unbreakable heaven • awsten knight

1.5 your shoulders brush

content warning - seasonal depression

houston, tx
november 2008

Awsten has seen increasingly less of Ellie recently.

To him, it seems as if while the weather has gotten colder, her mood has deteriorated, and she hasn't been around as much.

He isn't sure anyone else has noticed it, though, so he thinks there's a possibility that he's only imagining it.

She just looks sad, and Awsten has a intuitional feeling about it; something isn't sitting right, and it's making his stomach turn with worry.

He's picked up on small, mostly insignificant details; like the way she's now almost always late for lunch, the way she eats slowly, and how she's always the last one out of school— even her clothes seem different to him.

To most people, her attire isn't majorly out of the ordinary— at least, not so much that anyone other than Awsten would notice.

Ellie always wears jeans and a tshirt; in fact, Awsten doesn't think he's ever seen her wear anything else to school— until more recently.

The overall colours of her outfits seem more dull; more black and grey shirts, rather than the occasional bright red, or blue.

She even wore leggings on Wednesday, which was the most unusual, since she's never not wearing black or blue skinny jeans.

When she knows someone's paying attention to her, or when she's engaged in conversation, Ellie works up a smile; but what she doesn't realise, is that Awsten is always paying attention to her, so he's sees it when that forced smile fades.

Awsten is drawn to Ellie in a way that he's never felt drawn to anyone before. The soft, romantic side of him wants to believe that's why she's ended up back in Houston; that it's some form of fate, and the universe is just working in their favour.

His eyes search for her in every room, and they tend to stay there for as long as they can— until he realises it could look a little creepy to anyone on the outside who sees.

Because of this, though, he sees the way her expression drops— as if she's exhausted by keeping up her facade, and all he wants to do is hold her.

He wonders if that's a weird thought to have; wanting to hold your friend in a way which would likely mean you're a little more than friends.

Awsten's feelings for Ellie are hardly unnoticeable; but, the only person who's seemed to catch on is Jawn. However, that's hardly a surprise, considering he's Awsten's best friend, and can see right through him most of the time anyway.

Besides that, Awsten has tried to keep his feelings fairly hidden; he doesn't want to come on too strong and overwhelm Ellie, especially when she's still fairly new here.

He wonders if she somehow knows, though; maybe she's always known.

While they were at camp together, he had a pretty big crush on her, but at thirteen, he didn't really know how deep that could go.

Now that he's older, those feelings are back, and they're much stronger, as well as a little harder to deal with.

For now, though, he stays quiet, and simply observes from a fair, friendly distance.

On Friday, Awsten knows something has to be wrong because Ellie is wearing her hair up messily.

He knows that she always wears her hair down, because she hates the way she looks with her hair up— she's told him that before, and he remembered, because he disagreed profusely.