out the door, and I’m guessing she means Bambi. “But only because my parents tried to make me forget.”
“Forgetting doesn’t help anyone. Although, letting the memories hang from your shoulders like a backpack doesn’t help either. There’s a halfway point and trust me when I tell you, I haven’t found that place either.”
“So, let’s hear it,” she says, flipping her light hair around so it covers one of her eyes. “‘Don’t kill yourself, Ella.’ ‘There’s so much to live for, Ella.’ ‘You have such a promising future, Ella.’ ‘Don’t you know the past is just the past, Ella? And it’s what you choose to do with your future that is most important, Ella.’” Her statements are in a mock-voice, one of either her mother’s or a shrink, I can assume. They’re by the psych-book words, that’s all I know.
“Ella,” I begin, kneeling down in front of her as she spins around in the desk chair like a child—a child who was offering prostitution. “I’m only going to say a few things to you, and I want you to listen to me and remember everything.” I stop her chair from spinning, forcing her to look at me. “I lived in Iraq and Afghanistan for more time than I wish I had. I had to clean up the bodies of my best friends, as well as their limbs and worse. There were many times I had to tell their families they died and let me tell you, my life really sucked for a long time. That day at the grocery store was just as bad, except that wasn’t my family in there. It was yours.”
“So?” she says coldly.
“My nightmares follow me around, and I try to run away from them every day. I cover them up with bad vices just like you. But you know what I’ve learned, more so recently than any other time?”
“That you can’t save everyone?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at me.
“Exactly. Life has its plans for everyone, and there’s nothing either one of us can do to stop it. Letting the demons and the nightmares eat you alive is the same as giving in to them. It’s giving in to that asshole who blew up the store that day. You’re giving him what he wanted. Suffering, pain, and death. The death and pain part can’t be fixed, but the suffering can. Don’t let him win, Ella. We can’t let those bastards win. They took everything from us already, but they can’t take us too. We’re stronger than they are, right?”
I feel like I’m lecturing myself as I’m lecturing her. Everything I’m saying makes sense, and I don’t know why I haven’t been able to convince myself of all this.
“Okay,” she says under her breath.
“I’m not going to tell you what to do, but if I were to…I’d tell you to not cheap yourself out because your brother is watching over you and wants you to be happy. I’d tell you not to consider leaving this world sooner than you have to. You have something to prove, and you can’t do that when you’re buried six feet under the ground. The best thing you can do is win. Win at life. Win at making those jackasses who tried to ruin our lives the losers. If you end your life, you’re letting that man who tried to destroy your life, win.”
Ella is staring at me intently, hopefully digesting everything I said. I can’t tell if she’s about to start crying or trying to comprehend it but she flings her arms around my neck and doesn’t let go for more than a couple of minutes. Not a tear shed and not even a quiet sob releases but when she lets up on her grip, she backs away, and the corners of her lip curl a bit. “Thank you,” she says quietly. “Can I see my aunt now?”
I press my hands into my knees and stand up. “You ever need to talk again, you know where to find me. And if I ever walk into that motel again, don’t you dare…”
“Okay!” she yelps like a teenage girl. She is a teenage girl.
“Remember what I said,” I tell her, pointing at her as I leave the office.
“How’d that go?” Bambi asks me from outside the door.
“Not sure, but she wants you.” Bambi places her hand on my shoulder and silently thanks me again. “I think she’s going to be okay.”
Bambi walks past me, closing herself into the office, and I take a