Beautiful: Truth's Found When Beauty's Lost Part 25

"It happened really fast," Ellie said.

"Was it a deer?"

Ellie nodded. She remembered how it felt like hours before anyone came at all, but she knew it was only minutes. The wait for the paramedics was longer; she had no idea how long.

"Don't move her!"

"The car is on fire!"

"Will it blow up?"

"This door is jammed."

They couldn't get Stasia out. Someone had opened Ellie's door, helped to pull her away from the flames.

People were yelling, leaning over her, putting something over her arm and face. Finally the helicopter, a sound that came from beyond the voices and grew louder, like the answer to a cry for help. Who were those people who had helped?

"I just need to know," Mrs. Fuller said, with her hands shaking so badly she clenched them together.

Ellie understood. "She didn't suffer. I promise you. I think she was already gone before the . . . I think she pa.s.sed away in the accident."

Mrs. Fuller covered her mouth with her hands and burst into tears. "Thank G.o.d. Oh, thank G.o.d," she said over and over as the kettle's whistle continued its lonesome cry.

Ellie answered Mrs. Fuller's questions and made them tea. The longer they talked, the less burdened the woman appeared. She asked Ellie about her studies and reminded her of the coming graduation.

Mrs. Fuller hugged Ellie gently. "I can't tell you what this has meant for me."

"It's been nice for me as well." And she meant it. Talking about the accident with Stasia's mother was the closest she could come to talking to Stasia herself.

Before Mrs. Fuller left, she said to Ellie, "Don't let this be the end of your life. You have a lot of living to do."

Chapter 19.

THE OUTSIDER.

The No-Longer-Anonymous Blog about Life at West Redding High

May 17 Does every human have a purpose? I call people stupid, but I include myself as well. But much of that is because we are stupid. We have great potential and possibilities. We could rise up and do great things. I often become trapped in the immediate. I make choices based on what feels good now, not what's good for me in the overall scheme of my life. Do I have a purpose that I'm missing?

I'm starting to believe in it. But one thing I also know, humanity is flawed. And so, strangely, that brings me around to the larger topic. G.o.d. It seems that only with G.o.d can mankind discover and serve its purpose, collectively and individually.

Who would guess "The Outsider" would have a post about G.o.d? But perhaps as graduation approaches, the bigger picture needs to be addressed.

The scissors came closer and closer to her head, and Ellie had a quick moment of panic. Wait! But she remained in the chair in her parents' master bathroom with the towel around her shoulders.

"It's time," she said with a fearful intake of air.

Consuela had been cutting Ellie's hair since she was ten and Ellie was preparing for a performance of Swing Kids at the small local theater.

"Oh, girl, we're going to shape up that hair in a nice style. You'll feel more like your old self again."

"I doubt that," Ellie said. It had been two weeks since her latest surgery. The pain was ebbing slowly again, and though the plastic surgeon said it went very well and would be the last one on her face for a while, she was starting the long healing process over again.

"I want something different," Ellie said.

Mom and Consuela glanced at one another.

Hiding her scars and trying to get back her old self was impossible. There was no recapturing who she'd been. Her parents expected it. She'd overheard Mom on the phone to someone-probably P Frank-saying that she'd thought Ellie would bounce back quicker. Ellie had never let anything get her down for long in the past. Her school counselor had stopped by as well. Everyone was expecting her to go back to school, take on all her old roles. But she was changed, and she didn't know what that meant for the new Ellie.

"Do you have something specific in mind?"

Ellie pointed to a magazine on the counter, open to a picture of Natalie Portman with her hair cut short. The sides were longer and fell toward her face. "People think I look like 220 her, though of course now only half of my face looks like her."

Ellie laughed, but Consuela and Mom only looked horrified.

"Actually, three-fourths of your face looks like her," Megan said, flipping through a tabloid as she sat on the edge of the sunken tub.

"Megan," Mom scolded, but both girls grinned.

"Well, let's shape up that hair, then," Consuela said with a nervous chuckle.

Ellie watched as the long inches of hair fell to the floor. Panic swept over her, and images flashed before her eyes. Images of Stasia's face, of knives and axes, of arms and legs cut from bodies and dropping to the floor.

"Are you okay, honey?" Consuela asked, taking a step back and examining her face. "You're sweating."

The images faded, and Ellie wiped her forehead, feeling a line of sweat running down her chest. "Fine. I'm fine. Guess losing my hair is scarier than I thought."

Megan was frowning at her. Consuela went quickly back to cutting, and Ellie focused on her breathing and counted to a hundred, then a hundred backwards. Maggie would be proud, Ellie thought. She'd told Ellie to expect such things as post-trauma. It was all part of the lovely journey toward healing. Ellie would have to ask why "horrific images" wasn't one of the stages of grief.

