Effortless

Eli was quiet the entirety of the drive. It did not matter what I would say, he would not give a verbal response. There was a lot of shrugging and humming but not a singular proper word.

I stopped trying after the first few attempts, my hand resting on his knee to provide some comfort in any way that I could. He did not want to speak and that was alright. If I had just gotten kicked out of my home for no apparent reason I would not want to talk either.

His whole body was tense but he wore no emotion on his face. He could not even muster up the courage to say, 'I don't care,' like I knew he wanted to. Eli was stubborn, he always had been and always would be. He liked to deny and pretend like things never bothered him, but that was a clear sign that they really did. So the fact that he wasn't even attempting to shrug it off worried me a bit.

I felt helpless because nothing that I did was making it better, not even a little bit. I just wanted to fix it for him. Life had been going so well but of course something had to come and ruin it. If I could take the pain from him and put it on myself, I would.

We made it to the house quickly. I helped him with the one bag that he packed and carried it to the front door for him. The second we opened the front door my sister was there. She was frowning at Eli, seemingly already knowing what happened. She pulled him into a tight hug. His arm wrapped around her body loosely. He was trying to reciprocate the hug as best he could but I'm not sure he was fully aware of who he was even hugging. That was what the distant look in his eyes told me.

"I'm sorry." Gabriella said softly.

Her hand caressed his arm soothingly. Elias looked as if he was about to speak but no words came out. He then attempted a weak smile but it never reached his eyes.

The rest of my family was on another business trip which left me and Gabriella with the house to ourselves for two days. That was only after many long hours of begging and convincing that we were mature enough to handle it. We succeeded. They would all be back later tonight and that was when I would explain to them everything that happened with Eli. My parents could figure out what to do next and how we needed to proceed because I definitely did not know what to do.

In the meantime, I knew they would give him the guest room so I took him there. Whenever he spent the night he would spend it in my room and I was more than fine with that, but I knew that if he was really going to stay with my family then having a space to himself was important. It did not matter if he never spent time in the room because it would always be waiting for him whenever he did decide to stay.

Pretty sure it was his first time ever seeing the bedroom since he always spent the night in my bed. Honestly, I'm not sure that I can say he's really seeing it right now. I don't think he was seeing anything, he was just...walking. Going through the motions was necessary because doing anything more would set him off. Eli knelt down in the middle of the room and opened his bag of clothes.

I was standing over him. "Do you want help?"

He shook his head but it barely moved. It was looking like he needed space and if that's what he needed then I would give it to him.

Before I got around to asking, a text came through my phone. It was from Alan and it read 'Don't forget to pick up the order'. I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes as I set my phone on the dresser. He told me days ago to go and pick up the clothes he ordered from the clothing store but I hadn't gotten around to it. I wasn't even told who the clothes were for, I was only told that I needed to get them. Today was the last day I could before they closed for the weekend and Alan would be pissed if I did not pick it up today.

I could tell him about the situation with Eli and then I would be excused from having to do the task. I would get lectured for not doing it when I was first told to but at least I would get out of having to go. However, the store was only twenty minutes away so I would not be gone for long. It would be better for me to make the quick trip so that I could stop worrying about it. If it seemed like Eli was wanting company then I would not even consider leaving him for a second, but it was looking like he wanted to be alone.