All Chapters of Heathens : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

MordechaiI found her in her room. I’d run in, seeing her passed out on the floor as the dog barked relentlessly. I hadn’t been the only one to hear though, but I had been the only one Ellie saw when she opened her eyes again. “Take her back to where you have her,” Mr. Locke had told me as he stared at his daughter laid out on the couch in his office. “I don’t want people to see her like this.” We turned to look at Ellie, who laid on the couch with her mother. Ellie hadn’t woken up again, but her head rested on Mrs. Locke’s lap as she brushed out some of the knots Ellie had given herself in her panic attack. I’d come when I heard screaming, but I didn’t make it to her room in time. She collapsed floor, with Dandelion barking at her to wake up. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but her father had ordered me to carry her into his office. “She might have hit her head,” I told Locke. “It’s been an hour and she hasn’t woken up.” “That’s just how she is,” the man said. “She has thes

Mordechai“Every choice you make is bad,” Ellie said to me. “Why would I put pants on just to go to a place I don’t want to be?” I did my very best to not stare at her legs in that moment. Ellie had taken to sleeping in nothing but a stolen shirt from my closet. She’d marched in there and taken it with such confidence that I didn’t have the ability to stop her. I had been too stunned to do much of anything. Same as when I’d walked out into the living room to see her sleeping on her stomach, sweater hiked up to her hips and ass just… there to stare at. I ignored it to make breakfast, but what a tense morning. Now, Ellie sat on the couch with a blanket half over one leg, making sure I knew she had nothing on more than that sweater and her underwear. Her casualness might have been the thing to kill me. She sat there, totally fine while I desperately tried to hold myself back with the thinnest thread. I thought she would have liked that. “You have to go back eventually,” I reminded her

MordechaiEvery moment seemed to get worse than the last. Even spending hours with her mother didn’t seem to do much in the way of easing the tension in her shoulders or the pain in her eyes. I couldn’t do anything about it. No one could do a thing about it. I hated that. If it could be fixed, I would find a way to do that for her. I would end it all, so she didn’t have to feel so hopelessly hurt. “I hate even wearing these clothes,” Ellie said when we got back home. “Who died to pay for this dress?” She gathered the fabric of the skirt up into her fist, staring with contempt. “I would offer you something else to wear, but—” “Thanks!” she said, already on her way to my room. I rolled my eyes, following her. I felt the betraying smile on my face. I didn’t bother hiding it. I found her halfway in my closet, her dress dropped to the floor and circling her feet. She stood there, rummaging in her bra and panties like it was nothing. I knew I wasn’t supposed to look, but my eyes kept dr

Mordechai“It’s pretty fuckin’ stupid how much my thighs hurt,” Ellie complained. She wiggled around on the bed, grabbing her leg and pulling it up to stretch. “Do you have to be so big?” “No, I can try and little up for you if you want. No problem.” She stuck her tongue out at me, then winced when she switched legs. I told her we could try out other positions. No skin off my nose. She’d insisted she liked it on top of me, making it pointless to try other things. I did not agree. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done it three times in a day,” I commented, adding a line to the sketch I had in front of me. Ellie stopped to glower at me like I’d suggested we eat a live kitten. “You take that back right now. I may be in absolute agony, but I have no regrets. Every part of me hurts, but that’s just proof I got rocked and I can live with it.” “I feel bad. Where’s the proof I got rocked too?” She smirked. “You have a post got-some glow about you. I mean, I assume. You look happier than usual,

MordechaiIt felt like sitting at the bottom of a mountain and waiting for the lava to come cover me. I could see the blazing red pouring down the side, inching closer and closer to me with every passing moment. It would come burn me any moment, but I didn’t get up. I didn’t run. Maybe I should have. Where would I go if I ran? I couldn’t picture a place that would appeal to me. It all looked dull in my head, as it always did. Nothing had that spark that people got. That little bump in their heartbeat at the idea of escaping somewhere better. Nothing could compare to this apartment, because I woke up with Ellie beside me in the mornings. I’d known this whole time it wouldn’t last. But you couldn’t survive lava when it found you at the bottom of the mountain. I couldn’t sit on the couch and wait for Ellie to come back. It would have sent me running for that lava just to get it over with. Instead, I kept myself busy with making the bed, cleaning the counters, and making everything neat