Chapter Text
Drea brings her a cake on an early Saturday morning, a week or two after summer starts.
It’s homemade, none of that gross grocery store shit, and it says Happy Birthday Nora. Once Eleanor sees it, and is like, cognizant enough to register what the fuck Drea Torres is doing in her room in the smallest skimp of a bathing suit, pale pink no less, at nine in the morning, holding onto this cake uncertainly— Drea starts her little spiel which consists of calling her at least three endearments with cleverly breezy insults and other sweet nothings before she starts talking about how Nora is shorter than Eleanor, so it was easier to fit on the cake and her mom didn’t know any better— which—
To which Eleanor kind of blinks at, blearily. She knows this.
Not— not that Drea’s mom didn’t know any better, but that Nora is more convenient than Eleanor. It was why she’d went by Nora for the first thirteen years of her life. She has vivid memories of coming home half a week early from camp, unable to handle the picking and the disgust around her, feeling removed and simultaneously anxious, covered in skin that crawled and bug bites and the way Drea’d glanced at her, emotionless, from across the dining tables at camp as she told her table what Nosy Nora did, that fucking freak— looking helplessly at everything she’d ever labeled as hers; it disgusted her.
The first thing to go was her name.
Nora wasn’t hers anymore. It reminded her of Ns, and Nosy, and then just noses, and her painful sophomore summer, recovering from the nose job, thank god for that deviated septum, her father had laughed. She’d written Nora everywhere. She’d just seen Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, see, and— whatever. She’d written Nora everywhere. It was sewn into her fucking clothes, obnoxious yellow. She had a jean jacket she massacred to assume the clean mantle of Eleanor Levetan. And that’s all she sees when Drea presents the cake to her.
She’s so cute about it, too, all sheepish, saying something about how, “I wanted to celebrate your birthday. With you. Since we’re good now.” But all Eleanor sees is Nora. And she feels so revolted she can’t breathe. Drea continues on, “... car, I have a present too, I’m actually— whoa— are you—”
And then the cake is being pulled away from her, is discarded, placed delicately on Eleanor’s desk, in the corner of her room near the entrance and Eleanor still can’t take her eyes off of it, even when she begins to feel lightheaded— then hands, warm, cupping at her own, and Eleanor swings her head and only just catches Drea’s dark eyes trained on her, eyebrows pinched.
“Who let you in?” Eleanor chokes, and oh, her mouth is dry. She’s blinking slow, trying to understand why she wants to quiver like jelly, right now.
“Your mom?” Drea responds, confusedly, and oh God, Drea Torres is in her room, holding her hands, and she feels abruptly naked, feels like the first time she’d let her in, had let her see her personal sense of interior design and Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman, the curve of her belly and how pale her inner arms and thighs were in that fucking bathing suit— “Babe, what’s going on?”
Eleanor looks anywhere else but her and focuses on the cake, abandoned on her desk. It’s got creamy pale frosting on it. Cream cheese. God, is it fucking red velvet? “Hi,” She decides to say instead, voice hoarse.
“Good morning,” Drea says back, hesitantly.
Eleanor is reminded of her pajama shorts and her tank top, sleepy time clothes rumpled, a little sweaty. Despite the fact that Drea has seen her at her worst, she still pulls her hands away from the girl in front of her, still crosses her arms over her chest, and takes a palpable step back; the backs of her knees press sticky against the bed frame. “Good morning.”
Drea looks— smaller, and she tucks her own hands into each other, like she's praying, but it's all wrong form. Then, Eleanor looks up and sees her face and realizes Drea's been waiting for her to say more. But she doesn't say anything, and she won't, and when Drea realizes that she won't, she just purses her lips, looks around Eleanor’s room decisively. “Okay, so. I wanted to celebrate your birthday. There’s something in my car for you, if you want that, but mostly, I was thinking it was gonna be a you and me kind of day. Maybe the beach? I brought edibles.”
Sometimes, this thing will happen, when she tries to speak and she’s emotional, and all that comes out is mostly just hollows of air ridged with the harsh croak of her voice, “That sounds good.”
Drea nods, slow, eyes focused on her intently. “Wonderful. Get dressed, then. Comfortable, but breezy. Show skin if you want to get tanned. I have sunscreen for you in my car though.” Then, promptly, she turns and makes to leave, which is kind of unexpected. Usually, she’d stay to preen about and tuck Eleanor’s hair behind her ear, or to help pick out her shoes, but this time, she leaves. Eleanor kind of wonders where she’ll wait. Outside? The living room?
