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Throughout their entire relationship, Gabby and Ellie had, surprisingly, never had an argument.
It wasn’t like they didn’t have anything to complain about– no one was perfect, after all –but the idea of speaking those complaints into the air, making them real , was… strange. Unnatural, as if the words themselves would twist the bond between them into something neither of them wanted to believe it could be.
So when tension mounts, they tend to cope in their own ways. When Gabby tuts disapprovingly at the pepperoni atop Ellie’s gas station pizza dinner, she tucks an extra cigarette in the apron pocket of her work uniform for the next morning. When Ellie comes home, stinking of ash and grease, and practically shucks her clothes off at the door, leaving them strewn across their apartment, Gabby allows herself to sing a little louder in the shower, hum a little more offkey as she flits about their shared cramped space. It feels a little petty sometimes, like a tit-for-tat, but it never seems to bother either enough to reach a boiling point.
At least, it didn’t before now.
The day starts like any other day off for Ellie Parker. She wakes up a few hours too late, rolling out of the full size bed her and her girlfriend share, and trudges into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee with the last of the pods she’d snagged from the break room at work. Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, she muses as she watches the unsteady drip from her coffee maker. It’s on its last leg, if she has to guess, but she’s planning on wringing any and every bit of precious caffeine from it for as long as she can. Once her mug’s finally full, she pours in a couple sugar packets (also graciously donated from her workplace)and plods the short distance into the living room. Gabby’s already curled up on the couch, bundled up in her coziest sleepwear and enraptured in some kind of nature documentary on the TV.
“Hey, babe,” she calls, but her girlfriend stays put, eyes trained on the screen. Ellie shifts her heels, waiting a couple seconds before trying again. “Gabs?”
It takes a moment before Gabby seems to register she’s being spoken to. Her eyebrows perk up before she even turns to see her, but once she does, she’s all smiles. “Oh, good morning, sleepypants!” She practically coos, sitting up to make space. “They’re just about to get to the part where they talk about poisonous frogs!” She pats the seat beside her excitedly, but Ellie doesn’t move– not yet.
“Actually, I was gonna ask if you could, uh, do the dishes?” The question comes out a little more awkward than she’d like, but it wasn’t exactly fun to ask her girlfriend to do something when she was already in the middle of a task. It wasn’t like the dishes couldn’t wait, but if Ellie knows anything, she knows that if Gabby doesn’t do something as soon as she’s asked, she’ll likely forget in favor of something more interesting. She’d been asking for the past couple of days at this point, and the amount of stuff piling up was getting bothersome. Sure, she could do it, but cleaning wasn’t exactly her forte, and Gabby would end up having to do most of the work behind her anyway.
“Oh.” Gabby’s smile falters for just a second before pauses the program and pushes herself to her feet. “No problem! I’ll do it now, and then we can watch it together!” As she passes Ellie, she leans in to give a quick peck to her cheek and tries to hide the wrinkle of her nose and she catches the scent of nicotine still fresh on her lips.
She’d had a smoke break last night. When Ellie was on a closing shift, it was practically inevitable, but it still wasn’t ideal. Gabby had been extremely un-subtle about her disdain for the habit, but all she could manage was Ellie promising not to do so in the apartment (“our landlord would take it out of our security deposit, anyway, and I’d like that back”). It didn’t stop the unfortunately familiar smell from bothering her anyway.
The sound of running water, Gabby’s errant humming of an improvised melody, and the occasional noise of a video from Ellie’s phone composes the background noise for the next fifteen or so minutes. It’s a comfortable, domestic selection of sounds for a young couple in New York City. For a while, everything feels normal, like it should be.
Of course, until it isn’t. A loud crash against the kitchen floor and Gabby muttering a Polish swear under her breath has Ellie jumping out of her skin and nearly spilling her (now lukewarm) coffee all over herself.
“Christ, Gabby,” she hisses loudly, pulling her mug closer to her chest as she looks over the couch to spot the shattered remains of one of their dinner plates on the floor. “You have to be more careful when you’re loading the dishwasher. You know that the–”
“ –the top rack tips over with too much weight,” Gabby finishes, her tone a little too clipped for her girlfriend’s liking. “I know, and I am being careful,” she gestures towards the already crowded bottom rack, then to their counter’s drying rack, which she’s already filled with pots and pans. “I would have put it up here, but it’s hard to put all of our dishes up on the counter with this little space.” Pulling up the dishwasher’s door to shut it and ignoring the way anxiety thrums in her throat when she hears the shifting of plates and cutlery as she does, she picks up the largest piece of the now broken ceramic plate. cautious not to slice her hand on any of its jagged edges.
“Next time we go out, we can get a new one,” she suggests, looking over to Ellie with a hopeful smile. “We can make it a date! A plate date!” She holds up the broken plate for emphasis, attempting to lighten the blow of one less thing to eat off of, but Ellie seems unconvinced, her eyebrows still furrowed.
“With what money, exactly?” One brow raises, and it takes all of the kindness in Gabby’s heart not to mention the bolt of fabric tucked neatly against the side of the coffee table that Ellie still hadn’t touched. She’d purchased it for some project for a client, and despite the fact both of them knew that she’d been offered compensation for the wasted money in exchange for the fabric, the allure of such a luxurious bolt of material at her disposal for a personal project had been too tempting. They’d been doing okay on money that month, but an impromptu extra bill had made the choice look pretty stupid in retrospect. Ellie had been promising since that she’d do something with it to turn a profit, but it’d stayed in the exact same place gathering dust up until now.
And yet, a trip to buy a new fucking plate was too much when Gabby asked. Of course.
She’s not sure why she’s even surprised at this point. It was a miracle when they went on trips to the convenience store together, nonetheless a date. Oftentimes, Gabby found herself alone in the apartment, waiting for her girlfriend to come home from a shift at work or some kind of social gathering with her friends from college. There’d been a few times where she’d been able to tag along, but it had always felt so awkward to be surrounded by people she didn’t know, talking in slang and telling jokes that she had a hard time translating in time to respond. Considering how little fun she obviously seemed to be having, it just made sense that Ellie suggested she hang back from now on. She appreciated the attention to her feelings, but it left her in a worse position than she was before: alone. Her least favorite thing. She’d attempt to leave the house during her downtime, but the sprawling subway system of New York City in combination with her (truthfully) bad sense of direction in a concrete jungle like this made it seem impossible.
