A/N: This is a short story I wrote for an English assignment. Please comment your thoughts and vote if you like it!

As Elinor Gansey stepped off the stair of her front porch, she heaved a sigh. The morning of September fifth, 1995 was rainy, the dark gray clouds looming overhead casting dim shadows across the grass. In her arms, she held three china teacups and a container of tea, delicately placed inside a picnic basket.

She walked from her driveway onto the sidewalk with slow, careful steps, yet not paying mind to the puddles that she walked through or the rain that poured heavily upon her disheveled hair. That was the least of her worries.

Elinor's eyes were focused on her feet, unaware of the pouring rain, the onlookers staring at her and whispering to one another, or the people holding umbrellas rushing inside. Each step was monotonous, almost automatic, as Elinor grudgingly continued on. She wasn't sad. She wasn't even upset. In fact, she hadn't remembered the last time she'd felt much since the phone call. Besides the initial shock, a wave of numbness had overtaken her.

But, today was a bit different.

Elinor continued walking for a bit more, before she found herself colliding with the damp wood of a telephone pole. God... she thought, rubbing her forehead. Why now of all times? She looked up again, eyes staring at the telephone pole, before on impulse swinging her arm back and hit it with all her might. Little things set her off, especially these days.

She pulled her arm back quickly and put her fist in her mouth, tears welling in her eyes, but not from the impact.

She was angry. Angry at the world. Angry at everything.

Taking a deep breath, she took her fist out her mouth and shoved it back into her pocket. She looked around this time, her eyes growing wide as the familiarity of this place flooded back to her.

•••

One hand was in his pocket, the other on one side of her face, illuminated by the moonlight.

"You never told me she hit you." His voice was scarily calm.

Her hand moved over his, pulling it off to reveal a fresh bruise on her face. "I told you... it's not that big of a deal." Her voice was equally as calm.

He sighed. "Elinor, you cannot let your aunt do this to you! You have to tell someone! That, that bitch can't get away with this!"

"What difference will it make? A bruise on my face isn't getting me out of that hellhole. Besides, you know how she operates! She'll just lie and then they won't believe me and.. And..."

Her voice trailed off as sobs bubbled in her throat. Then the tears began to fall, one after another, without any intention of stopping. He wrapped his arms around her as she let out muffled cries into his shoulder, all the emotions that she had been bottling up sprawling out right in front of her.

"Hey... it's gonna be okay... shhh..." he reassured, over and over.

They stood there like that for a few minutes, on the sidewalk at twelve a.m. in the morning. If it were any other person, Elinor would've just brushed it off as a fall or she knocked a bit too hard into something. But Charlie was different. With similar situations at home, she felt that he understood her, even just a little bit. He was her best, and, well, only friend.

•••

Elinor sighed before continuing to walk, her tired brown eyes wandering aimlessly around the street. The rain was coming down heavy now, and Elinor put her hands over her head in an attempt to block some of it. How could you have forgotten an umbrella, you idiot?! she thought.

But then again, it hadn't been exactly on her mind.

Continuing on, Elinor's mind wandered. She looked up at the dark sky, large drops of rain falling and trickling down her face. Letting the rain soothe her eyes, another memory swiftly came back to her.

A muggy Saturday afternoon. A heavy downpour.

She squeezed her eyes tighter.

Whispered confessions. Lips brushing ever so slightly.

"Miss, are you alright?"

Elinor snapped back into reality. In front of her stood an old woman holding an umbrella, her face twisted in concern.

"Oh, yes, um, I'm quite alright," Elinor mumbled.

The lady stared at her for a moment, before her eyebrows raised in realization. "Oh, oh my- you're Elinor Gansey, aren't you?"

She nodded. Here we go again. Ever since it happened, everyone seemed to avoid her like the plague.

"Oh," the lady whispered, shuffling past her.

Elinor sighed. Nothing new.

