Under the Umbrella ✓

-21-

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Elliot asked her as he sat down and started to take off his shoes while his eyes lingered on Aria.

"You should have told me that you could walk on your own." She understood now why she didn't feel much of his weight on her and it wasn't because he was trying not to lean on her, not when he didn't need to.

"You insisted on holding me."

Her ears flamed. "I didn't insist."

She watched him inspect his ankle instead of giving her a retort and she strode to him to check it for herself, placing her backpack on the coffee table in front of him.

She kneeled over and examined his ankle, her face contorting the next second from seeing how swollen and reddened it looked. A new chain of guilt bloomed in her chest for giving in when he resisted going to the hospital.

"You should have gone to the hospital," Aria muttered.

"I'll go to the hospital if it gets worse by tomorrow, okay?" he snapped at her.

She looked up at him, startled and confused. She was conscious of how aloof he had been after the accident, only that she wasn't sure. Now it was beyond question. He was mad.

"Why are you mad at me?"

He looked a little staggered as if he didn't expect himself to snap at her either, but his glower remained intact. "Why the fuck would you jump on to the road like that and-"

"Papers!" Aria exclaimed, instinctively getting to her feet in dread. "Fuck, the papers!"

She had completely forgotten about it from the commotion even when that had been the cause of it. Those handouts had been a valuable reference to her recent assignments and she couldn't believe she lost them. Again!

"Did you see them around?" she asked hopefully.

He stared at her in disbelief. "So you were after the papers?"

"Yes," she intoned as if it was too obvious.

Why else would she ever charge toward the road in such negligence when it was one of her major fears? Not that he would know about it. It's just that getting another one of those copies was a long process.

"What, did you think I tried to kill myself or something?" she asked rhetorically with a breezy laugh. She stopped smiling when she saw the serious look on his face. As if that was exactly what he thought. "No, I wasn't thinking that," she answered her own question before deviating from the topic. "Well, did you see them?"

He sighed, looking relieved but overpowered. Too much was written on his face but the words were too intricate for her to follow. "I don't know. I was just focused on pushing you out of the way..."

Now that he had brought that to light, it reminded her of his recklessness, rousing her seemly anger. While she was thankful that he had saved her, she didn't think she could have handled the guilt if something – something much worse than his current injuries – had happened to him.

"Seriously, what were you thinking risking your life like that?" she demanded.

He glared at her with equal intensity. "What were you thinking staring at the car coming at you?"

"I..."

She didn't have any excuse for it other than being disconcerted at the blink of the moment. Still, it felt nice to be chided for such a feat. Even though he was probably doing it out of character, she felt like her presence mattered to someone whose life didn't depend on her. She could only think of one person who would act the same way and that was Sandra.

She knew they were both oddly invested in each other over a few occurrences and a short time. It was as if they had skipped over an ordinary introduction in a friendship and jumped straight to the middle. She felt like he understood her without knowing her. She felt like he knew something about her without telling him. This whole thing – because she didn't know if they were even friends – between them was rather mystifying even for her, but she didn't want to question it now.

"Thank you," she said ultimately, "for being there."