A MINUTE AT A TIME
"Eli, where are we? What are we doing here?"
The dark haired almost seventeen year old didn't say anything as he turned off the car. Clare could hardly stand it; the tense silence seemed to be going on forever. She was about to fire another round of questions at him when Eli -still staring straight ahead, out the hearse's windshield- finally spoke up.
"This is where I killed my girlfriend."
The quiet admission confused the red head even more than Eli's recent hot and cold behaviour of the last few days. "I don't- what?"
Finally Eli turned his gaze to her "This," he gestured around the hearse, specifically at the scarred tree ahead of them, "is where I killed my girlfriend."
"Eli…" His name sounded like a plea as if she were begging him to laugh and tell her this was all some kind of sick joke "I don't understand."
"What's not to understand Clare?" Eli demanded, causing the fifteen year old girl to jump "I killed my last girlfriend! Right here! Right against that tree! She's dead and it's my fault! I killed her. I destroy everything I care about. So I can't care about you. I won't hurt you too."
Clare didn't respond at first, letting the fat tears coursing slowly down her cheeks do the talking for her. She tried not to be hurt when she laid her hand atop his and he flinched. "Eli." He was staring straight ahead again, trying to ignore the hurt he'd put in those big blue eyes. "Look at me. Talk to me. Please?"
Instead he turned the car back on "There's nothing to talk about Clare."
The read head angrily ripped the key's out of the ignition "The heck there's not!"
Eli quirked a brow and smirked, amused despite himself, "Heck? Really?"
"Tell me what happened, Eli." She said seriously.
The moody teenager sighed and rested his forehead against Morty's steering wheel. "Her name was Isabel. We were at a party; everyone was drinking, getting high, whatever… I told her I'd be DD. I-" Eli's voice cracked as he relived his worst moment "I told her I'd be responsible. I wasn't."
"You drove drunk." Clare concluded.
Eli shook his head. "Izzy knew. She knew I'd had a few so she took the keys. We fought. I told her to let me drive, she'd been drinking too and I'd been driving way longer than her… She drove into that tree." Eli lifted his head from the steering wheel to glare at the mentioned tree.
"Eli. It wasn't-"
"Don't tell me it wasn't my fault!" The raven haired boy screamed.
"But-"
"She died Clare! And I didn't have a scratch on me. I was supposed to be driving. She should have been in the passenger seat. It should have been me." He shook his head angrily, unable to talk about it anymore. "Give me back my fucking keys. I'm taking you home."
"No."
"Clare-"
"My sister tried to kill herself." Clare blurted out.
"What?"
"She- she was rufied at a party and somebody raped her. She went a little nuts… She tried to commit suicide."
"Clare-" Eli tried to interrupt again.
"I used to think that if she had just talked to me… That if I had been there for her it wouldn't have gotten that far. But it wasn't me Eli." Clare looked into the hazel eyes of the broken boy. "It wasn't my fault. Some things just happen."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"You're not going to hurt me." Clare said softly as she handed Eli his keys. "I won't let you."
Eli smiled sadly in return "So what now?"
"Now you take me to The Dot, because I'm hungry and I don't want to go home." He quirked a questioning brow at her as he started the car, "My parents are at it again." Clare answered his unasked question. "And I threw out your headphones when you were being a jerk, so it's kinda loud at home right now."
"You threw out my headphones?" he asked incredulously.
Clare shrugged. "You were being a jerk."
They didn't speak again until he'd parked at The Dot. "We're here. So now what?"
"Now," Clare said squeezing his hand "we take it one minute at a time."
"A minute at a time?" He repeated, smirking at the way she blushed when he leaned forward to kiss her. She nodded slightly when his lips left hers. "I think I can do that."