[AN: the smut in this is non-explicit but enough to warrant an M-rating just in case. Don't read this if you're looking for something heavily smutty]
Elke knows the rules of summer flings well.
Don't get too close.
Enjoy what you can while you can.
Stick with what you know.
Amelia plays by all the rules. Maddie breaks them all.
Elke goes to America for one month with her family after 7 months apart, their only contact at Christmas and during the summer. They hate each other, really, and as soon as Elke can get away from them she does, starting the summer cycle of spending each night in a variety of clubs, picking up every girl she can and stumbling home at some obscure time in the morning to hide from the sun until her headache goes away. She will regret it when she finishes and counts the numbers written in notebooks and scrawled up her arm, picking sand from her hair and sleeping the flight home away. By this point, she's long past arguments and complaints, just glad that someone else is paying for her flight and hotel room.
She meets Amelia two days in. Not yet in a permanent state of drunk-hangover, she catches her eye from across the room, and steps up from the bar immediately, leaving whoever was trying to chat her up alone as she crosses the room. Amelia is soft and pliable under her hands, her smile wicked and her lips soft and her eyes spark in the darkness and she whispers wicked things in her ears and, if things would go as planned, she would pull her stumbling out of the club to press her against the wall and, eventually, take her "home" (she rents a small beach-hut for a month specifically to have it for herself in these situations).
Things don't go as planned, predictably, and three dances in, between two songs some blonde guy comes up and pulls her off with a whisper in her ear and Amelia gives her a smile and mouths "not this time" and leaves her to slide through pulsing bodies back to the bar. And that's where she meets Maddie.
Amelia's half-sister, everything she's not, shy and quiet, easy-going and peaceful, all her emotions hidden behind a wall. She doesn't drink and she'd rather be at home but Amelia dressed her up and dragged her out and left her at the bar to dance with every person in the establishment. She doesn't want to go home alone and leave Amelia alone just in case but she doesn't want to be there. She has a stance that puts people off from talking to her and she takes a sip from Elke's drink and agrees that it does taste good, but she'll stick to water and soft drinks, and she wants to get Amelia out of there so she can go home but she doesn't want an argument.
She's blonde and still pale and her lips are red with the heat and her neckline barely shows her collarbone but her skirt is short and her smile is genuine and Elke finds herself entranced.
And she shouldn't be. She should leave her and go back to the dance floor and find any one of the nameless girls who will come home with her and she shouldn't pay for her drinks and take her by the hand and sit on the sea-front with her and she shouldn't even start with this soft, quietly-spoken girl who will not understand when she moves on (though maybe she will and Elke thinks of her sister) but she talks to her anyway.
And she comes home at a sensible time that night.
And the next morning she finds them in a café by the sea-front, their parents planning what to do, Amelia looking like the world should end around her and Maddie looking like she'd rather be anywhere else than there.
And she spends the day with her.
And she gets her drunk for the first time on the beach, and she kisses her.
And the next morning Maddie texts her and asks what she plans to do for the rest of the holiday.
And she responds and they talk and they talk and they talk and they find each other's resorts and they waste hours in the pool and they explore the town and they tan and burn and kiss each other again and again.
And they talk and they kiss and it takes Elke four days to take her home and six to get her clothes off and nine to have her in bed.
Maddie's like a drug. She really is. She's so different and opposite to everyone Elke knows, layers and layers of secrets and confession and Elke takes all her firsts and she says she doesn't regret a second. Elke spends hours just lying next to her and watching her chest rise and fall as she reads and talks and sleeps and thinks and days pass. She writes her passion into her skin and Maddie kisses her secrets away and they spend days and nights together, and Elke watches Amelia fall into the same cycle she had planned to and she thanks whatever higher power sat her next to Maddie however many days it was ago (days bleed into nights and you could tell her two weeks or ten had passed and she'd believe you). Maddie's frustrations leave her with her sighs and moans and they break into swimming pools.
She kisses Maddie underwater and pushes her against the side of the swimming pool and she laces their hands together and kisses down the expanse of her neck till Maddie's face flushes red and her breath leaves her in puffs and the smile seems plastered onto her skin like the hair that Elke pushes out of the way.
