Redefine Me, Redesign Me

“I never told anyone before,” Ellie mused her cheek pressed against Alex’s chest. She still hadn’t moved from his lap, they’d only readjusted themselves to be more comfortable.

One of his legs were hanging off the couch foot flat on the floor while his other leg was stretched out along the couch. Her legs were either side of him knees slightly bent her body firmly held against him as his arms continued to hold her.

“What do you mean?” Alex asked in response to her statement. He was confused to say the least.

Ellie shrugged her shoulders and fiddled absentmindedly with the hem of Alex shirt behind his back.

“Everyone in town knew about the accident they knew the stuff that was in the paper which really wasn’t much. But no one ever bothered to ask me what I remembered from the accident,” she shrugged again her tone edging on dismay, complete disbelief that no one had wondered if she remembered anything about the accident at all.

“They just kept telling me, you’ve been in an accident. We’re going to get you out, you’re going to be alright,” her tone was bitter now as she remembered her reaction. As soon as she was awake enough to realize what they were saying, to realize what was going on. “I reached for Grams’ hand I was going to tell her I told you so,” she let out an unamused breath of laughter, “I told you we were going to make it,” she mocked herself.

“I didn’t even get the words out before I realized she was dead,” she said with a note of finality.

Alex’s arms had been holding her progressively tighter as she continued fingers gripping into her sides like holding her would fix it.

Ellie wasn’t going to cry again, not for a while anyway. She’d cried out everything she had.

“I couldn’t control myself, after that,” she recalled her tone sounding mater-of-fact now, “I screamed and thrashed around. The EMTs and Firefighters and Cops were all trying to calm me down, but I kept carrying on. I blacked out before they even got me out of the car, lost too much blood. They told me I’d made my wound worse, that the metal piece of whatever that had gotten in me had worked its way deeper and caused more damage.”

I strange noise escaped Alex that made Ellie worried. She lifted her head and leaned back enough to look at his face, concerned that she had said too much.

His eyes were red around the edges, she already knew that he’d been crying, but he looked truly pained. Ellie couldn’t figure out why.

“You’ve kept all of this in?” he asked, “Since you were sixteen?”

His hands were moving to hold either side of her face as she nodded and shrugged. The pain in his face grew only slightly.

“No one ever asked. They just kept telling me what they knew, they never asked what I knew,” she explained but then thought better of it, “Actually my therapist asked me once what I remembered about that day so I guess you could incorporate that into what I remembered about the accident.”

She was shrugging again and Alex was shaking his head in disbelief.

“Everyone was on edge about the whole thing. I didn’t talk for a while. I lost all of my friends except Casey, Brady and Collin. My mom didn’t like them because they were older than me so they weren’t allowed to visit. I know that no one bothered to ask because no one wanted to know. Who was I to ruin it for them? Who was I to tell them that the police report was wrong? That Grams hadn’t died on impact.”

Alex’s thumbs ran slowly across her cheeks as he listened to her talk not saying anything in response. He knew that Ellie was just talking through it now. She didn’t actually need him to say anything, not yet.

“I wondered for a while after that if they just tell people that they die on impact. Do you think that actually happens or that it was just something that someone came up with one day to make their families feel better?”

Ellie was letting out more humorless laughs and then sobering up quickly and closing her eyes.

“They kept me in a drug induced coma for three weeks,” Ellie mumbled without opening her eyes, “They said it was so I could heal more quickly but I know that it was because every time I woke up I was screaming and flailing around ripping out my IVs. When I wasn’t doing that I was basically catatonic. I remember over hearing the doctor talking to my mom, he said they were going to have to move me to the psych ward if I kept it up. She just told him to sedate me and that I’d come to my senses eventually.”

“I didn’t get to go to her funeral,” Ellie sighed feeling a lump form in her throat again. It was the one thing she regretted just as much as falling asleep in the car, not attending the funeral.

“That wasn’t your fault,” Alex told her softly causing her to open her eyes to look at him.

“It wasn’t,” he insisted.

“I was acting bat-shit crazy,” Ellie informed him, “my doctor wanted to put me in a psych ward. I might have been able to go to the funeral if I had kept my shit together for two more days. I overreacted.”

Alex frowned at how angry she sounded.

“Elle you had just lost someone that meant a lot to you, you had just been in your first car accident, you had nearly died yourself and you think you were overreacting?” he asked clearly confused.

“I heard them,” Ellie shrugged, “Everyone was saying it. Everyone agreed that I was overacting. The town drama queen.”

Alex’s expression grew angry at that.

“You listen to me,” he said slowly, “It isn’t up to anyone of them to tell you how to grieve, and they don’t get to decide that. Like every other choice you make in this life that is for you and you alone to decide.”

Ellie’s eyebrows shot up at how serious and equal parts furious he sounded.

“You don’t think I was overreacting?” she asked bemused.

He shook his head from side to side slowly never breaking eye contact.

Ellie let out a breath, a sigh really. A small sound escaped her lips and she realized it was a sound of relief. She realized that she was beyond relieved to finally hear someone tell her that she wasn’t crazy. That she had done what she could. That she had dealt with her Grams death in a way that was acceptable.

She let out a breathy laugh and the corners of her mouth twitched upward slightly.

She looked to Alex’s face and saw his eyebrows furrowed in confusion and she just laughed again, covering her face and throwing herself backwards onto the couch cushion behind her.

“Did,” Alex began and then shook his head to get his thoughts straight, “Did I miss something?” he asked with his hands on her thighs.