As she prodded along, Elinor's thoughts danced from one to another. The rain had begun to let up, until it was only a sprinkle. She'd made it to Main Street by this time, and people were beginning to come back out on the streets.

Still preoccupied by her own mind, Elinor's eyes were fixed on the picnic basket that she held in her hand, tracing the indents and lines on it with her thumb. She continued walking, still looking down, when all of a sudden she found herself- yet again - colliding with something. Or someone.

"Hey, watch where you're going!" a man in a suit said, a phone to his ear. Elinor looked down to notice a bundle of papers that had fallen on the ground, her eyes wide as she bent down to the ground to help him pick them up.

"No, I don't need help. Just go away, you'll probably mess something else up."

It was a simple statement, but for Elinor, equivalent to a slap to the face.

•••

Giddily, Elinor twirled around the kitchen, her hands held close to her chest. She smiled as those words, a blessing to her ears, repeated through her mind:

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

Those three words, so simple yet carrying so much meaning, resounded through her ears like a bell. They were so foreign, and Elinor herself hadn't remembered when she'd last heard them, if at all; but they were remembered by her for days, years after they were said.

Yes, Charlie Gansey had a lasting effect on Elinor Crenshaw. A very lasting effect.

The opening of a screen door was what brought her out of her trance. Elinor snapped to attention as a crude, harsh voice bantered through the doorway.

"Where are ya, girl? Get me sam' whiskey. It's been a long one."

Elinor quickly nodded before rushing to the refrigerator, which reeked of alcohol. She scrunched her nose as she grabbed a certain bottle, and instinctively poured it into a glass on the counter. She turned on the tap and mixed some water in, when she heard a yell from the living room:

"Huwwy it up, girl!"

"Coming, Aunt Robin!" she yelled back, turning the faucet back off, and rushing around the corner into the living room.

Maybe it was the rush. Maybe it was the fact that her mind was already off in its own world. Whatever the case, it had caused her to make a fatal mistake.

The small box that sat in the middle of the room would have easily been seen by anyone, but to Elinor, it wasn't there at all. So when she found herself falling to the floor, the glass of whiskey slipping out of her fingers, she frantically muttered, "No, no, no, no, no..."

And rightfully so.

The next few moments were hazy, all mashed together. Between the sound of shattering glass on hardwood and the rough screams in her ear, Elinor scrambled to get up, but didn't even manage to get on her knees before another force hit her back down...

"Stupid girl, just go away before you mess something else up..."

•••

"Really, just please leave."

Elinor snapped back. "W-what? Oh, um, yes, sorry."

She quickly stood up and continued walking down the street, her face flushed red with embarrassment. Oh, well, she thought. What's a simple incident like this got on anything else people think of me?

Elinor continued walking for a bit more, until she reached the crosswalk. It was red as cars still passed through the street. As she looked at the sign in anticipation, she absentmindedly twisted her wedding ring around her finger. She'd never taken it off, not even after all these years.

What has it been, she thought. Almost five years now?

Suddenly, the sign to the crosswalk turned green, and Elinor hastily shuffled across the pavement to the other side. When she got to the other side, she continued walking down the sidewalk, still playing with the ring on her finger.

That day was years after the whiskey incident, but nevertheless a much happier one. However Elinor remembered it with an exact clarity, with such clarity that it often pained her to remember.

Why?

At the time they got married, he had been in the military, and they weren't even married for two years before Elinor opened the door one day to be met with two officers with grim faces.

When the realization hit her, her heart fell like the china teacup in her hand, shattering into a hundred pieces on the floor...

That time had been extremely hard for Elinor, her heart like fine china, shattered in a million pieces. Now alone with a young baby to raise, the gravity of her situation hit her like a sledgehammer to the head as time began to catch up with her...

She began slipping, the momentum of the fall quickening and quickening; until reality slapped her back with a simple piece of paper: RENT OVERDUE.

Now she'd made it to the corner of Elm Street, standing at another crosswalk which was also red. On the opposite corner of the street stood a small brick building, the lawn dotted with grey dandelions blowing in the wind. On the front of the building was a sign that read: Dot's Diner.

