An Elf's Rose

CHAPTER 20

Rose threw herself into her schoolwork and Aikido lessons with almost obsessive passion. It was the only way she knew how to distract her attention from the elf arrow transfixing her heart. During the day it was a dull ache, but at night, it became an unbearable white hot pain. No amount of weeping could lessen it.

She wrote to him every week in diary form about the activities of her days. She tried to be lighthearted and humorous, but it always seemed forced to her and wondered if he thought the same. When she did try to write a “real” letter, she ended up tearing it to little pieces. What could she possibly say that she hadn’t already without sounding like a complete fool? The worst of it was, he never wrote back. Not even a postcard.

If her friend Carly had thought she had been emotionally remote before, now Rose became completely closed down. She had handed her heart to her beloved and begged him to stay and he’d turned away from her, spurned her love. After all they’d been through together, he’d refused to let her stay by his side to help him and support him in his time of need. She didn’t think she would never again make herself so vulnerable. It was much too painful.

The days passed and she spent her small amount of ftimetime like any other college student. She went to the movies, went clothes shopping, hung out with her friends at the mall during that Christmas season, buying presents. She even succumbed and purchased Orlando an incredibly soft chenille scarf and matching cap in a smoky blue color that reminded her of his eyes.

Eventually, time lessened the pain of the elf arrow incrementally until it only felt like a splinter, and she was able to put away his braid in a Ziploc bag in her closet with her other childhood mementos, believing that finally it was making her feel worse rather than better when she touched it. The snapshot of him with the guys no longer brought on bouts of weeping and she was able to frame it and put it on her bookshelf with the other snaps of friends and family, just another memory of happy days.

She accepted invitations from Thomas, who was so kind and sweet to her, to go to parties and the movies. Her parents approved heartily of young Thomas, coming from a good Catholic family, so they encouraged her to continue to go out with him, his earring notwithstanding.

Rose began to spend a lot of time with Thomas, and during Christmas break, he came over almost every day to take her somewhere, even if it was to Balboa Park to feed the ducks at the pond or bike around on the trails. For her part, she got him addicted to Tolkien and they scoured the web and comic /fantasy book stores for anything to do with Lord of the Rings. They got along well, and Rose felt that they had developed a solid friendship, hoping that he knew she could offer him no more than that.

The other person Rose spent time with was Sean, a solid, comforting presence that empathized with her own distress. They would go to the beach with Maude, who now belonged to him, or sit outside the Starbucks near his place in Manhattan Beach, and talk about their favorite subject: Orlando. Soon, though, from lack of new information, the subject dried up and they began to talk with an easy, comfortable intimacy about the other important things in their lives, letting themselves laugh again. As the weeks passed, they became closer and Rose was there to console him through his break-up with Amy, something that saddened the whole gang. It never occurred to Rose that she might have been the cause of it.

Under the dual attentions of the men in her life, Rose was beginning to feel like the splinter of her elf arrow might be working its way out, freeing her heart from its constant ache.

