Chapter 35

When the story about Brad Marchand cheating on Elia had hit the internet, the Blackhawks had been on a west coast road trip. Nobody had been able to reach Elia since, and even though Jon had repeatedly called Kalah she told him she too had no way of reaching Elia either. He was trying hard to focus on the games being played but he was worried. She had a history of not being able to deal with stress. Sometimes Jon couldn't decide if he wanted to head back to Chicago as soon as possible, or head to wherever Marchand was and kill him. The choice was not his to make however, because he went where the team went, and it was a few days before they were sent back to Chicago. Unfortunately, it was late when they did make it back, and Jon decided it was probably better to wait until the morning.

As usual, when he woke up he made a breakfast smoothie and went to grab his morning paper from outside the front door. Jonathan had been reading the newspaper every morning since third grade. It was something his dad had always done. Every morning they would separate the sections, and Jon would read half while his father read the other, and then they would switch. When the whole paper had been read his dad would ask him questions about the articles. Jon separated the real newspaper from the Chicago RedEye, which he normally discarded, but stopped. The front page read “BrElia Goes Down,” with the cover as a picture of the pair being torn apart. He opened it to the article. There was a time line of the Brad Marchand Elia Downs relationship, from beginning to end on the bottom of the page. Brad had been seeing going through Midway airport two days ago. Jon looked at a squared off section on the right hand side where the time line ended.

Yesterday, 10:50 p.m. Elia Downs was kicked out of Sluggers in Wrigleyville for being overly intoxicated after hitting the batting cages for four hours straight and playing the same two songs on the TouchTunes juke box the entire time “We were there for about 20 minutes in the batting cage next to her when we started getting tired of listening to Adele's 'Someone Like You,' and some country song 'More Like Her'. We were there to have a good time not listen to depressing breakup songs,” bar patron Alex Young told RedEye. “So we sent one of our guys over to her to ask politely if she would consider changing it up.” Scott Daniels, a second year at Loyola Law School, approached her to request a change in music. “I asked her, and she didn't really acknowledge what I had said. She said to me, 'My boyfriend just dumped for a shot girl, do you know what that means?' Obviously I didn't. She said 'I have a net worth of 300 million dollars and it's still not worth putting up with my personality.' I said, 'Yeah, I could see that,' She laughed and asked if I wanted to make out. Obviously if Elia Downs asks if you want to make out you don't say no.” It was at this point that Sluggers manager Matt Brown decided Elia needed to go home.
This isn't the first time Elia Downs has bogarted a TouchTunes, we asked our readers to share their stories.
“Once a couple years back I was at Lion's Head in Lincoln Park and Elia Downs was there alone drinking. She played Miley Cyrus 'Party in the USA' about 20 times before the manager actually unplugged the machine. Elia proceeded to smash a bottle of beer on the floor and yell 'Are you not entertained?' before leaving. It was cool though because she asked to put everyone's tab on her Amex first.” - Dustin Erickson.

Jon's phone was ringing. It was Kane. He put the paper down and answered.
“Hey, did you see the RedEye today?” Pat asked.
“Yeah, I was just reading it.” Jon replied.
“I'm heading to El's house right now, meet you for breakfast at...Feast? Thirty minutes?”
Jon agreed and hung up the phone.

Pat went around to the back door of Elia's house and let himself in. She really didn't ever lock the door. He didn't think it was an accident. She was afraid of being truly alone. The corgi greeted him, jumping up on his shins, smiling and barking. He took her outside with him for a minute before picking her up to go upstairs. Elia's room was on the third floor, and he set Byfuglien down when they reached the landing. He knocked on the door, twice, and when she didn't answer he walked in. A pair of heels lay on the floor, next to a coat and a handbag. Elia was asleep in the bed.

“Hey El,” he said gently, shaking her shoulder.
“I'm not asleep!” Elia yelled, muffled from her face still in the pillow.
“Yes you were,” Pat replied.
“No I wasn't, I just don't want to get out of bed.”

He lay down next to her and pulled her hair out of her face. “It's time to get up. We're going to get breakfast with Jonny.”
She looked at him, closed her eyes and made a whining sound.
“When is the last time you ate?” Pat asked. Elia just whined again.
“We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Which would you prefer?”
“Can't we just stay here for a while?” She asked.
“I have a feeling you've already been laying in bed for more than a while.”

Elia looked him in the eyes for a while, trying to read him. Then pulled the blanket over her head.

