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There are a lot of words that Dina could use to describe Ellie’s eyes: Vibrant. Incandescent. Piercing. Beautiful. Intense. Just to name a few. But most noticeably, and no matter what mood she’s actually in, her eyes always carry a glint of sorrow. Dina has always noticed the sadness that lingers behind Ellie’s glimmering hazel-green eyes. Most days, they’re bright and alive, brimming with quiet wit or stubborn resolve, but there are moments—moments when the light dims, and the shadows creep in. It’s subtle, the way her smile falters or her gaze drifts somewhere far away. It’s as if the sadness is a constant companion, always lurking just out of sight.
The first time Dina noticed it, Ellie was laughing. Or more like chuckling, really, as she shook Dina’s offered hand and introduced herself in that adorably awkward way that Dina would soon learn was an intrinsic part of her charm.
It’s been four years since then, four years of watching her smile like rays of sunshine breaking through storm clouds, only to see the shadow linger when the light fades. Like she’s never more than a few steps ahead of some tragedy she’s never been able to leave behind. It’s always there, tucked behind her eyes, just deep enough that no one else would see. But Dina sees it.
They’ve been best friends for most of that time, long enough for Dina to memorize all the pieces of Ellie that she shows to the world, and even some of the ones she tries to hide. It had been slow and inevitable, the way she’d fallen in love with her. The shame was that it had taken her so long to understand and accept it. She suspects Ellie feels the same way about her, as much as she thinks she can hide it. Ellie’s always thought that not talking about her feelings means she’s successfully hiding them, but to Dina at least, she’s about as subtle as a siren.
Dina knows Ellie, and she knows all her moods. She’s always noticed the shifts in the air, the tensions and the charges. She notices the times when Ellie’s especially quiet, when she won’t meet her eyes or seems weighed down by a heaviness she’s never explained. Halloween was one of those times, which puzzled Dina at first. Based on her personality and interests, she would expect Halloween to be especially exciting for Ellie. However, in Ellie’s first year in Jackson, there was something about the days approaching the holiday that turned her smiles brittle, like they might shatter if Dina looked too closely. When the day came, the whole town had gathered for the typical festivities, the celebration was in full swing, residents eagerly showed up to show off their homemade costumes. Dina had made hers to resemble one of Ellie’s comic book characters, for reasons she hadn’t fully thought through at the time; she’d just hoped Ellie would be impressed. But Ellie was noticeably absent from the celebrations. Well, it was noticeable to Dina anyway. She wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed, but she sure did. So, after waiting a painstaking hour for her to show up, Dina decided to go find her herself.
When she got to Ellie’s studio, she caught a glimpse of her through the window. She was just sitting on her couch, not doing anything, not even really focusing on anything as far as Dina could tell. She was just sitting there, staring off into space. The look on her face broke Dina’s heart, her eyes so full of grief that Dina could almost feel the melancholy herself. She considered knocking on the door, but ultimately decided not to intrude.
The following year was much the same, and when Dina went to find her, it was like Ellie was a ghost haunting her own house. Just kind of meandering about, not really doing anything in particular. This time though, Dina decided that their friendship had progressed to the point where she could interrupt. She knocked on the door, and Ellie opened it with an almost vacant expression. Dina wasn’t even sure if Ellie really even saw her, and she realized in that moment that Ellie wasn’t the ghost haunting the house. She was the house that was haunted.
After some gentle prodding, Dina learned that year that Ellie had lost someone she loved around Halloween. That was all she would ever say about it.
Then there was the time Ellie had returned from her birthday camping trip with Joel. Dina had waited eagerly to hear about the big surprise, but Ellie was sullen and tight-lipped upon her return, her eyes glassy and faraway. The tension between her and Joel was dense. It took a few days before Ellie was willing to talk about it, and she didn’t say much. Only that he had taken her to a museum, and that it was “pretty cool.” By this time, Dina had learned not to press too hard, but she never stopped wondering what exactly had happened on that trip.
The birthdays that followed were tense. Ellie pretended to enjoy them, and sometimes Dina almost believed it. But there was always a stiffness when people sang to her, a distant look when they asked about birthday memories.
The trip had come up again once, though, right after her 18th. They’d been walking by the lake, and Ellie had picked up a flat stone, turning it over in her hand. “I never was very good at skipping these,” she’d said, her voice light but distant. “Joel tried to teach me on our way back from the museum. It… didn’t end well.” She’d thrown the stone then, hard and straight, and it had sunk without a single skip. “Guess I’m still bad at it,” she’d muttered, walking ahead before Dina could respond.
It wasn’t just the big days that weighed on her, either. There was also that time Ellie had just disappeared without a word to anyone, and Joel had gone after her once it had become obvious that she’d taken off. When they’d returned, the air was thick with friction. Dina remembered how Ellie had brushed off the topic when she asked about it, saying only that it had been “complicated.” But her eyes had looked far away, filled with something raw and final. Whatever had happened, it had changed her. Dina could see it in the way she avoided talking about Joel afterward, as though the relationship itself had cracked apart and neither of them knew how to put it back together.
