Ellie jammed another French fry into the traces of catsup lining the plain ceramic plate before thrusting it into her mouth. Jam. Thrust. Chew. Pour out a few more drops of catsup from the almost empty Heinz bottle on the table. It had to be almost four in the morning, and the waitress who knew her by name (really, wasn't that level of pathetic only supposed to happen once you'd hit twenty-something?) kept stopping by the table with a furrowed brow, asking her if there was anyone to give her a ride home. How did she possibly tell this stranger that there was no one to give her a ride home because there was no one to go home to? Her mother was still in rehab. She'd tried to run away, according to one of the letters Ellie would never admit she actually read. In the end she had come crawling back, though, because she wanted to get better. "That makes one of us," she muttered morosely. She wondered if her skin was getting that yellow tint it always gained in poor fluorescent lighting because it was so pale. Not that she cared one way or anther; no one she wanted to impress was around, and she was, after all, Vampire Queen, Goddess of the living dead.
The bell on top of the door jingled noisily, and Ellie couldn't hide her smirk when a familiar blond carefully let go of the door. A moment later she realized that the girl was coming toward her. "Oh, crap."
"I heard that," Emma accused, dropping gracelessly into the seat opposite her. Dark circles accentuated the near black of her irises, and the gray hoodie hanging from her bony shoulders looked like Sean's. Ellie had a feeling it wasn't a coincidence, so she did what any bitter ex-girlfriend would say to a fellow casualty of the Sean Cameron mini drama.
"You stole his freaking jacket." Before she could snake her arm out to grab at the material Emma snorted and shook her head in denial.
"Hardly. I spent the better part of a month going through thrift stores and Wal Marts until I found one that reminded me enough of his to fool me into thinking it might actually belong to him," she told her, fingering the fleecy inside of the jacket. "I knew you would be here." Ellie reached out and gave the rubber band on her wrist a quick snap.
"And how was that? Are you stalking me now? I promise I'm not stealing any laptops." It was a cruel thing to say, and cruel wasn't Ellie's style, but in her eyes most of Sean Cameron's issues led back to this girl in some way. No girl deserved to inherit that boy's emotional wreckage, not even a freaky goth cutter whose own parents didn't think she was worth taking care of.
"Actually, Sean loved this place. We used to come here all the time," Emma answered quietly, fingering the edge of a paper napkin she'd pulled from the metal dispenser. It hit Ellie in the middle of her chest. Sean had recycled his old dating grounds on her. Emma Nelson knew what Sean, her Sean, loved. She wasn't sure which was harder to swallow. "I took a road trip up to Alberta, got in Tracker's face. I yelled and yelled and yelled at him for leaving Sean out in the cold like that, for not even bothering to call and make sure he was all right."
"How did you get all the way to Alberta?" Ellie asked suspiciously. Emma shrugged, eyes moving along the brown and white tiles of the floor.
"Jay drove me." Ellie had heard all of the rumors, from Emma giving Jay head to Jay raping Emma to the two of them getting engaged and then breaking the news to Alex in front of the whole school. Some variant was obviously true, and Ellie was putting her money on the first. Oh how the mighty have fallen, she thought, and she couldn't help that the thought gave her a sick, disgusted sense of satisfaction. "We hooked up, if that's what you're wondering. Just once, but it was enough for me to get gonorrhea. You know, the funny thing is… if I just focused on his lips, I could almost pretend that he was Sean," she confessed, and Ellie shuddered, remembering how that very same thought had driven her to the edge of the ravine more than once, her only saving grace all of the fucked up things Jay had said to her, all of the insinuations about her relationship with Sean and her mom's alcoholism. "Anyway, I just thought you should know… Tracker told me that he called Sean as soon as he found out. He was ready to take a leave of absence from his job, come down and stay with him until the school year was over and then bring him back to Alberta… but Sean said no."
"Why are you telling me this?" she finally asked, red strands of hair falling out of the messy ponytail she'd pulled it back into.
"You deserved to know," Emma replied earnestly, "that he didn't leave you. He didn't choose them over you, a real family over whatever the hell the two of you had; he just needed to go back and either face his self destructive tendencies or fall back into them. I just… I know what it's like to be abandoned by Sean Cameron," she explained, looking down. Ellie realized with surprise that tears were filling the other girl's eyes, and in moments they were coursing down her face. They weren't the kind of tears you could fake, and it made Ellie uncomfortable. She didn't do this stuff; not with Alex, not with Ashley; hell, not even with Sean. He'd never been able to when it came right down to it. The two of them sat in silence for awhile.
With a start Ellie felt a sphere of warm liquid hit her knuckle; she realized that she was crying, too. All of the crying that she'd held in on that car ride back from Wasaga, all of the loneliness that she'd suppressed when her father answered her with an e-mail saying that it would all be over after just one more tour of duty. Not knowing what else to do, she pushed her plate to the middle of the table. "Have some fries," she said, her voice husky and soft. This enemy, this acquaintance, this enigma (this friend, maybe?) reached out with a shaky hand and dipped a fry into the inexistent catsup.
"They're cold," she mumbled. She wiped at the bags under her eyes, the motion making them even more noticeable. Emma fished around in her purse and brought out a package of Kleenex, offering them to the redhead. "They might be less harsh on your face than these napkins." As if it was the most natural thing in the world to do, Ellie reached out and gratefully accepted them. Tomorrow morning when they passed each other in the halls or in fifteen minutes when she woke up from this surreal dream or nightmare or whatever it was, it would be like none of this had ever happened. She glanced across the booth, wondering if Emma shared this realization. The blonde's attention was wholly fixed on the food in front of her, though, so Ellie picked up a mangled, greasy French fry and joined her.