Chapter Text
Elle’s first day back at school was uncomfortable to say the least. The car ride there had been the start of it; things with her mother still weren’t completely repaired yet, meaning that any extended period of time spent with her turned into some uncomfortable quiet that made Elle want to turn and simply walk away. Or in her case jump out of a moving car. But she could never do that to her shoes, so she suffered in forced silence.
The second that the car pulled into the school Elle was gone before her mother could even say ‘goodbye’. Enrolling back into the school was easy enough, she had gotten all of her classes back, and most importantly her locker, which thankfully was still painted the same soft pink as when she had left.
That was supposed to be her first stop of the day, except plans quickly changed when she saw Dustin fiddling through his locker directly next to hers.
Elle paused where she stood, worried that if she took another step that she might spook him like a wild deer and cause him to run away. So instead, that job went to Elle herself as she turned on her heels and quickly made her way to where she knew Liz’s locker was.
The curly haired girl had her headphones on, with music blasting so hard that even Elle could hear it. Liz was nearly given a heart attack when she closed her locker only to see Elle standing in front of her.
“Jesus, Elle, what the hell?!” she exclaimed whipping her headphones off of her head.
Elle gave her a sheepish smile, “Sorry.”
Liz eyed Elle looking her over and realizing that something was missing, “Where’s all you stuff?”
Elle stood silent, contemplating what exactly to say before she looked down at her shoes, replying quietly.
“Sorry what?” Liz had to ask again. She had gotten absolutely nothing from that response and was honestly just confused now.
“Dustin was blocking my locker and I didn’t want to ask him to move cause he’s still mad at me,” Elle didn’t exactly elaborate as to the reason why Dustin was so mad at her, but she didn’t feel like getting into all of that at the moment.
Liz rolled her eyes and closed her locker and started walking without a word. Elle, who was currently incredibly confused, simply followed behind her like a lost puppy.
The two ended up back where Elle had started at her locker. Dustin was still there, this time with two other guys, still blocking Elle’s locker completely.
Dustin might have been pissed at Elle still but he wasn’t at Liz, not yet at least.
Liz walked up to the three of them and tapped Dustin’s shoulder with a little more force than she’d meant to, causing the boy the turn, and the other two to become silent.
“Move,” she said firmly nodding her head to the side.
Dustin jerked his head back in confusion, “I’m sorry what?”
“You’re blocking Elle’s locker,” Liz said simply, as if this interaction should have been over by now.
Dustin and Liz were friends, sure, but at this moment right now with everything going on with Elle, Liz would happily take her side over his. Lord knew that the people here held grudges way longer than he needed to.
Dustin peered over Liz’s shoulder at Elle and scoffed, “What are you her guard dog now?”
Elle was stood a good distance behind Liz watching the interaction go down. She knew that she could stand her own ground, she’d done so before, but she would gladly let Liz handle this. She really was not in the mood to do this on her first day back.
Something stirred in Elle’s stomach watching Liz stand up to Dustin for her, and she felt a sense of awe when Liz didn’t back down to the boy.
“In this moment right now, yeah I am, so can you fuck off and just let her get her things?” Liz snapped.
Dustin shook his head in disbelief, slammed his locker shut, turned and walked away without another word.
Liz sighed and turned back towards Elle who was now staring at her in bewilderment, color spread across her cheeks. Elle took a few steps forward until she was in front of her locker and Liz as well.
“Thanks for that,” Elle said with a small smile that Liz couldn’t help take notice of.
Liz gave her a tight-lipped smile and tried not to overthink the look that Elle had given her as she waited for the blonde to collect her things so they could walk to their first class together.
The rest of the day went somewhat smoothly for Elle, aside from the couple of off-hand comments and stares no one really bothered her. She couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad about that part yet.
First period was the one of two classes that she had with Liz, the second one being 5th period, which wasn’t until after lunch. All she had to do was survive until then, which couldn’t be that hard, right?
She was completely lying to herself.
