Like Elliot: Part 8

“Elliot?”

My limbs are frozen and heavy almost as if my body halted. The same goes for Elliot.

A standstill.

Neither of us is capable of moving, nor do we want to.

A loud outburst breaks the silence, “Elliot? Who’s Elliot? This is Len. Who are y'all?” a woman comes out of the warmth behind her.

But the unchanging air remains quiet.

Not even Parker utters a sound.

I wonder if Elliot knows who he is.

More quietly this time, the woman nervously asks, “Ehm-well, do y’all wanna come in?”

Elliot gestures at us to walk in and my body stiffly starts moving towards the door. He exchanges a look with the woman, and she seems to know exactly what it means: it's an approving look as if saying, "all is well."

I feel Parker's hand graze against my back, allowing me to go first. An exhale, a moment of calmness.

While we are about to sit down, Elliot introduces the woman with him, Tracy. I re-introduce Parker, but we don’t get into the details right away. I still can’t tell if Elliot recalls who Parker is.

Tracy offers us coffee and leaves the three of us in the living room.

Paintings line the walls, all signed Tracy Baker in the bottom right corner. One, in particular, catches my eye. It is a white house with columns in the front. Very extravagant, clearly very Southern. A pear tree sits in the front, green and abundant on the branches. Flowers line the entryway, mostly pinks and purples. I assume that this is Tracy’s old home.

Noticing my eye-line, Elliot says, “Tracy makes all these paintings. She’s got a good eye. That one right there is the house we lived in before here.”

Immediately I ask, “Before here?”

When I saw Elliot in the entryway, I had thought that he lived here right after he disappeared until now. That he wrote the code, moved here, and waited. I guess that wasn’t the case.

“Yeah, well we only officially moved here after our wedding, four years ago. We still have the house down in Georgia, but I’m here most of the time.”

“Waiting?”

“Well, you could say that...I guess.”

Married. For four years. Meanwhile, my longest relationship in four years is with Parker.

I don’t know exactly how to phrase the millions of questions racing through my head, so instead, I ask, “Elliot? Could you maybe explain what happened? Or what is going on? Or just some clarity on how we got here?”

We both nervously chuckle following the questions.

“I could ask you the same thing...after all this time I figured the journal was lost with no trace of where I went. I didn’t think I would see you again.”

I explain the circumstance with his journal, and how it was Marie who picked it up instead of me, and the journey of how it finally landed in my lap.

It turns out Elliot did remember Parker, and subtly approves of our relationship.

And then he is finally ready to tell his story. The reflective one. The one that will be very different from any code he left behind or the traces I have picked up over the years.

Finally, answers.

Upon a big inhale, Elliot starts: “The idea started a month before I left, the final straw. I watched my father hurt my mother. I knew it had been happening behind our backs, but didn’t have much to prove it. But then he did it in front of me, and he knew. He knew I was there. I ran to my mother to try and help her, but he started coming for me instead...”

The bruises.

I remember asking Elliot about them and he said he had fallen off his bike. I should’ve thought more of it, but then again I was just a kid. And so was he.

“...That was when I knew I had to get out of there. But I had to make a plan. To make sure he wouldn’t come after me. I knew what he was capable of. So, I decided to disappear. I didn’t want to leave my mom behind, or you for that matter, but knew that if I didn’t leave then, I never would. People rarely make it out of that place.”

That is true. Which is why, when I left for college I barely turned back. It’s the reason why it took me so long to return to town, and why I hadn’t gotten the journal until now.

“But I did have hopes that one day we would be able to meet outside of there when we were older. Clearly, it eventually worked. I left the journal for you to pick up that one day at Marie’s. I get now that you didn’t notice it, though I don’t blame you. I guess I wasn’t obvious enough. And then I started my journey hitchhiking up here. I had found a place on the map and put all my faith there. As a kid, I didn’t know how to plan anything, I only had my hope and intuition, so it was not an easy path up to this house. Well, the house in the code.”

Leaning in closer he continues, “See, I grew up in the house down the street. The one I assume you went to first. I was lucky enough to knock on the door of a couple who was trying to have a kid but couldn’t. And then I showed up on their front porch. A freezing 7-year-old with barely anything on his back. They adopted me, took me to school, and raised me better than my own ever could. They paid for my college, down in Georgia, and moved there too. But they had to sell the house, and I decided to let go of any ties to my past. It had been a long time. I had given up on the thought of seeing you again. I met Tracy, we fell in love, got married, and immediately following graduation, I got a job offer. Here. No one ever gets a job here. And I didn’t even apply specifically knowing they had an office in Alaska. So, I knew that something was pulling me back here, and we decided to pick up our lives and move. The house down the street was already sold, so we took the closest one. Been here ever since.”

The missing years.

All wrapped into a five-minute narrative.

“Oh, and, I took your name. Sorry about that. I wanted a new identity and knew this could be the best way for you to find me. That’s who Tracy knows me as. Who everyone in my life knows me as. Hope it’s not too weird. You can still call me Elliot of course.”

I had more questions but instead decided on: “Thank you. For telling me everything. I know you didn’t need to, but I appreciate hearing all about it. That’s probably enough for today though.”

Tracy comes in with a tray of piping hot coffees, all in different colored mugs.

I gaze at Parker. He looks both content and nervous at the same time. I whisper over, “Do you think we could stay one more night up here? You can say no, I would understand.”

“Of course,” Parker replies.

And with that, I mention to Elliot, “I think we are going to stay the night up here, would we be able to catch up more tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

We sip our coffees, making small talk about our past and plans for the future.

Now, it’s all an open road.