Sunsets and Constellations | B X B

• F I V E •

^ Viggo Ryse

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E L I J A H

Elijah was wide awake now. He had walked back to his room rather shakily after witnessing Arius's manic episode. He would've never thought!
Despite how much Elijah prevented himself from making even minute judgements about people, this still came as a huge shock to him.

He stopped near the large window and looked outside. Everything was so eerily quiet under the moon that was shining, clouds moving through the sky.
A little movement near one of the trees caught his attention. He strained his eyes and caught two figures pushing each other playfully, pausing and then come together in an embrace. They broke after a few minutes and made their way toward the tower, stepping out of the shadows. Two girls, that much he was sure about, judging from the hair and their outlines. One of them had it tied into a bun while the other had let it loose. The last thing he noticed before they had disappeared behind the tall doors was that they had their hands linked. He swore one of the frames was familiar to him but he couldn't put his finger on who it might've been.

Interesting.

He lay down in his bed, after closing the door quietly so he wouldn't wake Ryder up. He forgot all about the two girls he had seen, realising that he had watched Arius have a panic attack.

What could've triggered it?

Elijah's thoughts drifted back to when he was barely 9 years old when he had found Abby curled up in her bed, shivering every now and then with her eyes wide open, her hair an absolute mess and the floor stained with vomit. He had rushed downstairs to the living room and told his mother. Liz was furious with Amanda, more than ever now. They'd somehow pacified Abby and gotten her to drink a glass of milk. The next day his mother had taken Abby to a therapist and also consulted a psychologist.

In the weeks to come, Abby would be diagnosed with clinical depression, anxiety and a terrible migraine. She would sit for hours in dark rooms and while her time away. Sometimes Elijah would hear her sobbing in the next room and banging the walls. She would punch the walls so hard her knuckles would be caked with dry blood the next day and Liz would have to bandage them everyday. One night, Elijah gathered up courage to go into her room. He went in and climbed her bed, staring at her with wide eyes and she struggled to calm down because a little child was in her room.

"Abby don't bang the walls. Your knuckles will bleed. I don't want to see you hurt." He had pouted and started crying.

"Elijah, c'mere". Abby had said and hugged him.

They both cried that night. Abby, because she had no will to live and Elijah, because his little heart was breaking everyday for his cousin.

Elijah had wiped his tears and gone back to his room, only to return to Abby with a pair of old, worn out boxing gloves in his tiny hands. He had wordlessly handed them to her and motioned for her to follow him.
He took her to the attic where his dad's equipment, suitcases and clothes were stored and pointed to the punching bag hanging from the ceiling.

"The gloves will protect you." He had said.
Abby had gone all out, she went on for hours.
Liz found them both in the attic the next morning.

In the following years, Abby started having nightmares and panic attacks at least twice a day. She wouldn't even talk most of the time because her brain was being paralyzed with fear. They found the root cause of the issue to be extremely low self worth. She was waiting for Liz to abandon her as well. Her own mother had, why would Liz love her?
But the boxing really helped and Liz enrolled her into a boxing program. Elijah was there for every panic attack except when he was in a game or something. He knew Abby's techniques like the back of his hand and started accompanying her to therapy sessions.