In recent months, she’d been finding more ways to keep herself busy: texting and calling some of her friends from the show when they weren’t busy with their own lives was the closest she had to a social life, and practicing her English gave her some kind of goal to work towards. Her reading and writing of the language was getting significantly better to match her passable speech abilities, but the lack of active conversations she was holding with anyone who wasn’t her girlfriend or the few calls she’d had with Tom and Grett had her comprehension skills lagging behind. She tries to give herself some leniency: learning by yourself with a fleeting attention span and little money for a professional tutor isn’t easy, after all, but the fact that her efforts don’t seem to be enough for Ellie to offer to take her out for celebration, even if it’s just to the park and back… Well, it stung, frankly.
“If money is the problem,” she starts, knowing that it always is, “I could ask our friends if they’d be willing to help chip in for a new set. I’m sure Tom and Jake wouldn’t mind–”
As soon as the suggestion leaves her mouth, Ellie’s visibly recoiling, her button nose wrinkling up and distorting the freckles across its bridge. Her mouth pulls into a grimace, and Gabby doesn’t even bother finishing the sentence after that.
“No way,” she practically sneers, the tone in her voice making it clear that out of everyone, those two had probably been the worst people to consider. “I don’t need to ask for handouts. Plus, I don’t need Jake holding any more over me than he already does.”
Gabby, once again, holds her tongue. It wasn’t Jake who told her that she’d deserved having an abusive boyfriend on international television, after all, and the fact they were on speaking terms in the finale at all was just a testament to how much their hatred of Riya could overpower their disdain for each other. Their only communication since had been through their respective partners, and she wasn’t sure whether her or Tom found it more frustrating. He’s been extremely forgiving about the whole thing compared to his boyfriend, considering the whole Aiden situation that Ellie had orchestrated when their relationship was still on the rocks, but it’s more likely that he’s doing it for her sake rather than for the sake of actually wanting to build bridges with Ellie.
Her train of thought only trails off its rails when Ellie pushes herself up to her feet to meet her in the kitchen, bending down to pick up the largest pieces with eyes downcast toward the mess on the floor.
“I was thinking that maybe I can use the pieces to make something,” Gabby says gently, stepping back to allow her better reach. “I was talking to, uh,” she pauses, not wanting to say Tom or (god forbid) Jake’s name aloud to upset her further, “one of my friends about this method to repair broken pots with a golden material. It’s usually lacquer, I think, but you can use other things too. Even if we can’t use the plate to eat on anymore, it would be cool to put it up as decoration–”
“Gabby, please . Don’t bother putting in the effort,” she’s suddenly cut off by Ellie’s brisk reply as she rises to her feet, brushing past Gabby to open the trash can and dump the shards inside. The thud they make as they hit the bottom of the garbage, no doubt poking and stretching at the thin bag inside, has them both tensing. When Ellie turns back, her eyes feel… colder, somehow. It hasn’t been since the show that she’s seen a look on her face like this. “It’s not worth saving.”
Like always, Gabby doesn’t tell her that the words feel much too personal to be just about the lost dish. Now, more than ever, it feels like speaking about it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just like that, she’d really be alone, rather than just feeling like it. So instead, she turns back to the sink, eyes downcast towards the water in the sink. Her reflection warps and twists as she lifts the next dish from its murky depths, hands shaking as if breathing on it wrong would have it shattering in pieces and making them do the same uncomfortable song and dance all over again. As Ellie passes by her again, this time to head back towards the couch, her peripherals flash with something unnatural, twisting, and black.
Before now, her hallucinations had been nothing more than a side effect to a stressful event, and they still were here, in a way, but… was it bad for her to feel like they were an omen to something worse?
For the next few hours, thankfully, it starts to feel a little better. They do end up watching that documentary, though Gabby notices Ellie’s eyes drifting towards her phone much more than she usually would, and they have small talk over their leftover cheap takeout from the night before. It’s certainly not the most comfortable dinner they’ve ever had, but it’s a leg up from the tense atmosphere from before.
Now, she sits alone at the table, still poking at the last quarter of her salad. Ellie had stepped away to take a shower, which was fine, but something about the quick way she picked herself up from the table, making what felt like a show of placing the dishes more gingerly into the sink than Gabby’s ever seen her do. She could be looking into things, certainly, but a tint of passive-aggressiveness warps every action that her girlfriend does now that she’s noticed, and it’s frustrating.
If her and Ellie were really doing badly, Gabby would be able to tell by now, right? She’d watched first hand on Disventure Camp as mile-wide cracks formed in relationships, some too jagged and deep to consider attempting to bridge over, and her and Ellie were nothing like them. Sure, she was a little hard to talk to sometimes, and it was lonely in New York with no one she could hang out with the same way Ellie had people like Tess, but they had never had an argument before this.
But maybe that was the problem. In retrospect, Gabby and Ellie had never really had a serious discussion about their future as a couple, never aired their grievances about their conflicting views unless they were hidden under so many layers of therapist-speak that nothing ever really ends up getting solved. She presses her fork against a small tomato, adding pressure until the thin skin gives and the metal prongs plunge into the flesh below. Her mind swims with flashes of thoughts about herself, about Ellie , that frustrate and scare her too much to say aloud.
Nausea bubbles in her gut as her eyes dart towards the floor. Maybe she should save the rest of her food for later.
She closes the door to the fridge just as Ellie steps back into the living room, the ends of her hair still wet as she pulls at the hem of her oversized t-shirt and flops onto the couch. Gabby smiles as she passes, but the moment quickly fades when her girlfriend fumbles with something in the pocket of her sleep pants before pulling out a loose cigarette and a lighter, the label on its plastic face chipped with use.
“Ellie,” Gabby starts, cautious, “you’re not supposed to smoke inside. The landlord–”
Though she’s obviously being heard, the only reply she gets for the next few seconds is the sound of the flicking sparkwheel. In their silent apartment, it feels like the loudest sound in the world. Ellie takes a deep pull, inhaling once her lips leave the filter to keep too much smoke from escaping into the air. “I know.”
‘ If you know, then why are you not doing it? ’ That’s what Gabby wants to say, at least at first, but the anxiety of starting another fight has her stepping back– both physically and mentally. “Listen, if this is about the plate, I’m sorry–”
“It’s not,” Ellie cuts her off, pocketing her lighter. “I’m just…” She takes another pull from the cigarette, a little shallower this time. “I’m just stressed. I’ll be okay.”
They leave it at that for a few minutes as she puffs away until it’s little more than the filter in her hand, occasionally stopping to ash it against the rim of an empty styrofoam cup on the coffee table in front of them. Once she’s finally done, tossing the last of it in the cup along with its ashes, she’s immediately feeling for another.
