When Eddie got back to the Creel house Ellie was in the bathroom upstairs, she had stopped sledgehammering it now. It had been a few days since there had been any mental breakdowns which they both were thankful for. He was still apprehensive as he quietly walked up the stairs, not wanting to disturb whatever project she was doing.
She was muttering to someone, he thought as he heard her voice speaking in hushed tones. She was in her work boots and coveralls, tiling the floor by herself. She turned to him as his sneakers inched closer to her, standing on the edge of the doorframe.
"Hey, Eds," she said, beginning to spread something that looked like cake batter on the floor with a metal spatula.
"Looks fun," she placed a tile from the box behind her carefully in the spot and put a small piece of plastic in between the ones around it. He guessed she had a dozen left to do.
She nodded and told him she'd been doing this since she got out of work, he saw two empty coffee mugs on the top of the toilet. He offered to help or at least get some music playing to pass the time. Ellie shrugged and told him she'd be done soon.
"If I might ask- who were you whispering to? Are you okay?"
"Oh, yeah, that," she chuckled a little," this house is kind of big and it gets lonely when I'm here by myself. Creepy even. I don't do this because I seriously believe it but sometimes I talk to the people who died here." She rolled her neck and rubbed it a little, "I know it's weird and everything but all my friends are back in the city and it's just a stupid thing I do to get my thoughts out."
He nodded, not entirely liking what he was hearing. "Have you called them?" She bit her lip.
"They don't want to talk to me." She slammed the next time down. Normally she would've kept a clock nearby so she couldn't lose track of time. She was really regretting that she hadn't this time. "With everything that happened it's too much of a shitshow."
"So ghosts instead?" He asked, hesitantly and she nodded.
"Besides you they're the only ones who haven't run for the hills," she placed the pieces of plastic down. "And besides I don't believe in that crap anyway."
She felt all her progress slip out of her hands as she flung the record across the room. Eddie had found the one thing she had hidden. She had been cleaning the bedroom and trying to flip the mattress off the bed to mop the floor under it. He had offered to help and found that one of the floorboards was loose.
When she walked out to get the cleaning supplies he pulled it up, thinking that he'd find mice or more spiders hidden inside.
Curiosity struck him.
Instead he found a small pink box that had opened up, the lock had snapped off. Photos and letters spilling out of it, even some band pins and an old Ring Pop. He grabbed a photo to examine it, instantly he knew what he was looking at.
It was Janis. Her hair dark and teased in every direction, wearing a Sex Pistols shirt and a ripped up red cardigan. Her blue eyes struck him hard, they were surrounded by black eyeshadow and eyeliner.
Not as hard as Ellie kissing her hard on the cheek, the blue-eyed girl's face scrunched in glee.
Almost as hard as the sound of the mop dropping onto the hard floor with a thud. His stomach sank as he turned to face her, slowly placing the photo on the ground. Her face was bright red and he could see her hands twitching.
"Ellie, I'm sorry-" He began to back up with his hands in the air.
"How fucking dare you!" She screeched, reaching for the Metallica record on the floor and chucked it. He jumped, making himself as small as he could. It scattered against the wall.
"What the fuck, Eloise!"
"Do I fucking rip up shit in your room?" She cussed and grabbed the small bag he had been living out of, she stomped over to him and shoved it into his hands.
He gripped it tightly, his teeth clenched. "You know, Ellie, you're not the only human being with problems."
"That was personal Eddie," she snapped back, "you know that wasn't okay!"
"And throwing a goddamn vinyl at me is?"
She started to cuss at him, not wanting to hear anything from him. "You don't fucking understand, Ed!"
He did though and that made him angrier. He thought of Chrissy and their moments at the picnic table in the woods, he thought of how the police had handcuffed him and every penny to Wayne's name had gone to his nephew's bail.
He thought of his mother and father and his fingers began to make holes in the bag.
He held his bag close as he stormed out of the house, shoving her to the side and made a beeline for the front door.
She slid to the floor, landing on her ass and reached down into the floors. Carefully, she pulled everything out one by one. She cried into the photos and wiped the dust off the Ring Pop. The photo Eddie had grabbed was crumpled by her and Eddie's storming through the room.
She heard his van start in the driveway and more tears fell. One by one, she kissed each item and placed it back into the box.
"That was fucking stupid, girlie," a familiar voice said to her. It was feminine and melodic. She turned around and saw Janis, just like she was in the photo, the Ring Pop in her hand. Ellie's heart fluttered. "I'm freakin' dead."
Those blue eyes rolled at Ellie like they had a thousand times before.
"It's been two damn years, Ellie-Jelly, get a move on." She walked down the hallway and out of view. Ellie ran to chase her down the hallway like she should've back then.
