Eli watches as Imogen Moreno stands before him in something fairly similar to what his ex-girlfriend, Clare, would wear. He takes in her short brown pigtails and wild brown eyes and silently wonders if it could work again; if he could attempt to get over Clare. Pretending was one thing, but he needed this. He needed closure.
Imogen silently takes off her glasses and places them neatly in her backpack.
"You know what to do," is all she says.
And Eli's imagination is suddenly taking him to another place, far away from here and far away from the quasi-Clare girl in front of him.
Suddenly… he's staring into her eyes.
/Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/that's alright because I like the way it hurts/
Eli thinks of silence as like a black bottomless hole, sort of like a drowning and most certainly like a death. He hates it, despises it with every fiber of his being and current experiences have done nothing to quell such a dislike. Silence however does have one redeeming quality; if there's silence then nothing is spoken. Nothing can be said that should be left unsaid. So he wouldn't change the silence of the situation, no, that he could deal with in some chamber of his muddled brain. If there was one thing he could change it was how she just stood there – just fucking stood there – doe-eyed and blinking owlishly, clutching her backpack as if it were some form of parachute.
"I've met someone," she says.
This he can deal with; he adds it to the ever-growing list of things about this situation he will punch out later. As if reading him she quickly adds:
"I didn't want anybody to know."
Ok, great. Fantastic. Except he isn't just anybody and she knows it.
This makes him mad, angrier than the idea of her with some else, angrier than the thought of her kissing this yet unknown adversary. He's so furious he feels his fingers curl up into shaking, pale knuckled fists and he pushes them down into the shelter of his jean pockets. The gesture is not lost on Clare and she flinches. He has scared her. Good. It makes a change from the usual. She begins to blather on, nervous and stuttering. He can hear a blur of words, none of which make any sense. He's still focusing on controlling his fragile temper. He wants to shake her, still blindly furious. He wants to scream at her to stop talking, he wants to make her stop talking. The sick/dark part of his brain (which he has kept under lock and key no matter how much she tortures/teases him) wants to hurt her. It's an ugly feeling, made even uglier by the weight of recognition.
"Like I said, I didn't want anybody to know," she repeats.
"I'm not just anybody!" he roars, startling them both. He decides to count, concentrate on his ragged breathing, anything to push the feeling down and away.
(One. Two. Three. Four. It isn't working.)
But he isn't just anybody. He hasn't been for a long time now. They mean something and she knows: she knows full well. Except she ignores it and there's too much to ignore. The kissing, the touching, the recognition of feeling something (anything) that isn't hatred for the other; she ignores all of it.
Clare, never to be outdone or indeed never to take a telling off puffs out her chest, suddenly defensive. "What's your problem?"
Eli realizes the answer to this question is perhaps infinitely more complicated than she would expect. His problem? From what he can gather the majority of his problems start and end with her. Before Clare Edwards, his world was easier, at least simpler than most recent things she's brought to his life. Before Clare, Eli half believed love was love and came coupled with all the tenderness of a Lifetime movie. But now he expects love to hurt in some way. If it doesn't hurt, is it real? His mother's words (Love is kind and gentle Eli. Remember how you felt when you fell for Julia?) echo in his boy mind. Yes, he does remember how he felt for Julia, how he should still feel for her but he's just not sure if it's enough.
(Was it enough? The end. Tears. Anger. Does it all come back to hurt?)
He knows one thing; this hurts. So is this love? His own head aches with a contemplation fitting enough for an episode of Dawson's Creek.
"My problem is…is that I'm better for you than he is. Than anyone is. And I hate that you can't see that." Eli breaks. "You know that I can take care of you, that we have a future. And when I'm with you...I...we make sense." he says, eyes intensifying. "So where does this leave us?"
The question hangs heavy between them, both knowing it needed to be asked but both fearing the answer. Something flashes in her eyes, an emotion he doesn't recognize. She still just stands there.
Jesus Christ.
"There was never any us," she answers calmly, "There was you. And there was me."
Fucking hell. Bull's-eye, right through the heart. Well, Clare never was one for missing an opportunity. His hands now tremble so badly he needs to grip something, anything, to keep steady. He feels like he's dissolving into thin air. Losing his best friend is not something that sits well with Eli. His heart will mend, the pain will fade but he anticipates a large hole, gaping and dark, in the space she once filled. He won't look at her, he refuses to. He's acutely aware of the silence surrounding them (Cold, breakable. Just like her.) Suddenly he's not concerned about her feelings, whether or not she feels something in that stone heart. He doesn't fill the silence with the usual "It's ok", "We'll still be friends" routine. Because it won't be ok, and they won't be friends. Instead, the silence lingers.
Eli thinks of silence as like a black bottomless hole, sort of like a drowning and most certainly like a death. He hates it, despises it with every fiber of his being. But sometimes, silence says everything there is to say. Maybe some things shouldn't be left unsaid.