Chapter 9

They sat in silence.

An awkward, suffocating silence that almost made Miriam want to do something random just to shatter it.

Laugh out loud.

Giggle.

Anything.

In the end, she settled for reaching across the table for a wad of napkins to dab at the wet mud still coating her face.

Eliot watched her.

Those ruby eyes seemed to slice through her body like razors.

“You missed a spot,” he remarked after a moment.

Miriam flinched, fingers clenching over a wad of used napkin beneath her chin.

“T-thanks,” she stammered while moving the tissues to the section of skin he stared at.

The center of her throat.

“Where were you going?”  His voice was bored and dry as if he spoke out of politeness more than anything—but Miriam didn’t miss how he stared with avid interest as she dabbed at her neck.

It made her feel nervous…that look.  The way his eyes lingered over the exact spot where she knew from health class that her carotid artery throbbed.

She scrubbed a little harder.

To his question though, she thought a little bit before answering.  “School.  But, I can stand to miss a day.”

There was no point in lying, and she was too tired to come up with a convincing one, anyway.

The truth was that she didn’t think she could sit through class, let alone bear fourth period math, always waiting in fear of a flash of blue.

Not today at least.

Already, she had a much better plan in mind for wasting away the day; spending it curled at the foot of her bed waiting for the fear to pass.

Chalk this one up as a loss, and try again tomorrow.

It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Eliot didn’t reply, but the fact that he had spoken at all encouraged her somewhat to the point where she could ask a question of her own.

“Do you still go to school?  Back wherever you’re from?"

A curious look crossed over his face.

“No,” he said after a moment.  He broke their gaze to stare out of the window instead.  “I…graduated,” he went on in a soft tone.  “A long time ago.”

“Oh.”  Miriam fidgeted on her seat.

He didn’t look too much older than her, but if he had graduated ‘a long time ago’ she couldn’t help but wonder just how old he really was. He didn’t have a beard or mustache—the skin beneath his pale skin was utterly smooth.  But there was an ancient wisdom in those amber eyes.

The controlled but haunted look was familiar.

“Here are your drinks!”

Miriam flinched their beaming waitress as she set a glass of water onto the table along with a steaming mug of coffee dressed in flourish.

Eager to get rid of the acidic taste in her throat, Miriam reached for her glass and took a hesitant sip.  At the same moment, the waitress turned to Eliot, flashing another charming grin.

“Is there anything else I can get you and your sister?”

Miriam choked, spraying icy water across the table.

Eliot smirked.

“She’s not my sister.”

“Oh…”  The waitress’s grin vanished, her lips pressing into a tight frown.  She glanced quickly from Eliot to Miriam.  “I just thought…um—I’ll be back in a minute with your pancakes.”

She hurried off, leaving Miriam shivering as she watched Eliot staring after her.  Carefully, he stared, from the woman’s messy bun right down to the sneakers on her feet.

“Do…do you live far away?”  She blurted abruptly, bracing herself for that piercing gaze to turn on her.

Eliot dragged his mug of coffee closer by the handle.

“…I don’t really live anywhere,” she barley heard him mutter.  But it could have been static from an old fashioned juke box in a corner that played classic music.

She waited, but he didn’t clarify.  Instead, he hefted the mug to his lips and took a careful sip.

Miriam sighed with relief as the waitress appeared again, only she wasn’t smiling now.  She glowered, as she slammed a stack of pancakes down without even glancing in her direction.

To Eliot she gave a pointed stare and a halfhearted.

“Enjoy your meal.” She said dully before flouncing away.

“Well…that was awkward,” Miriam muttered, as she picked up a fork to stab at a blob of butter.

She could sense Eliot staring as she mechanically chewed around a gooey bite.  It almost hurt to swallow under the scrutiny.

“It’s because I told her you weren’t my sister.” he said.

“Why?”  She set her fork down, waiting for him to elaborate.

“It’s because you look so young, to her,” he went on dryly.  “She assumed you had to be my sister, because she didn't want to consider the other obvious option,”   His mouth twitched into a cold smile.  “Let’s just say that I’m surprised that frown at me is all she did.”

