Katie: It was quite simply the kind of September morning that unabashedly induced giddy excitement and a foreign surge of nervous energy that made the ferns droop submissively, as if they were preparing themselves for an early retirement. In an attempt to prevent herself from falling off of her own mental precipice, every jittery tic that had previously been subjected to severe chastisement overtook each segment of her body. Foot tapping, knuckle cracking, gulps that were teetering on the edge of becoming audible. Katie Matlin was nervous; there was just no other way around it. Flitting from one table to the next, she mentally counted each gift that had been wrapped with painstaking effort purely because the idea of presenting half-heartedly packed gifts seemed like an appalling way to start off the school year. The courtyard was starting to teem with exhausted parents and overexcited kids whose eyes darted every so often towards the table of presents. However, there was nothing, not even the timid introductions of her students, that could appease the knot that had permanently conquered her insides ever since he had come back into her life. A plethora of incoherent questions continuously plagued her mind, none of which she could prompt herself to ask him—about him, his life, the family he'd created. At one juncture, she had become a slave to space and time and irreversible embarrassment. The summer after they had both graduated high school was the only one that she vividly remembered spending without him—without having aimless arguments or intellectual discussions about literature. The years that followed revolved around new relationships, new expectations, new beginnings, and a whole new set of anxieties. None of it was incomparable without him; that was too much of an overstatement for her liking. It just felt like life's bad imitation of a fill-in-the-blanks exercise. More than anything else, Eli Goldsworthy had been her best friend at a significant point in her life. As a teenager, he had been incredibly infuriating, self-assured, and overly sarcastic—all qualities that constantly drove her up the wall and sparked a strong interest within her to hit him over the head as an outlet for her frustration. At the same time, he'd had the potential to be charismatic in ways that had made her 17-year-old self analyze his actions in a manner that'd assuredly end well for her, in a manner that made her feel special, no matter how fleeting it was. But that was all in the past, she repeatedly rationalized with herself. Over the course of ten years, they'd both managed to build up their lives while deliberately avoiding each other even when avenues seemed to open up for possible interaction during high school alumni associations that Katie never bothered to attend or keep track of. The conversation that they'd managed to strike up recently, on the other hand, had been entirely unprecedented and for reasons that she couldn't begin to comprehend, they'd both kept the conversation going if only to discuss his son and issues related to starting school. Smoothing her hand over the front of her skirt, she turned, her grip on her clipboard becoming instinctively tighter. It was him. Far too many years had passed them by, but the only tangible proof that something had changed was the fact that he now walked hand-in-hand with a miniature doppelgänger of himself. Uncertainty ladening each successive step that she took, Katie slowly walked towards them, her heart pounding wildly at the prospect of not being able to ignore his existence any longer, not when he had come to a halt a few feet away from her. Unable to string together words to say to him right off the bat, she looked at him briefly before hastily averting her gaze, and kneeling down before the dark-haired boy so that they were almost up to eye level. "You must be Aiden. Your father's told me all about you," said Katie, smiling to the apprehensive little boy who looked like he was seconds away from taking cover behind Eli. "I'm Katie. Katie Matlin. I'm going to be your teacher for the two years," she continued, stretching her hand to gently touch his shoulder. "Don't tell the other kids," she began, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, "but I can promise you that you're going to get the best gift out of all them." Laughing to herself at the delighted expression that immediately lit up his features, she brought herself back to a standing position, finally finding the courage to look Eli in the eyes. "Hi," she mustered with an unusual hint of shyness coloring her voice. "You were right, by the way," she added, peering over to him with a small smile. "You look just like the Eli I remember."
Eli: exhaled slowly as he shut the trunk of his car, a small box tucked under his free arm. He wasn't sure when the surreal quality of the day would lift, if it would at all. The idea that he and Katie had managed to get an apartment, a little hideaway in their own little corner of the world was still unbelievable to him. Reaching into his pocket, he fumbled for a few minutes, attempting with little success to fish out the key to the apartment. Finally catching it on his finger, he opened the door, once more breathing out a sigh as he entered. Boxes littered the living room, both his and Katie's interspersed throughout the room. The packing of his belongings had been trying enough, Eli leaving the vast majority until the last minute. But now the larger task seemed to be how he'd go about unpacking the items, managing to make the place look more like a home and less like a storage space. He had no doubt that Katie would whip his ass into gear, making a point to get through the task in a speedy and efficient manner. As tightly wound as the girl could be, she never failed to keep him on task, a trait he greatly appreciated and knew would come in handy while they lived together. Fixing the cap on his head, he weaved through the boxes, following the narrow trail leading to the kitchen. Inside he found Katie, his face lighting up immediately at the sight. It still hadn't fully sunken in that he'd be seeing her on a daily basis from then on, getting to wake up to her each morning. "Hanging out in here while you make me do the work? I see how it is." he called out, shooting her a teasing smirk. Reaching for her, he slipped on arm around her waist, the other following shortly after, her back to his chest. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he sighed happily. Though they weren't official, it felt as though the two were a couple, having grown close in the recent weeks. "We're home." he whispered, peering up at her. "I just brought in the last box." Weaving his fingers through hers, Eli ran his thumb along the back of her hand, glancing around. "Don't tell me I have to let go of you. I deserve this as a prize for all that backbreaking work." he claimed, tightening his grip on her slightly.
and I've almost become desensitized to the chaos that is this website. What gives? This is what I get for using different passwords with slight variations in them. Hooray for my backup e-mail?
I keep half-expecting some sort of notification to pop up on my screen, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting my social networking platforms mixed up.
Takes place way back when. Elijah takes Katie on a trip and meets an old friend of his.
