Welcome to 'this was meant to be a single paragraph but I guess not'! I keep thinking this is going to wrap up soon and then things like this happen, haha!
Next chapter's on the 7th of July.
Maureen is tall with long dark hair and skin which reminds Eleanor of the toffees her mum won't let her eat many of. She's in the same year that Eleanor has been moved to and has English and Science with her.
She hasn't exactly been the most welcoming towards Eleanor since meeting her but she hasn't been the least by a long shot.
Eleanor didn't even realise that the girl knew she existed until she's washing her hands in an empty bathroom and the girl walks in, blinks at seeing her and stops short, eyebrows raised and arms crossed.
"You're gay, aren't you?" She says bluntly and Eleanor blushes, not knowing what the word means but presuming it's an insult from the way the other girl has said it.
"I'm not!" She declares, still trying to figure out what it means or where she's heard it before then more measuredly after a second;
"What does that even mean?" Eleanor asks, crossing her arms defensively and feeling the uncomfortable way the water still on her hands soaks into her uniform cardigan.
Maureen rolls her eyes, not budging but sighing heavily as if the whole situation was a pain which Eleanor was completely at fault for.
"It means that you want to have a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend." Maureen says plainly.
Eleanor frowns.
"But girls don't have girlfriends." She retorts, "And how do you know that I don't want a boyfriend?" The girl asks.
Maureen rolls her eyes again, head tilting slightly with the movement as she fixes her gaze on Eleanor and puts her weight on her left leg.
"They do. And please- it's obvious from the way you look at your friend." Maureen scoffs.
Unbidden Eleanor immediately begins thinking of the things that the other girls talk about wanting a boyfriend for but with Eurus. She thinks of holding her hand, kissing her, hugging her, writing love letters to her and one million other things which she's never seen real people ever do for each other.
She thinks about Eurus' insistence on playing with her when they were little and how happy she feels every time they touch or she looks at Eurus' drawings or hears her stories and the way she has always been there to help her with any problems she's had. Though if she is honest they are mostly problems with maths which Eurus has caused by giving her the question but they still count.
She also immediately feels heat rise to her cheeks and averts her eyes, trying to seem casual though she knows she's never been good at lying.
"I don't look at her in any way. She's my friend." Eleanor insists and then realises that she has a chance if she can change the subject.
"And how do you know that girls can have girlfriends?" She blurts out, part of her curious and her face redder than she's ever seen it before when she catches a glance at it in the grubby old mirror.
"Yeah right. You want her to be more though. And I know because I've had one." Maureen says and somehow with those few words it feels like Eleanor's whole world shatters and reforms.
Maureen holds her head high and speaks into the void which Eleanor didn't know she had and Eleanor swallows, feeling suddenly close to tears as all the fight goes out of her and she looks at the floor.
"You mean it's okay to like girls?" She asks quietly, flashes of Eurus smiling or showing her typical 'I'm-only-telling-you-this-because-it-would-be-mildly-inconvenient-to-me-for-you-to-not-know-or-actually-be-hurt' concern and of the quiet focus the other girl has running through her mind like they used to run along the banks of the almost stream they had called a river.
Maureen snorts.
"Told you." Then in a less derisive tone of voice, "Not really. You should be quiet about it. People will take the piss otherwise but between you and me. Yeah. It's cool. Girls are better than boys and I don't need to have a boyfriend to figure that out."
Eleanor chances a look up, cheeks still feeling hot with all of the confusion with how to deal with the revelations she's come to in the last three minutes but tears maybe under control she hopes. Maureen is a little red too, bottom lip dented a bit where she's pulling on it.
"I can keep a secret though and you should too. I don't want anyone to talk about me." The older girl says.
"I- um. Yeah. I can keep a secret." Eleanor mumbles, uncertain but feeling like it's probably the right things to say because she doesn't want people talking about her either. She'd had enough of that earlier in the year.
"As long as that doesn't mean you want to kiss me!" Eleanor blurts out and immediately goes an even brighter red than before, wishing she'd just said nothing as Maureen physically recoils with a disgusted expression.
"Yeah. We are not doing that under any circumstances!" She sneers, face still stuck in a grimace then also turns red, "I actually have someone else I'm interested in- I wasn't telling you because I want to kiss you." She mumbles awkwardly, looking at the bathroom doors with her expression slowly decreasing in the intensity of horror.
"Oh. Yeah. That's good. So do I." Eleanor says, the words tasting funny on her tongue and making her blush as her heart feels like it's beating harder.
Maureen snorts again and Eleanor expects she's rolling her eyes. She takes this as a dismissal and goes to leave, uncrossing her arms and wiping the remaining water on her woollen skirt. Just before she gets to the bathroom door Maureen speaks again.
"And we can talk about the people we like to each other, right?" She asks, sounding the most uncertain she has for the whole of the very weird exchange.
Eleanor thinks for a moment, biting her lip as she looks at the door in front of her
"I- I would like that." She admits.
"Cool." Maureen says in response and a cubicle door closes and locks and Eleanor almost sprints out that door because she needs to be somewhere away from people to think now and try to remember how to talk to Eurus without her heart feeling like it's going to burst out of her chest or think of her without getting all distracted.