Right as she passes Eleanor’s desk on her way out, she pauses, turns to the cake consideringly, her lips pouting out. Then, she reaches out, bullet fast, and with a quick, clean swipe, she pulls away with a thumb-full of frosting. She turns to Eleanor with a prideful smirk and tucks her thumb in her mouth. Sucks a little, her cheeks hollowing, and with a humorous wink, she turns on her heels and is gone, Eleanor’s door closing behind her with a gentle click.
When Eleanor finally gets up to get dressed, she keeps Drea’s words in mind, and tries to imagine how Drea would dress her up— she follows that general vibe, because if there’s anything Drea taught her, it's how much better people will treat you if they think you’re attractive.
She passes by the cake on her way out and is stopped short by a violent squeeze in her chest, unable to help her smile. Drea’s a brat, insufferable, her worst nightmare. Drea’s also her best friend.
Smeared over the part of the cake that read Nora, all that remains in the spot is the thinnest smear of frosting, the red sponge underneath practically glowing through it.
They each have a slice on the beach, after a salad, some Greek yogurt kale thing Drea’s currently obsessed with that Eleanor also likes (Drea has good taste with everything, apparently?) which Drea says they’re going to burn through, so the only thing mellowing out the edible is the cake. “So eat some fucking cake. I made it with love.”
It’s delicious. Drea didn’t even actually make it, either. Her overworked, stressed out mom did. All she did was make the frosting, which, objectively, Drea defends, is the most important part. It does make the cake, so, Eleanor lets her have it.
The edibles, on the other hand, taste like shit.
Eleanor pulls a face, trying to chew without letting her tongue touch her half of the mush in her mouth, and Drea laughs at her a little. On purpose, Eleanor exaggerates her face, making her mouth twist, groaning, and Drea laughs harder, nose and eyes crinkling.
They’re really intense edibles, Drea explains. Russ’. And Carissa’s, by that measure. High milligram count, or whatever, in just one brownie. S’why it tastes like shit— it’s going to get them fucked. “Especially new timers.” She gives Eleanor a look, one that calls her a loser.
“I’m not a weed virgin, dude.” Eleanor tells her, after swallowing nervously. “Elliot and Montana were literally always smoking.” The fact that she’d never once looked at or had been offered marijuana before she became a part of that friend group did not matter.
Drea’s lips curl up and she looks fondly off into the distance. “Elliot got his shit from the dispensary. Anxiety, baby! It was so good.” She pouts a bit. “We don’t know if this is that good. I don’t even know what strain it is. We could be talking for hours or literally go mute. Or both. Who the fuck knows.” And with that, she pops her half of the brownie in her mouth. Immediately, she grimaces, chewing faster and then abruptly swallowing before immediately reaching for their water. “Oh, fucking— gross.”
“Yeah,” Eleanor agrees, and then stares at the crinkle of her nose for a little too long.
Drea takes a long drag from her water, throat working, before pulling away and licking her lips. Eleanor turns to watch the water instead, the shimmering sunlight on the waves reminding her of the wet sheen on Drea’s lips. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Drea put her drink down and consider her with a satisfied smile, teeth startlingly white against her brown skin. “Strong, though. This can only mean we’re about to get blitzed out of our minds.”
“Blitzed?” Eleanor feels a bit panicked, now, turning to look at her again. “How many milligrams, exactly?” The idea that it’ll be her and Drea out of their minds in vulnerable beachwear without being able to responsibly get in a car to drive, for god knows how long— it makes her want to hurl.
“Uh— think just one brownie is like, fifty?” Drea frowns on thought. Twenty-five for them each, then. As if reminded, she straightens up and grabs something from her bag, before turning over to Eleanor, wrists working and with a small crack before pushing a wet, cold water bottle into her hands, already opened but with the cap still loosely on.
Eleanor takes it with trembling hands. Fuck, she’s nervous, belly turning over itself like a fumbling freshman in front of the upperclassmen. “I’ve only ever needed to hit the joint, like, twice to get high.”
Drea pauses her own drinking, dark eyes trained on her carefully. Then, with a big smile, she says, “You’re gonna get fucked.”
Eleanor gives her a whale eyed look. “I’m gonna get fucked?”
“In a good way, babe.” Drea leans over, draps herself heavily onto Eleanor who takes her weight with a sigh, muscles uncoiling. “If you’re anxious about it, breathe. Drink your water. I know it’s not helpful to say this, but relax. I’m with you and I’ve done this before.”
“I just don’t want anyone to bother us,” Eleanor says, obediently taking a sip of her water. It’s refreshing and cool, and she takes another immediately. Drea looks at her— really looks at her, dark eyes darting from one eye to the other— and shoulder to shoulder, they’re so close her nose is inches away from Eleanor’s.
“They won’t,” She says finally, and Eleanor can feel her breath sweeping over her face, chocolate and weed and mint, before reaching out and cupping her knee with a hand hotter than the sun. “I’m safe with you. And you’re safe with me.”