Katie kept a firm hand on the steering wheel, her free one clasped in Elijah’s grasp as she gave him a reassuring squeeze, the pad of her thumb drawing idle circles on the crooked of his middle and index finger, her azure orbs curiously locked on the window. The brunette sighed inwardly and squirmed in her seat as she let her foot ease off the gas pedal, taking a quick left as she glanced at her boyfriend with a fleeting fixation, a thoughtful expression etched on the ivory panes of her face, though her eyes were knitted in a tight line, her lips curled to one of mute deliberation. Though Elijah hadn’t divulged where they would be going that would incidentally be able to tell her another piece of him—another story she’d gladly stick around to listen for, there was a momentary lurch in her stomach that had grown to apprehension, but eventually squandered to silent reflection, a partition between her irrational unease and contemplation occupying her thoughts for the time being. Katie pursed her lips and ran quick fingers through her tousled waves as she stepped idly at a stop sign, checking both roads before she ventured down the road, her eyes still repeatedly scanning the area for a sign, a store that would perhaps give her an inclination of where they were headed. With an exasperated sigh to herself that she had hoped the being that sat in her passenger seat hadn’t heard, she nodded, and inquired promptly, “Am I going the right way?” and added with a softer tone, “I don’t want to get lost,” she murmured, her fingers tensing on the steering wheel. The brunette once again glanced at the side view of the mirror, not wanting to look at Elijah directly in the eyes. The granite pavement that snaked through the outskirts of Toronto under the gloomy canvas of the sky, painted with dreadful blotches of grays and murky whites only reiterated the stillness that loomed above the two in the sleek car. “Are you okay?” Katie asked again after a brief moment, her eyes fixated on the road.
The iridescent blur beyond the sleek glass of the passenger window, though existing within a minute space of nothing more than a dreary, darkened haze of numerous smudges and strokes that when joined formed unfocused, incomprehensible shapes and angles, seemed to harbor the anchoring thoughts that were slowly seeping into the very fabric of Elijah's tender limbs, muddling the exasperated contents of his bloodstream. The detour was one of its own that plucked at the very filament that strung the raven-haired boy's being together in careless patchwork, frayed and thinning as the blackened pavement wore on beneath them, and registered in Eli's narrowed gaze as reduced flickers of light that thrived above the dulling nature of his eyes, nothing more than a foundation for such recollection to overwhelm his senses. Running his thumb along the curved slope of her palm in a similar gesture, Elijah didn't have to reevaluate his own fleeting sense of direction in order to assure Katie that she was in fact following the most efficient route to their destination, though he would make sure to have her make a rather unimportant stop along the way when the time came. "Four more lights on this street before a left," he answered in a neutral tone, a smooth, even stream of language that wasn't of his typical nature, but Eli didn't think much of his pending mood and hoped she wouldn't either. His thumb still moving against her skin, Eli nodded slowly, offering her a modest grin as if to express his current state in more reassuring terms. "I'm okay," he murmured, whatever hints of a smile that he had once withheld moments ago softening upon his face as he retreated his gaze the familiar scene beyond the passenger window.
The canopy of obscure grays and whites that clung to the shell of the sky provided a gleaming and incomprehensible blur against the crystals of Katie’s eyes, the barren surface of the atmosphere a blemish overhung the foreign streets with alien names as the brunette attempted to decipher the area and its implication to the boy beside her, to no avail. She gazed outside the uniform houses, each brick and segment of concrete that adorned each dwelling identical as the one before it, the homogeneous lawns and cars of similar colors distorted into an unfathomable whirlwind of color, swimming in Katie’s unknowing eyes. The dreary trees with their branches like bleeding veins lacked their leaves, their limbs naked and bare as they suspended above the cold pavement against the undressed canvas of the sky. Katie sighed again at Elijah’s impartial tone, noting his demeanor as he followed his instruction, a few more stoplights away from the street before taking a left. The brunette parted her lips to voice her muddled thoughts, though her counterparts dazed expression out the passenger window hinted at her not to push further, so she ended the conversation with a subtle ‘okay’ before she settled in the hushed stillness between the two, the blur of houses and streets plunging into an unfamiliar, indefinite smears of lackluster color. Katie swallowed and squirmed in her seat once again, readjusting her tender hold on Elijah’s hand before she maneuvered the car to a quick left, approaching a small divulge in the street, various independent shops among the litter of block and cement, a small flurry of silhouettes; small and large in the midst of it. She narrowed her eyes slightly and parked the car by a nearby lane nearby the plethora of stores and put the car in ‘park,’ gritting her teeth before glancing at the raven-haired boy across from her. “There,” she voiced aloud, adding, “What are we doing here?” She inquired, her voice softening as her curious azure eyes noted the glass windows of the various shops and boutiques, biting the inside of her cheeks as she contemplated the significance of such a location to the boy beside her.
Elijah took brief notes of the canopy of barren trees that littered the furthest extents of the blurring granite pavement beneath them, the grainy surface now smooth and residing beneath a thick layer of a lazy haze that an unfocused scope provided, Eli's emerald orbs tracing over the willowy appendages streaking the dreary sky overhead in stark slopes of unadorned branches instead. As they left any traces of a previous lone highway behind, the stretch of naked appendages, neglected in the former hints of Scarborough's wintery darkness, grew even more copious, speckling the architecture of the first town with its own unique stature amongst the flurry of uniform houses, all thriving beneath an identical palette of warmer browns and oranges despite the weather that dared to contrast it. A few entities other than their own were beginning to voice their own presence aloud within the scene beyond the two's physical means of comprehension, their roaming contributions to the canvas abroad riddling the town's still fixation, forcing their life and existences upon it. Pulling his critical gaze from the window's expanse to meet Katie's crystal glance, Elijah merely blinked elaborately at her inquiry, the unfazed expression scrawled into his features as if set in marble stone, unscathed and passive to what she could voice aloud beyond that moment. He held her eyes for several drawled seconds before squeezing her hand one final time, turning his body away from her probing questions as he pushed the passenger door open, leisurely stepping out of the sleek vehicle to request her to knowingly do the same inaudibly. Sighing, the extents of his limbs seeming to tremble along to his inner dread to be revisiting the true outskirts of his troubled mind, Elijah kicked at an insignificant crack in the granite pavement beneath his scuffed sneakers, wandering a few steps along the course of it before turning to offer Katie a beckoning open hand.
