Elliana X Jason

Twenty Two, Romanceless

"No, Emily!" Elliana yelled.

They were back at Elliana's.

"Please!" Emily begged.

"Emily, you've already had four shots of espresso. I think you're intoxicated off of caffeine." Cole said.

"Yeah, but now I have coffee hangover, so I need more coffee to cure it." Emily said.

"What," Jason said in bewilderment. "What the actual-"

"Fudge! You can have fudge." Elliana said.

Emily groaned in delight. "Chocolate!"

Cole whispered over to Elliana. "What are you doing? She's going to eat out your entire pantry!" He said. "She'll go on a sugar rush! She can't be on caffeine and a sugar rush."

"Yeah, but Emily can take more sugar than coffee. Plus, the sugar will get her tired, which will make her sleep, therefore getting rid of the caffeine." Elliana said.

"But what if the caffeine doesn't let her pass out. Then she'll be on an eternal caffeine and sugar rush." Cole said.

"You do realize that the effects of caffeine aren't permanent, right?" Elliana pointed out.

"Well, what if we got her hooked on caffeine?" Cole defended.

Jason jumped into the conversation before Elliana could reply. "Is there a lethal amount of caffeine that someone can have?" He asked.

Elliana turned to Cole, and they shared a worried side-eye. Elliana pulled out her phone and googled how much caffeine was recommended on the daily. Four hundred milligrams. How much was in each shot of espresso. Sixty-three milligrams.

"She's under the maximum recommended amount of caffeine per day. By quite a bit." Elliana said.

Cole let out a sigh. "I was worried there for a second."

"Why is Emily doing this anyway?" Jason asked.

"I don't know." Elliana shrugged.

Emily walked over then, stuffing some fudge into her face. "I don't know either. I usually don't like coffee."

"So then why'd you drink so much of it?" Jason asked.

"I dunno that either. I guess I'm just a bit stressed about Stacy." Emily said, sad undertones barely noticeable in her voice.

"Okay then, game plan time. Let's figure out how to find her." Cole announced.

"You guys can get started. Is it okay if I use the washroom?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, go ahead. You know where it-" Elliana stopped herself, remembering that Jason didn't remember where her bathroom was. She suddenly felt a pang of sadness, but she ignored it. "Follow me. I'll show you where it is."

They walked down a long hallway. Elliana could hear Emily and Cole talking from the other room. Emily's voice was going a mile a minute, but Elliana couldn't hear what either of them were saying. At the end of the hallway, Elliana stopped.

"Here's the bathroom." She said.

"Thanks." Jason said. He entered, and Elliana began walking back through the long hallway.

Elliana had planned to return to Emily and Cole. But as she walked down the hallway, she couldn't. There was something stabbing at her heart, something that she couldn't place. She stopped. Before thinking, she ran into the nearest room. It was just another storage room. Elliana had gotten a tour a year ago, on the first day she'd moved into her mom's house. She'd lived with her dad her whole life. In fact, Elliana hadn't even known that her mom had her own house until she'd moved into it. But when her dad was forcing her into marriage at the age of fifteen, she didn't have all that much of a choice. Her dad had been arrested. Elliana didn't know where he was, and frankly she didn't care. She was happy with her mom. The issue though, was that her dad had lost his company, and his large penthouse building. All of their stuff had gone to Elliana and her mother. So now, most of the empty rooms of Elliana's mom's house had just become storage rooms for her dad's stuff that couldn't be sold or thrown out.