That Thing Between Eli & Gwen by J. J. McAvoy
“Not really. You know he basically lived at the office…or at least I thought he did. I’m not sure anymore what he did with his time…” My voice drifted off, causing him to pause and look at me. Raising my hands, I shook my head, as if that would stop him from pitying me. “How is your brother?” I tried to change the subject.
“Just like you.”
Subject change, failed.
He said nothing else, angrily digging through the box. “Urgh, God, I want to kill him!” he yelled suddenly, punching his hand into the box.
“Logan!” I screamed and Taigi barked, but it was too late. He'd punched right into where the knives were packed.
“Agh, shit!” he shouted, clenching his now-bleeding hand.
Grabbing his hand, I turned on the water and tried to clean it.
“Damn, it’s too deep. I’m going to need stitches.” He flinched as I grabbed a clean towel and quickly wrapped it around the wound.
“Where are your keys? We have to go the hospital.” I looked around the countertop.
“It’s okay, I have a med kit in my car. I’m a doctor—”
“Being in medical school does not make you a doctor, Logan…at least, not one good enough to stitch up your own hand in my kitchen.” I waited for him to hand me the keys.
Frowning, he grabbed them from his pocket with his good hand and passed them to me before holding his hurt hand, which started to bleed. It was pretty bad, already soaking through the towel.
“Gwen, you’re honestly making too much of this—”
“Yep, we're going,” I said, seeing the blood run down his arm. I pulled him out of the apartment.
Eli
I had just finished my rounds and was handing a chart to the on-call nurse when she stopped me.
“Dr. Davenport, your brother was just brought in the ER—”
I didn’t even let her finish before running down the hall.
“Is everything all right, Dr. Daven—”
I ignored them, following the blue line on the ground toward the double doors leading into the ER. Scanning the beds, I stopped when I saw his black All-Stars shoes.
He sat on the bed, laughing as one of my residents stitched up his right hand.
“What happened?” I asked, already in front of them.
“Eli. I thought you were off—”
“What happened to your hand?”
“He punched my knives.”
I turned toward the voice. It took a second to recognize her, and the moment I did, more memories flooded my mind than I could handle.
She stood in the corner, holding Logan’s jacket.
“He….punched. Your knives?” I turned to my younger brother.
“It’s a long story,” he muttered.
“Logan…”
“Honestly, it was an accident. I got him all hyped up, and—”
“Do you still need to be here?” I asked without looking at her.
“Eli.” Logan glared.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her stiffen.
“Sorry again, Logan. And thank you,” she said to him.
Logan grinned and nodded. “No, thank you. Please, use my car to go back home.”
“It’s fine, I'll call a taxi—”
“How else can I come back and make you my famous omelets?”
“Just work on getting better. See you around.” She gathered her things and left.
When she'd gone, he glared at me. “Did you really need to be such an ass?”
“Says the dummy who punched knives,” I said in return before following the girl out the front exit. I waited for her to finish giving her location to the taxi company and then stepped up in front of her. “Here.” I handed her a fifty. “Thank you for bringing him here.”
She looked at the money then back at me. “Do you often reward people with money for doing humane things?”
“Is fifty dollars really a reward?” I countered.
“You're a rich doctor. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten my place.” She held out her hand and did a small curtsey. “Please, sir, may I have some?”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I gave her the money and turned to leave, but stopped when I noticed she took the bill, walked over to the donation box at the corner entrance of the hospital, and dropped it inside.
She moved back to her corner, looking out onto the street.
Sighing, I went back to her. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
She scoffed.
“Anyway,” I went on. “Thank you for bringing him here, but in the future, if you could just ignore him, I think that would be best for everyone.”
“You want me to ignore your brother?” she said slowly.
“You and I both know he is doing this out of some twisted sense of guilt. I can’t cut him out of my life, but you being around only makes it twice as bad. I understand you might feel lonely, but please don't abuse my brother's kindness—”
“Excuse me!” She held up her hands to stop me.
“I’m just saying—”
“You're just saying, ‘Go away, you bring up painful memories I have yet to deal with, but instead of growing a pair of balls and handling them myself, I’ve chosen to ignore them altogether and push all of things reminding me I was dumped at my wedding to the corner.’”
“Excuse me!” She was out of her damn mind.
She crossed her arms. “What? Isn’t that what you’re saying? Your brother isn’t a little kid. If he feels guilty and wants to work it out his way, then it is his right to do so. Do you know how many crappy people we meet a day in this city? Of course you do, you are one of them. No way in hell am I ignoring a good person just so you can feel better.”
“You don’t even know him!” What hell is this chick's problem?
“No, I don’t know you. There’s a difference,” she hollered, stepping away from me and toward her arriving cab. “Also, if I feel lonely, I wonder how in the hell you must feel, asshole.”
The door slammed, and I stared as she was driven away.
“So, you’ve met Guinevere.” Logan chuckled, coming up beside me with his newly bandaged hand.
“Guinevere? I thought her name was Gwen?” Or at least that was what he'd called her on that ugly day.