The side of Gabby’s mouth twitches, discomfort twisting in her gut. “...Another one? Didn’t you say you were going to try to smoke less?”
“Yeah, well, I’d love to, but being the one handling all of the money and the only person here working is too much for me to do without a little pick-me-up.”
The answer feels cruel , it’s so blunt. The smell of nicotine still hanging in the air as another cigarette is lit, adding to its sickly scent, has the discomfort blooming into disdain. “If you needed help, why didn’t you ask? I’m sorry that it’s been so hard for me to find a job, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything.” It wasn’t like job hunting being so difficult was her fault, anyway: not many places in New York City are chomping at the bit to hire a mentally ill immigrant who’s most recent job history included having all of her personal information aired out to millions of people internationally. Plus, the lack of a lot of proper paperwork and identification made the pool of potential gigs significantly smaller– and under the table work was practically begging for her to get her checks skimmed off the top. That was if she even received them at all.
Despite knowing this, Ellie has nothing to say but an exhale of smoke as she leans back into the worn fabric of their couch. “No, it’s fine. I don’t need any help, Gabs.”
“But you just–” Gabby stops herself. She wants to take a deep grounding breath, but it’s hard with the tobacco cloying in her lungs. She didn’t consider herself someone with a low tolerance for bad smells– she worked with animals most of her life, after all, you kind of couldn’t be –but something about cigarettes had the pit of her throat burning and nose scrunching up like nothing else ever could. Her breath catches as she finally reads the expression across Ellie’s face. “...do you not think I can do it? Is that it?”
Without the ability to calm herself down properly, the haze in her mind begins to grow at the same rate as the fog of the smoke around them. Black tendrils whisper out from the smoke that swirls around the hanging plate of their smoke detector, long since deactivated after forgetting to replace the battery. When her eyes finally fall back on the woman in front of her, the features on her face feel… wrong, like they’re shifting out of place, and she looks at her hand to confirm the answer she’d been dreading: she’s hallucinating again, and it won’t be nearly as easy to bring herself back from it this time. She can feel it.
Ellie, none the wiser (as usual), furrows her brow, the grip on her cigarette between two fingers visibly tensing. “Well, can you blame me? I’ve never seen you budget or plan any purchases in advance or take notice of discounts– hell, I’ve never seen you use a fucking coupon–”
“Because you won’t let me! I barely leave the house! When was the last time I even went grocery shopping with you?” Gabby’s voice cracks as she thrusts out a hand, the action feeling like watching herself back on low shutter speed. The smoke laughs, a low sound she could almost mistake as being just another instrument in the ambience of the city alongside the gurgling pipes and creaking floorboards beneath their carpet.
“I’m not trapping you in here, you know,” Ellie says, as if the idea itself is ridiculous. “You can leave any time you want.”
The laugh that leaves Gabby’s mouth feels lined with a cynicism she seldom hears from herself. From disdain, her stomach becomes the unwilling host to resent that crawls up to her chest like an infestation of flies. “Oh, and where would I go? Who would I talk to? What would I do?”
Rolling her eyes, Ellie jerks her head away, inhaling so deep against her cigarette that even with her warped vision, Gabby can see the paper blacken and peel back against the hot ash inside like a snake shedding its skin. “Well, I’m sorry that I’m sacrificing all of my free time working extra hours so we have a fucking roof over our heads, Gabby.”
“ You sacrificed?” She balks at the statement, her face burning. “Ellie, I left everything for you! My home, my family, my country– I live in a city I hate that I barely understand, and I did it for you! I went back on that stupid show for you! I sold treasured keepsakes, gave away my pets– my babies –for you ! And what do I get but you treating me like I’m too stupid and crazy to do anything without you!” Hot tears sting at her eyes, and when she glances down, the carpet blinks up at her, beady black eyes under thick matted lashes. “I feel like– like you’re embarrassed of me.”
“Gabby, I–” The reality of their conversation finally hitting her, Ellie stands, dropping the last quarter of her cigarette into the cup without even bothering to finish the rest. She reaches a hand over Gabby’s shaking form, fingers grazing her shoulder. “I’m not embarrassed of you, I just–”
“ Please , not right now,” Even with her head straight down towards the floor, Gabby stumbles back just enough to avoid her touch. Black spots dance and laugh in her vision, their setaceous antennae brushing and twisting against each other as they chatter wordlessly against her eardrums. “Talking is going to just make it worse.” She can hardly hear herself now.
“Okay.” Her hand suddenly drawn back, Ellie mirrors her distance in the opposite direction. Then, she sighs, running a hand through her hair before she turns away. “Okay, yeah, I can give you some space.” She heads towards the door, her feet sliding into her canvas shoes as she pulls her arms through a thick flannel jacket. “I need to get some air anyway.”
‘ Must be nice to have somewhere to go, ’ one of the dark creatures jeers, its nearly invisible eyes turned up in a sick glee. ‘ I wonder who she’ll tell about you. About how everything has gone to shit. ’ Instead of dignifying it, or Ellie, with a verbal response, she just takes a deep breath into her hands, nodding her head mechanically.
As Ellie’s fingers ghost against their doorknob, she turns back towards Gabby. “We’ll talk when I get back, okay? About all of this.” Wrapping around and twisting, the creak of their door hinge has her pausing, looking back one more time. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”
With that, she steps out, and it pains her to know exactly where she’s going as soon as the door closes behind her. It’s pathetic, really. It’s even more pathetic that it’ll be far from the first (or last) time.
Any time Gabby’s habits pushed a particularly sore button of Ellie’s, Tess was the first person she’d call. At first, it was just out of convenience: they’d been living in the same dorm building, so she was just a text and a short walk away, but even after graduation it still feels like she might be the only person who understands their relationship just as intimately as the two people in it. She wonders, briefly, if Ally and Hunter ever felt that way.
The subway station is surprisingly sparse for this late. Though there are still plenty of people, the amount of on-duty cops are far between enough that Ellie doesn’t feel the usual prickle of anxiety as, with the same casual pace as her walk, she pushes her palms against the bar of the ticket fare machine and hops. Even if they caught her, it wasn’t like they’d really do much to a C-list celebrity at 6pm on a Thursday.
Once she situates herself comfortably in one of the less dirty seats on the train, she pulls her phone from her pocket, scrolling past her barebones contact list of Gabby and a few previous employers before hitting Tess’s name. As usual, it doesn’t take more than a full ring before she answers.
“Hello?”
“Hey.” Shoving her hand back in her pocket to fidget with the fabric from the inside, her fingers pause briefly when brushing the smooth plastic shell of the lighter before she pulls them out entirely to settle uncomfortably on her leg. “I’m headed to your place. I should be there in about 20 minutes.”