Miriam blinked.  “B-but I’m seventeen.”

Only two months from being eighteen, she added mentally.

He shrugged.  “You don’t look it.”

With a weary glance down at her lanky frame, Miriam realized that he was probably right.  She was used to constantly having to prove her age.  Once, she had even gotten barred from entering a pg 13 movie because the ticketer thought she was nine.

Back when she used to drive, her dad had to place a pillow on the seat just for her to be able to see over the steering wheel.

She had no idea how she would survive once she turned eighteen.

“You don’t mean—she thinks that we’re…”

She glanced nervously in the waitress’s direction.

Eliot gave her a tired smile.  “I believe that the word she would use to describe me would be…pedophile.”

“Oh, god.”  Miriam felt her cheeks burn as she hid, mortified behind one hand.

Sure enough, as she peeked over at the counter, she could see the now frowning waitress fiercely shaking her head, as she whispered into the ear of another woman in a similar uniform.

They both paused to shoot dirty looks in Eliot’s direction.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.  “I could go…”

With a reluctant glance at the stack of pancakes she set her fork down.  “I’m not really hungry anyway.”

Eliot casually brought his mug of coffee to his lips for another sip.  “It’s not really you,” he admitted, copying her by staring at the counter as well.

Another waitress glared at him now, shaking her head over a tray of eggs and mugs of coffee.

“I would guess,” he began in a careful tone, “that our waitress—the one with the brown hair—”  He nodded in her direction.   “Has a daughter, around your age, maybe.  Who has a boyfriend of whom she doesn’t approve.  A much older boyfriend.”

“Really?”  Miriam watched as he nodded, impressed.  “You can tell all that, just by looking at her?”

His smug smile slipped a little.  “No.”

“Oh.”  , Miriam nervously snatched for her fork and shoved another bite of pancake into her mouth, ignoring the icy chill that ran down spine.

She didn’t know why…but something about him made her uneasy.

A tiny, hidden part of her whispered ‘he’s bad news,’ even as a larger, more dare-devil part of her relished in the unspoken danger.

‘Don’t be chicken,’ it urged.  ‘Do something dangerous for once.’

‘Dance with the devil, if only for one song…’

“What about him?”  Eliot murmured, making her glance up.  His gaze was on an old man who sat a few tables away, reading a crumbled newspaper.  “What secrets do you think he’s hiding behind that balding head?”

Miriam shifted on her seat as she turned to stare.  “I don’t know…retirement?”

Eliot flashed another chilling grin.

“Close.  But try again.”

She looked a little closer, observing the man’s wire-rimmed glasses.  She eyed a tiny mole on the bridge of his chin and the ratty briefcase resting at his feet.  He was frowning, she saw, even as his eyes scanned a lighthearted article about a box full of newborn puppies rescued from an abandoned house.

Only one word came to mind.

“He looks…lonely.”

“Lonely,” Eliot agreed with a nod.  “More than you could ever imagine.”

The certainly in his voice made Miriam glance at him warily.  “What do you mean?”

“What would you say if I told you that man was a billionaire?”

The question was so odd that Miriam played along without thinking.  She eyed the old man skeptically, from his rumpled blazer to the dingy sweats that sported a days old coffee stain.

“I’d tell you that you were nuts.”

“You wouldn’t far off,” he said in a murmur—so quiet she almost didn’t hear.

Those amber eyes glowed.

“But…what if I were serious?  What if his only family—children and all—don’t care about him so much as his money.  What if I said that he was only here in Wafter’s Point to escape all the squabbling over his inheritance before his last breath?”

Miriam swallowed.

Suddenly dancing with the devil didn’t seem so thrilling.

“I’d tell you that it would be one of the saddest things I’d ever heard.”

Eliot nodded, turning his head to scan another corner of the room.  “See that woman over there?”

Miriam followed his gaze to a younger woman with curled red hair and cakey makeup circling her sunken brown eyes.

“Guess her secret.”

The challenge was clear in his voice. With another swallow Miriam forced herself to croak, “I don’t know.”

