Love Me, Harm Me

(Shatter me like) Verglas

"Rejection tastes like ashes,
Acrid, bitter.
It sounds
Like the whispers of voices behind my back.
'he didn't want her. He dumped her'." - Rejection, Jenny Sullivan 

.☀.🌑.☀.🌑.

There was no avoiding it anymore: she and Meliodas needed to talk. Months had passed since they had last spoken. Whenever they did cross paths, littered between the hours of Bible study and classes, there was nothing but tension, nothing but a withheld glare and a twitch to her eye. There was nothing Elaine could do to soothe the burn of the betrayal. There was nothing she could say to help patch it up.

But, words did travel. All around the community, journeying as whispers and quiet asides, people did talk about their falling out. Countless peers had rushed up to Elizabeth to ask if it was true. Glad that she had finally come to her senses, Jelamet (her friend from Bible study) was jubilant at the news. Even her mother seemed rather pleased with the absence of Meliodas, referring to him as the wayward child.

Six months had passed. Six months of sneaky stares across the classroom; six months of passing each other in the hallway, acting as if they were complete strangers. Six months. Half a year. And that half a year felt like certain hell in her brain.

Ever since they had first met, Elizabeth had never gone more than a day without bumping into Meliodas. Even before they had introduced themselves to each other - that fateful rainy day in the middle of a stormy street - she had caught glimpses of the infamous blonde around her school. A well-known name, a well-known face, he wasn't easy to evade; he wasn't someone you didn't know.

When they had become friends, Elizabeth realised that being his friend meant being around him more often. Time that she would have spent quietly studying away had quickly turned into afternoons walking over the green, Meliodas kicking an old football along as he spoke to her. Slowly, over the school year, he had wormed his way into her life. Gradually, oh so gradually, he had become a foundation.

But when he left - when she had confronted him on the truth - that foundation had been destroyed. Like a ten tonne wrecking ball, like a million explosives, that argument had completely destroyed the foundations he had laid.

Now, Elizabeth didn't know what to do with herself. At least she didn't until the rumours came her way.

News of Meliodas had traveled to her. Horrible news. Down the grapevine, originating from his crowd and then stretching down to hers, the news of his infrequent presence in the area was growing. But that wasn't worrying her. No, it was the whispers about dangerous people, shady people, nudging him slowly into the depths of their sticky webs.

Unknown cars and late night sightings. Coming into school with a scruffy look and an odd shuffle to his gait. Yeah, those things worried her. As they increased, they worried her more.

So, six months later, Elizabeth had decided to finally break her vow of silence; several years later and Elizabeth was back in the same boat, heart thumping as fast as a hummingbird's wings as she stood before her front door.

Nearly two weeks had passed this time. Two weeks of radio silence on her end, Scotland serving as a wonderful distraction from the man she'd left behind in London. Well, that was how Elizabeth would like to portray it as. To anyone from the outside looking in - a pesky, snarky Jericho and a perpetually concerned Diane - she was flourishing up north, taking the time to relax and reconsider her direction in life. In reality, she had been calculating her next move.

All those evenings spent with Zeldris and Gelda, the talk with Arthur, had finally rattled some sense into Elizabeth's brain. Now that everything was out in the open, now that they both had the opportunity to be honest, she needed to act. Now, in the calm after the storm, the gentle lap of the fleeting waves of a sea storm, Elizabeth Liones needed to catch Meliodas off guard.