Tess seems a little taken aback at the sudden visit, but not mad. “Well, thanks for the heads up, I guess.” She pauses, before her voice takes on a softer, less casual quality. “Man, you sound terrible. Is everything okay?”
“I–” Her voice is hoarse, more than usual, and she coughs to clear her throat, hoping it’ll help to dissuade the tears pricking in the corner of her eyes. “I’ll explain when I get over there. It’s gonna take a while, and I don’t need everyone on the R line knowing my business.”
Tess’s laugh is soft, but not too comfortable: she’s still worried, and Ellie can tell. “Alright. I’ll see you there.” With that, their plans are set, and she spends the rest of the ride with eyes cast out the window, focused on the glare of the train’s internal light against the beams that pass by.
She hardly feels like she’s doing anything but watching as her body operates on autopilot until she’s at the door to Tess’s small townhouse, rapping at the door with shaking knuckles. Fuck, it’s cold out. She should have put on more than just a negligible little jacket.
Luckily, it’s not long until Tess swings the door open. Her hair is tied up messily, a few dark strands falling against the sides of her cheeks. One from the back lays limp against her shoulder, curling against her neck parallel to the strap of her black tank top. She whistles low, ushering Ellie inside with a gentle hand. “And I thought you sounded bad. Jesus, what happened?”
“Me and Gabby got into it.” The answer isn’t particularly helpful, and she can tell that it isn’t by the way Tess turns back to her with a subtle raise of her brow. Sighing, she continues, shucking her jacket as she does and tossing it over the back of Tess’s couch, taking a seat against it. “I don’t think we’ve ever fought, especially not like that, and now I just– I don’t know.” Instinctively, her hands reach for her cigarettes and lighter again. “Do… you care if I smoke in here?”
“Not like my landlord can take any more of my security deposit. Go ahead.” The volume of the sigh that leaves her upon Tess’s answer is only rivaled by the click of the lighter as she sparks it for what feels like the tenth time that day. “So, you guys had a fight?”
“Yeah. I dug into her about breaking a plate, and it kind of spiraled from there. I didn’t realize how much both of us were holding in.” She flutters her eyes closed as the nicotine in her system finally feels like it’s doing what it should be. Her head feels a little clearer. Though it’s not any easier to think about emotionally, she can at least verbalize what she’s feeling now. “It felt good to get it out, but now I’m not really sure where it leaves us , you know? I really hurt her. She didn’t even want to talk when I left.”
Tess is halfway to the kitchen when she stops, turning on her heel back towards the couch. “Wait– you just left her there?”
Ellie scoffs dismissively, waving her cigarette in the air. “Don’t say it like I left her to die, Tess, she’ll be fine. She practically was pushing me out the door. Said she needed some time for herself.” Though that wasn’t exactly what Gabby said, and she knew it, it wasn’t like that isn’t what she meant . Staying in the house would have done nothing more than hurt the both of them. “Our conversation was… I dunno, it makes me feel like it might be over. I’d like that not to be the case, but it feels like she’s miserable here and there isn’t much I can do to make that any better.”
Her eyes, cast down towards the floor, only shoot back up when she feels the familiar dip of the couch. Tess is next to her now, hand reaching out to touch Ellie’s shoulder though not quite touching. “Did… she say she wanted to break things off?” She asks tentatively, her fingers tensing visibly when the question leaves her mouth.
“No, but I’ll be surprised if she doesn’t after this.” The words are masked in a self-deprecating laugh, ending in a near cough as Ellie inhales a small bit of ash in the air. “I mean, I know I just said it felt good not to keep all that stuff I said bottled in, but I fucked up.” She would already sound desperate, but the strain in her throat that three cigarettes in a little over an hour brings makes her downright pitiful to listen to. “God dammit. I thought we’d left all this shit behind us when we’d finished the show, but now I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do.”
She stops talking after that, taking the time to nurse her cigarette before ashing it in the tray on Tess’s side table. If she had another, she’d smoke that too, but three is all she’d thought to put in her pocket after her shower and a fourth would definitely feel a bit excessive, even in the wake of what felt like a world-ending possible-breakup. She pushes her face into her hands, then slides her head down so that her closed eyes rest against her palms. Her head thrums with anxiety that borders on pain, and the tears that had loomed over her on the train finally make their appearance in the private walls of Tess’s home. She sniffles once, then twice, then her shoulders slump in a silent sob.
“Hey, it’ll be okay,” Tess’s palm slides comfortably against her shoulder and back, moving back and forth slowly as her tears slip from between her fingers and fall into her lap. “I know, I know.” She whispers, voice low and gentle. They sit like that for a minute, silent, before Tess brings herself to her feet, her hand never leaving Ellie’s form. Another taps against the dam her hands have built against her face, a request for her to look up, and though she hates the idea of someone seeing her like this, it’s better that it’s Tess than anyone else. “Let’s get you to the bathroom. Maybe washing your face and cleaning up will help a little bit. After that, we can talk.”
The walls of the apartment finally stop pulsing. The face in the carpet rescinds back into its hiding place beneath the layers of nylon, and the black hairy clumps in Gabby’s peripheral find that her silent sobs and breathing exercises are much less interesting than the conflict beforehand.
She sits in the bedroom, a box fan pointed towards the hallway into the living room in an attempt to dispel any lingering tobacco as she scrolls on her phone. Not mindlessly, as she’d hoped, but with purpose.
“Yes, Gabby?” Grett’s voice is a little lower and hoarser than usual, and Gabby’s chest squeezes with guilt.
“I’m sorry, I know it’s late,” She starts, and the words don’t stop once she does. “I just… I needed someone to talk to.” Her grip tightens against the duvet, her knuckles flashing with pallor before she relaxes them, then tenses them again in a rhythm.. “I would have called Tom, but he usually doesn’t answer unless it’s a weekend, and–”
“It’s okay, darling,” Grett reassures, giving a tired laugh. She can imagine her sitting up in what must be a luxurious bed in equally luxurious pajamas, her hair wrapped up in silk to keep its perfect curl. “The question is: are you? You sound upset.”
“Me and Ellie, we– I don’t want to say we had a fight, but we argued, and I feel really bad.” The explanation feels more like an admission of wrongdoing, even though it really shouldn’t. For once, she really didn’t do anything wrong… at least, she’d like to think.
“Oh, honey,” The voice on the phone takes on a different tone entirely, as if this was all that was needed to wake her up. “Were you two able to talk it out, at least?”
