He hisses when she punches him in the gut.
This is the basis of their relationship.
They are only friends at exactly 4:32 PM when his brother’s shift at the gas station is late and her mother’s stuck in traffic.
They are invisible to each other elsewhere.
But she's read him like a book-- when the smoke fills up the crowded stock room and drowns them; when he zips open his backpack, making extra sure that she doesn't catch a glimpse of his sketchbook (because he is Christopher Welsh, delinquent, asshole and all around 'not-artsy-guy', after all); when he passes her the blunt and thinks about how he's corrupting the innocent.
She knows all about Christina Li, the junior who had a penchant for pocketing things that didn't belong to her -- and how they met in detention in a cliche act of dropping her pen. Their hands touched. "She is a hurricaine." A touching romance. It was like watching a soap opera in someone's head.
He's going to marry her -- or at least that's what he tells himself now.
But what does Christopher Welsh know about Elisabeth Yorke?
He knows that she is a freshman who absolutely detests anything in the building with a pulse. He knows that she exclusively cheats on all of her tests and assignments and he knows that she's pretty handy with computer. He listens intently, between daft laughs and snide remarks, as she spits fire about anyone and everyone that comes to mind.
Not once does he question how she knows that Jackie Penfield sucked Louis Grace's dick after the baseball game yesterday, or how she knows that Mr. Garcia has been sneaking peeks at Mrs. Hennesey's ass during lunch. Maybe it's just how unassuming their relationship is that makes it so damn tolerable.
But time moves on. He graduates -- barely. And she never thinks about him again.
It isn't until six years have passed when she sees him again.
He's so incredibly broken that she has a hard time realizing who he is.
He's strung the fuck out on something -- coke, maybe?
Eyes consumed with black.
There are no words as she piles him into her car, mumbling about Christina Li. No, Christina Li-Welsh.
It's in that one moment that Elis contemplates the meaning of true love with a coke fiend in her back seat and the smell of spray paint thick in his hair.
He's so fucking vulnerable, it's making her sick.
Even more so when he collapses on her white leather sofa, skin slick with sweat and hands shaking.
She thinks he's going to die.
Funny how things work out, really.
Funny how the same boy who had given her her first taste of drug induced euphoria was now the same man curled up in her lap.
"...You're welcome, Welsh."
