Eli pulls from my grasp and turns to look at Roman. “I don’t want another shirt. I want this one. You got it for me. It’s special.”
Roman doesn’t hesitate to pull Eli back into his arms. We lock eyes around the head full of black hair buried against his throat. It’s like I’m falling all over again, my heart pounding against my rib cage as if it’s trying to get to Roman through any means necessary.
Thisis my Roman. This is what he does. He holds broken hearts in his hands, painstakingly stitching them back together until they’re whole and mended. Roman is love personified. And watching him pour that love into Eli has my heart swelling with the depths of my love for him. It’s too much for my body to contain, and tears fill my eyes and spill over.
Roman’s eyebrows draw together as he watches me, so I mouth, “I love you,” to him. The corners of his lips tilt up, and my stomach goes wild, butterflies taking over. Jesus. Unable to resist, I join in their hug. Eli tenses and I startto pull away, but he reaches for me blindly and when his fingers connect with my arm, he pulls me back in.
We sit in silence for a long while. The three of us in our own bubble, with Eli’s grief and mine and Roman’s shared heartache hanging heavily around us. Roman presses his lips to the top of Eli’s head, and Eli wraps his arms around Roman’s stomach.
Roman brings a hand up to brush my tears from my face and grips the side of my neck. And just like that, our lives shift into something new. And it’s Roman who does it, who ties the final stitch that pieces our new fragile little family together.
Eli lets out a stuttering breath and sniffles. “Can you get the blood out?”
His voice is so soft and muffled against Roman that I barely hear him. Roman looks at me, and I decide it’s time to establish some trust. “Of course we can,” I say, releasing my hold on them both and sitting back. “Speaking of blood, can I finish getting you cleaned up?”
His back rises and falls quickly and he sits up, turning back to me. I reach up to cup his face and the second my palm settles on his cheek, he leans into my touch, his eyelids fluttering closed. What does it say about the level of physical comfort that he’s used to that he’s so readily leaning into someone he doesn’t even know? Two someones,really. Sure, he knows Roman more than he knows me, but not really. He’s a stranger too. A stranger who brought him clothes and made sure he ate in a guilt-free way, but a stranger nonetheless.
I don’t comment on it out loud, though. I just go back to wiping the dried blood from his skin. The bleeding on his lip seems to have stopped finally, but I need to look at it more closely, since it’s possible that with all his yelling, he’s managed to split it to the point that it needs stitches.
When his face and neck are finally free of blood, I toss the soiled baby wipes into the trash can. My arm is starting to ache from holding it in the air and supporting the weight of Eli’s head, but I really wouldn’t change it for the world. “Can I look at your lip now?”
Eli’s eyes pop open and widen, almost like he forgot what he was doing and where he was at. Much to my dismay, he lifts his head from my hand and turns bright red. “Sorry for that,” he whispers, looking away from me.
“Nothing to be sorry about,” I assure him.
He looks back to me and nods, so I touch the bottom of his lip and assess the cut. It’s rough, and definitely looks painful, but as long as it doesn’t split open again and get worse, it shouldn’t need stitches. “It should be okay. But we need to be careful not to let it open again.”
Eli stares up at me. “Are you always this nice?”
It’s easy to catch the hint of distrust in his voice. He’s clearly not used to people being kind to him, and that breaks my heart.
“Always,” Roman says before I get a chance to answer. “He’s always this nice.” Roman sighs and Eli whips his head around to face him. That he’s so attuned to just the minor change in Roman’s tone, even through something as simple as a sigh, is… awful. “Beck and I would like to talk to you about something.”
Eli’s shoulders slump, and he drops his gaze to his lap. “Okay.”
Roman takes a breath. I can tell he’s nervous, so I take his hand. He gives mine a little squeeze and looks at Eli, worry shining in his eyes. “We’d like for you to come live with us.”
Eli’s head snaps up and he gasps. “What?”
I can’t stand not being able to see his facial expressions, so I come around the bed so I can sit beside Roman.
I sit down just in time to watch as Eli’s mouth opens and closes, desperate hope and fear fighting for dominance in his eyes. “Really? You…” He stops talking, swallowing hard. “You guys want me to live with you?”
I nod as Roman says, “We really do. Ifyou want to.”
Relief seems to flood Eli’s entire body, but then he goes stiff, and he grips his ruined shirt tightly in his hands. “Are you sure?”
“Positive,” I somehow manage through the lump in my throat.
His eyes go glassy and he blinks rapidly, clearly trying to hold back tears. “When do I have to come back here?”
The question steals my breath and my throat tightens to the point of pain. “You don’t have to come back here, Eli. Not unless you want to. We can take you home with us today. Now, even.”
He shakes his head and my stomach plummets. “What if you decide you don’t want me, though? Then I’ll have to come back here, right? Because my dad doesn’t want me. So if you two don’t want me, and he doesn’t either, then I have to come back here.”
God. That shatters me, and I have to look away. I swallow hard, trying to force back the growing knot of emotion that keeps getting thicker and thicker.
“That won’t happen,” Roman says. “As long as you want to be with us, you will be.”
