Eleanor The Half-Demon

In the end, you were a terrible friend.

The absolute worst human being. Sabotage was your game, and it went too far this time.

The sickly sweet, almost cherry-like scent of decay wafted from the hole he had dug with a broken shovel. You watched him, his icy blue eyes wide and frantic, clawing at the earth, breaking his fingernails on rocks and garbage mixed in the soil before noticing a shovel missing its handle. He mumbled words between breaths as you watched him, tears in your eyes.

You didn't look, but the smell hit you like a freight train. Bile rose from your throat; you threw up into one of the many piles of garbage in the landfill. He was throwing up somewhere near you, vomiting between sobs that shook his whole body.

He froze when he uncovered a yellow plastic tarp. Carefully, he pulled it back. You knew what was in there; he still had hope you were lying.

He was still, eyes glazed over, staring at the hole.

Whitney, the school bully who also happened to be your best friend's boyfriend, was experiencing the type of grief women in the 1800s wrote about in romance novels. All-consuming and life-changing. The howl of a wounded animal loosed from his throat, and all you could do was watch as he collapsed, screaming and pulling at his blonde hair. He carried on like that for two hours, wailing and thrashing around until he could no longer scream or cry.

He was broken, and this is exactly what you wanted.

But not like this.

Eleanor was dead.

You were useless.

You sat on a broken armchair, threadbare with springs poking through, scraping into your skin.

You didn't kill her yourself, but you might as well have. The deal you made was to get Whitney out of your life. You stole every bit of money Eleanor had saved up and handed it over to the woman who was supposed to be your caretaker.

You're stupid; of course this is how it ended. This is the only way it could have ended.

"Robin," he said after hours of silence. It startled you and made you jump in your seat. He'd never used your name.

The sun, which was at its highest point when you got here, had begun to set. You watched the sky, anything to not answer him.

"Robin," he said again, louder after clearing his throat.

"Ye-yes?" you asked quietly, not looking at him.

"We can't leave her here," he sat up from the fetal position he had assumed for several hours. Grief giving way to a weird sense of duty.

The smell didn't bother either of you anymore.

"How..." you looked at him incredulously. He was obviously crazy now. You'd broken him beyond repair. Just like you wanted.

"The pickup in the back," he looked at you like you were supposed to know what was going on. Like you two were in on something together, partners in crime. After you didn't respond, he continued, "You pull her out of here, and I can wire the truck, take her to the forest."

"I can't. I'm too weak," you were pathetic. Refusing to do what you knew would make her happy.

He took a deep breath. Had this been before, he would have torn you down, been cruel, and laughed at you. What was the point anymore? It looked like he was regulating his emotions, but you knew better. The fire in him had died.

Wordlessly, he started digging.

You didn't help him dig.

You didn't help him manoeuvre her corpse into a rusted wheelbarrow.

You didn't help him load her into the bed of the truck.

Instead, you sat in the stolen truck, staring at yourself in the side mirror. Wind blowing your short brown hair as he drove.

"This isn't fair," he said, knuckles white on the steering wheel. You didn't know he could drive. You hated him too much to learn anything about him.

You didn't respond, but he kept talking.

"Listen, I know I'm a piece of shit," his voice trembled; he tried everything he could to not cry. "I loved her so much. I hope she knew."

"She did," you reply. It was true; she talked about him constantly. Enough to make you sick.

You thought of her back there. Cold, still, and decaying. She must have been terrified before the end. Terrified when all her money was gone. Terrified when she was hauled away in an unmarked van. You had hidden in the loft, you couldn't face her once you knew what you had done. This wasn't even the first time she'd paid for your mistakes. She always did.

"She was everything," he continued.

Thank God you were turning onto the old forest road. You couldn't stand listening to him talk about her like he knew her.

He stopped near a field of flowers you didn't know he even knew about. You and Eleanor had wandered out here from time to time as children to play. You'd be princesses in a flower kingdom. She was the princess of the buttercup kingdom, and once she'd eaten a few and fallen ill. You loved the daisies that consumed the flower patch year after year.

You watched Whitney lay his head on the wheel and cry. You found no joy in it; it wasn't supposed to be this way. You and Eleanor were supposed to leave him behind and live free together. You loved her so much, but she never loved you. She loved this horrible boy.

You followed him like a lost dog.

It took him well into the night to dig a hole that was deep enough with the broken shovel. You sat in the grass, picking flowers to throw on her body once he placed her in the grave.

He couldn't unwrap the tarp. It had been almost a week and wasn't pretty. It would probably haunt him for however long it would be before he killed himself.

He was codependent like you, but she loved it while you had been discarded like trash. You were both going to kill yourselves. Who would crack first? You made a silent pledge to yourself to outlast him. Even though this was all your fault and you were the worst human being in the world, you would live longer.

He had laid her down gently and covered her in the flowers you had picked, which he almost looked thankful for. He knelt down and started talking. Not to you—he was talking to Eleanor and the universe.

"Eleanor," you realized you had never heard him say her actual name instead of a stupid pet name, "I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you. I'm sorry I'm such a fuckup and a burnout and a loser, and you deserved better than me, but you loved me anyway, and I don't know how to go on. I know you would have wanted me to, so I'm gonna try real hard to live without you."

WHAT.

What the fuck.

No.

He can't live after all this. After all you've done to sabotage their relationship, after making a deal with the devil and fucking everything up. You feel the rage bubbling up inside you. This asshole was going to continue living. Her beautiful presence gave him the strength you didn't have. He changed and became a better person, he—

BANG

You hardly understood what had happened. Sprayed with blood, you could only stare at your dress, hands shaking. You're pretty sure you weren't shot, or were you dead already? You felt no pain and felt your heart beating wildly.

The only thing snapping you back into reality was a hard thud.

Whitney had been shot in the head, his viscera spraying in front of him and on to you.  His body falling into the grave unceremoniously.

You look in the direction he was most likely shot from.

Bailey stood at the other end of the clearing, leaning on a tall gruff looking man with a gun.  Her cruel laugh rang out in the night, cutting right through you. They were having a conversation you couldn't quite catch from how far away you were.