Maddie's smiles are infectious and their giggles crescendo and rise upwards as they trip down the path that leads to the beach. Maddie pushes her against the door of their beach-hut and distracts her from getting the keys in until Elke flips them over and holds her lips a careful distance away to punish her as she holds her down with one hand and uses the other to unlock the door, kicking it shut and twirling them, pushing her back and Maddie curls her hands in her hair, bleached by the sun, and pushes herself against her. Elke leaves the keys in the door and their clothes fall off as they cross the short distance to what serves as a bed as Maddie pulls her down and kisses down her stomach, putting what Elke teaches her into use as she draws moans from her throat.
Maddie is porcelain in her hands, and she is careful not to break her, careful not to remind her of summer's ending even as 10s turn to 20s and Maddie and Amelia's imminent departure draws closer with every minute-hour-day and summer draws to a close.
They each have sadnesses and regrets and worries and summer sits like a spell in their minds – if it could continue forever, they would never have to return to a world that always feels wrong – and somehow they are making plans for next summer, and Elke catches herself committing to memory all the little things she loves: the way Maddie's moans sound as they crawl from her throat and they smile that she thinks Elke doesn't see and the precise softness of her skin, and maybe Maddie does the same.
She knows she could find a thousand Maddies anywhere – soft and friendly and entirely breakable – and yet she finds she finds herself entranced with the one in front of her eyes and underneath her hands, and when Maddie finds it in herself to tease her for staring, the 'L' word sits at the back of her mind, a thought-bubble she does not dare to pop. It is sweet, like Maddie's kisses, and salty like her skin and she does not want to think about it, so she distracts herself in the swell of her breast and the ladder of her ribcage.
One week left, and Amelia-Maddie's parents intervene, and they spend two days sight-seeing ("sight-seeing what?" says Elke and Maddie shakes her head) and Elke spends days in distraction and nights in loneliness and watches the waves come in, until Maddie's voice, soft and quiet through her phone's speakers, begs her to come back home. She tears along the beach to find Maddie sitting with her back against the door to the hut, curled up with her head against her knees, hands bloodied and hotel key shimmering against the sand. She helps her up, retrieves the key, opens the door, sits her against the wall, and waits for her to talk.
The words come out eventually – she was so scared and she had been waiting weeks to fall apart an couldn't make another day and it finally happened and she couldn't get in and so she came to the only place she felt safe. Her voice is rough, throat torn by tears, and in the dark light their tracks stand out in silver against her skin as her hands shake in Elke's. She gives her comfort and safety and in the dark she kisses away her fears and waits in silence for her to fall asleep in her arms.
Four days left till they leave, and Maddie spends two days with her sunrise to sunset. They spend almost every second together, and Elke waits for the secret to come out. The scratches on her hands heal and she rebuilds her confidence with her bravery, and they face the world. Amelia finds them and brings her inherent sunshine, confesses that their parents are worried and convinces Maddie to come with her to see them.
Thursday night: Maddie texts her that night that she's sorry she couldn't come back, and they she'll see her to say goodbye.
Friday morning: Maddie texts that she'll be there that night to say goodbye.
Friday night: Elke waits hours. She counts seashells and waves and the lights across the bay. She tidies the hut and packs away everything she needs to take home. She counts her coins and watches the minutes tick by.
She looks up at the sound of feet coming towards her, but it's just Amelia, eyes bright and worried.
Maddie's gone, gone like the wind, broken and shattered and her ashes have flown away to find some comfort that Elke could not give, scared and panicked and unable to think. Elke hasn't seen her all day and Amelia's panic is barely suppressed and her breaths come quick.
She returns with the storm – wrong girl, wrong time – and she shelters with her, pushes her hair back out of her eyes. Elke counts the shattered pieces of her heart and the beats between when she kisses her and when she leads her back to the bed. She tells herself that there a thousand Maddies anywhere and this is nothing more than a way to pass the time, and Amelia breaks around the edges as her worry and Elke's sadness bleed together.
Later, Amelia gathers her clothes and leaves quietly, and Elke could throw up.
Guilt battles sadness battles worry in her stomach and the next morning she closes up the hut and hands in her keys and packs up her bags and she hides from the sun and on the flight home she thinks of anything but Maddie's smile.
I wish it was anyone but me;
I could have been anyone you see.
She had something breakable just under her skin.
Short fic for the C-N contest on dA. Sad ending I know (fyi, Maddie ran away. Where? Idk). This is based off of "American Girls" by Counting Crows. Questions, comments, feed back et al? Feel free to leave a review.