We sit there forever. I hold El in the highest regard for respecting my wish for silence, but just being there.
It’s actually quite nice. Not just quite nice. I often felt conflicted about El always being here, but now…I want her here. She does something to me. She’s here. And it’s not even that I feel less alone, I don’t have to mask with her. I can just be as strange as I want to be, and I am always okay.
In my entire past life, I always had to be on the lookout to be what was expected of me so Sophie would be protected at all cost. Hypervigilance. Always hypervigilance. And with El, I can just be. For the first time ever, I can just be.
I start brushing over her hair. She looks at me, and we both don’t know what we’re doing here, but it doesn’t matter. We’re here. And that’s the story.
“I told my father to fuck off today,” she suddenly says “He might cut me off the trust.”
“What did he do?” I ask.
She hesitates for a moment and looks away.
Somehow, my gut clenches.
“El,” I say.
“He’s—“ she begins, swallowing hard, before she says flatly, “He’s a man. With a God-comlex.”
I somehow figure there is a lot more to the story than she allows me to hear.
Maybe that’s the reason why she’s doing all the alcohol and drugs? To forget. To drown herself in whatever he does?
“You know you can always tell me whatever it is, right?” I ask her.
“Duh,” she say, and I know she is lying.
“El,” I say again and she holds her phone for me to see.
I read the messages.
“He won’t cut you off” I say after I read their conversation. “He’s just threatening you, testing if you’re willing to go all in. I mean he sucks, deffo, but that’s just talk.”
“You think?”
“I’m certain,” I say. “Tell him you don’t care. You can live here and are rather pleased to see that bodyguard gone; he’ll bail.”
“How do you know all that?” she asks. The same question Jane has asked me. Because I am failing. Failing at not being my old role.
The difference is, El doesn’t know anything about human behavior, but Jane does. Meaning, I can tell El a lie without being caught.
“My father made sure I am the most literate brown-noser there is,” I lie and add the one small truth, “I also remember everything I read.”
El laughs as she types in a message. It is what makes her so easy to be around. She doesn’t ask a million questions, doesn’t try to analyze my psyche. I can just be, without a thousand questionmarks.
Silence follows afterward, where we empty the rest of the bottle, drowning the past with every sip.
“You wanna dance it out?” asks El.
“Dance it out?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, getting up and holding out her hand for me to take. “It does wonders. Come.”
And because I am drunk and high, I take her hand.
She turns on the music, and we just dance. Do more lines. Drink more alcohol. For hours. And hours. Until my body is exhausted and I fall onto the couch, where I stare at the ceiling. There is not a single thought in my mind anymore.
And when El follows me and snuggles into me, I just let her. No thoughts.