Katie didn’t make an effort to veil a disconcerted expression that subjugated the understated panes of her ivory visage as her lips curled into a confounded outline, the folds of her lips tucking into half crescent moons that held back another probing question about the choice of location. Katie sighed and instead slouched her shoulders when Elijah had exited the car noiselessly, her unsatisfied orbs tracing the silhouette of his back and eyeing his shoulder blades before she leaned back in the leather seat. The brunette angled her head to the side, her sapphire eyes narrowing challengingly, though he wasn’t there to note it. With a click of her tongue and her arms thrown in the air before they harmlessly rested on her lap with an undisruptive gesture, she withdrew the keys in the ignition and twirled it in her fingers as her sneakers landed on the pavement with a single movement. Katie didn’t bother setting the alarm as she put the metal objects in the pocket of her jeans, advancing towards Elijah with an outstretched arm before clasping his hand in hers. The teeming buzz of conversation bubbled in Katie’s ears as a plethora of various discussions, laughter, and the buzz of nearby cars broke her from idle thought, her conical gaze landing on Elijah’s marble features, though he made no effort to speak. With a shrug, Katie inched closer to his frame, an attentive expression painted on her features as she gave him an encouraging grin as she followed his lead down the winding trail of finite pavement that housed various shops, the perceptible sound of their stride against the coarse pavement almost in unison as they did so.
Elijah led the interlocked beings, swimming within the other's settling aura that resembled the very scene that bore itself to their unfocused shifts in glance, uneven temperatures, the audible cue that their leisurely strides emitted from beneath their paced steps yet another muted pulsation coursing throughout the numerous realms of his stature. Tightening his clasp on Katie's hand at his side within the same shaky breath that bred the tightening in his throat, halting any further thoughts that were trickling up the barren walls of aforementioned orifice for the amount of time necessary to regain the hold that Elijah had once had on his own composure, he never once released his grip on her as they wove in between the occupied beings within their mix, their bubbly laughter and unknowing chatter registering to him several layers beneath his conscious mind. As soon as they had parted through the sudden stream of people littering their desired path, Eli slowed his pace to match Katie's own, gently squeezing her hand when she neared his side once more. Breaking his silence for the time being, he sighed softly. "We're in Scarborough for what it's worth," he murmured in a low voice, glancing her way as if to judge her reaction before continuing.
Katie scrutinized her immediate environment, the hollow of the pavement and the meandering avenue beneath her watchful feet carried out calculatingly as her eyes leisurely examined the animated boutiques and independent shops that bore unidentifiable faces, an inexplicable smudge of silhouettes that didn’t register in her psyche. With a determined expression as if observing her surroundings with a more attentive eye would give her the answers that reared at the back of her mind, she was heaved out of her reflection as Elijah’s intentional, light tone settled to her awareness, causing her to direct her attention towards her boyfriend with a thoughtful expression. With a single, deliberate movement, Katie nodded once, taking his comment fully for what it offered as she didn’t question his words for the time being, a strangely solemn expression drawn on the features of her face as she glanced at her setting once more, wondering how this specific locale in the upbringing of the boy whom she had grown to adore. Though the atmosphere that skittered among the streets of Scarborough was meticulously lively despite the murky grays that teased the canvas of the sky, there seemed to be an ominous disposition that settled at the very core of Katie’s limbs that even she couldn’t overlook. The brunette parted her lips unhurriedly, a somber demeanor overtaking her aura as she asked gently, “Scarborough? What is this place’s importance to you?” Her tone of voice had taken one that of a much lower pitch as she momentarily fixated her azure orbs sideways, noting his manner.
Elijah ran the former hints of his tongue over the folds of his lips before parting them to speak absently, his gaze far from the spoken matter at hand as he craned his neck to make out the more distant approaching figures littering the course of the paved path where their unhurried strides resided, his emerald orbs catching on the familiar shell of a flower shop that he had visited far too many times in his own opinion, all resting upon an identical purpose. Tracing over the numerous chips of yellowing paint that clung to the wooden boards of the establishment somewhat contentedly, a modest grin plucking at the vast expanse of his curling mouth already, Eli merely shook his head at Katie's verbal curiosity, the smile trickling into the outskirts of his expanding facial features riddling the repetitive motion with its odd hues. "I'll show you later," he disregarded the introductory topic, although he knew that he would have to elaborate as time wore on that particular afternoon, opting for a quickened pace instead, the male finding the chilled surface of the door knob beneath his scarred palm before he had assured his rational half that this was in fact the correct building, adorned with bouquets that bore the more vibrant portions of the colour spectrum in its own appendages and outstretching limbs, lining the ledges of filmed windows and the outermost extents of the wavering building, seated upon the pavement at the couple's darkened feet. Glancing back at his counterpart as he twisted the knob with his free hand, the smooth gesture weaving into him holding the door open for her behind him as well, Eli offered her a slight squeeze of their interlocked hands before meekly tugging her behind his wandering figure within the store's bounds. "What's your favorite kind of flower?" Eli inquired, the lengths of his fingers curling around a single petal of a lily, the frayed tip, speckled in gracious spots of auburn, tickling the worn fabric of his ivory skin as he glanced over at the brunette nearing his side once more.