For all Gabbi thinks Eleanor’s cool— how she took down her brother with Drea, how stone-cold she is sometimes, calculative— she’s not a very big texter, and it kind of makes their romance putter out, because, well… Eleanor isn’t a good texter, either. (which, sue her— she doesn’t have a shit-ton of experience, okay?)
And for all Eleanor thinks Gabbi’s hot, with her puppy brows and her cute little smirky-smirk, they kind of don’t have a lot in common other than like, hating the hashtag status quo and being rebels, or whatever. Outcasts. Even their dislike for Max is different. Gabbi still loves him. Eleanor sometimes thinks of how she wanted to push him that night, so he could have fallen and bled out before ever having the chance to snort coke off of some girl’s butthole. Or belly. Or ruined hers and Drea’s lives with ‘every resource’ he had. They don’t talk about it and this remains unsaid in every instance of her life except with Drea, who’d looked at her like she’d been stabbed when Eleanor started laughing, and who looks at her now like she understands that the laughter came from that endlessly deep, enraged place inside of her finally being fed cleaner food.
Gabbi takes walks in the parks and stares at the birds because her dad (Max’s, too) is like a bird-watcher who likes to illustrate the various birds around town. She’s quiet and she likes films and essays— Margaret Atwood and Oscar Wilde and the Picture of Dorian Gray and how all on-screen adaptations were fine but not wonderful— and Eleanor, unfortunately, holds a lot of hatred in her heart in the form of opinions in her brain and also out her mouth, as in; she likes to eviscerate movies because they’re usually biased in some form, some way, which turns into one too many bad hangs. Gabbi doesn’t really like having to explain why they’re even watching something so obscene and unnecessary or exploitative— whatever. She likes to absorb, in silence. Eleanor fucking hates that silence. Gabbi doesn't like that Eleanor disrupts the silence, and has actually asked her to stop, which Eleanor did…
… by kind of inviting Drea along to one of their hand outs so they could whisper shit instead, and, turns out, Drea’s just as funny as she is and they end up cracking up and stifling their giggles as they tear apart plots and character arcs like pull-apart garlic knots. Gabbi tolerates it, and even laughs if Drea or Eleanor’s joke was good enough, but it all stopped when Gabbi decided to start fucking The Handmaid’s Tale. Drea, apparently, fucking hates Margaret Atwood and Gabbi loves the woman. They got into a bit of a spat about it, and having seen like, The Handmaid's Tale and read it, while also taking AP U.S. History, Eleanor had to defend her best friend over her girlfriend and Gabbi sort of never trusted Drea again, especially with Eleanor. And that’s not very cool, of her. What happens now is they watch things and Eleanor texts Drea the entire time, and all she allows of herself is a hard snort through the nose, which is hard because, again, Drea is fucking funny, but you know what? Eleanor always liked playing games with herself (was forced to) so, the more challenging, the better.
So, while Gabbi is slick, and charming, and gorgeous, and she kisses like some lesbian god, or whatever, when she comes over to Eleanor’s, they don’t really talk. Gabbi’s quiet and introspective and fuck, so is Eleanor— especially now that she doesn’t feel that insane internal conflict she had her entire senior year, playing triple agent with Max’s posey, Drea, and herself. Her mind is a quieter place these days, revenge days long over, and even her issues with being touched— that internalized lesbophobia— has been chewed down quite a bit, and Eleanor’s started to realize that Gabbi liked the rawness of her; that’s what interested her about Eleanor in the first place. The more time they spend together, the more mysterious Eleanor feels around her. They don’t talk about their childhood, or why Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman wears clothes, or even like, their issues. Like, Gabbi just straight up isn’t mentally ill; Eleanor is deeply mentally ill. They live on completely separate planes of reality.
Otherwise, their ‘dates’ end up mostly being isolated alone time, just making out, and grinding, and maybe some heavy petting, if Eleanor can handle it. Because, yeah, turns out Eleanor’s kind of hyper-sensitive to touch, and feels each one like straight electricity, and it gets a little too intense if it goes on for longer than like, twenty minutes. Which is frustrating, of course, but Gabbi always seems fine, if a bit absent, during the meals they share before Eleanor leaves for her own home.
However, the further into summer they go, the more absent she becomes. It’s a literary program at Brown— the same one Eleanor’d be doing if she hadn’t decided to take a gap year. She’s glad she’s taking that gap year, because it takes up a very big part of Gabbi’s time; she’s kind of grouchy for the little time she has that isn't spent physically attached to a book, making annotations like a madwoman. In striking contrast, the most intensive thing Eleanor has planned this summer, and subsequently this coming up year, is with Drea, and all they're doing is road tripping and camping for a week near the end of the summer, and then whatever the fuck they want. That’s it.
