—chapter eighteen.

  ❛ walls back up, the guard goes up too. ❜  

IT STARTED OFF HAPPIER THAN IT ENDED.

"We should go on a, an um...date."

"H-AIOW!"

Elodie shrieked from under the counter, slowly rising clutching her head. She set the bottle lifted from underneath down and cradled her skull, groaning through the pain. In the moment, she gave no cares as to who heard or saw her - to tell the truth, she was a bit too overwhelmed to think about any of that just then.

"Sorry...?"

He really did not sound it, though. When she looked his way, Diego was hiding laughter behind his hand, trying not to mock her pain (but also finding the reaction far too funny to not chuckle, at least a little). Flipping him off sobered him up a little, but the man still smirked openly.

"Glad you find my pain funny, Robin Hood. You know for that, you gotta pay the full price today."

From a couple of seats down, a man frowned. "What a sec-why does he get a discount?"

"He doesn't, don't worry --" she lowered her tone so it was only heard by Diego, "dicks with no consideration for my head, don't get discounts." Elodie shot back a smile and turned away, not caring about what he said next. Her act of faux anger was an easy ploy to catch her breath (and stop the pounding in her head) before they moved along with the bomb he had just dropped.

"Come on, you really mad at me for laughing?"

"Oh, no," she retorted. Elodie turned back around, hands on her hips. "Not about that. I am mad, though, that you thought you'd just spring that on me while in such a precarious situation. Obviously, I'm gonna be freaked by someone saying that to me, like that, at my place of business."

"Uh - oops?"

"Oops is right, asshole. Oops is right."

She was smiling, though. Despite how flustered it had made her and the pain in her head, Elodie couldn't help but smile back at him. She would chalk it up to a possible concussion and refuse the truth that he really just made her happy, but it was obvious to anyone that the young woman was just eager to hear that from him.

She already knew they were not a typical couple, and she did not want that. She liked keeping their scheduled evenings and mornings, and wasn't eager to flounce around the city like a fool with a new broad on her arm. But, well...

"Can I ask you now, or are you gonna break another bone?"

Elodie occupied her trembling hands with scrubbing the counter, but her eyes flitted up to him. "Yeah, you can ask me now."

"Can I take you on a date?"

The old man near them shouted again, but she ignored the sound in her giddiness. She nodded, "fine. But only cause you're cute."

Diego leaned in a little more, folding his arms over the counter. His eyes glinted in the bar lighting, "you can't say that when you look like that, tonight."

She snorted. "Diego, I have tequila spilled down my pants leg, and I'm sweating like a pig."

"And...?"

"Cut the flirting," she grumbled, still struggling to keep her grin controlled, "you already got into my pants."

Charlie, who somehow overheard from halfway across the bar, laughed. She shot him a glare; he only laughed harder.

"But, for real?"

"Yeah," she said, quieter that time. She reached a hand out to pat his sleeve, "I'd like to go on a real date with you, if that's what you want."

"I do," he smiled. "Should'a long while back, but...I'm not good at traditional relationship steps."

"We're not good at that, you mean."

"Sure. But, I want to follow some of the steps. My girl deserves to be treated."

The pride that swelled on his face, glittering in his eyes as he looked her way, was enough to make any sane being faint. Truthfully, Elodie wasn't sure what that meant for her, but she did almost keel from the 'my girl' alone.

She returned to her scrubbing, not unlike when they had first met. "Look at you, Mr. Romance...who would'a thought, under all the knives and lil' tuxedo masks, the late turn-ins at my place...who would a thought--"

"--shut up," he grumbled. She watched with glee as his face flushed, only half hidden by the shadows he clung so naturally to. "I can be romantic."

"Mm. Sure. Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Well, I never got to try those eggs you burnt up, so."

He laughed and moved to talk, but before he could, Lisbeth was wandering over. 

 "Yo, Elodie - can you help me out? I gotta unload some stuff from the back and I need someone to watch my part of the floor for like ten. If that's okay."

