Love Me, Harm Me

(Why won't you) Stay?

"When the boys call asking
your cup size, say A, hang up. When he says you gave him blue balls, say
you're welcome." - Unsolicited Advice to Adolescent Girls with Crooked Teeth and Pink Hair, Jeanann Verlee

.☀.🌑.☀.🌑.

Lazy morning sunlight greets Elizabeth the next morning. As well as an empty bed. Carefully, she stretches, pushing off her duvet and sighing as she allowed her body to spread out across her mattress. As she did, streaks of golden sunlight shone down on her face, casting light shadows under her eyes and making her eyelashes glimmer silver-white.

Last night - oddly - she had managed to get a good night's sleep. Little noise nor disruption spilled into her room, Meliodas being unusually calm and reflective for his usual, stormy bad day self. Even when she had bid him goodnight, bleary-eyed and wearing nothing but an old, baggy t-shirt, he had simply returned the favour, eyes glued to his phone as he lay sprawled on his own bed.

For once he did not make a comment. For once he didn't conduct his infamous 'size check' which often resulted in a heavy book to face. Instead he was restrained, distant, cheek still swelled with an underlying bruise shaped like a massive fist and turning purple-green at its edges. From the looks of it alone, Elizabeth knew that it would hurt - like a bitch. But she didn't say anything. Instead she ruffled his already messy hair, placed a kiss on his cheek (hoping it would heal quickly) and left.

Just like Meliodas, Elizabeth took the rare peace and quiet as a chance to catch up on some well-deserved rest. Looking after Meliodas was a full time job, after all. A full-time, underpaid and often extremely taxing job.

Nevertheless, waking up alone this morning sent a funny sensation through Elizabeth's system. A funny, pinging feeling that infected her chest and stomach with a knotting, twisting sensation. Maybe that was why she immediately went to her diary, the accounts of Meliodas' moods, stowed away on her bedside table, kept under scared lock and key.

No-one, not even Diane, knew about this. Meliodas didn't even know about this. This diary, this research journal, was a log of every occurrence between her and Meliodas from the past year. When Elizabeth felt stumped, confused by him, she resorted to this book to find herself a clue, a hint, an answer, on how to move forward with him.

But, as she flicked through the pages, Elizabeth found little that would help her. Being overly clingy, high aggression and extreme emotions were all logged. Incidents where he had turned her brain into senseless mush, using those hands of his to keep her from thinking on her feet; times when he had played extremely dirty in order to prove her wrong - oh and who could forget when he had suddenly cried while watching Frozen, babbling something about his younger brother and how he should have been better with him. Yes, there was a lot of information there. So much and yet so little. And none of it was helping.

Sighing, Elizabeth closed the diary and put it away on her bedside table. She then glanced at her phone, ready to go through her new influx of texts, only to spot the most recent one, delivered from an unknown number: Hey Elizabeth, it's Mael. I was passing the cafe and wondered if you wanted coffee before work?

Coffee? The word alone made a dopey grin spread on her lips as she picked up her phone, ready to respond. Anyone who knew Elizabeth Liones knew that she loved her caffeinated drinks.

'Weird way to greet someone, but sure,' she texts back, fingers rapid on the keyboard. 'Thanks.'

Everything else was the usual notices: Diane giving updates on her personal life, her mother checking in on her and, of course, a ton of missed calls from her father - someone who always seemed to call her at the worst possible time of day. Not that Elizabeth could blame him; her father was a man whose life was entirely occupied by his work.