Add this all together, and she and Gabbi last like, barely a month into summer.
Their breakup isn’t anything too dramatic and Eleanor isn’t too broken up about it; she does not take Drea’s offer to get Gabbi kicked out of Brown. Eleanor liked her, and it’s sad, but… she doesn’t hate her. Just thinks Gabbi and her never fully clicked together, which is fine, and, now that she thinks about it, Eleanor’s pretty sure she was a bit resentful of the gap year she and Drea are taking, seeing how the conversation before their “we need a break; lets see how we feel in August,’ break-up was how Gabbi low-key thought less of people (like her and Drea) who didn’t immediately go to college after high school like the absolute nun she was.
Drea straight up celebrates the minute Eleanor tells her she’s not too upset. They’re at her house because as soon as Eleanor broke up with Gabbi, she’d texted Drea to be ready for her. Then she drove there, and Drea was waiting with proverbial open arms in the pinkest, cuddliest set of pajamas she had. It looked effortlessly good on her; Eleanor’s sure everything she owns does. That’s half the battle; cultivating your closet.
They’d gone to her room, and sat on Drea’s bed, and Drea crowded her immediately, leaning against her in a way that Eleanor can only describe as sympathetic, not as constricting or as intimate as a full fledged hug. And Eleanor’s looking down at her, seeing the tops of those thoughtful eyes and furrowed brows, the softness of her features, hearing her own soft voice when she says, “It’s fine, I think it was for the best,” the funniest thing happens: all of Drea’s sorrow and compassion and sympathy melts away into a vicious, sharp joy and a strangely victorious smile.
Eleanor’s lips quirk and she raises her brows, like, okay, and Drea squirms a bit, puts on an appropriately sheepish face, then spills. She tells Eleanor then that she never really cared for Gabbi, practically hanging onto her whole arm and staring imploringly into her eyes, for really no goddamn reason because it’s not like Eleanor’s just going to up and abandon her for admitting she never liked her ex. So smart, she’s silly, that girl. (If she went to therapy, she’d be diagnosed with generalized anxiety within the initial six month period, if she actually let her guard down. Probably.)
“And, like, I feel bad about not liking her, but,” and like she can’t help it, Drea shrugs, like she saw this from the beginning; initially apologetic, but that mournful pleading look in her eyes has dried out into this frankness, and Eleanor wants to grab at her shoulders and ask, why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why didn’t you say something? “Gabbi’s just… one of them, you know?” As soon as she says it, she wrinkles her nose like she’s disgusted but can’t quite muster up enough strength to really commit, and abruptly, Eleanor understands.
Gabbi never understood the conversations between them; their icy, near gallows banter; the knowledge that they were implicitly aware of just who everyone was, and who they themselves were, among them; the status of each of them, and how that touched everything. Gabbi was never going to become so wronged, so consumed with anger and bitterness she threw it up in the most catastrophic way; and if she did, she certainly would not like it. She would never revel. She would never press down on a bruise just to feel the shocking sweetness of air being sucked desperately into lungs to mitigate the dull aching of pain. It was that simple.
“So, you were just going to suffer in silence, then?” Eleanor asks.
Drea gives her a shy little grin, one that says, yes, thank you for noticing. “You liked her, Eleanor.”
It’s really, really simple. It’s also sweet, and who knew Drea could be sweet like that? Well, Eleanor did, but the reminder makes her ache a little, like a cavity.
“I already— I wasn’t about to ruin your relationship with her just because I didn’t like her for what I felt like were petty reasons. ‘Uh, Eleanor, can you break up with your hot girlfriend? Why? Oh, I just think she’s sheltered and kind of performative,’ Yeah, didn’t think that would—” Drea just shakes her head, pressing her lips together. “Whatever. She’s just a rich, white girl. You’re— we’re here, now.”
Eleanor likes that. That Drea’s so die-hard loyal. That you becomes we so easily. That she corrects herself with a huff like she’s irritated her mouth would dare move faster than her thoughts. This is a no-brainer, and of course they’re there, now. “We are.”
And Drea smiles up at her, real pleased, close-lipped but wide, her warm eyes positively sparkling. And because she’s Drea, she leans against her harder, and instead of hanging off her arm, her hands trail down Eleanor’s arm to take up a hand, swinging out little from between their bodies. Slowly, like she’s testing the waters, she admits, “I, ah. I broke up with Russ. Like a while ago, for… Similar reasons.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows go flying up. She hasn’t heard this. Why hasn’t she heard this? “He’s sheltered and performative?” She hadn’t thought he would be performative; the blue hair and and leather jackets and the fucking motorcycle kind of sell his complete authenticity. Yes, she’s being sarcastic.
