Chapter 16: Cleaning Up

Joshwin

I crumbled to my knees feeling like I had been punched in my gut and had the wind completely knocked out of my lungs. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even think. Her regret and despair hit me like a thousand bricks weighing me down. My head fell against Elvie's knees and the smell of the blood scorched my nose. I had to move my face in another direction  because of the stench. I couldn't bear the smell of her virginal blood, knowing that I wasn't the one who had caused her to bleed. A groan of pain escaped my lips, as I fought to clear my head to have just one coherent thought. I needed to fix this. I needed to find a way to amend this completely fucked up situation. Though, the only thought that seemed to live in my head was useless. Why the hell did I stop yesterday at the riverbank? Why didn't we make love yesterday? This wouldn't have the same consequence if we did. We wouldn’t lose our connection, our bond wouldn't break. In the back of my mind, I registered the fact that I would be in so much pain had it already been broken.

I forced myself to my feet again, fighting to take a few breaths of much needed oxygen. I needed a clear head. I needed to do something. I grabbed my hair like I was trying to yank it out by the roots. Maybe, that would give me some room to think.

I noticed Blake in the corner shifting his weight. He was staring at me warily. Well, he could be as uncomfortable as he wanted.  I actually wanted to make him even suffer for what he did. I wanted to kill him. Somehow, I realized killing him probably wouldn't help anything right now. However, if Elvie hadn't been here, I might have done it. I might have murder on my conscience.

I shifted my gaze to look at Elvie's empty face. Her vibrant green eyes had lost their glow and her skin looked pale and gaunt. Looking at her, I knew what I needed to do. I needed to help her because she was my responsibility and I would be responsible. If I was going to save anything in my life, I needed to start with her. I would make sure that no one knew about this. All I could do was hope that this didn't break our bond. So far, I still felt her, but it was out of my hands.

With a sudden new energy and with an astonishingly determined mind, I started to carry out my plan. I would cover this up. No one would ever have to know this happened. I just needed to work around the hellish pain.

“Elvie... Elvie look at me!” I demanded. “Look at me.” Her ghost-like eyes moved to mine. “I'll take care of this... I promise.” When I said the last word, I remembered the last promise that I had made to her. I had promised her that we would make love soon. How ironic. I forcefully shoved the useless thought aside to work through my plan.

“Where's your bathroom?” I sneered at Blake, who was still hovering in the corner.

“What are you going to do?” He looked at Elvie with concerned and even loving eyes. I hated it. Like he cared about her. It was insulting.

“Bathroom?” I repeated coldly. He pointed at a second door in the large room.

“In there,” he answered quietly. “What are you going to do?”

“Clean her up,” I answered without even looking in his direction. I turned my full attention to Elvie. “Can you walk or do you want me to carry you?”

“I can walk,” Elvie responded in a tiny voice.

“Come on.” I supported her weight as she rose from the bed, clutching the sheets tighter around her body as she took tiny steps towards the bathroom.

I closed the door behind us. I didn't need to have Blake as unwanted company for this. He had done so much damage and he didn't understand any of it. Well, they both had. However, as much I wanted to yell and scream at her, I was worried that it would shatter her. She looked so fragile and breakable.

The bathroom was very modern, all glass and mirrors. The place was cold to me and had absolutely no feeling of love and family. It reminded me of a hospital. I hated it, so I focused on Elvie instead.

“Elvie, you need to have a shower. You reek of him and everyone's going to smell it.” She nodded in compliance, while indicating that she understood. I opened the glass door to the shower and turned the water on. I checked all the bottles in the cubicle for some kind of neutral soap, but all I saw were guy products.

“Blake....” I hissed. He answered from the other side of the door. “Do you have soap that doesn't smell like anything?” I felt ridiculous asking him, but it was important. Another manly scent on her would only complicate things more. We were already in deep shit.

“Sure, just a sec,” he answered. A few moments later, there was a soft knock on the door before it opened and Blake handed me an unmarked bottle through the opening. “My dad has multiple allergies. This is completely neutral.” He gave me a wry smile, but I closed the door in his face again. I was desperate to get this over with and get her home.

Elvie still had the sheet around her, covering her body like it was going to cover what she did to me. I worked around the thoughts of them being together because going down that road would make me throw up, or even more likely, make me lose my temper and that was not good right now. I needed to keep a clear head. It was a tightrope to walk. I was so angry, so hurt and so betrayed, but all I wanted was to get this done and get out of here. I wanted to wake up from the nightmare.