But Ellie never talked about it, and Dina didn’t know how to ask. All she could do was watch as Ellie carried that extra sadness with her, like a weight she refused to put down. Some days were better than others. Some days, Dina could almost forget it was there. But on the bad days, when her smiles didn’t quite reach her eyes and her silences stretched on too long, she wondered where Ellie had gone on that trip—and whether a part of her had never come back at all.
Still, there were times when Ellie surprised her. After breaking up with Cat, Dina had expected her to be shattered, or at least angry. She’d waited for the tears, for the conversations that never came. Instead, Ellie had shrugged it off with a faint, almost defiant smile, and said, “It was for the best.” Dina had known she was burying something. She’d seen her eyes, dull and hollow, even as she pretended everything was fine.
That was the thing about Ellie. She carried her pain quietly, as if sharing it might make it worse. And maybe it would—Dina didn’t know. She only knew that she wanted to hold some of it for her, to lighten the weight Ellie refused to share with anyone else. She couldn’t tell her that, though. Not in that moment when Ellie was hurt and susceptible. It wasn’t the right time. There were so many of those not-right times over the years, Dina wondered if there ever even would be a right time. But she couldn’t risk breaking the fragile balance between them.
The closest they ever came to sharing that kind of pain was a few weeks later, the night Dina told Ellie about her own breakup—emphasizing the permanence of this one. She’d been reluctant at first, feeling foolish for letting her voice tremble as she talked about it. “I don’t know why it hurts so much. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming.” In fact, it had been a long time coming, and the reason for it was staring her in the face as she’d said it. Ellie had stared at her for a long moment, something unreadable in her eyes, and then she’d grabbed her wrist.
“Come on,” she’d said, already pulling her toward the door.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can be mad about it.”
She’d taken Dina up to an old rooftop in a defunct part of the settlement, the kind of forgotten place where no one would care what they did. She’d brought a few bottles of whiskey, all with varying degrees of a-little-bit-left, and a joint. They sat together on the edge of the roof, feet dangling over nothingness, as the night settled around them.
“You wanna yell about it?” Ellie had asked, her voice soft but serious. When Dina didn’t answer, she handed her an empty glass bottle. “Break it instead.”
Dina blinked at her. “What?”
“Trust me. It helps.”
She’d stood up and hurled her own bottle against the brick wall with a force that startled Dina. It shattered into a thousand pieces, a violent, beautiful sound that echoed into the empty streets below. Dina hesitated, then stood and threw her bottle too. The crash was louder than she expected, and something about it unclenched the knot in her chest.
They broke every bottle Ellie had brought, shouting wordless sounds into the night, laughing when their voices cracked. When they ran out of bottles, Ellie lit the joint and passed it to Dina.
“Feel better?” Ellie had asked, exhaling smoke into the sky.
Dina had nodded, surprising herself. “Yeah. Do you?”
She’d tilted her head back, watching the smoke curl into the darkness, before finally murmuring, “I’m working on it.”
And for once, Dina thought she understood Ellie just a little better—the way breaking things could feel like putting yourself back together, piece by piece.
And sometimes, when the light hits her face just right, Dina still sees the flicker of that sadness, like a ghost moving behind her eyes. And in those moments, Dina wants nothing more than to tell Ellie she loves her—to promise that whatever shadows haunt her, she doesn’t have to face them alone.
She can see it now, strong as ever, the sadness swimming around in those deep eyes she could fall into forever, swimming alongside anxiety and confusion and longing.
”Oh, Ellie…”
Not a threat, she’d said. Ellie really truly has no fucking clue, does she? She’s as dense as any boy Dina’s ever met, and she supposes it’s part of Ellie’s charm. And she knows now is the time. If ever there were a right time, it’s right the fuck now. She brushes a stray lock of hair behind Ellie’s ear, tenderly tracing her fingertip along its curve.
“I think they should be terrified of you.”
Bolstered by the several swigs of liquid courage she’s taken in preparation for this moment, and by the solid warmth of Ellie’s body against her, the flush of her cheeks, the softness of her gaze—Dina leans in and kisses her.
The world stops. In that kiss, she tries to say everything she’s never said aloud—four years of silent love, of watching Ellie carry her pain and wishing she could take it from her, of memorizing every detail of her and wanting nothing more than to drink her in, to scoop her up, to be the one who makes her feel safe. She tries to convey the entire future she dreams of—the nights spent curled up together, the mornings waking to her smile, the way Dina would promise to stand beside her when the shadows come creeping in again. She tries to tell her how she wants to be her shelter, her refuge, the person she can lean on when the world feels too heavy.
It’s a kiss full of hope and assurance, a wordless plea for her to understand. It’s soft and searching, but firm and vehement, as if anchoring her to this moment, to this safe harbor that Dina would always provide, where Ellie doesn’t have to pretend to be okay. She pours everything into it—her loyalty, her love, her unspoken promises—and hopes Ellie can feel it, even if Dina can’t find the words to say it.
And when she pulls back and sees Ellie’s grin bright enough to illuminate every dark corner of this jagged, fractured world, bright enough to vanquish the shadows of pain and grief in her eyes, she knows one thing for sure. She’ll do anything and everything she can to keep that smile alive for the rest of her life.