Drea pulls away, discomfort written into the lines of her face. “He has his own warehouse, Eleanor.”
Eleanor just blinks.
Drea continues, a little dryly, “For just art. It was from his dad. That kind of money— it’s a different level. He was careless. It’s… a lot.”
And… oh. Sheltered, performative— Drea-speak for: we come from different socio-economic backgrounds, and it’s hard to stomach. “That’s what you mean when you call Gabbi a rich white girl, huh?”
Drea kind of frowns, tries to reframe it because, duh, Eleanor’s a rich white girl. “Well, I mean…” Eleanor cackles, just a bit, and Drea presses her lips together, relieved, fighting back her own grin. “Seriously, okay, listen: Gabbi shits on people who use plastic straws and uses a metal one to save the fucking sea turtles when all the shit in the sea comes from like, major fishing companies, and like, overfishing, not— not fucking plastic straws. That’s what I mean. Gabbi has access to all these fucking books and movies and whatever, but she doesn’t fucking critically think about any of it. And it’s not even that. It’s that she doesn’t have to. It doesn’t pertain to her. That’s what I mean. And Russ— Russ doesn’t give good oral and he thought I should’ve turned myself in! That, in and of itself, shows he’s worse than a vibrator because he didn’t use any fucking critical thinking either. Ergo, similar reasons.” She’s breathing kind of hard, after, like, her whole speech. And it was a speech.
“You weren’t ever on the debate team?” Eleanor asks, critically, but she already knows. It was one of the many various things Drea Torres: @dretowers tweeted about; if Eleanor remembers correctly, Drea had tweeted the school and a few of the other debate team people to support it but to also explain why she couldn’t join. It was very much a fucking travesty. Drea really was that bitch. She still is, but, yeah, like in the context of high school. She’s like, ridiculously smart, and bullet-fast, making big issues small and easy to digest; Eleanor wonders what she could have done with it, how far she would have run with it; wonders what the debate team could have done with her on it.
Drea shuffles a bit, makes a soft noise in the back of her throat. She’s so small, and Eleanor feels stupid for realizing that for the millionth time in their friendship; Drea just seems big, burning— a comet— but she’s been this same exact height since she was thirteen and Eleanor would know. “Uh— no. I should have been, but—”
“Oh, I know. Scheduling conflicts.” At the surprise blooming over Drea’s face, Eleanor offhandedly explains, “I kind of stalked you for years, after.” As soon as it’s out of her mouth, she realizes, oh. That’s creepy. And, oh, no, Eleanor’s being creepy.
But Drea never reacts like Eleanor thinks she will. Her cheeks go dark dusty red— it’s adorable; and that soft, squeaking noise is back, but louder, because her mouth is open, and then closing and oh. That soft, squeaking noise is words, and Drea’s cheeks get darker as her throat moves some more just to emit more soft could-be-words.
“Sorry,” Eleanor offers, though it feels like the wrong thing to offer. She kind of wants to turn around; this speechlessness looks strange on Drea and she feels like she’s intruding, for some reason.
“... no. No! It’s— sorry, uh.” Drea shakes her head, eyebrows pinched, like she’s getting her screws back on. Her cheeks remain that lovely color. “That’s just, like. Super flattering. Sorry. Thanks.”
Thanks? Eleanor’s forehead wrinkles. “It’s flattering that I was cyberstalking you since I was fifteen?”
“Kind of, yeah—” Drea does a double-take. “Wait— fifteen?”
Shit.
“Uhh,” she’d been, like, fourteen, when she started, actually. As soon as Drea hit high school, she made a brand new twitter account, which had originally been @dretowerz. That’s kind of creepy of Eleanor to know, isn’t it? She was one of the first people who followed, under a pseudonym, of course.
Fuck, Drea’s just looking at her, big brown eyes particularly big.
“I… well. You know what? I’m gonna say nothing except, uh— that I will not claim to be mentally well.” I hit you with my car. Can I blame mental illness on that? “I’m sorry?”
Drea surprises her again by laughing. It’s bright, lovely— sounding accidental, like she doesn’t mean for it to get out, but it does and she throws her head back to really let it echo; to really press down on that bruise. “Eleanor!” She cries, smiling brilliantly, “This is so thrilling, oh my god! I feel like I’m about to get murdered! Very ‘she was the life of the party,’ you know? Do I brighten every room I walk into?”
Yes. Still insufferably, life-savingly glowing, teeth startling white against warm brown skin. Oh, damn. That was kind of scary, actually. Drea would be the kind of person who got murdered. (She’d, like, be very easy to take down. Small. Thin. Damnit, maybe Eleanor should sign her up for self defense classes—?)
“I won’t murder you,” Eleanor promises seriously, urgently. Her heart is giving all these little pangs and it feels horrible. Funny how Drea can make her feel that way without even calling her Nora.