“Elvirina...” I tried to call her attention to me because her eyes had drifted off to nowhere again. Her defeated eyes found mine. I smiled at her the best that I could, but her pain was making it hard.

I took a moment to consider all the ways that people would suspect that something was wrong. His scent on her could be sensed, but a shower would eradicate that. Now, the blood… that was a problem. I knew what needed to be done. Staring at her defeated pose and devastated eyes, she was in no state of mind to help me.  Even thinking about it made me gag, but it needed to be done. Just in case they smelled blood on her, they needed to smell it on me too. “You have to trust me when I do this.” Without thinking about it, I put my arm tight around her shoulder and made her lean into me where her head fell trustingly against my shoulder. I let my free hand find its way thought the layers of sheets covering her, found her thigh and moved two fingers in between her legs. I swallowed back hard to push the bile that I could taste on the back of my tongue. “It's okay, love,” I reassured her, but I couldn't stop the nauseating feeling that I was molesting her. I continued pressing two fingers up against her. I cringed. Right now, I would rather take a branding iron to my chest than have to do this.

I pulled my hand out to check – nothing. I breathed heavily knowing that I needed to go deeper. “I have to try again,” I explained. I found my way back through the sheets and moved my fingers between her legs again. Elvie spread them slightly and her face pushed into my neck. She let out a tiny sob. I frantically hoped that she understood this needed to be done in order to protect her.

I held my breath and moved my fingers inside her. She winced and I was close to dry heaving. “I'm so sorry,” I whispered, knowing she had to be sore. The mere thought of it broke my heart all over. I fought to stop the tears from finding a way past the lump in my throat. I lost. I pulled my hand back out to stare at my finger that were now scarlet with the evidence. Elvie had made love for the first time and I hadn't.

Another set of tears escaped the corner of my eyes and left a wet trail down my face. While I was staring at my fingers completely frozen, the nausea and the pain that I felt was deafening.

The room was getting damp from the hot water running and Elvie's quiet sobs pulled me out of my tailspin of agony. I needed to do this. I simply needed to shut down my mind and get over this. I released my hold around Elvie and pulled down my pants exposing my thigh. I wiped Elvie's blood on the inside on my leg, close to my groin. The dark red transferred in half dried splotches to the skin. I pulled my pants back up, washed my hands thoroughly and turned my attention to my soul mate. I suddenly realized that I wasn't the one who felt sick. Elvie was. She hugged her arms around her stomach and crumbled forward. I barely had the lid of the toilet up before she puked her guts into it. I fought to keep her long hair free of her face and sick. At the same time, I was making sure that she didn't fall. I heard her whimper a few ‘I'm sorrys’ between her spitting into the toilet. The smell was sour and foul.

As she stood up again, she looked so brittle with a thin sheen of sweat covering her face. I pulled the sheet off her shoulders and gently pushed her into the shower. I didn't want to look at her naked frame, but a suddenly unnamed need overcame me and I had to sneak a peak of her body. Perhaps it was stupidity, perhaps it was curiosity, but I guess that was the million dollar question. I had never seen her naked before and it happening now was definitely morbidly ironic. For a few torturing moments, I ogled her body. She was painfully beautiful, but now she could never truly be mine. It was all gone. Agony ripped through my chest, while slamming into my stomach. I forcefully tore my eyes from that stunning shape.

I handed her the soap and told her to wash thoroughly. I needed to have a word with Blake.

“Where are her clothes?” I asked briskly when I was in his room again. He pointed to a neat pile folded on the bed. I took them and let my nose sink into them. They didn't smell too much like him, basically the smell was innocent enough and could be explained as some of her classmates.

“What are you going to do?” Blake asked.

“Cover it up and I don't want you anywhere near her!” I stared menacingly at him. “Are we clear?” The words lingered violently in the air, but he didn't answer.

“Here.” He handed me a towel that had been on the bed next to the Elvie's clothes. “It's my mom's. It won't smell much like me.”

Wordlessly, I snatched it and entered the bathroom again to check on Elvie. She was still in the shower with burning water trailing down her body. The heat of the water was turning her skin an alarming red.

“Did you wash?” I kept my voice soft. I was afraid yelling would make her vanish into her shell even more.

“Yes.” Her reply was so soft that I could barely hear it. I breathed though my nose to check the severity of the blood smell. It was almost undetectable now.