Katie scrutinized the edifice before her with curious, azure eyes that were narrowed like a cat’s as she noted the clear glass windows that enclosed what seemed to be a flower shop—she was able to distinguish the vibrant tinges of effervescent reds, yellows, and pinks that stemmed from fields of green in her line of vision before she read the sign that indicated she was correct. Katie pursed her lips for a moment more as she allowed Elijah to lead them in the building, her still inquisitive crystal orbs examining the exterior of the shop once more as if it’d give her a slight indication of the place’s location to her counterpart before noting the quaint chime of a bell overhead as they entered. The brunette shrugged her shoulders and inched closer towards the boy whom she still intertwined fingers with, her hushed gaze mapping out the store’s pathway, adorned with lively overabundance of flowers, buckets housing different families of blossoms as she moved sideways as they progressed deeper and deeper into the heart of the store. The atmosphere that had resided presently had taken on one that of a fleeting sense of cheeriness, the flowers somehow implementing a noiseless disposition of merriment as soon as Katie and Elijah had entered the environment. Katie gently tugged on a white petal of a bouquet of roses nearby, the supple surface of the flower tickling at the undersides of her thumb and index finger as she raised her head at her boyfriend’s inquiry. “White peonies,” she began, though there was a single eyebrow lifted from the contours of her face as she answered, not knowing why her choice of flowers were of interest to Eli, but continued on regardless, “They were esteemed flowers in China—they’re associated with high value, honor, and nobility,” she replied, a wave of her hand dismissing his question. The brunette lifted her head as if to find them, but shook her head, shrugging once more, a disconcerted expression drawn on the delicate panes of her face as her lips curled into an ‘o’ shape before she added, more softly, “It symbolizes romance and peace when in full bloom,” giving Eli a soft squeeze of his hand. Katie opened her mouth to speak once more, to ask the raven-haired boy who seemed to be engrossed in a particular bouquet before him (a lily, she deduced—the star-shaped flower and the recognizable center with delicate buds in its core), but noted the unusually thoughtful expression evident on his marble face and decided against it. “Lilies are pretty,” she remarked considerately, nodding her head so that her waves bounced at the sides of her face.
Elijah allowed his gentle caress to linger about the yellowing fabric of the lily petal for a few prolonged moments, running the pad of his thumb across the expanse of the silk tissue before lowering his hand to the illuminated base of the bouquet, the crinkling of the decorative wrapping somewhat muffled by his forming grip. "Ah," Eli articulated in an even voice in regards to Katie's answer of peonies, almost as if orally expressing his active participation in the conversation, though his glittering, emerald orbs were far from the spoken topic as he examined the bouquet with a careful eye. The amber petals, molded into a droplet-esque shape from the stretches of stamen that visually solidified the true core of the flowers, extended outwards towards the accompanying abundance and then curled inwards toward the green stem. The inner fabric of each petal were specked in bleeding, blurred patches of auburn and thrived upon a burnt orange sheen where the inner organs resided. Not able to find any apparent flaws after several short seconds, Elijah relaxed his hold on the collaborative stem of the bouquet, returning his full attention to his girlfriend's spoken words, though he still led the two towards the very heart of the shop in their leisurely pace while doing so. "What do they look like when they're in full bloom?" Elijah asked, a grin teasing his crooked mouth even more so, a lone corner of his lips curling upwards at Katie beside him. The two made their way around the corner and into the next impression of a conventional aisle, though much narrower than most and littered with the overgrown limbs of some that brushed past them as they walked, and Eli raised his eyebrows as he came across what he believed to be peonies, motioning towards the numerous bouquets, all bearing a different vibrant shade, with his own. "Show me," he requested, the smile stretching out across his facial features softening as his thumb grazed her palm once more.
Katie carefully eyed the white peonies with a cautious and deliberate crystal gaze as it rested harmlessly in a bucket, diminutive folds of cream congregating at the center of the blossom before it broadened outwards in exquisite creases of silk, revealing the heart of the flower; faint yellow teasing at the inverted crown as small buds rested at the center. The delicate collapses of petals that comprised the fragile peony held her attention for a moment more before she directed her attention to Elijah, who had expected an answer. Though a flower shop of all places was the least expected and still provided no explanation for their trip overall, she made no effort to push and decided that the ultimate meaning (whatever it would be) of the trip would resurface eventually, and probing would have done either any good. With a shrug of the shoulders, the brunette articulated knowingly, “Typically, when you can see the heart of the flower,” her finger pointed at the center of a single peony in a bunch that had seemed to be in full bloom already, “And the insides are yellow, and the petals closest to the center have spaced evenly enough,” she continued, her fingers idly touching the underbelly of the flower, it’s silk fabric cool to the touch, “It’s in full bloom,” she concluded, her azure orbs still observing the yellow flowers in Elijah’s hand, the petals shaped as teardrops overhanging from its material wrap. Katie pulled her boyfriend’s frame closer to hers, giving him a small smile before she asked politely, “What occasion might yellow lilies call for?” She inquired, her cerulean orbs holding Eli’s jade ones. “Show me,” she echoed.
Elijah feigned a deeply perplexed expression as Katie gladly elaborated, drawing a single, slender finger against the collaborative scene of peonies in various stages of development before the couple's critiquing gaze, all the while adorned by the other breeds of flowers plucking at the furthest outskirts of their specific orientation within the display stand. The first glimpse he caught of a peony in full bloom, withholding every minute detail that Katie verbalized within its own stature, Elijah couldn't help but allow his thoughts to wander back to the correlation of her words to the symbolism that he was being graced with at that very moment, his emerald orbs following a similar unrestrained tune as he carefully traced over Katie's angled profile, the slight connotations of their flourishing romance not too far from the strokes that he left upon her face. Mirroring her movements against the silk fabric of the flower a few steady counts of breath following her own, Eli drew his fingers across the smooth surface of the petals, savoring the contact before claiming the collaborative stem, bound and wrapped in a similar material to the lilies, in his other newly released hand, devoid of Katie's embrace. Seemingly satisfied with his decisions, Elijah paused mid-autonomous stride to face the brunette, any hints of a smile that had once clung to his outer facade melting away, leaving the dark-haired boy with a particular thought process that he had been avoiding the entire afternoon looming over his head and a probing gaze that he couldn't disregard from his counterpart. The flashes of her once dark hair against a backdrop of a timeless scene, one of which that constantly hosted said thought process were engrained on the back of his closing eyelids as Elijah moved forward towards Katie, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips to momentarily satiating her longing for answers that he couldn't yet provide. Turning to face a withering old man that had seemed to have lingered about the frontal portion of the shop for their entire visit, the greater expanse of his skull barren, lacking any significant patches of hair, but the grin that struggled to make itself known underneath the numerous folds of spotted skin making up for it in an oddly endearing fashion, Elijah offered him a polite grin, exchanging greetings with him as he approached the occupied cash register with the bouquets in hand. Laughing slightly at the elder's hurried motions as he inquired about the breed, fixated away from the two bouquets, Elijah was quick to continue his spoken thoughts, "White peonies and yellow lillies--a dozen each, I believe," he articulated, reaching into his back pant pocket for his wallet as he glanced back at Katie, offering his hand to her once more.