Still, with that damnable smile on her lips, Drea rolls her eyes playfully. “Like you would mean to.” Even as she says it, even as it hurts to hear, Drea’s got this look on her face— something earnest, something pained and proud, all at once. Like a jerk, or following some instinct, Drea leans over and cups at one of Eleanor’s limp hands, pulls it into her lap. Eleanor watches Drea look down at their hands; imagines the weight of her gaze and feels Drea’s soft fingers pull at her pinky, her ring. Without warning, and without looking at her, Drea asks, “It built up, didn’t it?”
Eleanor looks at the baby fuzz visible and illuminated on the outline of her nose, her chin and cheek, and doesn’t say anything at all.
Drea dares a glance at Eleanor, her brows raised, cautiously peeking through them from under thick lashes, and Eleanor can't quite guess the mixture of emotions Drea's conveying, or, more accurately, probably, the mixture of emotions Drea's feeling and trying to obscure. The general look in her eyes is something soft, wet, all together very compelling and intriguing, under carefully neutral curiosity. This is when Drea pulls away. She asks that soft, barely-there voice she sometimes has when she shows her fully bared throat and belly, “How… cultivated were you, for me?”
Eleanor doesn’t know why, but something inside of her lurches when Drea pulls back. It had lurched before, too, painfully, when Drea took her hand away. This suddenly feels greatly important.
Her words, resultantly, are careful, “.. very. I’m aware of how good you are with new people. I just needed to be something you could tolerate, and…”
Meek, malleable with a hidden vindictive streak it was; Eleanor Levetan needed to be something Drea could shape, needed to have potential that Drea even wanted to touch— so she was kind, with enough backbone to be funny, fitted with the appropriate backstory, nothing more, nothing less. When anger and wretchedness rose up in her like bile, she swallowed it down with a smile. It was easy enough, after she broke through Drea’s defensive, don’t-fuck-with-me exterior; Drea’s… Drea. She’s sharp and clever and quick. She’s angry. She’s sweet with Eleanor. She knows how to be mean with Eleanor. She’s a fucking sour-patch kid.
Drea's expression doesn't change, and her eyes don't waver from Eleanor. Eleanor kind of has no idea how she's maintaining such intense eye contact, but it doesn't eat at her thoughts the way it normally does; she's not so distracted by it that she can't form sentences because of how glossy Drea's eyes look, which... has happened, before, admittedly. But now... it's just how they're existing. Side by side, staring at each other. Admitting personal, painful truths. In a way, it's kind of how they've always existed, because even just being near Drea explained her existence now, made it real— made her real. Made everything she'd ever done and become real. And by the way Drea lingers around in her space, she's guessing it's the same for her, too.
But then Eleanor gets distracted by how liquid-y warm Drea's eyes are, and then realizes they've been silent and staring at each other for years now, and with that sharp pang of anxiety curling up in her, she blurts out, “It didn’t stay that way for long, of course! I... you're you. I like you, Drea. I told you that a million times over.”
Drea gives her another prolonged look, more exasperated now. “I know. I’m not seeking reassurance, weirdo. I like that you put in that much effort to ensnare me," she flourishes a hand. "It’s, like, flattering.”
“You should go to therapy.” Eleanor tells her after she digests what Drea said.
“You are so fucking rude—” Drea swats at her halfheartedly, and then again, quicker, with more effort after Eleanor swats the first one down easily.
“It’s not an insult,” Eleanor dodges the second; Drea looks affronted. “I go to therapy!”
“You should be going to therapy, you fucking psycho—” as she says it, she’s hurtling herself at Eleanor in a decided move of escalation, and they topple onto the bed with Drea a wriggling, victorious mass above her.
“Hey!” Eleanor rolls out from under Drea and it’s surprisingly easy. It’s even easier to pin her down. Drea isn’t practiced nor gifted at wrestling, and it’s simple enough to get her flat on her back, wrists pinned at her sides. Eleanor really should sign her up for self defense classes.
Drea tries to roll them over and fails, too weak, panting, “—besides, look what good—” and then she squirms harder, would be thrashing if it weren’t for Eleanor on top of her, containing her movements with her body, “—it did for you!”
"Dick thing to say," Eleanor acknowledges, and though she's not tired, she is breathy, "but fair."
God, Drea’s kind of scrappy, jerking an arm, making Eleanor lose her balance— Eleanor has to readjust her hold, ends up leaning a bit more on Drea’s wrists, sliding them up so they’re pinned at her head, and settles more on her hips. Undeterred, Drea just struggles a bit more, even at one point leaning her head down to bite? lick at the hand holding her down, and Eleanor just tugs their hands out of her... mouth-reach, under a cool pillow. And Eleanor's got long, lanky arms, but she's still, like, has to be directly above Drea to hold her down, has to watch her for any funny business. Drea's squirmy, no longer as energetic, laughing and huffing and groaning. Her hair is wavy and messy, dark all strewn over on her own pillows, and Eleanor can feel her rib cage expanding and collapsing under her, and—
Oh.