“You want to listen to some music on repeat? You like that right?” He put Miranda Lambert's Mama's Broken Heart on his phone.
“Go and fix your makeup girl, it's just a breakup, run and hide your crazy, and start acting like a lady, cause I raised you better, gotta keep it together, even when you fall apart,”

He picked Elia up and started to carry her to the bathroom. “Okay, okay, I'm up, I'm up!” She started to yell. Pat set her down. “I don't want to take a shower.” Elia said obstinately, holding the blanket wrapped around her. He considered her opinion for a moment. She smelled like cigarettes, alcohol and sweat. “Nope, you need a shower.” He started to pick her up again but she finally agreed to go on her own.

Thirty minutes later they were finally walking to Feast. Elia had showered, but refused to put on any makeup or dry her hair. The trees along her street were dark and bare, skeletons reaching over the sidewalk and up to the sky. All the snow from the day before had melted, but dark dirty water filled the cracks in the sidewalks and the curbs of the street. They walked up to North Avenue, crossing over to Damen and walking north to the purple building with grey awnings over the windows.

Jon was waiting for them with a table in the back room, in the corner next to a window. Elia's hair was dark and wet, pulled back into a ponytail. Her green eyes were clear of mascara or eyeliner, and red from exhaustion. She looked wild. And beautiful. She was wearing dark blue jeans, with a wrinkled t-shirt and a scarf under her Patagonia parka.
“You're already busting out the heavy duty coat and it's only December El, what are you going to do next month?” Jon asked her.
“Stay inside my house with my friend Jameson,” She said dully.

Pat put a copy of the newspaper down on the table. “Did you get kicked out of Sluggers?”
Elia rolled her eyes, picking up the paper. “It's not the first time, it probably won't be the last time. Look, I wanted to destroy something, my house is made of glass on two sides, I decided to go smash some balls instead.”
“Well, that's a good decision.” Jon said, encouragingly.
“I called Dr. Drew yesterday. He suggested I not be alone because an idle mind has been a trigger for me, and said that I should try doing an activity to get out my physical aggression that's not sex. I'm trying to find better ways to deal with my anger.” She put her hands out, as if motioning to a set of objects. She sighed, and ran her hands over the top of her hair, still looking down at the paper. Looking at Brad.

“I think I can get him back though,” She started to say.
“Nooo, Elia, why would you even think that?” Patrick said angrily. “He was fucking around on you, why would you even think that?” He said again. Elia's face scrunched up in exasperation, as if she didn't even know.

She put her hands on her face, “I don't know, I don't know,” she repeated. “I can see that I'm not thinking right. A man doesn't run around on a woman. That's what a coward does. A man, looks a woman in the eyes and says...And says, 'I don't love you anymore,'” her voice was starting to crack, “'I don't love you anymore, because you couldn't love me back,'” she said finally, her face contorted as if in pain. “What if I haven't been thinking rationally this whole time?” she thought out loud.

She took a piece of paper out of her pocket. It was taped together. She threw it down on the table. “He left that for me.” she said.
Pat and Jon read the note.
I'm done lying. You should stop lying too. I've seen the way you look at someone when you're in love, and you've never looked at me that way.

“What do you think it means?” Pat asked. Elia hadn't a clue. It wasn't like Brad to be cryptic, which was even more irritating.
“I told him I loved him and he accused me of acting. He is probably just trying to make himself feel less guilty by putting it back on me.”
Elia was surprised by her own words. The server came by the table with coffee for Elia and some waters.
“Debbie gave us permission not to seat anyone else in this area while you're here Elia. Are you ready to order?”
“Thank you. Yes, I'll get a breakfast burrito, but can I get it without eggs? And a breakfast croissant, and sticky toffee pudding. And thank you for bringing the coffee. I'll also have a mimosa.” Elia replied.

While Pat and Jon ordered she looked around at all the empty tables surrounding them. She was grateful for the kind gesture from Feast's owner. It was bad enough to be dumped. Worse to find out your boyfriend cheated on you and then picked her. Worse still to find out about in a magazine. But the absolute worst was what came next. Caught-cheating photos only satiated the tabloids and their readers for a short time. Now they would want pictures of Elia reacting. Elia Steps Out for First Time Since Split. Will she be devastated? Will she hang out with her girlfriends? Will she go to Starbucks? If so, what does it mean? What does it all mean? The next time she had to do an interview she would of course be asked about it. How did it feel to be cheated on Elia? Wow, you know, it fucking sucked. Elia Downs Opens Up About Break Up. She wanted to vomit thinking about it all. Going to Sluggers last night was a stupid idea, and she was lucky it only made the RedEye. Why couldn't he have broken up with her quietly? Nobody would've had to know. The only consolation in the situation was that he had also brought the shit-storm down upon himself.

