Chapter Text
The bass from the stage rattled right through the soles of Elle’s shoes, but she couldn't hear a single note of Liz’s song.
Her lips were still burning. A minute ago, her heart had done a violent, terrifying flip, and a smile had tugged at the corners of her mouth. It was a completely involuntary reaction to the pull in her stomach from the warmth of Dustin's hands on her waist and the sudden, breathless rush of his lips against hers. Her eyes had met his, and for a fraction of a second, the crowd around them had completely vanished.
Then, her eyes had drifted over Dustin's shoulder.
Miles was standing to their left, looking like he’d just seen a ghost. The sight made Elle instantly freeze, the smile dying on her lips.
Dustin must have felt the sudden shift in her body. He pulled back, his dark eyes instantly tracking her gaze straight to Miles. Elle watched the color drain from Dustin's face. Panic—a rare and unusual thing on someone as typically unbothered as Dustin—flashed across his features. Before she could even process the gravity of the situation, both Miles and Dustin turned on their heels and melted backward into the sea of teenagers.
Elle felt her throat tighten. She whipped her head back and forth between where the two boys had been.
She was left standing entirely alone in the absolute center of the makeshift dance floor. All around her, people were swaying and jumping, completely oblivious. She took a breath, but the air felt like glass in her lungs. The music swelled and the crowd kept jumping, completely indifferent to the fact that her entire world had just tilted on its axis. With what felt like hundreds of people moving around her, Elle had never felt more paralyzed.
****
The next morning, Elle opened her eyes, dreading the fact that she was awake. At least when she was asleep, she had some semblance of peace, but as soon as she became conscious, memories of the night before came flooding in. She had stumbled home last night, ignoring her parents’ questions, changing her clothes, and taking her hair down without even washing her face before her head hit her pillow.
Usually, when Elle woke up, she wasted no time getting ready for the day. But today, she lay flat on her back, staring blankly at the slow, rhythmic rotation of her ceiling fan. She had barely slept two hours. Every time she closed her eyes, the mental projector in her brain started rolling, replaying the tape on a torturous loop. And here she was, doing it again.
"Stop it," Elle muttered to the empty room, pressing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until she saw stars.
She tried to force a distraction. Shooting up out of bed, she checked to see if Bruiser was awake, pouting in disappointment when she saw him sound asleep. She tried picking up her room, aggressively putting away her clothes from last night. But as she shoved a pair of socks into her drawer, she just ended up staring at the wall for ten minutes, remembering the exact smell of Dustin’s stupid tux-t-shirt-thing.
She tried telling herself, “I’m Elle Woods and everything is completely fine,” forcing a strained smile into the mirror as she got ready for the day. Eventually, she gave up and headed downstairs for some breakfast.
When she entered the kitchen, her mom and dad were sitting at the counter, chatting over eggs and avocado toast.
“Good Morning, honey,“ her mom said, stretching out her words with an excited smile.
“Hi Mom, hi Dad.” “How’s it going? How was yesterday? Do you want me to whip something up for you?”
“I’m fine, thanks, and uh—no, I’ll just make a smoothie,” Elle replied, conveniently ignoring the question about last night.
She made her smoothie in silence. Her parents exchanged a quiet look as they watched her before she scurried back upstairs.
This whole thing was suffocating. She continued to attempt to distract herself as the day bled into the evening but she was still trapped in her own head, the walls closing in. She needed a lifeline before she completely lost her mind.
She treaded blindly across the floor, snatched her phone, and dialed Liz.
“Hello?” “Hello, Liz? It’s Elle.” “Hey, what's up!” “Not much, I—ugh… I just wanted to congratulate you. You know, for your performance yesterday. You did so well.” She twiddled the phone cord nervously.
“Oh, thanks I guess. I actually had a lot of fun, so, I guess I should thank you for kind of being the reason the event existed in the first place.”
“Yeah, I’m glad you guys continued it…”
Silence.
“Hey, Liz, are you, like, busy?”
“Uh, no, why?”
“Can you come over? It’s kind of urgent.”
“Oh? Is everything alright?”
“Yeah, I just… I really need you to come over.”
"Okay, I’ll be right there.”
****
Liz sat on Elle’s bed, her mostly black outfit a stark contrast against Elle’s hot pink sheets. She watched as Elle paced back and forth, explaining everything.