He nodded. “Her name is Guinevere Poe, she's a pretty famous artist here in the city. You know, that oil painting Mom just bought was done by her.”
“What? That thing cost almost two million dollars.”
“And you tried to give her a fifty for the cab.” He snickered.
Pausing, I looked at him. “You saw that?”
“The moment you followed her, I knew it wouldn’t be good.” He nodded and forced a smile I knew wasn’t sincere. “I know after Dad died you basically raised me alongside Mom, but you need to stop. I’m not a kid. Sometimes I feel like you focus on me just to ignore the shit going on in your own life. Maybe you had to do that before, but not now. You were the one this happened to, and yet here you are trying to look after me again. I’m fine. Honestly, I’m fine.”
He waved me off as he headed back toward where he was parked. I watched him go for a moment, realizing once again I was treating him like a child, before heading back into the hospital. I didn’t bother making eye contact or conversation. Instead, I headed to the on-call room and rested up on the top bunk of the bed.
Logan and I were nine years apart, making him only two when our father died of a heart attack. It was still ranked first on the list of the worst days of my life, my mother screaming for me to call the ambulance, Logan crying in the living room as the nanny frantically tried to help my mother.
“Urgh, I don’t want to think about this,” I muttered to myself, pulling out my phone. The screensaver was still of Hannah and me embracing. I’d tried to change it at least a hundred times in the last month, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it yet.
If I feel lonely, I wonder how in the hell you must feel, asshole. Her voice replayed in my mind
“What kind of name is Guinevere, anyway?” I whispered to myself.
“God, I’ve missed you,” an intern said as she kissed down a male nurse’s jaw.
He began to lift her scrubs.
I sat up. “Does this look like the set of Grey’s Anatomy to you?” I yelled.
They jumped and ran so quickly, I was sure one of them fell on their way out.
Picking up my phone, I went to settings, then screensaver, trying once again to change the damn photo, but once again I couldn’t do it.
Damn it!
Just then my phone rang. “Dr. Davenport speaking,” I answered.
“So, I figured out how you can make it up to Gwen for being an ass,” Logan said. “She’s moving into a new place. I was going to help, but—”
“Not interested. Goodbye.”
Why the hell did he have to help everyone, for fuck’s sake? I was worried that if Logan really did become a doctor, he would become way too attached to his patients.
Buzz. My phone vibrated as he texted me.
Why, God? Why?
Guinevere
Sometimes I hate this damn city. I looked up at the brick building that was to be my new home. A few million dollars for a decent-sized condo on the Upper East Side, and my realtor had even tried to make me raise my budget; it was freaking ridiculous.
“What do you think, Taigi?” I asked as I shifted the box in my hands.
As always, he was less than impressed, but at least this time I couldn’t blame him. I looked back in dismay at all the boxes left in the U-Haul. It was going to take a while.
Maybe I should have hired movers? I thought as I entered the building.
Taigi whimpered as his paws slipped and slid on the smooth marble floors.
Laughing, I grabbed his leash as we waited for the elevator. Luckily, the floors on our level weren’t as shiny.
34B was at the end of the hall, and just as I gripped the handle, I heard another door open behind me. Turning, I came face to face with Dr. Asshole himself.
His blue-green eyes stared back at me in confusion. He glanced at the box in my hands, then at the door, and finally back to me.
“Please tell me you aren’t moving in.” He frowned.
“Please tell me you don’t live there.” I pointed at the door behind him.
His lips formed a straight line, and it looked like he was grinding his jaw.
Taigi, wanting attention as well, ran up to him and started to sniff, rubbing his nose all over his jeans, which only made him sneeze on the fabric.
Good boy.
“Urgh! God damn it! Can you tame your wolf?” he yelled, waving him away.
“He’s a Siberian husky, not a wolf, you big baby,” I replied, dropping the box in the hall and pulling Taigi, who sneezed on him again.
His eyes widened and one eyebrow twitched as he glared down at me.
“Sorry, he's allergic to jerks.” I pushed Taigi behind me.
I swore, if he could have killed me with his gaze, I would have been six feet under at that very moment. Without another word, he turned back to his apartment, most likely to change his clothes.
When the door closed, I cupped the sides of Taigi’s face. “Good boy!” I grinned, letting us into our new home.
But really, out of all the condos in the city, why the hell had I ended up next to him? Meeting him at the hospital had left a bad taste in my mouth. I’d had this picture of him in my mind, the heartbroken man who was left by the love of his life at the altar. However, with each meeting, my image of him changed. He was so condescending!
How he and Logan are related is beyond me. I headed back down to get more boxes and got on the elevator.
Sadly, before the elevator door closed he came out again, dressed in track pants and a sleeveless sweatshirt. This time he didn’t pay any attention to me, putting his headphones in.
The ride down felt like it took forever, and when the doors opened, I made my escape quickly, heading straight to the back of the U-Haul.
“Can’t a con artist like you afford to hire movers?”