Even Megan agreed that Ellie's haircut was a dramatic change. If she didn't know it was her own face in the mirror, Ellie might even think she looked attractive with her intriguing scars. Her dark hair curved toward her face, somewhat covering the scabbed-over flesh along her jawline. The scars along her neck were slightly more visible now, but everyone admired the change and commented on how professional and mature she looked.

"It's amazing how good it looks," Megan said later.

Ellie had come to her sister's room, bored in her own. Will was busy working with his father, doing landscape work. Megan was sitting on her bed, tearing up pieces of paper.

Ellie sat at the other end. "Consuela is pretty talented," she said. Today she was finding it a little painful to speak; the wound was cracking, and she needed to get more antibiotic cream.

Megan continued to rip the paper into smaller and smaller pieces.

"What is this?" Ellie asked, picking up a few pieces. Some were torn photographs.

"This is my relations.h.i.+p with James."

Ellie looked at the papers on the bed by Megan's leg. Letters and e-mails.

On the bedside table was a bowl with a thick liquid and a paintbrush.

"What are you doing?"

"Decoupage."

"You're making a decoupage out of your relations.h.i.+p with James?"

"My relations.h.i.+p with James is over. So I'm tearing it apart and making something new out of it. I'm decorating some jars." She picked up a gla.s.s votive.

The concept was pretty cool, Ellie had to admit. The transforming of one thing into something else. Not forgotten, but changed.

"You are so ceremonious. People wouldn't guess that about you."

"People don't guess about me at all."

"So, did you love him?"

Megan shrugged. "I thought so. But I don't know."

Ellie nodded, then dropped her head, wanting to ask more but unsure where to begin.

"I've always felt guilty because of what Grandfather did to you."

Ellie's head jerked up, but Megan continued to tear paper as if she hadn't said a word. Before she could ask her to repeat it, Megan continued.

"Looking back, I guess we call it verbal abuse or mental abuse."

They had never once talked about this. Ellie had only told her parents bits and pieces, through tears and fear of what Grandfather would do or say if they confronted him. In her counseling sessions Ellie only danced around the subject, letting only slight memories be revealed.

She leaned her back against the wall and drew her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees-then asked the question she had held inside all these years.

"Why did he hate me?" she whispered.

Megan paused a moment in her tearing. "Because you were like he used to be. And you looked like Grandma."

"I don't want to be like him. Why do people say that?"

"You were the good he used to be. Before the war and before he started drinking. Before Grandma left him."

Ellie shook her head. She couldn't see Grandfather as someone good.

Megan continued. "He was a really unhappy and angry person. After Grandma left him, he never got over it. He hated her with a pa.s.sion. And then she died, and that only made it worse."

"How do you know all this?"

"Dad and Aunt Betty, and some I've figured out since I've gotten older. I was his favorite, but whether that was an honor or a curse, I don't know. He didn't exactly love me. I don't think he could love. And he saw Grandma when he looked at you. And in the things that you did, he saw who he'd once been, but wasn't anymore."

It didn't really make sense. How could an adult be so cruel to a child? How could hatred grow so deep and bitter that he'd hurt a child's heart without remorse? And yet Ellie could see the growth of bitterness within herself, and in Megan. They were the grandchildren of Edward Summerfield, after all.

"I hated you for a long time, you know."

Ellie nodded.

"You excelled at pretty much everything, which made me hate you all the more. I wanted to believe what he said about you."

Ellie didn't know what to say. To guess it was one thing, but to hear it spoken was like a quick turn of the knife.

"I'm sorry I didn't stick up for you."

"You were a kid too. And Grandfather was terrifying."

"But I loved it that he didn't like you. He was the only person who liked me better. Everyone, and I mean everyone, always liked you best. It sounds so ridiculously juvenile now. But at the time, I knew that only one person was on my side, and that was this hateful man who I could never really love."

Ellie stared down at the bits of paper. "Maybe I should make some decoupage stuff too."

Megan motioned to the bowl. "I have a lot of paste."

"You know, sister, your art is really fantastic. I never really noticed it until I had to share your room that week of Grandfather's funeral. Even then, I sort of brushed it off as weird, or too dark. But you're really good."

Megan smiled. "Thanks."

"Something is wrong with us."

"That we can't love?"

Ellie nodded. "Yeah."

"We can. We just need to stop being afraid."

"Graduation is a month away," Mom said, clicking away with her knitting needles as they watched a talent search TV show.