The Kids From Yesterday

12:45am

Parking Lot of Arena

My Chemical Romance’s Bus

December 26th, 2004

Ellie, what the hell…?

Ellie came to her senses and jumped off of Frank like she was on fire. Her skin was tingling and she didn’t feel tired, but they just crossed a line and Ellie didn’t know if she liked it or not.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I just—shit, Ellie?” Frank tried to explain, he couldn’t form words to show his regret—maybe because he didn’t.

Ellie didn’t say anything; she just shook her head, and wrapped her arms around her torso.
The bus started.

Ellie stayed where she was, she swayed a little bit while the bus was taken out of park, but other than that, she just stood there, looking at Frank with a deer like expression.

Frank stood up and was in front of her in an instant. He looked down at the girl, his face contorted in worry and curiosity.

Ellie avoided his gaze and stood frozen where she was, staring into his chest.

“Ellie—Elliot, look at me,” he pleaded quietly.

Ellie couldn’t bring herself to look up. There were too many thoughts swirling around in her head, too many chemicals being produced by her brain that were making her feel light headed, angry, happy, and about to cry all at the same time. It was confusing.

She didn’t know if she should sit down, yell, keep on making out with him, or sink to the ground and sob all the tears she had been holding in for the past five months.
She sat down on the opposite couch and brought her knees up to her chest, ignoring the pang coming from her still injured sided.

“Don’t do that Ellie, don’t shut down,” Frank mumbled and crouched down in front of her.
She couldn’t avoid his gaze this time because he was right there once again.

“I’m not shutting down, I’m trying to figure everything out,” She says clearly becoming frustrated, “I—ugh, I thought that this was it, you know? Like I had finally got my shit together, and now… you go and do this, and I’m not sure if I have it all together because God dammit Frankie, I wasn’t exactly protesting…” She pauses, “I don’t even know anymore, you just confused the hell out of me.”
She waits for him to say something. He just sits there, opening and closing his mouth. Ellie beats him to it.

FIRST RULE OF STREET LIFE ELLIE! DON’T ADMIT TO ANYTHING, NO MATTER WHAT IT MAY BE.

“I don’t want to get attached,” it comes out small and unsure. Ellie so desperately wanted to get attached, but just like the tug in her stomach that she had for Frank, there was an alarm in her brain that was pulling her in the opposite direction.

Goddamnit Elliot, you’re in for it now.

“Why not?” Frank asks, he had kneeled close to her on the couch and had both of his arms on each side of her.

Ellie ignored the voice in her head screaming at her to shut the fuck up. She had to get this off her chest before it exploded and killed her. If she didn’t confess soon she was going to die and everyone is going to be wiping pieces of Ellie off the walls the bus.

That’s disgusting, Elliot.

She took a deep breath, and ignored the voice in her head.

“Because I lose everyone that get I get attached to, that’s why I left home,” she lets her head fall to her knees.

“You lost someone,” Frank mumbled.

Ellie nodded into her knees.

“My twin brother and my dad, ugh I sound like a crappy soap opera,” she tries to laugh out. It comes out hollow.

“If it makes you feel any better, all soap operas are crappy,” Frank reassures, “What happened to them?”

Ellie looks up from her knees and unfolds herself from them. She crosses them under her and takes a deep breath.

“They both were killed in freak accidents within about a year of each other, my dad died at the bank when some idiot decided to rob the place and my dad was always the ‘hero’ type, always trying to save the day and shit,” Ellie began to pick at the hem of her jeans, “well, it got him shot and he bled out.”
Frank just gaped at her.

Fucking Christ…

“My brother though… we were really close, I mean we shared the goddamn womb… we were walking to school, and he was slow that morning, and he wasn’t really paying attention, it was a Tuesday, so I left him behind to go meet Marigold—” her bottom lip began to tremble, and her voice became thick, “the kid driving didn’t like us anyhow—Elias got hit by a pick-up truck, the impact snapped his neck and killed him instantly,” she gulped and stared down on her fingers that had pieces of jean intertwined in them, “Mom and I already lost dad last summer, and now we had bury Elias too… she stopped being a mother after Eli died, I couldn’t stay with her after graduation, she didn’t even come to graduation, I grabbed what I could carry, left a note and well, yeah…”

Ellie wasn’t a loud crier, her voice betrayed her and her eyes became puffy, and of course tears had to be spilled, but she didn’t sob. Unless you know, she’s screaming at her dead brother…

7:34 am

Webster Townhouse

Boston, Massachusetts

May 4th, 2004

“Eli, I swear to God let’s go!” Ellie yelled from the porch, she subconsciously pulled on her shorts; they were once a pair of Levi’s. Her knobby knees were as knobby as ever being exposed, but Marigold somehow convinced her to cut down a pair of jeans into a pair of shorts.

“Elliot, do not say His name in vain, so help me,” She heard her mother yell from inside the house, “Elias Jude! Hurry up!”

Ellie rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and cocked her hip to the side with impatience and irritability.

She mumbled something about having a lazy ass brother as he finally walked out of the house looking disheveled. His dark hair sticking up in places, his clothes were wrinkled, and he was still rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Jesus Eli, just because we live two minutes away from the damn school, doesn’t mean we can’t be there early,” she grumbled, “Bye mom!” She yelled and led the way down the walk way of their town house, their neighbors waving at them as they walked past heading towards school.

“How are you so energetic in the morning? You completely defy all the properties of being a senior and having Senioritis,” Elias complains walking next to her.

“I don’t have Senioritis like the rest of you guys,” Ellie teases.

Elias looked a lot like their father, while Elliot was petite like their mother, Elias was tall, lean, and had
a mop dark shaggy hair, the only appearance trait the two of them shared was their eyes. They both had their mother’s eyes.