The foursome of Sean and Rose, Marc and Karyn, went out one evening over the holiday season to check out a new dance club in Manhattan Beach that Rose, not yet twenty-one, could go in as well. They danced the night away to the loud pounding rhythms and Orlando’s name never once came up. Marc was eternally his outrageous self, keeping them in stitches, and Sean was being unusually affectionate, hugging her close and kissing her mouth repeatedly. They left the club, all four hanging on each other and laughing hysterically, not wanting the good time to end. They stood outside by the curb, waiting for the valets to bring their cars around, when Rose looked up to see a smoke-colored BMW 323 being parked right in front of her by a slender man with his blond hair in a pony tail. She reared up in shock, gasping, clutching at Sean, the elf arrow suddenly grown full size. It wasn’t him of course, but Rose’s reaction deeply dismayed Sean and showed everyone, whether she acknowledged it or not, her heart was still five thousand miles away in Scotland.

~~~

Orli sat on a freezing cold rock, staring at the steel gray ocean and listening to the bark of the seals, feeling quite a bit of accomplishment. It had taken him up until Hogmanay, the Scottish New Year celebration, walking every day from the moment he settled in to the manor, to make the three mile walk to the shore. The first days, he thought he would collapse from the cold and exhaustion, making it only a fraction of the way before turning back. But his body was slowly healing and strengthening, if not yet his mind.

The manor, as the inmates called the recovery facility, was an ancient pile of rubble in the north Highlands that had been used as a barracks and a prison way back after the Rising of 1745 that ended in tragedy for the Scots. From the outside it looked forbidding and inhospitable, but on the inside was quite comfortable and modern. There was a small permanent staff with a few interning psychiatrists that rotated weekly. It was an exclusive facility for the damaged children of the wealthy.

The eleven other patients at the manor ranged in age from seventeen to twenty seven. Their “issues”, as the staff like to call them, was a mélange of attempted suicide, sexual abuse, manias and phobias, anger management, eating disorders and general neuroses. Most of the patients had more than one issue they were dealing with.

Orli dealt with his own “issues” in private therapy sessions every day, and had to attend group therapy four times a week with the three other patients who had been sexually abused. He hadn’t as yet spoken voluntarily during “group” as the others called it. The shrink was a motherly older woman and tried to coax him into talking but he merely stared at her, arms crossed on his chest, slumped in the chair.

The other patients welcomed Orli to their tight-knit group of suffering with varying degrees of suspicion, apathy, curiosity and friendliness. They were required to “socialize”, so sat together at supper at a long table, six to a side, with a shrink at one end and a male nurse at the other. After supper was spent in the rec room, watching TV, reading or playing board games, or in some instances, a vicious game of cards. Orli thought it was a joke at first, making crazy people try to get along, but then started to get to know the other patients, especially those who had had similar experiences as himself. He was particularly drawn to the youngest of the group, the seventeen year old Scottish boy named Kieran – he knew why but couldn’t help himself.

Kieran had been sexually abused by a family member since he was seven years old and had come to the manor severely depressed and suicidal. He was small and birdlike, with dark brown curls and big brown eyes, and a shy, sweet, disturbingly innocent smile.

Orli had listened to the boy’s story in group, sick to his stomach, thinking it could easily have been Rose. He almost forgot his own misery in the clenching horror he felt at the thought. Kieran felt Orli’s empathy and they eventually forged a special bond. The boy followed Orli around like a puppy, constantly asking questions in his soft Scottish burr, avidly curious of his life in the States. Orli took him under his wing and with the permission of the doctors, started teaching him Aikido, but in such a gentle manner that his former students would have been very surprised.

The other patients noticed their deepening friendship and a few made snide remarks, the worst coming from the women whose advances he’d rebuffed previously. He, of course, completely ignored them. There were a lot of -- rather indiscreet, Orli thought -- promiscuous goings-on which the staff disregarded in the interest of peace and quiet. The doors to each of the patients’ rooms had no locks and, while they weren’t actually allowed to come and go as they pleased, no one said anything as long as the other person was willing. There were a couple of nights Orli woke up with a woman in his bed, groping at his privates, which he promptly tossed out in a rage.

It came to a head one night at supper. Orli was picking at the food, really craving sushi with wasabe and saki instead of the broiled pork chop and green beans on his plate, when his attention was caught by Kenny, the obsessive-compulsive, sitting across the table from him.

“What?” Orli asked, looking up.

“I was just asking Dr. Parma if it’s true that when little girls get raped, they turn into nymphomaniacs –“ he nodded his head sideways toward Grace, one of the women Orli had tossed, “and when little boys get raped, they turn into arse bandits. What do you think, Orlando?” Kenny smiled and winked, looking at Kieran and waggling his brows.

“Now Kenny – “ Dr Parma began. With the speed of a striking cobra, Orli stood and reached across the table to grab Kenny’s shirt front, dragging him to within an inch from his face. Kenny’s eyes went wide as saucers and the male nurse stood up. Dr. Parma held up his hand.

“Orlando, put him down. He is just trying to provoke you.”

“You wouldn’t understand friendship and caring if it was handed to you on a gold plate,” Orli hissed in Kenny’s face. “Don’t you dare make assumptions about where and to whom I give myself. You know nothing of my heart.”

Orli shoved him back across the table, where he landed back in his chair, his plate of food spilling in his lap. There was shocked silence for a moment until Orli casually picked up his fork again. The rest of the group followed his lead cautiously, looking at each other with little awed smiles. Orli, intent on his pork chop, never noticed Kieran’s looks of adoration.

