to me and leaned in giving me a kiss on the cheek.

“Now, friend, are you ready to get back home? “ Shannon asked.

“Mhmm. Let’s go, and it’s my turn to cook tonight.” I told him.

Putting his hand on his hip and leaning toward me, I slipped my arm through and we walked arm and arm together back to my car, not knowing if I would be able to actually follow through with what I had just told Shannon it was that I wanted. Because the second I said it, I had that familiar feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach, like I had last night when I had lied to him….I began to wonder to myself if maybe it wasn’t too late to change my mind, but then again, what good would that do either one of us in the end. Absolutely none, and that may have been the saddest part of all.