Unlike a good lot of people, Elinor really enjoyed her work. The first months there were tense, still unraveling from the recent tragedy, but she came to truly love it there. When work was slow, which was a lot in the small town that she lived in, she and her coworkers found themselves secretly laughing together and ratting on the head-manager, Carol, whose face always looked like she had eaten something sour. Her job as a waitress was the only thing keeping her and Jimmy off the streets.

Jimmy. Jimmy, with his small pudgy face and watery blue eyes and inability to ever shut up, was her pride and joy. Every extra hour and late night Elinor scraped together, she told herself, was for the sake of him. Her childhood in mind, with her aunt either always gone or approaching the legal limit, only fueled her determination to try to give him a good life. Maybe he'll turn out different, she often thought.

Now Elinor had walked about a half-mile further down the sidewalk, and the rain had begun to pour heavier again. As she approached the daycare, Elinor held her breath as a burning question swirled around her mind.

She hadn't been able to face the building ever since the phone call.

Just run past it, her mind initially told her. Look down and run past it.

But there was a tiny part inside Elinor, small yet powerful, that told her to look.

No, look at it.

Don't. It'll just make everything that much harder.

Do it. You have to face it eventually.

She sucked in a breath. And in a quick moment, Elinor snapped her head to the side, her eyes wide and unblinking, toward the small white building. Immediately tears welled in her eyes, as scenes flashed before her eyes, so close yet so far away:

"Mommy!"

"Are you ready to go, Jimmy?"

"Yes, mommy! I had the bestest day ever today! But first, tell me about yours!"

She watched as they walked down the street, laughing and smiling, hand in hand. She watched as a thousand memories came back to her, each a mere snapshot as quick and as fleeting as the wind; stringing together into an entire lifetime. She watched as she and Jimmy walked down the street, she watched as they played at the park, and as she read him a story before bed. She just... watched.

She watched as the memories came back to her until she couldn't, and burst into a run.

Elinor didn't run for long, as her destination was near. When she reached it, her knees buckled to the ground, and every emotion that she had been pushing away for the past month fell out in front of her on the sidewalk along with the rain that fell overhead. She held the picnic basket close to her chest as she cried. She was immediately brought back to that night where she stood crying in the middle of the street, when Charlie hugged her. The difference now was that he lay six feet underground only a short distance away from her.

It was then that she started thinking. Thinking, what if? What if it didn't have to be this way? What if she had a good and kind aunt and an alive husband and... and...

What if that fence at the daycare hadn't been opened? What if that car had hit on the brakes a few seconds earlier? What if she hadn't lashed out and attacked the investigators and paramedics at the scene of Jimmy's death, who would not let her see him, and caused everyone in the small town of New Havensburg to fear her?

If. It was the worst word in the world.

Elinor wanted nothing more than to go back in time and to change everything; to stop Jimmy from going to daycare that day, to stop Charlie from leaving for the military. To even run out in front of that car to save Jimmy. She wanted nothing more. But she couldn't. She knew that better than anyone.

Gathering her bearings, Elinor stood up, and shakily walked into the cemetery. She went to Charlie's grave first, and opened her picnic basket, took out one teacup and poured a little tea in it. She set it on top of the headstone.

"I made some tea, baby. Thought you'd like some," she said, her voice quavering.

Then, she walked to the children's area. Each step was grueling, the overbearing agony of what was to come hanging over her like the storm clouds in the sky. Ever since he died, Elinor couldn't find it in her to visit him. Not until now.

Taking a deep breath, she poured a little tea into another teacup and set it on top of the tiny headstone that read, "Jimmy Gansey". Then she sat down, poured some for herself in the last teacup, and said,

"Hi, Jimmy. It's me."

As the rain began to let up, Elinor sighed. Then, unexpected to even her, she did something she hadn't done in a long time.

She smiled.

"Let me tell you about my day."