She tried to steer the conversation towards something else. “So Barack says we're going to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of the year, that's...interesting...” Patrick stared at her, confused. This was news to him. Jon started in to a monologue about the topic. She watched him talking, not listening to what he was saying. The thing that had surprised her most about getting to know Jonny was that he always knew everything that was going on in the world. It had taken her a long time to figure this out because he would never bring it up. She remembered being in the locker room one day talking to Tomas Kopecky about being from Slovakia. He was trying to tell her where Slovakia was, when Jonathan casually walked by and said “Czechslovakia separated in the early 90's, Slovakia is on the right, Czech is on the left, think of it like the alphabet, C comes before S.” Back then she had been shocked, but now she was used to it and used it to distract him. She was still staring at him when she realized he had stopped talking and was now staring back at her. Time for something else to say.

“Uhh, you know, that's a dreary conversation for the morning. I don't know why I brought that up... Anyway, Pat, tell me about you and Amanda!” She enthusiastically said.

Well, they had gone on two real dates. But, she had to study for finals, which were this week, and they were planning to go out again after. He had gotten to first base. Once. He was being respectful of her boundaries. Hopefully going to second base next time. He had bought tickets to a play at the Steppenwolf Theatre.

“You should get dinner at Boka before you go. Get the snapper carpaccio. Oooh, carpaccio. Do you have a game tonight? Can we go to Girl and the Goat?” Elia suggested.
Pat already had long standing plans with Joakim Noah.
“Don't make me pull the I-just-got-dumped card! Hanging out with Joakim instead of me what is this?” Elia started to complain.
“You were away for a long time Elia, and I made one new friend. Chill.” Pat said.
“I've got to say, you're being a lot calmer about this than I expected.” Jonathan said. The topic was back to her. Elia shrugged.
“Well, I did get kicked out of a bar last night, but yeah. I think it hasn't sunk in yet. I mean, what am I supposed to do now? I am too sore to swing a bat again. I could cry, I could watch the Notebook. I'd rather just try to bang Ryan Gosling though. I could booty call Prince Harry of Wales right now just to prove I can do better than Brad, but that doesn't bring him back to me... I could revenge fuck somebody. Too bad Tomas Plekanec is married, Brad really hates him. But really, what good would that do? None of it changes what happened.”

Jon looked at her as she smiled at him and Pat, not fully convinced of her neutrality. Neither Jon or Pat brought it up again while they ate. Pat was glad, because he really didn't want to have to talk about it. He knew Elia didn't like talking about things. She preferred quietly working things out on her own.

They finished brunch and Jon drove them all back to Elia's. Pat hung around for a short while, playing with Byfuglien, before going to meet up with Joakim Noah. Jon and Elia took the dog out in the backyard for a while. They walked across the deck, down the steps and back into the garden area where the chickens were pecking around in the grass. The cold wasn't bothering them yet.
“It's a lot harder to be melancholy with the dog around,” Elia said. “She is always reminding me to do things, you know? Get up and go outside, get up and feed her. She wants to be pet, she wants to play fetch. She doesn't let time stand still.”

She picked up a few fallen sticks and tossed them into a pile near the back of the yard by the fence. There was a pile of leaves that the kids down the street had raked up but nobody had disposed of. Dead vines wove and wrapped through the shriveled hostas and browned peonie bushes, a flower bed overgrown from lack of tending. If she had been here just a couple months before she could have cleared it and planted spring bulbs. Behind the large tree in the yard she found a dirty soccer ball. With her old knit Ugg boots she passed the ball to Jonny. He trapped it with his brown leather Frye chukkas and passed it back. The dog started barking at the ball, but was too lazy to get up from where she was laying.

“I know you are worried about me.” She said, kicking the ball back. “But you don't have to be. Honestly Jon, I know this is going to sound weird...But this morning, when I woke up in my own bed, I felt...relieved. Like I could just lay in bed and be myself. I feel sort of confused about it all. And yeah, it hurts. It hurts a lot. But it's not like I'm going to jump off a bridge over Brad Marchand.”
Jon kicked the ball up into the air, keeping it off the ground with his knees a few times before passing it back to Elia. She caught it just below her rib cage and settled it onto the ground. She brushed off the dirt it left on her coat. “Do you think that means I never really loved him?”
“I think the fact that you have to ask yourself if you really loved him means something,” Jon replied.