“And it’s just like, I don’t know what to do because I surprisingly really liked the kiss with Dustin and didn’t even know I had all these…feelings! But the whole time I’ve been in Seattle I’ve been basically obsessing over Miles, but now I don’t even think I really liked him in the first place. And now he probably hates me, and Dustin is never going to talk to me again, and do you hate me?” she said, turning to Liz and panting heavily.
“…Wow.”
“I’m a horrible person!”
“And here I thought that you were coming back and everything would be normal now,” Liz muttered sarcastically.
“Liz! Do you hate me?” she said, rushing over to the bed and gripping Liz’s shoulders.
Liz placed her hands on top of Elle’s and gently peeled them off. “No, I don’t. I don’t hate you. That just wasn’t what I was expecting. At all.”
“What do I do?”
Liz sighed, leaning back against the pillows. “Honestly, Elle? I think you just have to be honest with them. Both of them. It’s not going to do any good to pretend like nothing happened. Trust me.”
“Honest?” Elle groaned, falling backward onto the mattress. “If I’m honest, I ruin everything! ‘Hey Miles, I know we’ve been in this weird relationship limbo thing the whole semester but turns out I’m starting to feel like I just liked the idea of you. Hey Dustin, that kiss was great but I’m incredibly confused.’ That sounds terrible!”
“Well, keeping it to yourself isn't exactly working out for you,” Liz pointed out reasonably.
Elle rubbed her temples. This wasn’t the magical, fix-it-all advice she was hoping for.
“Hold on. I need a second opinion.” She reached over, grabbed her phone, and dialled Madison’s number. It rang twice before Madison picked up.
“Madison, emergency,” Elle said, putting the phone on speaker so Liz could hear. She quickly gave Madison the spark-notes version of the disaster.
“Oh, sweetie. That is a mess,” Madison’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Listen to me carefully: just ignore it.”
“Ignore it?” Elle said while Liz said in unison.
“Yes! Pretend it never happened. If you bring it up, it makes it a thing. Act perfectly normal, smile, wave, be beautiful and they’ll take your lead and drop it. Poof. Crisis averted.”
Elle stared at the ceiling. Ignore it? Just pretend the best (and second) kiss of her life hadn't happened, and that the two boys hadn't literally bolted away from her? Just the thought of trying to act perfectly normal around them made her stomach tie itself into a knot, Elle Woods didn’t - couldn't - do normal. This wasn't what she wanted to hear either.
What Elle didn't know was that just on the other side of her bedroom door, Eva was leaning closely against the wood, practically holding her breath. Eavesdropping wasn't something she liked to admit she did, but as a mother, she considered it gathering essential intel. Eva couldn't hear Madison's tinny voice over the phone, and she had missed the frantic confession about Dustin. But as Elle let out a long, frustrated sigh, Eva heard her daughter’s voice ring out clearly.
“I can't just ignore it,” Elle said to the room. “I can't. I have to talk to him. I need to talk to Miles.”
Out in the hallway, Eva gasped quietly, her hands flying to her cheeks. A triumphant smile spread across her face. Miles! She knew her daughter would always make the right choice. She quietly tiptoed away from the door, her mind already racing with the possibilities.
Back inside the room, Liz stood up to gather her things. "I gotta get going, Elle. But hey... are you going to Night Market?"
Elle groaned, pulling a pink throw pillow entirely over her face. In the chaos of the last twelve hours, she had completely forgotten about the event. "My mom would not stop talking about it on the plane back. It's inescapable. I'm trapped."
"Well, you can wallow with me." Liz said, offering a sympathetic wince. "But seriously. Madison's advice is a recipe for even more disaster, and I don’t think that's in your best interest as of now. Just... figure out what you actually feel, and then…say it out loud. Preferably before you're forced to stare at both of them on Tuesday."
After Liz left, Elle sat alone in the quiet of her room. The frantic noise in her head had slowly begun to settle into a calm clarity. She couldn't ignore it, and she couldn't hide in her room forever. She knew exactly what she needed to do. Tomorrow, she was going to face the music. She was going to talk to Miles, and then, maybe a week later she was going to talk to Dustin. That conversation was going to require a lot more mental preparation.