ecllas:
“So. Plot twist. He stood me up. Like, just completely didn’t show.” Ella dropped her purse on the table in Broadripple’s dining hall. It was the only one she’d brought to the Academy with her, the only one nice enough to be deemed worthy of going out. But instead of a promised Friday night escape to one of the local restaurants just out of town, Ella was left waiting at the gates for a ride that never showed up. If she was being honest with herself, the first of many red flags had arisen when Brent kept trying to slide their texts into the realm of sexts. And optimism was always an excuse she fell back on when she knew she wanted something unrealistic. “Just so you know, the guys from Somerville High are lame. I swear, this guy didn’t even know Sappho was an actual person.” She definitely wasn’t bitter about it. She totally didn’t care. Even though she’d wasted an hour trying to recreate a make-up tutorial and slaving over an outfit that looked effortlessly cute. An hour that she could have spent on something meaningful. Like practicing lines or reviewing Griffin’s latest edits for Broadripple Uncensored.
Instead, she’d spent her open afternoon rifling through drawers, switching out her earrings, and trying on nearly every article of clothing in her wardrobe. Gwen would have a mouthful to say about the pile mounted on Ella’s bed when she got back to the room, but Ella considered that an issue to suss out later.
She looked over the food on her classmate’s plate. Ella frowned. “Okay, that tuna casserole looks expired.” Ella cracked a smile. “Does it taste as sad as it looks?”
As usual, Dylan was currently being hyper subjected to another episode of Ella Dawson the TV Show where the seton went off about something or another, and Dylan pretended to listen while simultaneously swiping left and right through an app on his phone. He’d only just gotten it back about an hour and a half ago, after being obnoxious in class that afternoon in order to have one of the nuns swipe it off him and tell him to come collect it after school. Despite being late to mostly everything else in his life, Dylan was right there on the dot, simply unable to be disconnected from the device for more than a few hours as most Zoomers were these days. So now that he had it back, he had messages to check, Snapchats to reply to, emails to ignore, and Instagrams to stalk... etcetera. He was a busy guy, what of it?
He only looked up when Ella moved more into his frame of view, her hair swinging in his direction, wafting him in the face with shampoo and teenage girl perfume. Christ, she’d really gone out for this guy, huh... he thought to himself as he suddenly noticed she was wearing makeup too. Or more than what they were allowed to wear on an average school day, anyway. She looked good. But then again, Dylan would probably stick his dick in a pile of dung if somebody dared him to.
“Are you as desperate as you sound?” He shot back over a mouthful in deference of his food, granted, a few days old and in a plastic container. But whatever, dinner wasn’t for another hour and he was starved. “What’s the guy's name anyway, I can fuck him up if you want?” A casual offer. As if messing up some random’s face was as easy as calling in any regular favor.