A light rain started to fall. The temperature was hanging just high enough to keep it from turning to snow. Their game of passing had escalated into a game of keep away. Jon would always win simply because of his extra foot of reach. They played until the damp had soaked into their clothes and forced them back inside where it was warm. Jon helped Elia make hot chocolate and they took it downstairs to watch a movie, but couldn't agree on something and ended up watching Arrested Development for three hours straight. The home theatre room was set up with two rows of seating. The front row was a large suede couch that curved around into a large semi-circle, with ottomans in the center that doubled as foot rests or coffee tables. The second row was a smaller two seat couch and two arm chairs. They sat down in the middle of the first row with a blanket, and dimmed the lights with a controller. The dog came to sit with them part way through the episode binge, and Elia moved over closer to Jon the let the dog up. Elia couldn't remember the last time she had laughed so much. They talked through many of the episodes, exchanging funny stories. Jon kept talking in a Gob voice which went perfectly with his serious facial expressions.

They took a break after a few hours to get a snack, and then decided to play old school Nintendo. On the wall next to a shelf of dvds and video games was a long white board with video game records. Either high scores, or completion times, depending on the game. Elia's brothers had written in 43:18 minutes for Contra on the original NES and they decided to try and beat it. The graphics looked terrible on the large screen, and actually made it more difficult to play. It took two tries but they were able to get down to 38 minutes.

The afternoon was starting to fade, and Jon had to go home. He was having a Skype night with his family in an hour. Elia and Byfuglien walked him down the street to where is car was parked. He was glad with the way the day turned out. Elia seemed to be in a good mood, actually. She seemed committed to staying positive and didn't seem to be hiding how she felt from him.
“Hey, remember what you said to me about why you became a writer?” Jon asked when they had reached his car.
“No, I don't remember anything, that's why I tell you, so you can remember,” Elia replied, looking into Jon's eyes and smiling. He almost lost his train of thought looking back at her.

“You said that your thoughts get all mixed up in your head, and the only thing that helps you straighten it out is to write. So, maybe you should do that,” he finally said, looking at her. She looked back at him thoughtfully. He gave her a long hug goodbye before getting into his car. He was right, she had said that. A cold wind blew her hair across her face. She brushed it back and asked Buff if she wanted to race. The pair ran back to the house as fast as they could. Elia always let the dog win, just to see her little jackal face when she beat Elia to the door. The lights were still on when they got back inside but the house felt cavernous and empty.

She made some more hot chocolate in the kitchen before heading up to her room. Sitting down at her desk she turned on her laptop to check her email for the first time since it happened. She had one unread email from Kalah.
Elia,

I finished going through your voicemails, texts and emails with the Moaxis app and deleted the ones I didn't think you'd want to hear. Any that I think you do need to read I flagged for you. Didn't read all the texts from some of your friends. Will start driving the car back on Monday. Also, make sure you call the Sharps asap.

-Kalah

Call the Sharps? In all the drama that had gone down Elia had completely forgotten Abby was due on the 15th. She turned on her phone immediately and called Abby as soon as it was on. There was no answer. She called Sharpie. No answer. She called Elina. The baby was coming. Abby had gone into labor last night.

Time stood still for the next several hours as Elia waited in the hospital with Elina and two of Abby's sisters that had come into town. For a while the entire world was forgotten as they waited to welcome in the new baby. Elina told Elia all the details of the past 24 hours as they sat in the maternity ward waiting room. Elia looked around the waiting room at the other people waiting to hear news of babies. Several nervous men paced the room. Dads that had opted not to be in the delivery room, or maybe been sent out. Parents waiting to become grandparents. Children waiting to become brothers or sisters. Nobody paid any attention at all to the recently dumped actress.

Finally, Sharpie came out to bring everyone into the room. Abby lay in the hospital bed, looking tired but beaming none the less. A tiny pink face with closed eyes wrapped in a blanket held in her arms. Madelyn. A brand new little girl made of a million possibilities. After all the waiting the visitors were only allowed a short visit. Mama and baby needed to rest.

Elia found herself alone in her room again later that night, but she wasn't tired. It was overwhelming at times, how quickly life could change. Bad or good, it would keep coming like the tide. She sat down at her desk and started to write.

Notes