|Twelve| I’m so tired of being alone…So hurry up and get here…

Emma’s arms were bruised from being pricked with the IV needles too much; her eyes were sunken in, her lips were parted slightly and were very pale; her nose was plugged with a tube; her flowing hair was plastered to her skull.

The room was silent except for the semi-steady beep of the heart monitor.

Elijah stood in the open doorway, looking around apprehensively. This scene reminded him so much of his sister that he could barely breath. He could feel the vile rising up his throat and he needed to get out. Fast.

A blurred figure resembling Mr. Elijah Wood, blew past all the nurses in the hallway with his pale hand over his thin, pressed together lips. No one stopped him or asked if he was alright; they didn’t need to know.

The second Elijah’s feet hit pavement, he bent down and let it all come out. Just in the nick of time.

When there was nothing left to come out, he sat back on the grass and wiped his mouth clean. He felt warn out, angry, lost, scared.

“That’s so freaking selfish, Emma,” he muttered angrily, his hands swiping at innocent blades of grass that needed to be cut. “You are fucking selfish. You promised Lily you’d be here for me…you PROMISED.” He shook his head, angry at himself for saying anything aloud, but mostly he was angry at himself for being selfish.

Selfish thoughts took over as the tears fell from his placid blue eyes.

*

A timid, reluctant voice as the sun goes down, “Elijah?”

Elijah’s head snapped in the direction of the voice and then he relaxed, “Dr. Johansen.” His butt was cold and aching from sitting on the hard stone for so long.

The doctor lowered herself down on the nearest step and sighed, looking out at the horizon, “It’s beautiful.”

Elijah snorted sarcastically, “Yeah.” He shook his head in angered frustration.

Dr. Johansen looked at him, “Elijah, you shouldn’t be losing faith right now.”

“What does fucking faith have to do with anything?” He demanded lividly; he looked at her, his eyes flashing with betrayal. “You know what? She was fucking selfish, Dr. Johansen. She was selfish for doing this to herself. Didn’t she think that people would miss her? That I---” His voice trailed off as he slapped the ground with his palm with such force that he was surprised there wasn’t blood anywhere when he brought his hand up.

“I don’t think she thought about it. She doesn’t really have anyone. Her mother’s gone…she has no father. Then Lily passed away. I think she figured she’d be better off...no longer living.”

“Well, she’s not,” he remarked bitterly, “She didn’t think about ME and how I would feel.” His eyes were filling with wetness but he didn’t move to stop them even as his vision became blurred, “I know I’m being selfish for thinking that, but--”

“You’re hurt. That’s a completely normal reaction.”

“Whatever,” he retorted, turning to look at the doctor in the eye, “Weren’t you supposed to be helping her? Weren’t you supposed to be curing her, huh? Why didn’t it work? I thought therapy always fucking worked. It didn’t this time. You failed, Dr. Johansen. You failed me and you failed Emma.”

“It’s not me, Elijah. You can’t take your anger out on me. I did all I could. Therapy doesn’t always work. Emma needs help, yes, but maybe it’s help that I can’t give her. Maybe it’s the kind of help she needs from a friend.” She looked at him pointedly.

Elijah sighed, “She didn’t even consider me.”

“I think that she must have,” replied the doctor.

“How’s that?”

“Well,” Dr. Johansen began, taking a deep breath, “I think that it hurt her to see you. You reminded her too much of Lily and of the pain she felt at the loss. And that, in turn, reminded her of the pain she felt when her mother was killed.”

Elijah glared at her disbelievingly, “You’re saying that basically I reminded her of her mother’s death.”

“Yes,” she replied simply.

“That’s ridiculous,” he muttered, pulling a cigarette pack from his jacket pocket.

The doctor shrugged, “Maybe so. I need to show you something we found in Emma’s room. It was under her pillow.” Dr. Johansen pulled a wrinkled white piece of paper out of her pocket and handed it forward to Elijah, who took it but didn’t make a move to read it.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said as she stood up, “and Elijah…please read it. It might shed SOME light onto the mystery of a reason.”

Elijah tried to mutter a non-angry ‘thanks’ but there was cigarette perched between his lips so she wouldn’t have heard him. He lit the end of his cigarette, took a long drag and then blew it out slowly before stuffing the unopened letter into his pants pocket.

He preceded to mull over his screwed up life from every angle he could possibly think of; solutions weren’t imperative, but they would be helpful…and any revelations were pushed aside to a pile where they could be picked from one at a time in a leisurely fashion.

Elijah Jordan Wood had a lot of thinking to do, and it had better be organized because he didn’t have a lot of time in which to figure it all out.

Her words repeated themselves in his brain for hours. Her voice, it was haunting; and that scared him. But what scared him most were her words…

“Elijah…I think I love you.”

Because, maybe, just maybe he felt the same way. Deep down hidden beneath the anger and resentment towards her.

Yeah, he thought, maybe he loved her too.

Then a little voice in the back of his head popped into his consciousness.

But she’s damaged goods…why be with someone who doesn’t want to live? You can’t be her reason for living, that’s too much pressure on you; pressure you’re used to, but not that much. Not life or death pressure.

“You can’t carry the problems of the world on your shoulders; and you can’t carry the problems of one screwed up girl on your shoulders either. It’s impossible; you’re not Superman. You’re Clark Kent.”

Elijah stood up, kicking dirt out of his way as he stalked to his car. It was very dark out now, the moon cascading onto the water in wane rays, providing enough light to see, but he couldn’t see much at all.

“Fuck Superman. He had a weakness. Fucking kryptonite. Fuck that.”

He pulled his still-burning cigarette from his mouth and flicked it off onto the road. Then he got into his car.

“She’s your kryptonite,” said an annoying omniscient voice in his mind. He heard it echo in his brain before Elijah turned on the ignition and a song blasted on the radio through his speakers. He turned it up as high as it would go in an attempt to drown out his conscience.

One thing you can’t really ignore, though, is yourself. Because you’re always there…somewhere.