He turned his face to her, and she stifled the scream that rose in her throat. His piercing blue eyes were gone, the sockets filled with muddy whites, as though he were a blind man. Dark blood ran from both nostrils, slid in dual lines down his face to embrace his upper lip.
“Jesus! Eli!” she yelled, and without thinking pulled his long body to hers, embraced his trembling form. “Let it go, sweetie,” she sobbed into his chest, almost shouting in her fear. “Please let it go!”
Against her cheek, she felt his chest rise, then deflate. The thumping of his heart steadied and grew faint. A heavy breath slipped from him. The sheltering pocket of air surrounding them evaporated. The harsh sounds of the world poured in unfiltered. Wind rushed into her ears, the biting air snatched greedily at her arms and legs, a bitter chill smeared across the back of her neck as if traced by a ghostly hand.
His weight fell into her and she was barely able to lower him to the porch floorboards. She rested his head his eyes, his ghastly white eyes on the porch and rubbed his cheeks, pushed back his sweat-slicked hair. His eyes fluttered closed, and she rested a hand on his forehead. His skin was hot as fire. She pulled a blue handkerchief from his hip pocket – the one he always kept tucked there – and wiped the blood from his nose and lips. Without thinking, she kissed his temple, his cheeks. She sat back and waited.
“Eli?” she said.
After a few moments, his face softened, the strain left his forehead. Some of his color returned. He opened his eyes and she was sick with relief to see bright blue eyes staring back, a twinkle brewing deep within them. A smile curled his blood-smeared lips.
“Are you all right?” she asked, still worried but growing angry at the same time.
He nodded, then slipped his fingers behind her head and drew her gently to him.
They kissed, and she knew she would never love him.
Carrie pulled away, a hand on his chest. “You scared the shit out of me. What happened?’
He sat up and shrugged. “That was a long walk,” he said, as if in explanation. She silently swore at herself for not paying him more mind along the way.
He sat up straighter, rested his back against the chipped white paint of a porch beam. For a while they sat together in silence, watching the rain, and that was enough.
“You should get going,” she said finally, watching the gutters sluice water into flowerbeds. She held his hand and squeezed. “Eli, you shouldn’t ever kiss me again. Not like that.” She watched him closely, searching for a response. A stiffness; or anger, perhaps.
But it was like he’d simply disappeared, and in the place in which he sat rested a void.
He pulled his hand from hers and stood. He stepped into the downpour, was immediately drenched. He studied the horizon.
“You think I don’t know how to love you,” he said, his voice soft and broken amidst the harsh rhythm of the rain. She said nothing, unsure if she’d even heard him correctly. He twisted around and studied her, a quizzical look on his face, that crooked smile. “Or maybe love isn’t what you’re looking for.” He turned his back on her once more. His face tilted to the sky and the spitting gray clouds, as if searching for something lost. “At least I kept you dry,” he said. “I suppose there’s that.”
Without another word, or another look, he started home.
She watched him as he walked away. Watched until he was a rain-smeared blur of blue and blonde standing out against a distant copse of dark green firs, then vanish inside.
ELI FOUND A seat near the back of the church, a row empty but for a sour-looking pregnant woman he didn’t recognize and a rough-looking man in a suit but no tie. He figured them for distant cousins dragged in from a cross-state farm, bitching their way to the church in a beaten-down truck and a morning fight unsettled.
Someone tapped him hard on the shoulder, and he twisted around to see Henry Munson, one of Parker’s groomsmen (and all-around dickhead) staring down at him. Eli thought he looked a little drunk. His forehead was dotted with sweat, his toothy smile slippery.
“Hey man, what’s up?” Henry said. His too-wide grin and sunken eyes gave him the look of a malnourished jackal.
Eli nodded and said nothing. Henry rested a hand on his shoulder, his eyes darting around the room before finally settling once more, albeit restlessly, on Eli. “Listen man, the bride and groom are doing some quick pre-ceremony photos while they can. Just, you know, with friends and such. They don’t think they’ll have time after because of, uh, other obligations and whatever.”
Eli felt his pulse quicken but forced it to slow. He knew this day would be hard, but he was here for Carrie, whatever pain that may bring. “Sounds grand, have fun,” he said, not wanting to hear the request. Not wanting, truth be told, to be here at all. He began to feel the heat of Henry’s pressed palm making its way through the fabric of the thin suit, fought the urge to shrug it off.
“Yeah, well, Carrie wants you to come do a quick photo, dummy,” Henry said, finally removing his hand and taking a step back, as if to lead Eli away. “So, let’s go. They don’t have much time.”
Eli considered a moment, wanting to turn his back on Henry, to ignore the request and the slick weasel who’d brought it. He wanted to reject it, like he rejected the wedding. Like she’d rejected him. “I don’t…” he started, then stopped.
He sighed, dropped his gaze to his lap, large hands resting on his knees. He turned them over to study deeply-lined palms, searching for answers. He noticed, with the sudden heat of shame, how the cuffs of his brown suit coat settled inches high from his wrists, how frayed thread spilled from the left cuff, a permanent ink-stain soiled the milk-white shirt beneath.
Who am I to demand anything? he thought. And who am I really?
He considered a moment more, then stood. He noticed the quick stagger of uncertainty in Henry’s eyes as he rose almost a foot higher than the groomsman, whose smile had slid away to leave a twisted frown.
“When the hell’d you get so tall, man?” Henry said, then turned and walked quickly away, looking back only once to wave Eli after him.
Eli followed, wanting nothing more than to get all this over with; hoping that if he obliged he might find a moment alone with Carrie, offer reassurance of his support (despite it being feigned). He wanted her to be happy at any cost, even if he was part of the payment.
Henry led Eli through the foyer, then down a small hallway toward an office. Henry went through the door quickly, then let it swing back, nearly closing it behind him.
Eli heard laughter as he reached for the knob. Hesitated.
The door swung open and Parker’s massive, hot-headed brother, Brock, filled the doorframe. His brown eyes blazed and his reddened face was scrunched into a tight-lipped smile of anticipation and hate. He clutched Eli by the knot of his tie and yanked him inside.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Eli’s first thought was that he’d been pulled into a men’s locker room. The small, stuffy office smelled of piss and sweat and liquor. He registered four bodies – all male, all in black tuxedos.
Shit, he thought.
Everything that came next happened very, very fast.
