Party People | Chapter 4
“Maybe you shouldn’t let yourself feel that way.”
“Any dog can be aggressive.”
“That’s so right!!”
The wind picked up by the lake. The mud, covering Ellie’s feet like socks, was cracking and falling away as it dried. Young Ellie loved getting messy and the cool mud was one of her favorite sensations. She finished a deli turkey pinwheel and started eating the tomato she had taken out of the sandwich. Her Aunt Petunia was basically decorating her third pinwheel with mustard. The group watched her as she turned it on its side and frosted it like a cupcake.
“Petty,” Ellie’s Aunt Dafi sighed out cigarette smoke. “It’s more mustard than sandwich.”
“Hmph!” Petunia huffed, turning her nose up in the air. Elle let out a quick giggle before a glare from her aunt stifled it.
(Later, when Aunt Petunia had finished her sandwich, she wiped away her mustardstache, suddenly aware that people could see her. Her cheeks turned red with embarrassment.)
Ellie’s crotch was suddenly met with a grass-covered ball in the mouth of a pitbull. It was moist and unexpected, the slobbery grass spread across her thighs haphazardly. Ellie blushed as goosebumps formed on her leg, and she angrily slapped away the grass. “Link, down!” She threw the ball far across the lake’s shoreline.
“Call ‘em by his full name if you want him to listen,” Aunt Dafi explained from her foldable chair. She whistled and switched quickly to a puppy-talk tone. “Come here, LinkedIn, get over here you nasty boy.” Link quickly ran over and happily sat next to Dafi as she scratched his back.
Ellie excused herself to go to the bathroom. She walked past the kitchen, her eyes meeting a bottle of buttery red wine on the counter and letting it pass by. Quickly entering the bathroom and locking the door, she looked at herself in the mirror, eyebrows furrowed and beads of sweat on her forehead. She started to cry.
~
“Maybe you shouldn’t let yourself feel that way.”
Chessie was Elle’s new roommate. They hadn’t known each other for very long but Elle could tell Chessie anything. She trusted her. They shared a bathroom and they often got ready together. Chessie was focused on applying her mascara as she continued. “It’s a pretty fearsome desire in you, and it may not be trustworthy. The heart can be misleading.”
~
“Are you fucking serious, Chessie?” Natasha was furious. “You released your culty Christian shame monster onto Elle, didn’t you?” She groaned or— more accurately— she roared and she whipped around and punched the wall full-force. A painting that had been hanging on Chessie’s wall fell to the ground. Nat choked back sobs, not turning back toward the group, her right hand throbbing. They all knew the textured wall had ripped up her knuckles.
Some bachelorette party this was turning out to be…
“I didn’t mean to give it to her, I still thought it was good at that point. I thought… it would help her.” Her tears found her chin. “I was trying to help her.” Chessie was suddenly (seemingly) yanked to her knees by some sort of invisible force. Now, her tears weren’t falling from her eyes as much as they were floating up, like a reverse rain falling up to the heavens, turning her tear droplets into sparkly bubbles once they passed the tree line. Elle’s eyes widened. This was it.
“And what about Grace?” Mook’s words seemed to surprise herself. She started coughing in a way that was funny at first. But then her coughing got more intense. She was choking. She was gasping for air.
“What happened to Mook?” Elle asked, her eyebrows— for the first time in front of the whole group— expressing real concern instead of invitation. “Grace, what happened to you?” She was ruffling through Mook’s backpack for her inhaler. “Can I please know? I can help.”
What Grace perceived as Elle’s full attention on her made the room swirl. Grace was no longer reachable. She was in a tornado, faced by a dizzying amount of mirrors. She couldn’t find the ground or any slice of reality. She was getting nauseous but she was afraid to throw up. What would come out if she did?
Elle saw Grace was hovering without moving, only a couple inches from the ground. The room began to vibrate and her eyes glowed a bright white. Elle’s eyes narrowed.
