Relapse / / h.s.

Chapter Thirty-Six.

     "I this this should be enough," Elena said as she closed the wooden door behind her. She held two boxes in her hands. Today was our last day at the station before school started next week, and as anxious as I was to get back to school, I could honestly say I was leaving the police station in a much better place than I had started in.

  "It's a desk, 'Lena," I chuckled as I took a box from her. "There's not much in here."

  She sat down in her chair and started digging through the bottom drawer.

  "I feel bad," she spoke. Her desk drawer squeaked with age as she prodded through it. "Both of us quitting on the same day."

  "They have new guys," I told her. I wasn't sure who they were, but I knew they were coming. White had been frantic all week about who would be training them. "It's not like we're leaving them out to dry."

  She sighed as she shut her drawer tight. She opened up the top drawer and gathered multiple novels and placed them in the box.

  "You're right. But I still feel guilty."

  I gathered all of my pens and hi-liters in my hand and dropped them into the box. I was sure most of them weren't even mine, but I was taking them anyway. Not that I needed them, exactly, but you could never keep too many pens around.

     "It's so weird to be packing my things up," I hummed as I cleared out my top drawer. I was done within minutes. I never brought too much to work, but Elena nearly had her desk full with personal items. Gel-pens. Miniature bottles of perfume. And a large pile of sticky notes.

  "What are those?" I asked, nodding towards the messy pile.

  "These?" She held them up. They were all different colors, sticking out in all different directions. "They're just sticky notes."

  "But you have so many." I made my way to her desk just as Elena was trying to stuff them into her box. "What are they from?"

  "Nothing they're-" she sighed when I took them out of her hands. "Give them back!"

  Written all over the stickies were notes-my notes. Notes I had written Elena. I only knew I had written them because I could tell my handwriting. She'd kept them? All of them?

  "You kept these?" I wondered as I flipped through them. Different notes were written all over little neon pieces of paper.

  You look pretty today.

  Gilbert's shitty today. Take cover.

Stop reading and pay attention to me.

That white dress makes you look like an angel

  You smell like cookies.

  Was I really this ridiculous? God, she turned me into such a sap.

  "How come you kept these?" I wondered, throwing them into the box. It made me happy, nonetheless, knowing she had kept all of my stupid notes I'd leave on her desk. It was cute. Elena was cute.

She shrugged. "I don't know. They were nice. They made me laugh."

"Oh yeah?"

"Usually," she snorted. "Sometimes you can be a bit of an ass."

  "Is that so?" I asked, leaning over the desk so I was nearly in her face. She didn't pull back, but she didn't lean forward either.