“I think she wanted to, at least at the end, but I was having an episode. I knew it wouldn’t end well for either of us.” Gabby’s eyes glance towards the door, watching the way the smoke detector’s exposed wires slightly wiggle from the force of the fan’s direct breeze. “I’d talk to her now, but she left earlier. I don’t want to bother her if she’s trying to calm down.”
“Mm, I see…” Grett pauses, thinking, before she speaks again. “When did she leave?”
“I’m not sure, maybe an hour or so ago?” Gabby briefly catches her lip with a tooth, trying to parse exactly how long it had been. “I wasn’t really in a good state, so I don’t remember.”
Even over the phone, she can hear Grett’s appalled little sputters of breath. If she hadn’t been sitting up before, she must have certainly shot up now. “She left you during your episode?”
“It’s my fault,” she replies just as quickly. “I told her I didn’t want to talk.”
“Maybe you did, but not wanting to talk doesn’t mean she can just leave you high and dry in a vulnerable state like that! Ugh, that’s so–” Grett’s gradually heightening voice suddenly drops to the soft tone it had been prior, catching herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to add my commentary, I just… I worry about you out there by yourself, Gabby. It’s not that I don’t think you can take care of yourself, but moving to America with nothing but the clothes on your back without any long-term plans for the sake of a relationship isn’t exactly an easy situation to put yourself in.”
“I know, I just…” She’s not really sure what to say. Grett was right , it was a stupid decision, but it felt so right at the time that there didn’t really seem like any other option would be nearly as fulfilling. “I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I wanted to be with someone who cared about me. Now I feel even more alone than I’ve ever been when she’s not around, and that’s all the time.” Again, but without the assistance of her hallucinations, she wonders where Ellie must be. Who is she talking to? What is she saying to them? Will they look at her differently? Her stomach ties itself in practiced knots, each loop another question of where exactly they’d stand once Ellie walked back through that door. “I thought that living with her, I’d have someone who saw me as more than just… some crazy person who can’t do anything.” She quietly sighs to herself, her eyes drawn up towards the popcorn ceiling. “...she was angry with me when I said that.”
The line is silent for a few seconds before Grett speaks again, tone firm. “I don’t think she has any right to be angry with you, not with the way she’s treated you. Not just today, but since the show wrapped.” She lets out her own exhale of frustration. “I didn’t want to say this because it didn’t feel like it was a good time for you, but I was really upset with her after that tiff we’d gotten into at your interview shooting.” Ah. Gabby definitely remembered that.
Grett had just finished up a nice conversation with Aiden about their lives and the interviews, only interrupted by Yul’s abrupt entrance onto the set. All three of them had excused themselves from watching his interview filming, and for good reason: God knows what he’d say about everyone, especially Grett.
Ellie’s eyes had been trained on the door back into the set the entire time they’d been outside, an unlit cigarette bouncing between her index and ring finger. She’d promised Gabby she wouldn’t light it until she began her filming so the smell wouldn’t be so noticeable by time it was time for them to leave. “So, what do you think that was about?” She asked, voice drenched in something her girlfriend couldn’t quite identify.
“What? Aiden?” Gabby had replied in return, and though the smile on Ellie’s face made it look like she found the lack of awareness charming, it never seemed to quite reach her eyes. In retrospect, Gabby’s surprised she hadn’t noticed it earlier.
“I mean, yes, but I was mainly referring to the fact that he walked in with Yul.” Turning to Grett, Ellie raised a thick ginger brow. “I know you saw it, too. Why didn’t you say anything?”
A compact mirror in one hand and a doe-foot applicator with a generous amount of lip gloss on the other, Grett prodded at her lips, only dignifying Ellie’s question with a response once she was happy with her touch-up. “What good would that do? If he wants to make that bed, he can lie in it.”
Ellie scoffed, crossing her arms, and the rhythm she’d kept with the cigarette in her hand increased in its tempo. “You’re really just gonna roll over and let that slide?” The new question has Grett seemingly taken aback, her posture straightened. “I mean, obviously, I don’t mean to tell you how you’re supposed to cope with your own stuff, but if it were me, I’d be making it everyone’s problem.” Putting the cigarette in her mouth, she continued the silent percussion by worrying it between her lips, the visual only serving to further annoy the woman in front of her.
“Well, I’m not you, for one. I appreciate the concern, but I don’t need that kind of negativity controlling my life.” Grett shifted her focus to putting her makeup back in her bag, not even bothering to keep eye contact. Gabby sees now that doing so probably would have made her even more upset. “Me and Aiden were never friends– hell, we were hardly speaking at the best of times –and regardless of what he’s doing here with Yul, it’s a tall order to expect anyone from the show to care about what I went through after the fact if they couldn’t even care while it was happening in front of their faces.” Her eyes met Ellie’s, narrowed, and the tension that simmered quietly between them suddenly felt like a blanket of thick cotton stuffing itself down Gabby’s throat.. Ellie didn’t need to smoke at this point– the unspoken negative feelings between the two of them was suffocating enough. “That includes you. After all, only one between the two of you was actually in an alliance with him.”
“I–” Ellie, that time, was the one to break eye contact, looking down at the blacktop beneath her sneakers. “I made a lot of decisions I’m not proud of on the show.”
“And yet you seem more than willing to bring mine up unprompted.” Hiking up her bag on her shoulder, Grett turned away, seemingly ready to take her leave from them as well as the set. “How about we keep from throwing stones from glass houses, hmm?” She took a few steps away from the couple, only looking back towards Gabby. “I’m going to the car. Feel free to catch up with me once you’re done filming, darling. You can bring your girlfriend once she’s feeling a little more sensible.”
With that and a small flourish of her hand, she’d left, and though Gabby attempted to comfort Ellie with a hand against her shoulder, she’d only had her attempts at comfort shrugged off and the familiar flick-flicking of a cheap sparkwheel as a reply. She’d filmed late that day, and every question felt like it had been tailor-made to remind her how strange it was that Ellie had no problem reaching for her when Aiden had been around, but seemed to outright resent her touch when they’d been alone.
Tess’s hand stays on Ellie’s back as she washes her face, fingers rubbing gentle circles up to where her trapezius meets the nape of her neck as the warm water relaxes the tensing muscles of her face. With her free hand, she hands her a face towel that feels like a luxury compared to the cheap washcloth Ellie usually uses at home. Once she’s sufficiently dry, she stands up straight, eyes still feeling puffy and uncomfortable but significantly less so.
“Feel a little better?” Tess asks, smiling gently.