Katie elevated a single, lone eyebrow that protruded from its original fixated position on the delicate panes of her face, her cerulean orbs curiously dissecting Elijah’s demeanor once he had taken the bouquet of cream-colored peonies from its home and grasping it carefully in his hands. There was a disconcerted expression painted on her lips, her crystal gaze shifting from the silk peonies in his hand and the yellow lilies in the other, her mind calculating the possible significance of the latter, and drawing up a blank. The brunette mentally computed the couple’s entrance in the flower store, realizing that her counterpart most likely already had the intention of the yellow lilies—the manner in which Elijah had approached them wasn’t by mere coincidence. She shook her head jadedly and followed his lead; she paused her stance mid-stride when he angled his body towards her, an odd expression evident in the color of his eyes, and though he pressed a modest kiss to her lips, his thoughts seemed to be somewhere else. Katie blinked and nodded slowly, waving her hands in the air facetiously at her previous inquiry, knowing he wouldn’t tell her until he felt it was right. She rubbed her arms absentmindedly as she noiselessly trailed her boyfriend’s lead towards the crown of the flower shop, giving the owner a meek smile as he rang up the bouquet of flowers in Eli’s hands. The brunette glanced at the ostensibly barren street outside--though there were various silhouettes passing through the partition of the frame of the glass windows, she noted the murky smears caressing the gloomy canvas of the sky, as it had gotten noticeably darker than it had been formerly. Katie bit the inside of her cheeks as she craned her head towards the direction of the light conversation between the florist and her boyfriend, not hesitating as she once again tenderly clasped hands with him as she lightly caressed the base of his thumb with hers, a docile appearance drawn on her features as she commented shyly, “You didn’t have to get me the peonies, you know,” her face hiding in the crooked of his shoulders so that he couldn’t see her expression. “Thank you,” she murmured, giving him a kiss on his cheek as she eyed the silk flowers on the counter, her crystal orbs fixated on the golden blossoms in the paper bag. Katie once again gave the florist a polite smile and directed her attention on Elijah as he effortlessly carried the carrier of flowers in his free grasp. “Where to?” She asked gently, her frame inching towards his once again, noting the distance conveyed in his emerald fixation as they walked out the store, hands once again interlocked.
Elijah merely maneuvered the tightening mass of his jaws against Katie's gentle embrace to flash the florist a polite smile as their exchanged drew to a close, raising the outermost extents of his loitering fingers to loosely grasp onto the carrier's bounds before curling them into his palms in a much more secure hold, turning away from the crown of the flower shop with Katie's hand still enclosed in his own. "You're welcome, love," Eli softly returned, bracing his forearm, clad in a bunched portion of his dark shirt, against the propped door as it wavered from its initial position, allowing Katie to momentarily lead the couple back out onto the street before closing the door behind them in faint memory of the impending cold. Nibbling on the inner tissue of his cheek in contemplative thought, the visions of her hair curling against the most fleeting of backdrops still plaguing the most insignificant aspects of his thought process, Elijah directed his attention towards Katie's seemingly passive demeanor, having disregarded all of his previous attempts of avoiding their ultimate destination from all angles. Not wanting to deprive her any further, Elijah shrugged, still tugging at the rosy fabric with his teeth. "We're going to Pine Hills. Do you know what that is?" He added curiously, catching a minute glimpse of the lilies at his side, much to his dismay. Not waiting for a reply, Elijah led her down the remainder of the granite pavement, never once hesitating within a single stride as he guided the two into the more barren heart of the town where the canvas of a sky overhead only seemed to darken, rippled with the greyest of hues.
Katie deviated her crystal orbs towards the shadowy smears of gray that dawdled on the awning that loomed above them, the ancient sandstone beneath their feet parallel to the lack of color above, causing an ominous mood to settle at the core of her limbs. Exhaling air through her mouth and giving Elijah a supportive squeeze of his hand as they progressed down the course of the pavement, the brunette continued to survey her environment with meticulous gaze, every now and then glancing to her side to note her boyfriend’s demeanor. Though Katie paraded a flippant exterior, her inner thoughts seemed to exude one that of an unremitting buzz of incomprehensible thoughts—where were the going, and what was the connotation of the flowers that seemed to have bore more importance than they let on? Why weren’t they walking towards the car, and instead, away from it? Katie bit the tissue of the walls of her cheeks; her nose wrinkled as she pondered the possibilities of the day’s events, and once again drew a blank. The brunette opened her mouth to speak, but Elijah’s harmless inquiry caused her to pause, her dark eyebrows knitting in a firm line as she contemplated their destination—Pine Hills. Katie repeated the site a few times in her mind before she concluded with tangible definiteness that she didn’t know of it, or the magnitude it seemed to have held. Licking her lips slowly, she replied cautiously,” No,” she shook her head unhurriedly, her mouth drawing out the vowel with a precise feat, “I don’t. What’s at Pine Hills?” She asked guardedly, her gaze noting minute changes in his expression.