Eleanor’s hold loosens, just a bit, and she didn’t realize how firm her grip had been.
Still panting, still pinned, flushed and a little sweaty, Drea finally slumps into her bed. They make eye-contact, heavy, easy, and it's too fucking much.
Eleanor’s mind is still kind of blanking out. “I win,” she tells Drea, and Drea bucks her hips again in protest, weakly, not nearly enough to dismount Eleanor, who is all length and limbs stronger than they seem, but Eleanor throws herself off Drea anyway. She's tingling, all over, oh fuck.
They lay side by side, equally breathless. Eleanor’s heart doesn’t stop pounding for a long time.
Drea heaps affections on her. Like blankets in the wintertime.
She’s touchy to the point of clinginess, and Eleanor would bully her about it if she didn’t know Drea; if she didn’t know that Drea would immediately use it against her. She’s kind of a bitch, that way. Eleanor can even imagine the way Drea’d say it, the different tones conveying different moods, nuance abound; a thinner, higher voice, edged with that purling rasp, velvety smooth regardless, but floatier, like she’s above this: like you don’t love it, whore.
Which is, you know, also kind of why Eleanor doesn’t mention a word about it, and just kind of lets them go on, as they are— because she does love it.
The closeness, the intimacy, the warmth— Eleanor hasn’t had that in a really long time. With a friend, with anyone. She’s never been the type to cuddle with her mom, either. The closest person would be Gabbi, and Gabbi— it had been a bit of an ordeal, with Gabbi.
Mostly, it seems like Drea doesn’t care about touching her, doesn't show any repulsion or disgust or concern, how— if she should stop, if this is too much. Eleanor doesn’t know if she should be concerned about how those thoughts don’t enter her mind when Drea touches her. She just enjoys it, and wants more when it's gone; it feels fairly innocent, until it doesn't, almost the way a child yearns for warmth. Drea's just hugging her until she focuses on where her mouth is, tucked away in her neck. Then, she's not a child, she's... something worse, far worse, with leering eyes and that disgusting, pounding heart, a too-thick tongue in a too-sharp mouth.
But it really does touch her, like... Sentimentally. The contact Drea shares so thoughtlessly— it means more. It means more, because it means less to Drea, and maybe if Eleanor even said anything, it would stop. And Drea would realize, really, actually, fully, that she’s holding hands regularly with Nosy Nora, and pressing gentle kisses over the small bandage over a small cut, above her eyebrow from a car accident she was also in because Eleanor orchestrated the whole thing (and Drea’s kind of fucking insane, now that Eleanor thinks of it, cuddling like a duckling against (on top of!) someone who fucking ran into her car with another fucking car— )
“Stop brooding, freak,” Drea murmurs, more in her neck than anything else; her voice is still smooth, but it’s softer, sleepy—a fact which Eleanor accustoms to the REM cycle Drea was in thirty minutes ago—thicker and dustier, the rasp more pronounced. She squirms a bit, pointy little nose pressing into her throat, and Eleanor freezes so hard her knees twinge. Drea’s breath is warm, puffs against her neck, frustrated. Then: “God, you’re, like, single handedly ruining my user experience.”
If there’s one thing Eleanor can count on Drea for, it’s yanking her from somewhere to somewhere else— sometimes from zero to a hundred, sometimes from a hundred to zero, or maybe, like, just down to thirty-two. She has a lot of questions, but, “User experience?”
Drea snaps her head out from Eleanor’s neck with pointier eyebrows than usual, disgruntled but not incensed, paired with her disturbingly cute frown-pout— and, okay, Eleanor knows it’s more of a frown, but with her lips, lined dark but lush and dark pink towards the inner lip, it looks kind of like a pout, and she only ever does this particular face with Eleanor, so she assumes it’s Drea’s patented Displeased-With-Eleanor-face, which is further confirmed when Drea says, obviously displeased, “you’re like a block of cement under me, Eleanor. How am I supposed to get in the however many hours of physical contact that I need in these conditions?”
“You are physically on top of me,” Eleanor tells her.
Drea wriggles on her, selfish, sharp ribs digging into her diaphragm. “Cement, Eleanor!”
“I’m softer,” Eleanor protests again, weaker.
“You’re stiff is what you are. Wooden thing.” Drea points her pointy little nose at her, smug. “Become a real girl, Pinnochio, and maybe I’ll leave you a tip.”