Ellie just bristles. “Hardly.” Though her words are coarse, it’s not entirely true, at least physically. She glances towards the mirror and what she sees has the frown lines deepening on her pale face. “And I still look like shit.”
The still damp tips of her hair stick to her sickly looking forehead, the only color on her face coming in the pink blotches that surround her eyes, nose, and cheeks. She feels like the poster girl for a box of Kleenex, both in her comical appearance and the way the bridge of her nose burns from irritation. More hair sticks to her neck and shoulders, and she finds that she’s starting to hate how long it’s become in recent months. Gabby had always really liked it and the way it differed from the texture of her own hair, but Ellie had always personally preferred the idea of having short hair. It felt so much more… powerful. Maybe freeing was a better word. She’d been forced to keep her hair long growing up, and getting a pixie cut fresh on her 15th birthday felt like the first real decision for herself she’d ever made in her life. She sure as hell needed that kind of confidence now.
Her eyes continue to stare into their reflection for a second too long before turning to Tess beside her. “Hey, do you still have those clippers you bought when you wanted to give yourself an undercut?”
Tess shrugs, pulling her hand from Ellie’s back to gesture downward. “Yeah, they’re probably under the sink.” After she answers the question, she only realizes why it would be asked when Ellie drops to her knees to open the wooden cabinet. “Ellie, no , we are not–”
For the first time in hours, Ellie finds herself laughing, the sound feeling foreign as she roots through boxes of hair dye and spare shaving razors. “Come on, if I’m going to do something impulsive and stupid, better it be something that won’t kill me, right?” She pulls out the already half-unzipped bag, yanking the zipper’s pull down the rest of the way to reveal the practically untouched electric razor and a few guards in a variety of sizes. The smug grin she shoots back up at Tess has her sighing in exasperation, though the smile on her face betrays her.
“At least let me help you. I’m not letting you leave this apartment looking like an idiot.” Helping Ellie to her feet and confiscating the set with one hand, she pulls at the fabric of her t-shirt with the other. “You’re gonna need to take this off. Hair’s going to get all over it.”
The request has Ellie balking, blinking stupidly at her before she realizes that wait , that is actually what you’re supposed to do . She stammers, turning so that she instead faces the shower wall across the room from them rather than the woman now behind her. “Right. Uh, let me just…” Grabbing at the hem of her oversized tee and pulling up over her head, she realizes that this must have been how she’d felt just a handful of months ago.
Finals had crept up on Ellie much quicker than she would have wanted to admit, what with her whole stint on a reality TV show and juggling various dead end jobs and all, but she had no problem knocking back a few black coffees and pulling herself up by the bootstraps when necessary.
Luckily, Tess had always been a kindred soul in that regard: an artist whose best work came to them under the pressure of an inevitably short deadline and metric tonnes of pressure that would kill someone weaker. At that point, they’d only had a few days left, and it was getting down to the wire. Any hiccups in Ellie’s already extremely tight schedule would have been disastrous, and of course, it was just her fucking luck that she’d received one hell of a hiccup that morning.
“Thank you again for doing this. I know it’s a lot to ask, since I know your finals are coming up too.” Ellie stood to her full height, tucking the fabric measuring tape in her pocket and turning to her makeshift sewing table in the cramped space of her dorm. “Just my luck that my model got pneumonia right before my presentation though. The fact you guys aren’t too far apart in measurements is a lifesaver.” She picked up the mass of sparkling black fabric, holding it up. “Do you mind trying this on before I start making any adjustments, though? I know I have to take the waist and hem it a little, but I don’t want to overshoot.”
Tess gave a sharp nod. “Yeah, no problem. Let me–” Pausing mid-sentence, she pulled at her sweater, and Ellie barely had time to think before the garment was already over her head, revealing much more of her skin than she’d ever seen. It was cute, how much paler her midsection was than her slightly tanner arms, and the way her soft skin slightly spilled from the tight band and snug cups of her bra was–
The noise Tess made, a strangled yelp, snapped Ellie out of a train of thought that certainly could have taken her places she definitely should not be going. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I just thought it’d be easier than running out to the bathroom.” She must think the expression on Ellie’s face is out of discomfort, and it definitely should be. She held the sweater to her chest in an attempt to cover herself back up, looking away. “I probably just made this really awkward, didn’t I…” Her voice dropped low and hesitant, and the downcast look on her face had Ellie practically jumping to comfort her.
“No!” It’s only once she spoke that she realized how over-eager she must have sounded to see her friend in a state of undress. She pulled back, holding her dress to her chest in a way that mirrored the woman in front of her. “No, it’s, uh…” Ellie cleared her throat, face suddenly much hotter than it should be in a New York dorm with shitty heating. “It’s fine. You can get dressed here. I’m gonna have to zip you in, anyway.”
They worked in silence from there. Tess didn’t say a word, eyes trained on the wall, as she pushed the waistband of her pants down to the floor and stepped out of them, and Ellie didn’t reply in turn as she handed her the dress and tried her damndest not to watch as she shimmied into the garment.
Fuck, this was bad. This was really really really bad. She shouldn’t be looking at her friend like this. Hell, she shouldn’t be looking at anyone like this other than her fucking girlfriend, but it was hard to ignore the fact that Gabby (at least right now) lived thousands of miles and an expensive plane ride away, and Tess was close enough to touch. Close enough that she was touching her, as she wrapped her fingers tight around the small zipper pull in the back of the dress and yanked up. Just her knuckles grazing the small of Tess’s back on the way up to the end of the track has a hit of endorphins on a one-way ticket to her brain like an injection straight to the vein.
She couldn’t do this, and she wouldn’t. It was tempting– when didn’t someone feel a little temptation? –but it wasn’t right. Even if she didn’t respect herself that much, she definitely respected Gabby more than enough that even dwelling on it this much felt like a deeply personal insult to someone she loved.
Of course, though, things are never easy for Ellie Parker. They only get harder, in fact, when Tess turns around. Her loose ponytail had come undone in the undressing and redressing process, so her long black hair drapes luxuriously across her shoulders and accentuates the peeking of her collarbones from the boat neck collar, making it feel like an optical illusion where her hair ended and the dress began. The fabric clung to her already beautiful figure like it was made for it, only parting to show her leg in a downright obscene slit that landed just at her mid-thigh.
“Wow, this looks great, Ellie,” Tess commented, smiling wide, and it was only then that Ellie seemed to remember where her eyes were. “You could honestly put this on a store shelf right now and I’m sure someone would pay top dollar for it.”