Elijah wasn't surprised to hear that she had never heard of the specific location until he had cared to mention it, a muted stream of what resembled relief trickling into the contents of his veins as he relaxed his increasingly tense, though masked in a neutral facade to an untrained eye, stature within her grasp, settling into the fibers of his being for as long as he could possibly hold onto the change in demeanor. While he watched the distant hints of greying sky ripple with outlandish streaks of accentuating purples and blues where the lack of saturation hadn't yet reached the surface of the canvas, briefly noting how the outstretched limbs of barren trees that littered the cracking pavement contrasted the collective scene above, bringing out the more unapparent patches of color that constantly went unnoticed without a stark aspect to differentiate the collaborative atmosphere. Pondering aloud a response to her cautious inquiry in return to his own, Elijah ran his thumb across the smooth course of her hand, his emerald orbs shifting to fixate on the speck of a cross in the distance, the center of the intersection adorned in a thick ring of stone against the surface of the sky. "Everything," he answered simply, though conscious of how his reply would still bear no obvious value to her in the moments that followed, but Eli squeezed her hand enclosed in his own encouragingly anyway as they continued their pace towards the growing figure in the distance. "I want you to meet someone," he added somewhat somberly, the expression etched into his set facial features softening as he glanced towards his counterpart, judging her reaction to his words.
Katie tapered her cerulean orbs together so that her expression bore one comparable to that of a feline’s, her fixation still directed at Elijah for a moment’s more before she shrugged, and raised a rogue eyebrow when he had indicated they were going to meet someone. She appeased her expression slightly and grazed the curvature of her nail across the flesh of her counterpart’s patch of skin uncertainly, and shook a foreboding sentiment that laced the air, an unseen force that she couldn’t evade. Katie assessed the immediate area once more, the granite roadway elongating farther down the street from what she noted as the canopy of muddled shades of indistinct blues, purples, and blacks swirled in an impenetrable blur, making it difficult to decipher where one flush of color started and the other began. Katie and Elijah’s steps were nearly in unison as their steps battered evenly on the sidewalk, and though there was a moment of stillness that dawned amid the couple, she felt as if the two were residing in an undisclosed disc of silent understanding, and although she didn’t recognize the proceedings that were unfolding before her, a response that settled in the pit of her stomach told her that she would soon. Shivering as she bit her bottom lip in deliberation, she chatted cautiously, “Tell me about them,” and focused her vision at the fragment of what seemed to be perhaps an edifice they seemed to be approaching, though it was too remote for her to make any solid verdicts about what their destination was. Katie caught sight of Eli’s raven-colored hair in the midst of what seemed to be a lackluster setting braced with the dreary canvas of the sky and the never-ending stretch of pavement as she glanced sideways and offered him a small smile, her azure orbs encouraging his jade ones.
Elijah didn't hesitate to oblige to her wishes, though the apprehensive bout within her own demeanor required a second, more probing glance, eyebrows furrowed and stitched into a troubling line above the narrowed gaze and all. Laughing suddenly as the fleeting motions within his recollection gradually began to surface once more, claiming the outermost layer of his conscious mind, as if to persuade himself to think otherwise of their particular significance, Elijah's teeth sunk into the rosy tissue of his lower lip mercilessly, the fabric bearing a more yellow shade underneath his secured grasp. He lowered his eyes to trace over the blurring motions underneath him, the darker portions of the pavement from an earlier rain also fashioning the numerous cracks in the pavement that he had been so drawn to, the rise and sink of the granite never too far from home, contemplating where he could begin to explain the contents of his being, the nostalgic content coursing through his veins. "Well, you already know them--in a way, I suppose," he began without any sense of direction, exhaling deeply soon after. "It's Julia," Elijah elaborated abruptly, offering Katie a small glance. "Do you remember her?"
Katie pursed her lips in a hushed moment of deliberation, though she knew instantaneously that Julia was his first girlfriend, from eighth grade, from what she recalled from a conversation with him a while back. Nodding slowly before she stayed noiseless for a little while longer, Katie articulated, “Yes,” she paused, to survey his demeanor before she continued nonchalantly, “I remember her.” The brunette deviated her attention to the pavement beneath her shoes which had grown to become more extensively jagged, causing her to take a few large steps around the cracks on the granite that resembled bleeding veins that invaded the smooth surface before she averted her attention to Elijah beside her who seemed to be curiously eyeing her. With a shrug of her shoulders to veil the countless questions that threatened to bubble from her lips, she casually asked, “Does she live around here?” Katie pursed her lips and caught prospect of the bright golden blossoms Elijah carried at his side and mulled the connection to Julia and the flowers, fighting an irrational, inward groan as she failed to piece the answers together, though she oddly felt the explanations were as clear as day.
Elijah didn't know how to feel when Katie confirmed his jolted beliefs, stating that she did in fact remember Julia, and based on the facade that she chose to bear as he narrowed his emerald orbs suspiciously, clad in her own everlasting significance to him as well--his first girlfriend. Frowning slightly but doing nothing whatsoever to pause and address Katie's suddenly quiet presence within his own, Elijah refocused his gaze on the curvature of the marker in the distance that bore the name of the location, Pine Hills Cemetery, in neat, uniform lettering--Elijah capable of comprehending the blurred acknowledgment from such a distance, some meters away, due to his perpetual visits, or so he presumed before returning his attention to the spoken matter once more. Eli swallowed the monument of a lump forming in the back of his throat, the hand of the embrace tightening around the unseen interior of his flickering eyelids as well, before answering in the best way that he could while his wandering gaze murmured of another alternative reply. "Something like that," he regretfully inhaled, attempting to calm himself before such a trial presented itself to him, but it quickly proved futile as the marker grew more and more apparent as the couple approached the lot, distinguishable against an assortment of shrubbery that claimed similar hues to the canvas overhead for their collective self, a meek lining of burnt brick cast underneath it to contain the abundance of ironic life. His thumb still working over the course of her hand, Elijah briefly took note of the change in pavement beneath their feet, the transition of cracked, greying pavement to a warmer pattern of red and beige stones against the lush grass that clung to the expanse of the lot not going unnoticed beneath them before Elijah slowed to a stop, expecting a reaction from Katie before continuing on, bouquets in hand. "Pine Hills," he announced in an even tone, motioning towards the sign that was now much too clear in his opinion with the carrier.