"Sure thing," she grinned back. The girl wandered off, and Elodie leant across the counter to press a light kiss to Diego's lips. He tried to move in, get more than just a peck, but she was already dancing away and smirking. "I'm working, Robin Hood!"

"Tease."

"Shmooze!"

THAT WAS TWO WEEKS AGO.

It took them two whole weeks, just to set a date for the date.

Such a thing would seem odd to most, considering they spent nearly every free moment with one another. But their midnights and early mornings weren't the sort you could just take out, and it was hard to sit down and plan when they wanted to play grown ups again. Doubts nagged at the back of both their minds, but neither dared admit them to the other -- showing all their cards seemed like too much of a gamble, so they preferred to simply smile and play along with the flawed rules. 

Eventually, though, they settled for a week from Thursday. She would dress up, and he would not wear his stupid little uniform -- not if he wanted to continue their relationship, Elodie warned.

That night, she stood along and half-dressed, staring at her own self in the mirror. Her hair was straightened and pulled back tight to her scalp, and her face was painted about half a dozen colours, making her feel like a walking Barbie. But even still, maybe she enjoyed that sense of falsity, for a night.

Elodie sighed and clasped her bra, the one she had only ever worn once (not for any other reason than because it was half her first paycheck, and she was too scared to damage that sonofabitch). She lifted up the dress that had been previously lost in the back of her closet. Another item of clothing she had never really had the chance to wear, too tired and too alone, or too lost to care about the clothes she wore. And while she really wasn't the sort to be so drawn to a dress, well...

Her painted lips curved upwards as the fabric slid up her form. It did feel good to put on.

The black fabric snaked down her warm body, coating it all the way down to her knees, hanging loose. Elodie's fingers tugged at the long slit down the front; it had been so long since she had picked it up, and a part of wondered what younger-her was thinking, buying such an open fronted garment -- but the other, giddier side of her smiled wide and liked how the fabric clung to her curves.

"Damn, lady," she mumbled, barely a sound in her tiny apartment. "You might me a catch, after all."

The date had been a large focus of her day at work -- Charlie, especially, had acted oddly proud her entire shift, and had even hugged her when she had left.

She hadn't ever let him do that, before.

"I'm glad to see you gettin' out there, again," he had chorused, holding her tight to him. She always forgot how much taller he was than her, but it was clear in the hug as her head pressed to his chest. "You're too good to be wasted on the lows. Girl like you deserves a man who'll take you out, n'gladly."

She had snorted, masking her tears with croaked humour. "Honestly, might be me parading him around. You seen that man?"

"Aye," he had said, pulling away with a soft grin, "and I've seen you, too. I mean -- I feel like the fairy godmother in all this, sending you away to dance with your prince at the ball."

"O-kay," she had groaned, rolling her eyes dramatically, "you have barely had a part in this, and there will be no dancing if I want to keep'im in my life."

"Oh, c'mon, Elodie -- embrace the feeling of young love, let loose a little!"

She smiled as the memory recounted in her head. It was too easy to forget the good people in her life, the ones she always pushed away -- but Charlie never let her shove him too far. And for that, she was truly grateful.

Elodie adjusted herself once more in the dress and caught herself in the mirror, staring at the reflection. With her dress and shoes, hair sort of done -- not that she knew how to do much with the mess -- she did feel a little like Cinderella. Whatever that translated to for her.

IT SHOULD BE KNOWN, SHE WORE THAT GRIN FOR A WHILE.

Elodie travelled alone, but she had smiled the entire way. Even when her feet nearly snapped as she wobbled on the cracking ice, and when the taxi driver asked if she was looking for company that night, and even when she had very nearly flashed the entire city when she tripped --

-- well, okay, she did drop the grin then.

But the point still stood.

Elodie felt like she had never smiled so much in her life. Her cheeks ached, her lips practically quivered in all their red-stained glory, and yet she didn't want to stop. It was a nice little fantasy to live in, and under all the lights, seated and waiting for Diego to arrive, she felt truly happy.