She laughed nervously, fidgeting with her tape measure in her hands. “I think I’d rather just give it to you when I’m done with this whole thing. Sure, the money would be nice, but you look really good in it.” The way the compliment left her lips had it feeling like it meant much more than she would have liked. “I don’t think I can imagine anyone else wearing it.”
“Really?” Tess’s eyes seemed to sparkle, hands splayed against the bodice as if she still wasn’t sure if the dress she was wearing was real. “Thank you, Ellie. I don’t even know when I’d be able to put this thing on without feeling overdressed, though.” She glanced back towards her mirror, oohing and aahing as she turned to give a little over the shoulder pose back at herself. “Maybe if I have a big exhibition one day, I’ll be able to wear it then.”
“I’ll hold you to that. Make sure to put in a good word for me with all of those bigwig art collectors, okay?” Ellie replied, turning back to her sewing table to pick up her pincushion and pull a few small pins from the top. As perfect as Tess made the dress look, she did still have a lot of work to do before her final, and a laundry list of small menial fixes was just the thing she needed to distract her from the guilt that bubbled low in her stomach.
Gabby rolls over to her other side, tucked under the bed’s duvet, and finds that even in her most comfortable pajamas, it’s hard to try and sleep alone. It’s been more than a couple hours at this point, and the digital clock in front of her doesn’t help to ease her woes as it ticks by. Where was Ellie? Was she really that mad? She could call her, but what if that really did make everything worse?
She hugs Mr. Whiskers to her chest, her nose pressed firmly against the top of his head. Inhaling, she’s surprised to still smell the strange sterile scent of the fake spaceship from Disventure Camp, along with the faintest hint of Tess’s perfume.
It had been really nice of her to help Gabby get this, and it had been a wonderful gift for Ellie on the show, but now it feels like the two of them were the only one who paid him any mind. Every once in a while, she’d send Tess a picture of him in their apartment, sometimes posing him next to silly objects, and it always seemed to bring her a little joy in her day to know how much Gabby appreciated him.
Recently, she’d felt bad for the way she– hell, both her and Ellie –had been so mad at her. Sure, she understood why Ellie had been so upset, the winning money could have done them all a lot of good, certainly, but the game had been turning Ellie into something… scary. Someone she didn’t recognize. She had decided then that she’d rather be broke and know she didn’t purposely twist and hurt people like Ellie had tried (and, in a way, succeeded) to do rather than be rich and live with the consequences. Riya, to her, was a living example that she’d been on the right path.
That’s why it had meant so much when Ellie had told her that the money she could have received for being by Riya’s side in the finale wouldn’t be worth putting her in harm’s way. It felt like she had finally turned a new leaf and realized that the dirty tricks she’d been pulling, not only towards Tom, Jake, and Aiden, but towards everyone across the entirety of the game, had done nothing but turn her into someone she hated to be aware she was becoming.
Now though… she wasn’t sure if Ellie had really taken all of that to heart. Sometimes, it felt like she was slipping back into old habits, and today felt more like that than ever. It was hard to imagine how she’d act towards other people from the show. Did she treat the other people in her life like this too? What about Tess?
Squeezing Mr. Whiskers closer, she huffs to herself. Something about the way that question sits in her brain like a lead weight makes her think she doesn’t want to know.
“So, what’s the damage?”
Ellie sits in the bathtub shortways, her legs crossed in the only mildly uncomfortable cramped space. Her head certainly feels cooler and lighter, that’s for sure, but it’s not until Tess presses the handle of a handheld mirror into her palm that she can really look at herself.
Her hair is short , much shorter than she’d ever had it before. Though the whole buzzcut look isn’t something she’d necessarily been expecting Tess to go with, she certainly didn’t mind it. In fact, it was… kind of cool. “Woah. You know, I thought this was gonna look way worse. I’m kind of impressed.” Swiveling to sit longways and stretch out her legs now that she wasn’t in the proverbial barber’s chair, she looks up to Tess, her smile slightly faltering when she studies the expression on her face. “You’re looking at me like I just grew another head.”
The other woman’s eyes widen at the comment. “No, no, it looks good,” She stammers, holding her free hand up defensively as she uses the other to put the (now unplugged) clippers on the toilet lid. “It’s just…” Now it’s her turn to clear her throat, her glance raking over Ellie’s topless form a little less than subtly and noting how natural her buzzcut seemed to match the utilitarian sports bra that served as the only thing covering her upper half. “It suits you,” is all she manages to say, but the words are soaked in intentions that are as far from subtle as anything could be.
Ellie, of course, notices this. She notices the way Tess looks at her, too: she had been the entire time she’d been here. It was hard not to connect the dots. After all, what other reason would a girl have to invite you into her townhouse unannounced, allow you to smoke inside despite not being a smoker herself (the inhaler strewn against her kitchen counter was one Ellie had seen in her dorm before), and serve as a partner in crime to one of the most cliché ‘breakup crashout’ rituals of all time?
This should be bad. This should be really bad, even worse than any glances Ellie had ever stolen at Tess’s form when she’d lift her arms a little too far or lean forward a little too close. Even worse than the dress fitting. Even worse than the fight she’d just had with Gabby.
Her hands reach for the rim of the tub, stray ginger hairs pressing uncomfortably into her palms. She can’t find it in her heart to care. She knows she may very well be crossing a line that she will never be able to take back.
Pushing against the white fiberglass, she leans up. She can’t find it in her heart to care about that much either.
Tess tenses as their lips meet, and for a second, her brain runs wild with the worry that she may have been reading her signals entirely wrong, but then Tess’s hand rises to cup her cheek, eyes fluttering closed as a gentle moan leaves her mouth, and any thoughts Ellie may have been having at just about anything fly out the window and into the air outside.
It’s nice for a few moments, but when Tess pulls back, her face has taken on a different reaction entirely. She attempts to stutter for something to say, anything, but her mouth shuts just as quickly. She pushes herself to her feet.
“Fuck,” Ellie hisses in a breath when she pivots on her heel towards the door. “Tess, fuck , wait—“
It’s too late by time her plea leaves her lips. Tess has already closed the door gently behind her, leaving her with nothing but the hair gathered at the bottom of the tub to keep her company. She hasn’t gone far– Ellie can see her feet on the other side of the door –but it takes her at least a minute before she opens the door and re-enters, her expression having made the journey from mortified to deeply concerned.
Before Ellie can even start, Tess cuts her off. “Ellie, we cannot do this.” She sighs, pressing her fingers to her temples as she shoots herself quick glances in the mirror. “I mean— what happened to wanting to work things out with Gabby? What are you going to tell her once you leave this bathroom?”