/me shrugged nonchalantly at Elijah’s indistinct reply, her thoughts settling on nothing in particular as she eyed the serrated fissures that infiltrated the barren surface of the pavement, previous bouts of rain darkening blotches of the granite beneath her feet. She sought odd comfort in the silence that had inhabited the atmosphere between the two with mute tenacity, though she had a momentary sentiment that the eerie stillness would be a mere fleeting moment. Katie shook her head jadedly, the lack of words amid the two unexpectedly irking her, causing her to part the folds of her mouth in a demanding stance, but knit her eyebrows together in clear confusion when the comprehensible sight of a lot adorned in bottle green shrubs and trees with specks of red and pinks embellishing the branches caused her to pause midstride. Wrinkling her nose in taciturn bewilderment, she instinctively followed Elijah’s lead as she impulsively clutched onto his hand, though her crystal fixation was analyzing her unpredicted neighboring environment, her orbs dancing on some sort of an indication that verified her beliefs as the extensive open area of land hid behind metal gates. The brunette failed to repress a startling shiver as the sight of outsized, golden lettering behind a backdrop of russet brick and concrete read, “Pine Hills Cemetery,” encasing the open area of road that presumably the cemetery had enclosed. Katie swallowed a hasty spell of nausea as she evaluated the precise, even lettering of the marker and read it three times before she surveyed the rest of the locale, the expanse of the cemetery elongating to either sides of the vicinity. Clearing her throat as the dull pavement previously beneath her feet transitioned to the blatant surface of block and concrete, she gave Elijah a feeble squeeze of his hand before her orbs glanced at the golden trim of flowers at his side: the flowers were for Julia. Julia was at the cemetery. Another eerie shiver plagued Katie’s spine as a chilly wind wisped past her arms as a knowing expression dawned on the ivory contours of her face, her cerulean fixation staring into Elijah’s emerald orbs, though her thoughts reconciled elsewhere. Gritting her teeth and sensing the odd awareness of an invisible bristling that teased the sides of her face and her arms, Katie murmured, “Julia’s here,” though it was posed in a form of a clear statement rather than a question as she quietly added, “Can I see her?” The brunette’s azure gaze maneuvered about as she mutely observed the environment, the bright green grass overhung the crooked metal of the fence, and the identical shrubs to the one next to it lined evenly next to the marker that overlooked the adjacent street. Though there was an obvious façade that masked Katie’s authentic expression, and in this case—sheer consternation, her thoughts managed to piece together what little parts she already knew. Julia, being Elijah’s first girlfriend had clearly meant a lot to him—what had happened to her? Why was the cemetery within a decent distance from Elijah’s home? The churn of unanswered questions with little answers plagued her mind so much that the regions at the sides of her temples started to ache and she groaned inwardly. Katie hastily inhaled to ask her counterpart another question, but split her train of thought when there was a conspicuous expression of sedateness that overtook the marble panes of Elijah’s face. Nodding calculatingly as she bit the bottom tissue of her lips, she emitted tenderly, “I’m right here,” and offered him a feeble smile.
Elijah’s dizzying spell of nostalgia coursing through his veins only wavered beneath Katie's mute deliberation, the repetitive motions of her crystal gaze never once going unnoticed as she attempted to solidify her own pegging beliefs, or so he presumed from where he stood beside the brunette, the hints of recollection tickling the marrow of his bones where it had escaped the rusting confines of his mind and prospered, meekly tugging at the very filament that lined his being, corner to corner, ashes to ashes. Licking over the folds of his lips before speaking, Elijah exhaled his tense curvature in a single, drawled breath, his thumb still moving against the curve of Katie's hand as he drew in yet another dreaded breath. "Serving Scarborough since 1928," he continued, hoping that the insignificant details that he spoke of would allow her the moments necessary to recompose herself and determine whether or not she wanted to enter the bounds of the cemetery with him. "Fully functional with a Veterans' section, a Visitation Centre that includes a chapel among other necessities, and the Mausoleum of the Risen Christ. Any questions?" Elijah continued somewhat inappropriately, stretching into a dramatic, emphasizing tone as soon as he had mentioned the mausoleum, releasing Katie's hand in exchange for loosely wrapping his unoccupied arm around her shoulders. Pausing to stitch his eyebrows together into a tight, yet still furrowed line at Katie's reiterating statement of Julia's location, the raven-haired boy's demeanor softened as he absorbed the subtle reasoning as to why she would feel the need to ask when he had so brazenly invited her without much of an explanation threading the two's mutual understanding of the situation to one another. His hand traveling back up the expanse of her figure to trace over the chilled skin that her neck had wrought, Elijah retraced his movements to gently place his palm against the curve of her neck as he nodded slowly, his gaze flickering to ghost over the folds of her lips before he moved forward to claim them in a gradual kiss that, as per usual, never lasted as long as Eli would have liked it to. "I want you to," he murmured against her mouth, savoring the provincial aura that Elijah had grown so fond of while it lingered about the tip of his tongue, the blushing fabric of his lips, before reluctantly pulling back from her embrace once more, though still entangled in her own existence beside him and within his hold. Elijah silently urged her willingness to progress further into the lot to surface with a shift in glance, assuming that such inquiries were confirmation enough in regards to his pressing, gradual stride. The lush stretches of grass that illuminated the outermost extents of the pathway, diverging at a common point some feet away from the two to the areas that Elijah had earlier specified aloud, were decorated in a much more somber abundance of flowers in an irregular pattern upon the flourishing beds where grey was already beginning to show through, monumental slabs of granite protruding through the leveled ground at nonspecific points throughout the cemetery abroad. Glancing Katie's way once more, a facade that bore neutrality to their surroundings no longer apparent and clinging to his progressing figure, Elijah pulled the brunette a little closer into his side, offering her a small smile to compensate for the unsettling atmosphere. "You're the first person that I've ever brought here," he admitted in a quiet voice, sighing soon after.