“Widowed,” Eliot said dispassionately.  “Her husband died, and the only man she’s seeing now has a perfect family…two kids, the cherished family dog.  He has no intention of leaving his wife for her.  And she knows it.”

Miriam glanced away as the woman began to morosely sip from a mug of coffee all the while desperately watching her cellphone as if waiting for it to ring.

“I’m making you nervous.” Eliot stated simply when she didn’t reply.

Creeping her out was more like it, but Miriam was too polite to say it.  She just fidgeted on her seat and felt her eyes dart down to her backpack, still resting beside him on the opposite side of the booth.

“What about me?”  She heard herself say, surprising herself by how curious she was to hear the answer.  “What can you tell about me?”

The dark gleam went out of Eliot’s gaze, leaving his dull eyes lifeless.

“Emptiness,” he said in a flat tone.  “You’re empty, though you put on a mask and play pretend.”

Empty.

The word hurt, for some reason—cutting deeper than any insult.

“I have to go.”  Miriam spoke, dragging herself from the booth seat to stand on wobbling legs.  She glanced back at her backpack, but in the end decided that it wasn’t worth it.

All that mattered was getting away from Eliot she decided, as her heart thumped loudly in her chest.

Empty.

She didn’t even say goodbye as she darted for the door, though someone held it open for her as she barreled past.  Someone so tall that they blocked out the light streaming through the doorway like a shadow.

Someone with gleaming red hair.

Out of nowhere her backpack appeared before her, held by an outstretched hand.

“Finished already?”  The voice was mocking, making Miriam’s head jerk up into Eliot’s lifeless gaze.

“How did you…”

She glanced back at the table which was all the way at the café’s other end.  At their now empty booth she could only make out a wad of cash sitting neatly on the surface, right next to her half-eaten stack of pancakes.

She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her.

“How did—”

He didn’t answer.  Instead he shoved her backpack into her arms and held the door open, long enough for her to stumble out onto the sidewalk.

It had begun to snow already.  Think globs of white floated down to stick to her hair as she slipped from beneath the awning on shaking legs.

Eliot barreled past her, toward the curb.  When he reached that sleek black car he wrenched open the passenger and inclined his head, implying for her to get inside.

Even after insulting her.

After freaking her out with his smug, attitude and mysterious red eyes.

After finding her unconscious on the street and trying to do the right thing by driving her to the hospital.

In the end, Miriam didn’t know what made her get into that car.

Fear?

Anger?

Guilt?

Or something else that made her heart race as she buckled her seat belt and he hustled around to the other side as if terrified of the falling snow?

He didn’t look at her as he shoved his key into the ignition and took off at a slow pace down the street.  Miriam figured she should have been anxious.  He was a stranger.  And he was just plain strange on top of that…

But, for the first time in so long he was the only person to talk to her as if she wouldn’t shatter like fragile glass.  To look her dead in the eye and tell her what he was thinking.

About her most of all.

The truth.

“I’m not, you know,” she said, glancing out of the windshield as the streets slipped past in a blur.  “I’m not…empty.”

He didn’t answer, just steered the car effortlessly through the town, until with a blink of shock she realized that they were parked outside of her house.

“Thanks.”  She said, fumbling for the door handle, but once again he was there on the other side pulling it open before she could so much as press the handle.

Damn.  She had never seen anyone move so fast…

He met her bulging gaze with an empty one of his own.  Those eyes seemed to take her in, holding her captive as he reached past her to snag her backpack from the bottom of her seat.

“I’ll…I’ll be at the hospital tomorrow,” she found herself blurting, even as he tossed the bag into her hands.

That earned her an incredulous look and another ever-mocking smile.

“To volunteer,” she added.   “I could sit with Lizzie...?”

He loped to the driver’s side of his car without a backwards glance.

He didn’t speak as his fingers gripped the steering wheel from behind those tinted windows.

But Miriam knew that he watched her.

She could feel his gaze all the way up the porch steps until she pulled open the front door.  Fingers shaking, she dug her key from her bag, but as she twisted the handle it wobbled easily in her grip, broken.

What the...

Her head whirled around, eyes scanning for his face, but the black car was gone.