He, for some reason, had stopped and stared at the boxes I had to move. Just go on your damn run already. Wait… “Con artist?”
He nodded as if he didn’t know why I was confused. “I’ve seen your paintings. There's no way in hell they're worth what you sell them for. You are ripping people off, therefore, you are a con artist.”
Speechless, my mouth dropped open.
“That’s attractive,” he said, acting disgusted before adjusting his ear buds and leaving me as he continued down the street.
“ASS!” I yelled, earning me a few glances from passerby.
My phone buzzed.
Answering it, I snapped, “Hello!”
“Is this a bad time?”
I looked at the caller ID before speaking again. “Katrina. Sorry, yeah, no, we can talk. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, I’m actually right by your place. Can we meet up for a second?”
“Okay, my place is still a mess, but you can come over,” I replied, looking for her on the street. However, she didn’t walk up the street. She, like all high-powered lawyers, pulled up right next to me in a sleek town car.
When she stepped out, I saw her short blonde hair was slicked back, and she was dressed in a tailored pantsuit. One word described Katrina Turner: intimidating. Which was why I'd hired her.
“You weren’t kidding,” she replied when I opened the door to the sea of boxes and canvases lining the walls and appliances.
“Yeah, sorry. It’s been a pain moving on such short notice.” In fact, it was pretty much unbelievable. Just a few weeks before, I had been searching for wedding dresses and honeymoon destinations. And now…now, this was my life, in boxes.
“I would have stabbed him,” she said, moving toward the large window overlooking the city.
“I believe you.” I smiled, looking out as well.
She handed me a file. “I submitted this just an hour ago. If he doesn’t let you out of the contract, we can always make noise.”
She'd never even asked me if I wanted to end my contract with Class and Rebel magazines. After word had spread, she had drawn up this proposal. I hadn’t even known he was back at work; I hadn’t dared show my face anywhere near there. Everything was happening too fast, and no matter how hard I tried to stand up, I felt like I was getting beaten into the ground.
“Basically, you would agree to never speak of the incident, and in exchange, they will double your severance. I spoke to your agent; apparently you have more than a dozen offers, not to mention she said you wanted to open a new gallery. No longer being contracted frees up your schedule greatly. You are the winner in all of this.”
If I’m the winner, then why do I still feel still like shit? “Let me know what their reply is,” I whispered, handing back the file.
“Okay. I’ll let myself out. And Gwen.” She stopped at the door. “I know it’s still too soon to say this, but I know you are much better off without him.”
When I was alone again, I glanced back at the window. As I began to tremble, I could feel my body temperature rising. My eyes burned from the tears I fought back.
“No,” I said out loud. I was not going to break down, not right then. I was sick and tired of crying, damn it. Moving to the boxes, I searched for my portable speakers, placed my mp3 player in the dock, and, turning up the volume as loud as possible, snatched a blank canvas from the wall.
Eli
I ran for at least two hours, and when I got back, her U-Haul was still open, with three boxes remaining. I wasn’t sure if she was stupid or just didn’t give a damn. Yeah, this was a nice neighborhood, but you still couldn’t just leave things open like that. Stacking them on the corner, I closed the back door of the truck, lifted the boxes, and headed inside.
Why the hell am I doing this? She was most likely going to bark at me anyway
Great, she's this kind of neighbor. Of all the damn places in New York, she had to choose my building.
As I was about to knock, the door creeped open slightly on its own.
“Hello…?” I tried, but my voice was drowned out by music. Her dog glanced up at me but didn't bother getting up. Following his gaze, I saw her. She knelt in the middle of her condo, a canvas lying on plastic over the flooring. She threw paint at it with her bare hands, almost like she was punching it. After a few throws, she would try to wipe her eyes, not seeming to care that the paint rubbed off on her face. She painted and cried, all while on her knees.
Placing the boxes just inside her door, I left quietly, heading back to my place. I took a water bottle from my fridge and tried to not to think about it. This was why having her as a neighbor was a problem! It wasn’t her fault, but just looking at her pissed me off. Seeing her cry pissed me off.
“Ah!” I threw my water bottle against the wall.
I needed a stronger drink.
Chapter Three
Science vs. Art
Guinevere
Bang.
“Oh god!”
Bang.
“Yes! Harder.”
Bang.
“So good!”
I sat on my bed, staring at the shaking wall with a strange mixture of horror and astonishment. It had been four days since I'd moved in, and it was like this every other freaking night. At first, I’d thought he was shooting a porno.
“Eli…yes!”
The woman screamed in what I could only guess was utter ecstasy. She had a broader vocabulary than the other woman he had brought over; she had just kept singing, “Fuck.”
Bang!
I jumped back as, once more, my wall shook.
This is ridiculous! It’s two in the morning! I rose to my feet, banging my hand on the wall before jumping off my bed and heading toward the door. Ripping it open, I stomped to his door and raised my fist, ready to slam it down on—
“What!” he yelled, almost pulling the door off its hinges. He stood there in nothing but his pajama bottoms hanging low off his hips, his bare, muscular chest exposed.