Toxic Lips [l.h]

f o r t y s e v e n

Elise answers the door, a frown on her lips. She's dressed in her pyjamas, her dark up in a messy bun. "What?" She snaps at me. 

"Can we talk?" I ask.

"You can talk," she says shortly, turning and walking back into her room. I follow, shutting the door softly behind me. She takes a set on her bed and picks up a nail file, running it across the tops of her nails. 

Where do I start? There's so much tension between us at this moment, I can practically feel it in the air. I take a deep breath, and begin.

"Elise, what exactly did you feel for Connor?"

She looks up, furrowing her eyebrows. "What did I feel for him?"

I nod, remaining by the door.

"I loved him," she says simply.

"H-how did you know it was love?"

She stops filing her nails and looks at me. "I just knew." She purses her lips. "Which is why it was that much more painful to find out what you did."

"Do you honestly believe what Connor told you?" I ask slowly. "About me?"

"That's obvious, isn't it?" She asks, going back to filing her perfectly manicured nails.

"Connor never loved you."

Elise freezes, slowly looking up at me with anger blazing in her eyes. "What did you just say?"

"I said, Connor never loved you/"

She narrows her eyes. "What makes you think you have the fucking right to say that to me?"

"I just talked to him. I met him at the coffee shop on the corner."

"What the fuck were you doing talking to him in a coffee shop?"

"I needed to clear up some things." The words coming from my mouth are not from regular Alaska. Not at all. 

"Clear up? What, did you fuck him in the bathroom or somethimg?"

That's it. 

"You know what, Elise?" I ball my hands into fists. "I'm done trying. I'm done trying to mend our bad relationsship here, when all you do is insult me. I'm tired of being accused of something I didn't do, alright? I didn't sleep with Connor. I didn't fuck him in the bathroom of a coffee shop, and I sure as hell know that he didn't love you for shit. And you know why? Because he's a fucking scum bag, Elise, and you're too good for him. So goo ahead, call me a whore again, hell, call me a whore twenty times because I'm leaving tomorrow and when I do, I'm not going to mope over the fact that you hate my guts."

I cross my arms over my chest triumphantly as Elise gapes at me, her nail file falling to the ground. It felt so good to finally say that, to finally have some kind of closure on what happened, even if it wasn't the best closure.

"Anything else you'd like to add?" I ask her.

She swallows, looking down at her lap.

"That's what I thought."

I turn on my heel and walk out of her room, and go into mine instead. I change into my pyjamas and slip into bed. 

I once again find myself thinking about Luke. He mentioned once or twice that he had a sister, too. I think her name was Emma. What is she like? How many years are they apart? He hasn't seen her in three years; why? He said she was the reason he didn't find out about his mother's death for six days. Is there bad blood between them, too?