Atlas High

Chapter 12 - Our Ellie

Triston Point Of View...

    The words that left Ellie's mouth and the sniffles are the only things I can hear. Not the goodbyes of her friends or my brother's voices who are trying to get through to me. Her words are replaying in my mind over and over again like a broken record. Should I tell Angel and Eric about Ellie and Niko? Or should I keep this to myself and wait for her to tell us. I didn't even realize Eric was shaking my shoulder until now.

            "Triston! Triston! Triston!" Angel and Eric yell my name until I come back to them which makes them sigh in relief. 

            "What's wrong Tris? What's going on in your mind?" Angel forces me to sit between him and Eric on the grey color couch. 

            "What do you mean Angel? Nothing wrong." By the look on their faces I know they don't believe a word I just said but I don't know what to do. Let alone I've only known about for less than an hour. 

            "Triston don't lie to us...we're your brothers okay?" Eric has a look of hurt that makes me feel guilty. 

            I take a deep breath before speaking to them, "I don't know if I can or should tell you this. I don't know what to do with what I know."

            Angel and Eric both look confused before Angel speaks up. "What do you think you should do?"

            After a few minutes of thinking it over, I take a deep breath and place my head in my hands. "You guys remember how difficult our junior year was? How we were all training and focusing on ourselves for once instead of each other? How our sole purpose was becoming better for our teams that we forgot about each other like mom and dad?" 

    By this point, they are remembering what was going on back then. All four of us were focusing on our goal and rarely saw each other. It was the first time we were driven by our own goals. I remember how Angel and I focused on practices, perfecting our techniques on the field, going hard every day at the gym that left us in amazing shape and mentally prepared us for our season on varsity. It was our dream to still be on varsity. I forgot about Ellie and Eric for months. I didn't realize what was going on with Ellie until it was too late.                           "Yeah, we were busy focusing on perfecting our skills to maintain our varsity level. Why?" Angel looks at me and I get more nervous. 

            "We let her down..we didn't protect her," I look down at the ground feeling guilty for not protecting Ellie. We have always had each other all our lives. All of us are protective of each other and that didn't change till that year. 

            "What are you talking about Tris?" Angel seems frustrated with the situation. 

            "Tris you are acting weird...who did we fail?" Eric just as confused as Angel. 

            The words get stuck in my throat for minutes before it came out of my mouth. "The only person who matters to us..that is who we failed. And we failed miserably."

       "How did we fail Ellie Tris? Your not making sense please just say it instead of being so cryptic." You can hear the desperation in Eric's voice as he wants to know who he 'failed' his twin. 

            "I overheard Ellie talking to Aria and Steph about...a-about her and this guy name Niko."

            "Niko? Like Niko the Russian from our old school who moved away? That Niko?" Tris nods his head to Angel's questions. 

            "Yeah that Niko."

            "Okay, but what does Niko have to do with how we failed Ellie?" Eric can't help but worry over his twin. 

            "Ellie and he were dating for a while and-d.."

            "Tris what did he do to Ellie?" Angel can see the verge of tears in his eyes. He can see the hurt and guilt that is written all over my face. It makes his own heart pick up. He has already come up with a million scenarios of what could have happened between Ellie and Niko. 

            "At some point in their relationship, he started to get physical with Ellie. And that is putting it lightly since I had the privilege of hearing what Niko did to Ellie. All the while we were oblivious as to what was going on with her. How could we not have noticed?" I look at Angel and Eric who finally understand what I was trying to say. As they process this new information they go through many emotions like anger, guilt, confusion, and more. 

            "No..no Tris you're wrong.. y-you probably heard wrong. There's no way..." Angel gets up from the couch and storms out. Soon Eric and I hear the roar of his 2017 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 crew cab leave the driveway. 

            "Tris, what are we gonna do?" He looks down at his phone screen. A picture of all four of us at the Holiday Inn Resort Suites Waterpark in Orlando, Florida. That was one of our favorite vacations that we took the four of us. That was our last day being in Florida after being there for a little over a week. It was amazing being there with everyone and it shows in that photo. In the center of that photo and our family is Ellie with a big smile on her face surrounded by her brothers. 

        "I don't know Eric...I don't know what we can do." A million things run throw my mind at that moment. 

        "Should we tell Ellie what we know?" Eric looks up from his phone at me.

        "I don't know if we should wait for her to tell us or if we should say we know." 

        "We need to find Angel before he does something stupid." I nod my head at Eric and send Angel a text. 

    (Phone conversation)

           Triston: Angel where are you? Come back home, please.

           Angel: I've been driving around the neighboorhood okay? I'm on my way now.

            Triston: Okay see you soon.

                                                              >

            "We can't tell Ellie that we know..at least not yet. It has to be on her own time and when that happens we will support her." Angel goes to sit on the couch where Erik and I have been waiting in silence.

        "Your right Angel..we need to let her tell us on her own. For now, we pretend we don't know but we make sure to protect her. Especially since she is on a date now with Hunter we don't want to let anything happen between them. We become the overprotective brothers that we are and will always be, got it?" Like always we agree and head upstairs to our rooms. 

                                                                >

            I open Eric's door and make my way to his bed. I shake him and say, "Eric...Eric wake the hell up!"

            "What do you want Tris?" he groggily replies. 

            "They just pulled up." Eric jumps from his bed and goes to Angel's room to wake him up. I go downstairs and wait for them. By the time they get down, I can hear Ellie and Hunter talking. The three of us count to 3 before we open the door to see them kissing. Before I know it Ellie is already making her way upstairs sleaving us to close the door and head upstairs with that image in our heads.