“Here.” I handed her the towel when she stepped out of the shower. She took it and held it still folded to her chest, with water dripping on the floor. I tried to keep a patient mind, but struggling in the back of my brain with the fact that we had to go home.

I took the towel from her and wrapped it around her shoulders, rubbing her arms in attempt to help her dry off. “You have to help me here,” I begged. Her eyes flickered to me, but there was no life in them. It was like a part of her light or spirit was gone. It torched my heart. “You should get dry... and put your clothes on.” I chewed my lip shortly. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Suddenly, painful light flared in her eyes. “No!” She gasped.

Clearly, she read more into my question than I had intended. I couldn't help wondering about the assumption that she had drawn. “I'll take care of this for now. No one will need to know.” I paused. “Do you want to be alone to put your clothes back on?” I redirected my question.

She shook her head and started to dry herself. I turned away, so that I wouldn’t look at her. She found her clothes and pulled them on.

When I turned again, she almost looked like her old self that is if you didn't see her eyes and the vacant expression on her face. Her hair hung wet and tangled far down her back, while soaking drops of water into her shirt. She stared at herself in the mirror and tears were pooling in her eyes. They quickly turned into torrents that streamed down her face.

“Don't cry,” I said aimlessly. My arms felt so heavy at my side.

“What have I done?” She whispered with her voice trembling.

I wanted to scream 'the worst fucking thing that you could possibly do me', but I held my tongue. She put her hands to her face and cried heavily into them. Her frame was quivering from the sobbing and she was going to pieces in front of my very eyes. The catatonic stupor was gone and she was falling apart. Her pain increased and it was like a knife stabbing repeatedly through my heart. Besides that, I was terrified. What would happen to us?

I put my arms around her and held her face against my chest. I stroked her back, hoping it would help calm her down.

“We have to go home,” I whispered after a few long moments.

“I can't.”

“There's no way around it.” I shook my head in defeat.

“I'm so ashamed.” She sobbed against my shirt.

“I know, but we have to go. I'll protect you.”

“You shouldn't. You shouldn’t even be helping me. Please don’t put yourself through this, Joshwin. You should leave me.” I didn't answer that one because part of me would do exactly what she asked.

“Please stop crying. It will ruin you face and everybody will be able to tell that you've been crying.” I knew that her swollen eyes would be the first things that Sibilla saw when we walked through the door. I took her soft face in my hands and lifted it towards me. I wiped her tears with my palm and worked up a smile. “I know you’re in pain, but it's better that nobody else knows about this.” I arched a brow as I continued to catch her falling tears. She nodded fervently, snorted a few times and breathed deeply. I felt her calm down some, but a few tears still made it past the rim of her eyes.

“That's my girl.”

She snorted again and nodded. She hugged her arms around my waist and leaned into my neck. It felt like old times, a gesture so simple and yet so heartbreaking. She did it exactly the same way that she used to and the way that she would have done it four hours ago, before she bombed our lives into oblivion, into twisted and torn pieces that were impossible to recognize and put back together.

“Thank you,” she whispered. What was I supposed to say, 'you're welcome'? We just stood there for a long minute.

“Let's go.” I cracked the door open and the room was completely quiet. I wondered shortly if he had left. His massive house was so quiet.

I held her hand and pulled her after me as I started to make our way through the unfamiliar house.

We ran into Blake in the enormous downstairs living room where he sat like a stone with an unreadable expression. To my surprise, he spoke. “I can't begin to say how sorry I am... I never knew... Er, I never figured and I still don’t know the meaning or consequence that this has for her and for that, I'm sorry.” His words came out with a surprising sincerity. He meant what he said. No doubt.

I swallowed. “You should be.”

At the final set of stairs, Elvie wobbled unsteadily at her feet. I lifted her into my arms to make sure that she didn't fall. I was at the main entrance and about to open the door. “Where are her shoes?” I was surprised that my mind had registered that fact, but my subconscious knew that she would have taken them off the first chance that she got.

“In my car... I think.” He disappeared before I could see where he had gone. I opened the door and carried her to my car. I put her down, so she could climb in. It looked like she was slowly returning to the zombie-like lethargy that I had found her in. She was in shock.

“Here,” Blake said. I closed my eyes for a second. I never wanted to hear his voice again.

“Don't you go near her, ever again,” I threatened, before I snatched her shoes and tossed them into my car. “If you do, I will beat the living daylights out of you. Got that?” I hissed. I waited for a few menacing moments before climbing into the driver’s seat and driving away.