Perspicuous (J.HALE)

09

I just stared at him.

The last time I'd seen Elliot was a few months before I left Idaho. He'd just upped and gone one night, no explanation, not even a note. What he was doing in the Cullens' garden, I had no idea. And how he'd managed to sneak up to the house without any of them noticing, I had even less.

I was possibly hallucinating.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey," I breathed.

He looked the same. Tall and slender with a sharp, freckled face. Perpetually ambiguous expression. Wild, fiery hair a shade or so lighter than mine. He was slouched, head tilted a fraction, and his jeans were muddy.

We stared at each other, locked an exchange of silence that neither of us were prepared to break.

"So..." he said, after a solid minute of quiet. "How've you been?"

I blinked at him.

He quirked an eyebrow. "Not feeling chatty?"

I turned around without a word and headed back toward the house.

"Come on, Immy, let's be adults about this-

"You don't get to patronise me," I said.

"Don't be a brat."

"Don't try and parent me," I spat, whirling round to face him.

His jaw tightened.

"What do you want?" I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

"Who says I want anything?"

"You haven't exactly made a habit of visiting out of the blue."

"Im..."

"I don't want to do small talk, so tell me what you want, or leave."

I stared him down, expression severe but insides quivering with nerves. I gritted my teeth and locked my feet in place in an attempt to look commanding and unfazed.

"Look," he sighed, licking his lower lip and shrugging his shoulders. "I'm sorry."

My eyebrows flew up. "You came here to apologise?"

He didn't answer.

I swallowed. "Get on with it then."

He looked surprised.

"It's cold and it's late—I want to go to bed. Spit it out."

He recoiled a little at my tone, freckled brow wrinkling.

He used to make that exact expression when our mother would sell the coffee table without telling us, leaving a gaping space in the middle of the living room. The apartment was tiny, but once the furniture started disappearing it was actually quite cavernous.

"You're right," he said quietly. "I am here for a reason."

I raised an eyebrow at him. "What, then?"

There was something different behind his eyes. He'd always been rather monotonous in terms visible emotional responses, but there was a glint of something that I hadn't seen before, and it made my stomach knot.

"Elliot, why are you here?" I asked, becoming suspicious.

He didn't say anything for a while. His lips parted and twitched as if he were testing the wording of a sentence.

"For fucks sake, Elliot-

"Mum's dead."

All of the air in my chest left my lungs in a whoosh, like it was evacuating a balloon that had just been popped. It took a few long moments before I realised that I would have to replace it, and took a deep breath in.