In reality, her closest friends were hurting, all sitting together on the rug on Chessie’s bedroom floor. Elle’s eyes started glowing a deep purple hue. Her eyes were lighting up and the power coursing through her was adding to the vibrations, but the sensation didn’t take over her. Instead, Elle’s feet stood firm and she remained calm.
Wow… She hadn’t been here in a bit.
It was hard to be here. The empathetic space, the Emotional Element, had been a dangerous place for her in the past. (Understanding so many points of view made me value them over my own.) In that emotional moment, her friends were exploding from the size of their unprocessed, long-locked-away emotions. Elle knew it was very difficult for her to shake off that debilitating pressure once it found her. It’s what kidnapped her, but it’s also what built her. Now, it was her job to lead her friends through this.
Elle moved 300 feet in one step and succeeded in pulling the shame off of Mook, who was being strangled by it. In the physical moment, she coughed and opened her eyes. She saw Elle’s hand on her shoulder, with purple eyes glowing bright as she faced forward.
In the other Element, Elle doubled-jumped up to Grace and, with a dancey swing of her arms, diluted the shame monster dwelling in Grace’s heart.
I hope this is what Chessie’s bible verse was talking about, Elle mused mid-air. It’s been incorrectly interpreted into something shameful. I mean, I want to believe it was…
She sniffed. She was crying.
“I believe it in my heart. I can trust it…
Right?”
She was sinking again, being pulled to the ground by something strong.
In the real world, Elle’s purple eyes flicker as she falls to the ground, unconscious. Grace and Mook, now freed from Shame’s grasp, squeaked in surprise at Elle’s limp body on the ground. They rush over, pull her up, and carry her over their shoulders.
Rather quickly, she regains awareness of the other Element. When she comes to, she looks up to see Chessie has lassoed her arms and legs like a calf in a rodeo. Her perfectly curled hair shifting in the breeze. When she fully understands who she’s looking at, Elle chokes back a sob. It takes all her strength not to take on Chessie’s pain as her fault. She had been so excited to have a close friend, she had never even noticed Chessie’s bracelets.
“Turn on the lights.” Elle said in both elements. She didn’t have to ask her twice, Grace was scared of the dark but more afraid of interrupting. She flicked the light-switch.
A change in lighting revealed Chessie’s bracelets were handcuffs. Chessie raised her head, revealing she had been blindfolded and gagged as well. Elle slowly approached Chessie, who winced. Elle’s presence was obviously a threat to who had trapped Chessie here.
She walked away from Chessie quickly when she realized she still needed to free Natasha, who was still breathing at a quickened pace, hands behind her back. Elle reached for her hurt hand, and placed her hand over Nat’s. In a moment too quick for Nat to pull her hand away, her knuckles began to heal. Natasha’s vision refocused to see her skin braid itself back together. Her breathing calmed as she watched Elle return to Chessie, who recoiled again.
In the other Element, Elle was tied up and Chessie, though powerless, held the ropes. But in the real world, Elle placed her hands on both sides of Chessie’s face as her own purple eyes flickered. Chess seemed uncomfortable and afraid. “I’m going to help you.” Elle said calmly. “You can trust me when I say that I love you so deeply and more dearly every day.”
Elle slowly freed Chessie of the blindfold and the gag. Tears rolled down her face even though she was still too trapped to speak. Her eyes flicked back and forth from Elle to the handcuffs.
In the Emotional Element, Cowgirl Chessie walked closer to the tied up Elle and whispered. “I wanted to take this burden away from everyone else. But I think I’ve given it to them instead.”
Elle pushed back at the critical, shame-based thoughts this statement brought her as she produced a key. With a swift motion, she released Chessie of the chains and locked herself into the handcuffs.
“NO!” The room shouted in unison.
“Oh yes.” A voice said in the darkness. “You’re the worst one of them all. You want to do what you want, like you know what’s good for you.”
The presence was so tangible but could not be seen. Its words felt like a thick paste being spread across Elle, on her legs, her back, her face. With a shaky voice, Elle replied.
“I can trust myself.”
She stood ready, knowing Shame would not hold back.
~
🤍 End of Chapter
We took a turn. These chapters are not in order, just in case you’re confused.
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