But after twenty-three minutes of waiting alone, her grin finally slipped.

Thirty-five minutes later, it had died and left only a stain of red in its place, thin and trembling.

Fifty-seven minutes later, and she nearly incinerated the waiter when he asked 'if there was anything else she wanted'.

She wasn't sure why she stayed. It ate her up inside, flushed her clean full of shame and humiliation as happy couples and families and people who had it together silently mocked her lone self. With every second, her hope shriveled up a little more, leaving it to become a worthless, wizened fruit lost somewhere in the wastes of her mind.

She felt stupid, out of place, and smaller than she ever had in her life. Not because of anything anyone else had done, but because of her self. Because of how she had walked in so full of life, and was left to merely crawl out and hope the happy folks around her didn't trample her. She felt both over and underdressed and maybe just that she wasn't made for fancy areas like this. Places where only people who knew they meant something went.

Her gaze left her lap and drifted over to a rather handsome woman sitting a few feet away. She was practically glowing, lighting up the entire place with her beautiful, melodious laugh that coated every inch of Elodie's squirming skin. It sucked her dry of anything but her shame, and left her in awe of a woman who surely had everything together. She shamelessly admired how she swung her long curls back, glowing a deep orange by the chandeliers above. How she wore the colour red so effortlessly -- that must be her colour, but couldn't she just pick one and parade that, too?

The woman's attention dropped from her husband to hers, and immediately, Elodie's eyes darted away. 

"Ma'am, I--"

"--here," Elodie rushed, slamming down her glass and a handful of bills that somehow, had not been burnt to a crisp between her fingers. She pulled away from the waiter and out of the room, leaving the beautiful woman and all of the others behind. As she jogged away, her hair fell to cascade around her shoulders, no long a wreath but instead a fallen crown of thorns that dug with every fumbled step.

She pulled out into the cold air and stopped. Throngs of people hurried past her, wrapped in thick coats and the arms of their loved ones. All she had was her dress and her own wits, and was that even enough, that time?

Ten minutes later and she was in another cab, silent and solemn as they raced through the city streets. Her hands had been wrapped in the spare scarf she had kept in her purse. Elodie watched then shake and smoke, burning holes into the fabric as they drove. It reminded her of the mess she had left in the alleyway, and how her body had burned in pain as the heat channeled through her body, a mess of pain and anger and total humiliation that had been horrifically contained to her hands. She knew it would be a matter of seconds before the scarf would simply--

"--this street, miss?"

She didn't look up. Her hand shoved a little deeper into her purse, clenched tight. "Yep."

The apartment was dark, and smaller than she had ever remembered it. Not even small -- it was cramped, and filled to the brim with nothing but waste that made her want to vomit. She hated it, hated it all, wanted to burn it all down with her if she could --

-- her knees gave out, and she fell the floor with a loud thump. A nail head dug into the bare skin; she hardly even recognised it, in her already horrific pain. Bile clung to her throat, her lips, gliding over her tongue and threatening to fall, coating her with fear-induced nausea she couldn't shake.

Elodie wiped at her lips with her fingers, shuddering as the burning skin came back red. She only barely remembered the cream she had swiped so effortlessly across them before, panic stifled yet again and yet so barely controlled.

She was a forest fire. The lightning had struck and everything, everything was burning, or already burnt up inside of her. She was only barely containing it, and the screams must have been horror-movie worthy but she couldn't even hear over her own pain thundering in her eardrums. It was all on fire. Everything was burning and she was just watching, staring as the smoke built and everything whistled and flew about her in red and orange masterpieces, consumed by her own anger in a way she had never seen it been done before.

She was naked and small and sniveling on the floor, writhing in a pile of ashes, fragments of trees and of life and of happiness and of --

-- it was all gone, or going, leaving her in their own plights, and she couldn't blame them, she couldn't have them even when she tried so why would they stay when she was too broken to breathe?! She merely watched as it all escaped her reaching arms, whistling out into the bitter winds and away from the storms she had built for herself to escape into.