Apparently, it was much harder than she thought. Because for some reason almost all of her teachers had decided that this week was the perfect week to assign group projects. Elle had never struggled with picking groups for these things before, in fact she always found it rather easy, sticking with the people she thought would allow for her to do her thing while also contributing.
Yeah, that didn’t happen here.
Elle was stuck working alone on every single project, which she didn’t even think was possible, but when everyone refuses to work with you it becomes your only option. The teachers didn’t even seem to care at all either.
That rant went on for over 5 minutes once she met up with Liz again for lunch. Elle once again following behind Liz the entire time as they tried to find a table to sit at. Which was starting to become impossible, until they spotted a couple of empty spots at a very unfortunate table, with Dustin sitting dead center.
The two did their best to ignore him and sat down at the table across from each other, focusing only on the other and not the boy sitting not even 5 feet from them. Dustin on the other hand was going for the opposite approach.
“You really went back to her quick didn’t you,” Dustin said offhandedly, looking down at his food, not even looking at the two girls.
Elle felt a pang in her heart for Liz knowing that this was because of her.
Liz looked at Elle and shook her head silently telling her to not acknowledge him. Dustin must have taken the silence to mean something else though, because he just kept on throwing out comments to try and rile them up.
Elle tried to tune him out completely and focus on her food and the brunette in front of her, but it seemed as if Dustin was actually getting to her. It wasn’t until after one particularly smartass comment that Liz snapped.
“For the love of god would you shut up!”
The whole cafeteria went quiet after that.
Elle looked around at the students surrounding them, most stopped to eavesdrop into whatever was about to ensue.
Dustin’s face had a smirk plastered on it in, prideful that he could actually get a reaction out of Liz.
“How long was it before you ran back into each other’s arms, huh?”
Liz was fuming now. Elle looked into her eyes seeing them grow dark and her hands form into fists atop of the cafeteria table. Elle couldn’t help but feel as if she should be doing something to distract Liz from what was going on. But then Dustin’s voice cut through again.
“Did you completely forget everything that she wrote about us?” Dustin hissed, “She’s using you, this is all a sick project for her, nothing else.”
“You really don’t know when to stop talking do you?” Liz’s voice was harsh.
Dustin shook his head ignoring the comment, “And you really don’t know how to stop going back to people who clearly are only in it for themselves.”
That was the comment that did it. Liz stood up so quickly that Elle barely had a chance to grab a hold of her wrist before she could do something incredibly stupid. Liz’s eyes quickly went to where the girl’s hand was gripped, then went to Elle’s eyes which held a silent plea in them to leave. Liz sighed and nodded her head, grabbing her bag and waiting for Elle to gather her things before the two girls left the cafeteria, Elle’s hand still attached to Liz’s wrist.
She could feel Liz’s pulse race from her grip.
On their way out Elle looked at all the people still gathered around watching the two of them leave. It was a show for them, to see what probably would’ve ended up as a fight were it not for Elle. She hoped that this would only be talked about for the day and forgotten about tomorrow, but at the rate things were going with Elle and the school, she was doubtful.
The two girls found refuge in the library until the rest of lunch was over, then they made their way through the halls trying to get to their next class together. The halls felt more crowded than usual today, Liz didn’t know if that was simply because her senses were still slightly heightened from the adrenaline of lunch or what.
After making a quick pitstop at their lockers the girls pushed and shoved their way through the crowd of slow walkers. Elle’s hand gripped tight to the arm Liz’s jacket as they tried not to get separated in the small halls.
Elle was so close that Liz could make out the familiar scent of lavender among the cloud of cologne and other perfumes coming from all the other teenagers surrounding them. Liz was starting to find comfort in the smell of lavender now.
Liz turned to Elle, “You’ve got one hell of a grip,” she quipped.
Elle furrowed her eyebrows for a second in confusion before looking down at her hand on Liz. Elle’s bottom lip jutted out just a tiny bit in almost a pout as she looked back up to make eye contact with Liz.
And fuck if all thoughts didn’t just go flying out the window in that moment right there then Liz would totally be lying.