Ellie stopped laughing and sighed contently. She lifted herself up on her elbows to look at him finding him still confused.

“No one has ever said that,” she told him, “Not even one person has ever told me that I was just grieving.”

Alex was beginning to grow disgusted with every person that Ellie had ever known back in this town that she had grown up with. What kind of people were they?

Ellie must have been able to read his mind because she quickly continued.

“There were some people that never said anything to me about it, they didn’t act like I was someone to be avoided. They didn’t give me weird looks, but still,” she shrugged, “They never condoned it. My family just wanted to remind me that it wasn’t my fault. They kept saying it over and over every time they talked to me and I didn’t say anything back they would remind me it wasn’t my fault and leave it at that.”

She knew it was a poor justification but she didn’t know how to explain it right.

“Mallory came the closest to understanding, but then again she was my little sister, she wasn’t going to avoid me, she wanted to be up under me all the time. She would sit in my room or follow me around just prattling on about her life and telling me that she’d seen someone I knew and they asked how I was.”

Ellie remembered that kind of stuff clearly. Mallory would mention that one of her friends had asked about her and Ellie wouldn’t respond at all. Mallory would just click her tongue and nod like she’d just told her something important. “I’ll tell them you’re doing much better,” Mallory would say nodding with certainty, “You might even go back to school soon.” Ellie would roll her eyes at that and eventually she caught on that that was why Mallory was saying those things. She just wanted to get a reaction out of her.

Alex was nodding like he assumed that would be the case. Like he knew Mallory would be the one person that wasn’t completely heartless.

“So the scar,” he said trying to change the subject, Ellie seemed to be thinking too much she was getting quiet, “It’s from the accident?” he asked moving his hand from her thigh to her side.

Ellie watched his hand as his thumb rubbed over a small section of her scar that was still hidden under her shirt. She couldn’t really feel the touch, not the way you’re supposed to at least. She’d had a lot of nerve damage and could only really feel it if there was enough pressure applied. She could still feel the tug on the skin around it. It usually made her antsy to have someone touch it. She would get squeamish if she accidently brushed against it, afraid that it would start hurting again. But Alex was being gentle and she didn’t mind it as much.

“Yeah,” she said nodding, “in all of the chaos something jabbed into me and broke off.”

“And you don’t celebrate your birthday because it’s the day your Grams passed away,” Alex more or less stated sounding pretty certain that was the case.

Ellie nodded again still watching as Alex’s fingers began to roam over her scar feeling out where the edges were.

“And you didn’t want your birthday present because…” he trailed off and his fingers stopped. When Ellie looked up he was looking to her expectantly.

Ellie shrugged, “The last gift I received sort of ended badly,” she responded, “I figured it was best to swear off them.”

Alex nodded and his fingers began moving again.

“So is this part of why you don’t date too or is that a completely different ordeal?” he asked softly.

Ellie chuckled, “You sure you want to know everything tonight?” she asked, “It won’t be too much all at once?”

Alex shook his head.

“You’re not going to decide that I’m too much of a hassle? Not worth the chase?”

Alex scoffed at her and rolled his eyes, Ellie took that as a no.

“After a while people stopped talking about the accident but they never really stopped talking about me. I took off for a college that required me to live on campus and tried to start over. I met new people but never really made friends, apparently people like to talk about your past to get to know you and I didn’t want to tell anyone anything about Sycamore. I met Hunter and we started dating. I wasn’t ever going to tell him about Grams. He knew she meant a lot to me and he knew she died. He knew that I didn’t celebrate my birthday and that always confused him. He asked my mom one day and she told him. They both seemed to agree that I needed to ‘get over it’ and move on. So he wasn’t very supportive on my bad days anymore and he was completely over my disappearing act on my birthday. He was already getting progressively more hostile at the time anyway and it all got to be too much I guess.”

Ellie looked to Alex who was frowning with that angry look again and she continued.

“I never really wanted to get that close to anyone after Grams anyway. I was afraid that I would lose someone again and it would be just as bad. Eventually I got over that and I let someone in. That was Hunter. I-I loved him. I thought I loved him. But having someone that I trusted treat me that way. Having him disregard all of my feelings the way he did just resigned me to believing that I didn’t need anyone. That I was going to just be alone and I was okay with that in fact I used it for my own advantage. I told myself that if Hunter could turn on me the way he did then anyone could. I used it to reaffirm my belief that I could never trust anyone that much. That I could never tell anyone else about Grams because it would scare them away,” she finished sighing and sitting up again letting Alex pull her back into his lap.

“But you told me,” he pointed out his hands linking behind her back.

Ellie smiled at him and nodded.

“Yeah, you came into my life and screwed a lot of things up for me,” she mock complained.

“I’m glad you told me,” he told her sincerity coloring his tone.

Ellie’s smile widened, “Yeah I’m pretty glad I told you too.”

And she meant it. She had never told anyone the whole story and now that she had she felt so much lighter now. Not only had she gotten it off her chest but she had trusted someone again. Really trusted them. And he was still sitting there with her, holding her even.

Alex grinned back at her as she looped her arms around his neck and mushing her face into his shoulder both hugging him and hiding her face.

Ellie yawned into his shoulder and before she could even react he was calling out something about going to bed in an announcer’s voice and lifting her up carrying her up the stairs to her room. She giggled the whole way without even attempting to fight him choosing to cling to him tighter and just let herself feel happy.