“No, it’s okay, I’ll go,” I tell him, before getting up and heading for the door. He doesn’t budge.
“Can we talk?” Elijah asks, his expression soft. The eye bags under his eyes are deep and purple. I almost want to tell him to fuck off, but I don’t.
“I…” I begin, not knowing my answer right away. “I guess.”
We sit beside the bed. Elijah fidgets as he looks at Kai. He doesn’t even look like my best friend anymore. His body is pale. A shiver runs up my spine.
“I’ve been visiting him a lot, hoping he wakes up. I don’t know when he will,” Elijah explains, his bottom lip trembling.
“But he will, he has to,”
“I know he will,” Elijah says as he attempts a smile.
We sit like that for a few moments. I want to talk to Kai right now. But what do you say to someone who can’t talk back to you? What do you say when it’s your fault?
“Teddy isn’t a bad person,” Elijah says out of the blue. He doesn’t look away from Kai. I go to answer, but I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t know who he is anymore.
Was our love a lie?
“Teddy cut off his family because he knows how evil they are. He didn’t want to do it anymore, so he stopped. He made a new life for himself. He only lied because he didn’t want you to get hurt,” he explains, looking at me now. “Kinda similar to what you did, don’t you think?” He adds, which is when I realise that we had the same reason for lying to each other, which causes a pang of guilt. I’m a hypocrite.
“We need to do something,” I tell him as my leg begins to bounce.
“What do you suggest we do?”
“Teddy’s going to tell me who they are under the mask, then I’m going to the police,” I tell him, looking away from him. I try to hold back the tears that threaten to drip from my eyes.
“I agree with you. I think we should. I could never get Teddy to go, because he knows he’s being watched. He’s scared of them… scared of what they can do,” Elijah explains. I think about what he’s saying. As much as I hate myself for it, I get why Teddy lied. I lied to him when I left to protect him. He’s been doing the same thing to me this entire time. If he told me, and his family found out, they would have killed all of us. There can’t be any loose ends. They don’t want their identities revealed. They don’t want to go to jail.
But they need to suffer for all the pain they’ve caused. They deserve it. I need to help Teddy do this.
We need to get through this together.
“I’m not going to lie to you, it hurt when I realised you’ve all been lying to me. But part of me gets it now,” I tell him. He turns away from me and looks at Kai.
“I really am sorry for that. None of us know their identities except Teddy, but we all agreed to hide that fact in order to keep you and Kai safe… not that it mattered in the end. Kai still ended up getting hurt… I want them to suffer for that,” he says through gritted teeth. “Kai didn’t deserve this. He’s done nothing wrong. None of us have. We have to do something or we’ll never be happy.”
“I want to help Teddy go to the police. They need to be locked up so we can all be free,” I tell him. Elijah’s eyes light up.
“I hope you can finally convince him.”
“Why has he never tried himself? I don’t get it.”
“He still sees them as family, as much as he doesn’t want to. They’ve manipulated him completely. The only reason they let him go was because he promised he would keep it a secret. He needs to let go in order to move on, as difficult as that may be.”
I know what I need to do next.
“Can we head back to the flat? I’ll try to convince him to go to the police. After that… I’m not sure,” I say. Elijah stands with me before looking me right in the eye.
“Let’s end this. Once and for all.”
Iwalk into Teddy’s flat with Elijah. Cat meets me at the door.
“If you’re going to start a fight, don’t bother,” she spits, and my heart breaks in half. She’s gritting her teeth and I realise now I’ve never seen her face so full of rage - a face I caused.
“I’m just going to talk to him. I… I’ve had some time to think about it,” I tell her. She looks to Elijah, who simply nods at her. She backs off and goes back to the living room.
“He’s in his bedroom. He hasn’t… he hasn’t really left,” Daisy says from the couch. Daisy puts her arm around Cat as she sits down beside her. I begin to head off into his room when Elijah stops me.
