“Ellison, you have to forgive yourself. You have to forgive El.”
He’s shaking as much as El was. “No! Otto died… everything… my whole life was ruined. It all went to hell because of me. Because I killed Otto. I killed him. I killed the only person who loved me. I deserve this. I deserve to be alone. I deserve to have everything that makes me happy ripped away from me.”
“You understand, right?” I ask before El slams into me. He shoves me back, driving the knife toward me. I grab his wrist and try to throw him forward as he disappears. “You understand that El is doing whatyouwant?”
Ellison looks at me in shock. “No! I would never want to hurt you. El, stop! Please go away!”
El reappears behind us, and I shove Ellison out of the way as I rush El before he disappears, only to reappear right behind me. I turn quickly, grabbing him before he can react.
Ellison is grabbing his head. “Go away, please, go away.”
El tries ramming back into me, but I avoid him with ease. And just like that, he reemerges on the far side of the room, watching me.
“It’s not about hurting me. You want topunish yourself. I know all about this, Ellison. I’ve spent so many years doing it to myself, hating myself for what I did. I tried to destroy myself again and again. I had dreams of the people I killed; I had thoughts of them. They ruled my life. It’s what you’re doing to yourself. El was born to protect you. And even now, even as you’ve rejected him, he’s still trying to protect you from ever getting hurt again because you have this fucked-up idea that if you are alone, you can’t get hurt—that youdeserveto be alone! So he’s doing what he can to make sure you have no one in your life because you believe that if you don’t have anyone, you can’t hurt anyone or be hurt by them.”
Ellison tries to push me off. “I don’t!”
The illusions are out of control. They don’t seem to know what to do, almost like Ellison is trying to punish himself and is turning them against him. He’s been trying to punish himself ever since he was told that he wasn’t good enough. But he has to realize that he’s perfect just the way he is.
“You do!” I say, knowing that I might be making him mad at me, but hehasto hear it. And hopefully, hearing it from someone he trusts will make him believe it. “Ellison, I love you just the way you are, and I wish you loved yourself. You don’t have to be someone else. You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. Especially me. But at the end of the day, your own opinion is the only one that matters.”
Ellison shakes his head, like he’s struggling to understand, but I need him to know how much he means to me. How much I need him.
I tell him, “I’m not perfect. I have many regrets and you know that my mind is a fucked-up place. But you make me happy and that’s all that matters.”
“I can’t forgive myself,” he whispers.
The illusions trying to attack Ellison begin to slow down. They’re caught in some turmoil created by his mind, uncertain whether to protect Ellison or hurt him… because that’s what he’s doing to himself. He wants to hurt for what he’s done, but a part of him knows that he has to forgive himself.
“I don’t… I just…” He grabs me desperately, like he’s going to shield me from El. “I killed Otto.”
“It was a horrible accident.” I wrap my arms around him, holding him close.
“As my father was dragging me and I was choking, the only thought running through my head was how much I wished he was dead. I wished he was dead so much that El did exactly what I asked of him… but Otto died instead.” His fingers dig into my shirt. “I couldn’t handle blaming myself, so I blamed him.”
“Which means that you are still blaming yourself. El is such a huge part of you,” I say as I turn and find that the other illusions have calmed down, but the only one close to us is El. He’s still holding the knife, watching us closely. “El is trying to protect you. You just need to see that. Please… forgive yourself or this is going to ruin you.”
Ellison slowly reaches a shaking hand out to El. “You protected me so much growing up. So many times you hid me away, and you dealt with the hell in my life… and then I turned you into a monster and pushed you away. I was so afraid to face what I’d done that I laid it all on you. I’ve always made you dealwith every awful part of it. I’ve always blamed you because I don’t know if I could have kept going if I blamed myself.”
El scrutinizes him, that knife still tight in his hands. He takes a step toward Ellison, eyes following his every move, like this might be a trick.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me for making you out to be a monster, but I just… I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” Ellison says.
El lowers his hand and the knife falls from it, and I can tell that while Ellison’s words might be touching him, it’s whatever is going on in Ellison’s mind that is making El take another step closer.
El cautiously reaches out and takes his hand, almost like he’s uncertain what to do with it. “I just want to make sure you’re safe from the monsters who want to hurt you.”
“I know.”
El looks over at me. “But I see that I’m no longer the only one who wants to protect you.”
“That doesn’t make you insignificant. I still need you. But I’m happy now. I’m so fucking happy now that I need you to be happy too, and I know that you can only be happy if I forgive myself for what happened. I don’t know if I’ll ever have to do anything so impossibly hard as that in my life, but I do know that what happened that day was a horrible accident. I know that I would never have been pushed to that point if it weren’t for my parents. Thank you for being my rock… for being my everything. I don’t know if I can apologize enough for trying to get rid of you.”
Ellison draws El near, hugging him tightly a moment before El seems to step into Ellison and disappear.
But I think they both finally understand that what Ellison was trying to get rid of was all of the things that hurt him in the past. El reminded him of the darkest times of his life. Andin turn, El only knew how to protect Ellison, no matter what the cost, because in his eyes, Ellison was safest when he was alone.
My eyes flick to the floor where I see that the knife is gone. In the shuffle of illusions, I missed it until I see his father slip in, driving a knife right toward Ellison.