Ellie wipes a hair covered palm against her pant leg, leaning her elbow against the rim of the bathtub and shoving her cheek in her hand. “I don’t know if what I want is even a possibility right now. Plus, I don’t have to tell her anything,” The last phrase has Tess’s eyebrows furrowing. “As if she’s going to be in the mood to talk things out by the time I get home anyway.” Turning her head forward, Ellie glances at her warped reflection in the mirror-like metal of the bathtub faucet. “Get real, Tess. Me and Gabby’s relationship was already doomed the moment we decided we’d be parading it around in front of millions of people internationally.”
The reasoning she posits has Tess thinking for what looks like maybe half a second before she’s shaking her head in refutation. “You’re spiraling, Ellie. You don’t really mean that.”
Though she understands why she’s being so dismissive, especially right now, it doesn’t stop Ellie from reacting with a sarcastic little laugh anyways. “Oh? How do you know?” Leaning further into her hand, she narrows her eyes. “How do you know that I haven’t been thinking about kissing you since my sink broke in the dorms and I had to use your bathroom? Or when you and I went to Central Park to take pictures for one of your classes?” Her voice feels tight as she speaks, ironically growing more constricted as the thoughts she’d been so frightened of coming out seem to spill out like– well, for a timely analogy, water from a faucet.
“When you modeled for my final, I wanted you so bad it hurt .” She emphasizes the last word so hard it nearly cracks. “I felt horrible when Gabby came to our graduation, so excited to see me, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the way you looked at me wearing that dress.” That seems to finally get something through to her, because Tess steps closer tentatively before taking her previous seat on the ground in front of the tub. Her hands are folded against her chest defensively, but not out of anger.
With the distance between them so close, it's very hard not to want to kiss her again, but Ellie knows that if she doesn’t say something now, she’ll likely never be in the emotional state to do so again. At least, not sober. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if me and Gabby are ever going to be able to work things out. But I do know that I want this— I want you —right fucking now .”
“ Ellie ,” Tess says quietly, her hands tightened into fists against her midsection. She sounds like she might cry. “please.”
Though the request could mean anything, they both know, against their better judgement, it’s not to stop. “Please what?” Ellie asks, barely a whisper.
“Don’t… don’t get my hopes up.” The response is much more frank than she’s expecting, and has both her eyebrows practically raising off of her face. “Don’t make me think you’re willing to throw everything away just for me.” Tess’s eyelashes, dark and thick, bead with tears at their outer corners. “I’ve never— I mean, no one’s ever been willing to make that sacrifice. No one’s ever needed me.”
It’s not hard to understand why she’d feel that way: Ellie, along with anyone else with eyes, had seen how deeply and painfully Tess had been pining for Ally the entirety of their time together in their first season. It couldn’t have felt good to be cast aside and treated like a relationship therapist. For Hunter , no less: Ellie wouldn’t wish a fate like that on her worst enemy.
“Tess.” She says, voice firm with conviction. “ I need you. More than anything or anyone else right now. Everything outside this room could turn into dust and I wouldn’t give one iota of a fuck if you were still stuck in this cramped bathroom with me. God, even with mascara sticking to your cheeks, I can’t stop looking at you.” That seems to have Tess finally cracking a smile again, looking up at her with that same warmth that had made her lean in for a kiss in the first place. “Is that enough reassurance?”
“More than enough.” She presses a palm to each eye, wiping the stray tears away, before wiping them against her shorts. From there, she leans forward: not enough for any real distance to have been cleared, but enough that Ellie would definitely notice. Her voice is soft, but teasing. “You’re not a very good girlfriend, you know that?”
The audacity. She’d be angry in any other situation– hell, she probably would have been mad about ten minutes ago –but it was hard to stay mad at Tess, especially when she was looking at her like that. “Never argued the contrary,” she replies back in kind, her tongue poking from her mouth to swipe against her lips in a quick movement that is not ignored, if Tess’s wandering eyes are anything to go by. “You’re not much of a good friend, either.”
They don’t try to make a case for themselves after that. There’s nothing they can say or do to justify what they’re doing. It’s wrong, plain and simple, and something they’ll probably regret when it’s all over. But right now, in the confines of a cramped New York City townhouse bathroom, it isn’t over.
It isn’t over for much longer than they would have expected. Though Ellie does return home that night, a beanie (graciously donated by Tess) stretched over her head in an attempt to protect her unprepared scalp from the cold breezes of the city’s midnight air, it only takes about a week from there for everything to be said and done between her and Gabby.
Though they break things off as amicably as possible, it’s more than obvious to the both of them that Gabby is heartbroken. With the most important of her belongings packed in two large suitcases and a carry-on, she tells Ellie that she isn’t angry with her, far from it, but some time away from each other would probably do the both of them some good. Her parents didn’t bother answering her calls, as usual, but Grett (as always) is gracious enough to open her guest room up temporarily while she tries to find her feet again. How close they’d been would usually bother Ellie, but she finds herself more relieved by it than anything now. At least someone will be there to soften the blow if she’d ever caught wind of–
Once she’s gone, Ellie finds it hard to come up with reasons to stay in the apartment very much. She finds that Tess’s bed is much more comfortable, for one, and the drop in her utility bill certainly doesn’t hurt. Plus, it had been a long time since she’d slept alone, and the feeling, she found, was not something she wanted to get used to.
Luckily, Tess seemed more than fine with entertaining her requests. With the nuisances of her closing shift still sore in her joints, Ellie presses closer against Tess’s back, her thin form wrapped around Tess like the roots of a tree. She buries her face against the patch of her shoulder that’s clear of thick black hair and exhales, the smell of menthol still lingering on her breath as she drifts to sleep.
It’s comforting to Tess, and it shouldn’t be. If anyone was like the roots of a tree, it was her: not in the grounding way that someone like Ally or Ellie may cite, but something more malicious– something evil . She felt like a strangler fig, wrapping around a relationship that very well could have made it through a tough time and suffocating any of the love left, siphoning it from herself like some kind of parasite.
But, God, was it too much to ask to want someone to need you? Sure, it was nice to be able to give people advice and watch as they’d gone on their way and find their footing, but it always left her in the same place as she’d started: unimportant to utterly nobody past the service she could provide. Sure, she could argue that this wasn’t much different– Ellie, at the end of the day, was using her to fill the hole that her failing relationship with Gabby had left –but it didn’t feel like something like this was easy to bounce back from. For all they knew, Ellie could be in this state forever, desperately clinging to the only person who’d be able to provide her the kind of unconditional, enabling love that she desires.
Secretly, guiltily , as she curls up closer against the woman around her, she hopes that’s the case.