~~~

On the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, Rose received a package from Orlando in the mail. She’d just come back from spending the day at the Getty Museum with Thomas and some other school friends. She’d invited them in for milk and chocolate chip cookies that she and her mom had made the night before. They sat around the kitchen table with glasses of milk and plates full of cookies before Rose noticed it, sitting there like a brown toad, ignorant of her pounding heart. No one except Thomas noticed her tension, not even noticing the parcel. They joked and laughed and gobbled cookies.

She picked it up stared at it for a bit, not really believing it was from him. But the return address of Dornoch, Scotland, UK written with a black felt pen was the same she still wrote to, though now infrequently. Her hands trembled as she slit the packing tape with a knife, praying she didn’t slice her fingers. She reached in, rummaged through the Styrofoam peanuts and found a small box taped to an envelope.

Thomas watched with a heavy heart as she tore the envelope open, oblivious of anything else in the room. The picture on the card was a snowy scene of the Highlands, all bleak rocks and blue sky. She opened it.


“Rose,

I’ve received all your letters and enjoy them immensely. I’m sorry I haven’t written. I’m really terrible at that. I am so stomstomed to emailing but there’s no access to computers here. I’m such a techno-snob!

It’s not such a bad place, I rather like it. The surrounding countryside is so beautiful, and the air is so clear, one can see for miles. Very good for contemplating one’s life. I am walking six miles a day now, and will start running it soon. The headaches are almost all gone, though my back still pains me occasionally. My eyesight keeps improving, I have almost all of my peripheral vision back, although when I get tired, it starts blacking out. I don’t think I can take up archery or knife fighting again just yet though. Not that they’d let me have any weapons here anyway!

I’m glad things are going well with you and that you keep busy. I’m very glad that you are continuing with Aikido – please don’t stop going! There is every indication that you are a warrior at heart and I am proud of having taught you.

I want to thank you for the lovely scarf and knit cap. I have been using them daily on my walks as the weather gets bitterly cold here. My hair is starting to grow long and I go back and forth about whether or not to cut it short again. It felt odd at first, having had it so long for so long (how’s that for a sentence!) but I got to like it short. It’s so much easier to take care of, that’s for sure. What did your friend Carly call it? Bed Head Hair? Quite appropriate, as some days I don’t even bother to comb it and it sticks up in all directions and no one seems to care.

Well, I seem to be running out of room…give everyone my best. Hugs and kisses, Orli

P.S: Hope you like the gift. I found it in a wee shop on one of our day trips into town. Take care, A.”


Rose put the card down, heart fluttering. She wasn’t sure how she felt about his note. It was so thoroughly Orlando: considerate, polite, amusing. Yet, it was written as if to an acquaintance, not someone he’d professed love to. What did you expect? He left you, she thought bitterly. You’re lucky you got anything at all.

She picked up the small white box and opened it up. Nestled in the tissue paper was a fine silver chain with a silver heart-shaped locket the size of a quarter. A wild rose was embossed on the front. Her hands shook as she opened it up. There was a tiny spray of dried white heather bells curled inside. In Scotland, white heather was traditionally placed at the clan markers on the field of Culloden, the site of the last tragic battle of the Rebellion, for remembrance.

There were words inscribed on the back of the locket.

“Never forget.”