Don't Tell Ellie

They say that youth is wasted on the young. It’s a fair point to be sure, wisdom takes years to develop—if you’re lucky enough to gain any at all. I’m still trying to figure out where mine is as I ride an elevator up to the penthouse of a guy who I’m almost certain is a serial killer.

Yet, here I am. For the second time, this week stepping foot onto Benjamin’s rooftop and he’s waiting for me. He’s attempting to look casual, leaning against the glass doors of his apartment with his hands in his pockets. He’s gotten rid of the suit jacket, but his steel grey button-up doesn’t exactly dress him down, even if the sleeves are rolled up and the collar unbuttoned.

Benjamin’s hair is longer than I thought, delicately sweeping the tops of his ears like the dark wings of a raven, but it compliments his almost bronze skin, and as I move closer I can see his eyes are a milky brown, a color that I imagine would look like a tigers eye gem in the sunlight.

I bite my lip unconsciously as I stare up at him. I’ve really got to work on my attraction to danger.

“Miss Brennan,” his voice is soothing, but I don’t want it to be.

“Are we being formal now, Mister Marston?” I say sharply.

“Ah, so it’s you who has been spying.”

“You wish.”

“You wouldn’t find anything of consequence,” he says turning to open his door. “After you.”

“No way.” Never turn your back on an enemy. “After you.”

He enters and I trail behind him, the cold metal of my pocket knife kissing the skin between my breasts reassures me that I’m the one in control this time.

“Sorry about the time,” I say and he laughs as my face contorts in disgust, why the fuck am I apologizing to him? He’s the one that has flipped my life upside down.

“It’s okay, I’m a bit of a night owl. I thought we’d chat in the living room, the glass windows work as a sort of deterrent to privacy.”

“Sure, except who the hell is looking up this high at 3 a.m.?”

“Fair enough, but I thought you’d be more comfortable.”

“I doubt my level of comfort is anywhere on your radar,” I say snidely.

Benjamin takes a seat on a white chase across from a loveseat of the same color and points to the glass coffee table between the two, “Sealed Heineken.”

I sit in the center of the loveseat, grab a bottle and pop the cap with the bottle opener he’s provided.

“No new parlor tricks with your keys?” He asks playfully.

I blink slowly, and glare at him. I don’t care how sexy you are, Benjamin Marston, we are never going to be friends.

He sighs and grabs himself a beer, “Where should we start?”

“How about you answer the only real question there is. Why do you have a literal door to the past?”

“I don’t have an answer to that, but it’s not the only one.”

“In the world?”

“Benjamin shifts and crosses his ankle over his knee. “In this house.”

I want to call his bluff, to find some chink in his armor, but I’ve seen that door with my own eyes, “Okay, so you’re telling me that I can travel to any point in time? If I walk through one of your doors right now I can go and visit, I don’t know, King Henry the VIII?”

“The fact that the first place you’d want to be is in King Henry’s court makes me concerned about your interest in terrible men.”

“So you admit that you’re a terrible man?”

“Are you saying you’re interested in me?”

I tilt my head back to hide my face and down my beer. “No,” I start, searching my brain for what it is I’m trying to ask, “Is this building built on some sort of Indian Burial ground?”

“This isn’t the Poltergeist, Eleanore, this is real.”

“Real life time-travel, yeah I got it,” I grab another beer and slide back on the couch, “Why does the door in your study lead to my childhood?”

“The only one who can answer that question is the creator of the door.”

“So, let's go ask them, hop into one of your doors and teleport to wherever the hell they are.”

“The doors do not work like that.”

“Enlighten me, Benjamin.” I wish he wouldn’t speak like all of this is common sense.

“Each door is designated to a certain point in time, a week, a year, a day—it’s a loop, a carousel of time that repeats itself.”

I start wondering about the lock on the inside of the double doors, maybe it wasn’t to keep Benjamin inside, but to stop something from getting out.

“Well, who exactly is the creator?”

“That’s another question I cannot answer, at least not now.”

“Well then answer this, why is it that when I went missing in 1997, I was discovered in a house, a house that your fucking family owns?”

Benjamin stands and places his bottle on the glass table between us, he runs a hand through his hair and rocks on his heels. “I did something I should not have done.”

His expression is making me more uncomfortable than I’ve ever been in my life. “And what was that?”

Benjamin is looking at me from where he’s standing, but it’s as if he’s looking through me like I’m invisible. His eyes unfocused and his voice is filled with regret, “Twenty years ago, I saved you.”