Elodie's eyes slipped shut, then open a moment more to catch the blurriest sight of red floating across her ceiling.

She sighed and let the fire take her whole.

WHEN HE SHOWED UP, SHE WAS EMOTIONLESS.

She wore loose clothes, shorts and an old t-shirt that didn't suit the winter weather. The sort of attire that would make someone wonder if they had already been to bed -- but Diego had found Elodie near her apartment window, staring out into the wind that whistled freely through the tiny space.

"Why did you come here?"

Her voice was hollow, dry -- like a sapling ready to catch flame at any second.

"I --"

She cut him off with a single look. It was hollow and blank, stained only with the mascara remnants she hadn't wiped away.

"Why, the fuck," she emphasized, each word a crystal dagger stabbed his way, "did you, come, here?"

When he spluttered, she sighed.

"I don't care anyways. You can just get out."

"Elodie. Come on, let's talk about this."

Her head hung back on her neck, lolling like there was no life left in her body. "I have no interest in talking things out. Internal wounds are a pain to clean..."

Diego frowned and took a step forward. "Are you drunk?"

"Does it matter?" Her eyes, puffy, red-stained slits, stared aimlessly towards him. "I'm tired. I don't want to talk with you. Words...words are just sounds, and they don't mean anything, and everyone just wants to fuck us all over anyways."

He mumbled a string of curses under his breath, too quiet for her to hear over the wind. "Elodie, get away from the window. You're gonna get sick."

"Too fuc...king hot in here," she hummed dully. Her head sagged again, "why are you still here?"

"Elodie."

She huffed. "Diego."

"You-you're messed up right now. Let me help you--"

"--I don't want your help," she hissed, with sudden and white-hot anger that slashed through the air. "I don't want anything from you, I want you to go."

"I-I know I messed this up, but--"

"--mess up? Mess up -- you didn't mess up, Diego. We got messed up by the world, fucked over by the big men rolling dice to see who gets the worst of their cards. And...and...we got to be the entertainment, the ones they laugh at from their seats up top, and...it was a nice idea, wasn't it?"

He moved closer, only for her to shirk away. Elodie shuffled back a couple feet.

"Don't touch me. Don't...you'll burn, too."

"Bu-what the hell are you talking about? You're gonna freeze if you don't get away from there."

Her hand rose, trembling to his face, pulling at her skin. "Burn it all away...just like he always said I would..."

He finally managed to shut the window, though not without her protests.

"You can't--"

"--you're gonna get sick, Elodie!"

"You don't care anyways," she screamed, again with the violent twist to her words. Her eyes glittered with a dark energy, foreign and different than anything she had shown before. "You -- don't -- care! That's the whole goddamn point, isn't it?"

"Baby, that's--"

"--you, you fool yourself and say you're a hero, but what are you really?" she interrupted. Her hands made their way into her hair; they pulled and twisted, getting lost in the curls with no interest of coming out. "What the fuck are we, Diego? We're just -- we're idiots, is what we are!"

The man had stiffened at her first comment, a drunken jab at his fragile ego. But when she screamed her last words, he sagged, losing all the energy he had just held so tightly.

"You're drunk."

"I'm a fucking monster. We all are."

If he was confused, he didn't speak on it. Instead, he repeated his words like a mantra, drawing closer to her as one would approach a wild animal. His hands, bloodied still with gruesome victories hours past, shook as they reached out to her.

"I," he paused, fighting back his own anxieties to get the words out straight, "I know I messed up. But - but - let's not get carried away. Let's just t-t-talk."

She watched him draw nearer. She did not move, but swayed in her place, shivering like she had only just then felt the cold. 

"I messed up. There -- there was an em-m-mergency, but it wasn't -- I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry."

The young woman watched, unsteady in her ill-dressed form. A smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "You think I'm drunk."

"What?"

"I wish I was drunk. Man," she chuckled, mirthlessly, "I wish I was fucking drunk. I miss being drunk."