“Whoa, whoa, the power dynamics are way off,” Eleanor says, and Drea abruptly laughs, this accidental spill of laughter, bright and delighted, right on top of her— and just like that, she loses all her sharpness, just becoming soft, a giggly warm blanket on top of her; a real girl. Eleanor feels her back untense, and wow, her shoulders had been tight. Who knew? “Are cuddles a service I’m providing? Is that why you’ll tip me if I’m good? I actually think that’s, like, a real thing—”
“Oh my god,” Drea says, “Is it?”
“Uh— I think so?” Eleanor scrunches her nose, and has the pleasure of watching in real time the way Drea’s eyes trail down to her nose, features softening from their active curiosity to become warmer with fondness, and feels the way Drea curls in a little more on her.
“Tell me more,” and she’s back, nuzzling into her neck like a needy kitten. Eleanor loops her arms around her friend, a hesitance coating her movements that dissipates the moment Drea sighs out in contentment. It jolts something inside her, a pinch, tender, just under the fist sized thing in her chest that’s pounding slow but hard. The feeling of being liked, of being adored, of being shown that with physical affection and attention— Drea heaps it on her. Like blankets in the wintertime.
Maybe it’s her own apology.
“I think they’re called, like, professional cuddlers, or something.” She wants to mention that it was one of the many things her therapist loosely recommended—fucking Cuddle Therapy—in her list for further help after the initial evaluation period, and Eleanor’d ended up choosing a support animal. Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman for the win. So, she does. She’s not even scared Drea will use it against her. And Drea doesn’t; she’s learned her lesson.
It just launches a whole new conversation— who even became professional cuddlers? Like, what, they’re twelve and decide: Hey, I want to be in bed with someone for my entire career? That’s weird, isn’t it? But that quickly turns into: I bet it’s easy. It’s not. I bet you don’t even need a degree. You really, really do. It’s, like, a specialized science, Drea.
Then: should they become professional cuddlers? Drea has been getting sillier and sillier every time she talks about her future— and she always leaves space for Eleanor. To this one, Eleanor says no, profusely. What if the person they have to cuddle is weird? What if they get assaulted? What if, what if, what if, and what if. Drea quickly agrees but they also both agree that Eleanor’s really good at catastrophizing, but you know. Still valid. (“You’re valid, Eleanor,” Drea says, dramatically, words vibrating against the rungs of her throat; Eleanor calls her a bitch.)
At the end of it, Eleanor’s looking down at Drea, with probably the worst double chin or neckface in history, and Drea’s resting idly on her shoulder looking like both the angel and the devil combined, her eyes fucking twinkling.
“This was a rousing conversation,” Drea says, not dryly, and not sarcastically. Sincere, interested, but letting Eleanor know they definitely branched off into something weird. “Honestly? Five stars, babe. Five fuckin’ stars.”
“Oh, yeah?” Eleanor grins.
“Oh, yeah,” Drea has this thing where she’ll sometimes sound like she’s talking in some half-rate porno with shit dialogue; her voice goes all throaty, all smooth rocks— velvety with a hint of smoke—
Eleanor looks up at the ceiling. “But—no tip?”
She knows Drea’s got her best coy smile on, her best I’m everything you’ve ever dreamed of smile, but still, Eleanor keeps looking away, even when Drea’s voice comes through sultry, playful: “Like I said, you’ve got to earn it, Eleanor.”
She doesn’t outright say no, and she never does. There’s always a prettier, safer way of refusing; Drea’s always been a smart girl.
Sometimes, Eleanor looks at Drea and— she sees a future there, and maybe it’s not whatever funny mirror future Drea likes to contort, but it’s there. An apartment with two bedrooms, California or New York— because Drea’s a New York or California girl, and who is Eleanor kidding? So is she— blurry at the lines, but the shape of Drea’s smile is defined; her imagined future is unhelpfully opaque, but what is clear is that the space in it for a five foot two menace to society is already there and carved out. Has been, honestly, since they first cuddled in Drea’s little pink room and Drea told her about that hard, knotted thing inside her chest that mirrored the yowling thing in Eleanor’s. She wonders if they’ll ever talk about this thing— the fuzzed up, giddy, insane chemistry they have that allows them to revert back into selfish awful children together— between them. Fucked up soulmates, verbatim, Andrea Torres, a mere week before graduation. Eleanor’d call them terrible kindred spirits.
She looks at her best friend, the girl who ruined her life when she was thirteen, and she wonders if Drea will do it again if Eleanor ever decides to ask, if she’ll end up saying no without actually saying it.
She doesn’t know.
And it swallows her, bones and all. She thinks, with some awful sinking feeling, that maybe this time, with this person, she’ll just need to learn how to look away; how to keep looking away.