She stood in the alley again, Janis laying on the ground. Her eyes were white and there was enough blood under her that it could've filled the Hudson.
Ellie hesitantly began walking towards her. She could feel the cold pavement on her feet and the winter air on her skin. Her girlfriend's body twitched on the ground.
Janis' head snapped up at her as Ellie reached.
"Don't look for me, get out of this house and fix your fucking shit!"
Eddie ran into the trailer and slammed the door to his room. It woke Wayne who had been sleeping on the couch. He could hear the guitar going and the trailer began to smell of pot, his uncle opened up every window in an attempt to keep the scent from getting into everything.
Eddie eventually blew up.
"Jesus H. Christ!" Wayne shook his head and knocked on the door. He waited and when no answer came back he carefully opened it. Eddie was soaking wet from the rain, his head looking down at his feet so all Wayne could see was his mop of hair.
"Shit, Eddie," he grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around him. "What happened? Come and sit with me." He removed his guitar and snuffed out his joint.
Eddie took some coaxing but in time Wayne got the whole story. It took a moment for the information to settle, he thought she was a good girl for his nephew but didn't realize the life she had lived.
"I feel so dumb," he said," I should've just left everything or asked her or something. I set her off."
"Edward," Wayne's eyes were stern," you might've done something wrong but she had no right to throw anything at you." He placed a hand on his shoulder.
Eddie looked at him with his doe eyes. "I know you like her. She's a sweet girl with stuff to work out."
"It's not her fault," he nephew started. He cut him off.
"I'm sure it's not but how she treats you is."
They heard a knock at the door, Wayne got up and opened it. Ellie stood there in the pouring rain, her hair stuck to her face and her clothes were stuck to her body with the damp. She held a small pink box.
"How long have you been out here?"
"I'm not sure I waited by the benches over there for a while. Is Eddie home?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea right now," he replied and she looked at her box and extended it out to him.
"Can you give this to him and tell him to call me? I want to fix this."
Eddie got up and went to the door, her tired eyes lit up. "I'm sorry," she told him, rubbing her nose with her sleeve. Wayne moved out of the doorway and Eddie stood there, gesturing for her to come inside. Wayne sat in his recliner as they both sat on the couch, Eddie using the towel from before and placing it over her head.
She took Eddie's hands and put them on the box with hers on top. She took a deep breath.
"I know I'm not the only person with problems. I know I fuck up and I can't let go of things and I'm angry," she said. "I want you to know that this," she opened the box and gave Eddie the photo from before, "is the past and I've let it hold me back when it comes to us and just me being a good person. I'm fucking scared all the time that it'll happen again and I don't want to lose you, Eddie. I know it's no excuse for how I acted and I'm sorry." She put her hands on her lap and watched as he looked through her belongings.
He placed the box on the floor and put his hands on her head, scrunching her hair in the towel. "You're gonna get sick." He said, his hand holding her cheek through the terry cloth. "I shouldn't have looked at them, Ellie, those are yours. Your memories and I should've had the sense to ask or leave them alone." He got up, went to his room and grabbed an old photo album.
Wayne looked surprised when Eddie sat down with it in his hands.
"This was my mom's before she passed and I don't think it's fair for me to make a comment about your problems but not share mine." He said, flipping to the first page. They began to share their issues the best they could.
Wayne slipped out of the room and to his room near the back of the trailer.
Ellie spoke of her friends in New York City and how her parents had sent her to a mental hospital after Janis' death. The things they said to her when they visited and made her feel like the biggest failure on the Eastern Seaboard. It's where she learned how to ground herself and she thought that after all this time the wound had healed, she could handle everything on her own.
Eddie spoke of his father and how he always dragged him into every crime he could. How his mother had committed suicide after his father was sent to prison. He told her that he wasn't always trailer trash that before Wayne had used his house to post his brother's bail. His father had run away and the court had foreclosed on the house the next day.
He showed her a picture of a red-headed hippy with a small dark-haired toddler bouncing on her hip. She could see all of the warmth in Eddie's eyes came from her.
He showed her pictures of his mom and the house, she smiled at the photos of baby Eddie. His hair was already wild.
She showed him her friends and told him how the Ring Pop was the first gift Janis had ever given her when they were in school.
Wayne listened as the two of them spoke, little sobs came here and there as they spoke. They both need a paternal figure. Ellie's father had signed her into the hospital and Eddie's father was a joke. The two of them had enough damage done to them to drown any person's sanity. He cracked his door and watched them.
They held each other and rocked back and forth.
"To Mordor and back?" She asked him.
"Mordor and back." He kissed her and Wayne turned to the side, happy for his nephew as he closed the door.