"I--"

"--I'm fucking tired. And I don't know why, but all this, the fact that I'm here and you're looking at me like that, and I just..." her laughter was thick, choked by tears that she had refused to let shed until that point. "I'm sorry. I can't do this."

"Come on, b-baby."

And it was the crack in his voice that made her almost drop her guard. Almost let herself break and fall against him, regardless of the still-smouldering skin that ached and cracked all across her body, regardless of her anger and the pain she felt. Elodie very nearly let herself fall.

It was only, ironically, her father who reminded her of why she couldn't. His words played like a siren in her head; 'no matter what, you'll always be your father's daughter'.

She smiled again, wider than before, stretching that stupid grin across her skin and hoping that, too, didn't catch flame.

"You should go," she mumbled through her smile. She blinked through the film, "I can't be him. Can't...I need to be alone."

"I'm not gonna leave you--"

"--this isn't like last time," she said, refusing that desire for vulnerability that clawed so desperately at her, begging for her to just let go. "You...cannot be here. I cannot do this with you right now, and if we...I don't want to fight with you like this, it's only gonna end badly. And I won't hurt you, too."

She watched as his blurry figure crumpled without a fight. She longed to go to him, would have gone to him, had her father not held her back.

Elodie sniffled. She couldn't hurt him. Not him.

He spoke, but it was too distant, and she couldn't hear half the words -- not that it mattered anyways. Her mind and resolve had been made up and it was easier to push him away after that. Within minutes, half a dozen words shared and her adamant distance kept, he was gone.

For the second time that day, her knees gave out and Elodie fell to the floor in front of her door. But she was smiling.

"Take that, Papa," was all she could mumble. She shrugged his phantom hands off of her; they fell away, drifting away like dead leaves on the wind, leaving her alone again.

Finally.

Elodie glanced down to see the mess she had made. Glass shards laid in scattered piles around her place -- how she hadn't seen it before, she wasn't quite sure, but it made her cringe, looking at it. A blue vase was in pieces, half-melted and crumpled into bits, it'd be a pain to clean up. Her eyes slipped to another; it had been a presented from her Grandmother, and she couldn't remember even breaking it, but it was beyond repair, at that point.

She sighed, picking up a fragment with her hands and examining it. The porcelain had shattered from the extreme shock of heat, but she had kept holding it, and it had practically melted in her lap...she couldn't quite remember what happened after, but vaguely she recalled pain, and how she couldn't get something off her clothes...

Elodie hissed. The shard had cut into her when she had clenched it up tight. Blood bubbled across her skin and dripped onto the colourful pieces. She watched, silent and teary-eyed.

"See, Papa," she whispered, to the blood and melted pottery. "You were wrong..."

Things always start off, happier than they seem to end.

EDITED NOTE - Rewriting this chapter was............a trip.

I hated this chapter, so so much. Like, I know what I was trying to do, but...2019 year old me had no concept of anything and READING THIS THROUGH...I swear, every single blood vessel in my brain burst.

To explain all this, because Past-Me wrote this in a way that felt so arbitrary and rude to Elodie as a character...most of this is in her head and not like, entirely real. When I first sat down to rewrite this book, I realised I didn't want to just write out the events of her life but instead focus on how truly hurt she has been, by both outside forces and by herself. Her powers are a source of great fear and insecurity for her and like it's been demonstrated in this book, she only barely controls them -- and when she cannot, it's like they are a force of their own. They take over her, so to speak.

To sum that all up, obviously, she's not burning her entire place down. It's her uh, fiery reaction (pun intended) but she's not burning the whole place down. After suppressing her powers for so long, raw emotion can overtake her logical mind and force her into a state of almost delirium because of the struggle to control herself, which is why the latter half of this is written much differently. She's retreated into her own head to control her powers, so her energy isn't in the conversation with Diego, hence why it's so different.

I don't know if any of this makes sense. I'm sorry if it doesn't, haha. 

Thank you for reading, let me know what you thought!