They walk across a street that leads directly to the school, it’s only about a hundred yards up, then they’re at the cross walk that leads to the student parking lot.

“Ellie, what the hell?” Marigold shouts from the parking lot.

“Sorry! Dumbass over here took forever to get his ass into gear this morning,” She yells back and leaves her brother behind and runs up to her best friend.

“You look damn good though!” She shouts, “I knew those shorts would look fucking good!”

“With me and my knobby knees,” she laughs as she approaches Marigold.

“And that tank-top, but really, it had to be your—” Marigold trails off and brings her hand to her mouth.

She heard the screeching of tires behind her and the gasp that gets stuck in Marigold’s throat. She turned around to see a blue Silverado right in the middle of the cross walk, the driver climbing out looking absolutely scared shitless and her brother ten feet away from the truck lying motionless in the middle of the street.

“Eli!” She screams, she dumps her bag at Marigold’s feet, and sprints towards her brother. He was lying in awkward angles, his neck looking unnatural and his eyes still open with just the glint of sleepiness behind them, “Eli!” She screams again, falling to her knees next to him cupping his face as gently as she could without disturbing his neck, “Elias, come on, answer me god dammit!” she screeches.

“Oh my god,” Marigold says running up to her with her cell phone in her ear, “I’m calling an ambulance,”

“Elias, FUCKING ANSWER ME YOU STUBBORN ASSHOLE,” Ellie hits his chest as she screams and begins to sob.

“Ellie,” she hears from behind her, a warm hand rests on her shoulder, “Ellie—I think…”

“No, shut up Marigold, he’s just being stupid,” she chokes out, “Eli, come on, you can’t do this to me you asshole, wake up, answer me—please,” she whimpers with a handful of his shirt in her hand.
She hears sirens somewhere in the background.

“Cara, can you get to the school, like right now?” Marigold says frantically, “Just get here, Eli’s been hurt!”

Ellie rested her forehead on her brother’s unmoving chest, crying. Marigold kneeled next to her and wrapped an arm around her, shushing her.

“Eli—Elias—you can’t leave me too,” Ellie sobbed into the boys chest.
Then she’s being pulled away from her brother by a medic.

“No, let me go, you fucking piece of shit, let me go!”

“Ma’am we need to—”

“Ellie, oh my Lord, Ellie what happened?” mother asked frantically running up to her, “Elliot answer me, what happened?”

“He—I- mom don’t—mommy,” she tore from the medic, and latched onto her mother and sobbed into shoulder.

“What happened to my baby, Marigold?” She asks frantically and held onto Ellie.

“Cara, he got hit…” Marigold pointed to the truck behind them.
By that point Cara Webster had turned hysterical along with her daughter.

There was a crowd surrounding the scene, the school bell had rung minutes previous but no one was going to class. Everyone was just standing there, including the driver who hit Elias. He was staring completely useless, he wasn’t reacting--he was. Just. Staring.

There were murmurs floating around of ‘What happened?’ ‘Isn’t that the band kid?’ ‘That’s Kyle Richards’s truck…?’ ‘Holy shit, that’s Elias.’

The rest of that day was a blur for Ellie, she didn’t go to school, she went to the hospital with her mother, and waited for the inevitable piece of news. Her brother was dead, killed in the same way as her father: freak accident.

Elliot wondered why these things happen to people. She asked God, but of course he didn’t answer. He never answers in the way she expects Him to. She just wondered—while being a hermit—why horrible things happen to not so horrible people, and why in the hell would they happen twice to the same people. At this point, she just couldn’t comprehend it.

She was quiet for the rest of the week, she didn’t speak, she didn’t eat, she didn’t sleep, she turned into a zombie, she didn’t interact, and she didn’t try to make jokes— nothing. She didn’t go to school Wednesday or Thursday, but she managed to pull her carcass out of bed on Friday morning. And she found herself waiting for Eli out on the porch. That was when it hit her…

“He’s dead, Ellie.” She whispered to herself.

And slowly made her way to school.
-=-=

“Hey, hey—you’re okay.” Frank whispered to Ellie when she folded in on herself, knees to forehead, arms tucked tightly into her chest. It was closest Frank has ever seen a human being turn into an actual spherical ball…

He got up from his position on the floor and sat next to Ellie and took her into his arms whispering things to calm her down.

Mikey walked out and didn’t know what to think of the scene. Frank sent him a look that said ‘I’ll tell you later’. Mikey nodded and hurriedly grabbed whatever he was supposed to grab and walked back to the bunk area, closing the door that separated the front lounge from The Hallway of Bunks.

“Why are you so nice to me?” Ellie asked after about twenty minutes, she didn’t really cry, she just couldn’t talk. If she were to start talking again, she would've started screaming, resulting in everyone running out of their bunks sleepily wondering why Ellie was screaming at one o'clock in the morning.

She stayed quiet to calm down really...

Frank thought for a moment, trying to come up with an answer.

“When I first saw you that night in Seattle, I thought ‘this girl is way too young to be out here alone, she’s too small, too juvenile—not fucking old enough ’, and after we got back from the hospital I figured that you needed someone to care, someone to try and help you restore your faith in humanity, fuck was I right, but now I know that it’s going to be a lot harder than a few nice words and a warm bed—you’re going to need—”

“I swear to fucking God Frank, if you say love, I’m going to hit you,” Ellie cut him off, moving her head away from his shoulder and giving him that look that only Ellie can give.

“It’s true though,” he grinned; Ellie slapped his thigh lightly and smirked at him, “You need a lot of love.” He hummed and grabbed her again and held her, “Love is all you need,” he sang.

Elliot, this is going to backfire so bad… you ignorant little shit.