Katie distractedly eyed the bouquet of flowers with an oddly methodical gaze as the golden and creamy silk petals stood in austere contrast to the tedious backdrop that the provinces of the cemetery had wrought, the cloudy canvas of the sky ostensibly gloomier than had she had previously perceived it, the dismal composites of bleak grays with patches of rare color providing a more eerie atmosphere. The profound vicinity situated at the heart of the cemetery had demonstrated to exude a monotonous atmosphere, and though there were signs of life that peeked from under the wedges of salt and pepper colored concrete and the historical brick edifices that uprooted from the moist dirt and bright green grass underneath it, the looming, ominous mood was palpable as the couple progressed the remaining trail that presumably led to Julia. Katie parted the folds of her lips to murmur something to Elijah that held no specific importance, but paused as he went on to introduce the confines of the cemetery, a weary tone hinted at his voice initially but his preface to the historical monuments and locales in the cemetery grew to be dramatic, and almost amused and nonchalant manner tugging at his seemingly harmless words. The brunette bit the base of her mouth, knitting her eyebrows in silent agitation for his behavior at hand—they were at a cemetery of all places; the undamaging dramatic conduct he paraded wasn’t helping her alleviate her unease that seemed to seep through her veins and percolate to the pores of her sinew. Instead of snapping at him, she exhaled cool air through her nose and lifted her chin towards the sky, the ageless streaks of the sky still dreary as it was before. Katie shook her head no, her thoughts still muddled and unconsciously piecing back the unanswered questions that protruded from the most conscious portions of her mind, her body still adjusting to being in the presence of such an eerie atmosphere. She drew semicircles on the barren flesh of Elijah’s patches of skin with the camber of her nail, her cerulean gaze angled at the ground, though she wasn’t staring at anything in particular. “You’ve been here a lot,” she affirmed, though the statement didn’t have very much meaning to it, as she was verbalizing her internal thoughts. “Enough to give me a historic background on the monuments here,” she articulated, her free hand idly grazing the surface of a lone marble edifice, swirls of cream-colored marble constructed from the moist ground beneath her sneakers. “How often do you visit?” She asked; her tone much softer and cautious than it had been prior. Katie appeased her expression as Elijah gently traced the outward panes that her collarbone had fashioned, his emerald gaze locked on her cerulean ones as he leaned in to claim her lips in a quick kiss, and though the movements of their lips against one another in a tender embrace was enough for her to feebly fight a silent moan, it wasn’t enough. So when he murmured against the flushed canvas of her lips that she wanted her to see Julia, she couldn’t help but sigh and nod as their lips brushed, her tousled curls of hair cascading down her back freely as a lone gush of wind surged past the open area of the cemetery. The brunette dazedly followed her counterparts lead through the lush grass, swirls of concrete, granite, and brick edifices manifesting themselves at every turn, her lithe legs half a step behind Eli, who seemed to have had better luck maneuvering himself through the meandering pathway. The ashen colored headstones shaped in different heights and widths that littered the outskirts of the path the couple had taken were faced with crisp blades of grass, the barren segment of concrete peeking from underneath the endless threads of green. Katie recoiled into herself at the sight of the disquieting setting, the crowns of either sides of her mouth curling into a slight, modest smile as Eli’s frame inched closer towards hers, his quiet comment residing at the utmost conscious partition between awareness and subliminal as she nodded unwearyingly, replying, “You trust me enough to bring me here when you didn’t have to,” she expressed, her voice breaking slightly towards the end of her words. “Thank you,” she articulated, inwardly debating the topic of Julia and her possible impact on Eli’s life. The brunette averted her attention to the bright green beneath her feet, the outwardly only source of constantly color between the murky shell of the sky and the dreary slabs of concrete and brick surrounding them, the small specks of color that fashioned from the flowers next to the headstones visible ever so often. Katie licked the folds of her lips before she paused mid-stride, her free hand on either side of her to stop their stride as she voiced, “You know whatever you say, I’ll listen, right?” She inquired, a childlike expression painted on the facets of her face as she added, “That no matter what happens, I’ll just be here?” She gave him a small, reassuring nod as she didn’t wait for a reply, continuing on the snaking path the concrete underneath them had wrought.
Elijah found himself imitating the own stretch in expression upon his own face as Katie flashed a humble grin his way, outwardly pleased with his honest confession, as the two wandered down the extent of the stone path, their dreary surroundings acting as nothing but a blurred, insignificant backdrop to the words that would follow for as long as they could drawl each and every syllable, lost in the other's gravitational force that merely pleaded with their straying limbs to remain. Elijah bore a furrowed shift in demeanor once more, not able to comprehend the particular instance of the moment that the brunette beside him had briefly grasped herself (or so she had thought) as their pace slowed. "Of course I trust you that much. Was that not obvious?" He inquired in return to her soft-spoken words of thanks, puzzled as to why such a thing would be up for a debate, at least in her own mind as she voiced her inner thoughts and concerns aloud. Not wanting to disrupt what transition to the gloomy heart of the cemetery that they had already established, Elijah allowed the topic to pass without any further prodding from himself, allowing his emerald green gaze to stray from her synced figure lingering about the space within his arms to instead take note of the variety of grave markers and headstones that adorned the slab of land they were currently making their way through, the overgrown appendages of various plants wrapping around the more solidified aspects of each and every grave as if it was necessity, granite cowering beneath the staggering hold of a collaborative vein clutching onto the surface of the material everywhere he glanced. Elijah was quick to oblige to Katie's halting motion, though still fashioning a confused expression etched into his facial features, darkening what the dreary sky above had already illuminated in the various contours and shallow indents his ivory skin typically wore, curiously eyeing her as she questioned the content of his consciousness and understanding of how the following moments would proceed. "Of course, yeah," he said in what he had hoped to come across as a neutral tone, paired with a just as leveled voice, but his hopes proved futile. An abrupt crumbling of what resided as the outermost shell of his composure, a typical feat of every visit to that particular ground that he wasn't fond of in the slightest, Elijah offered her a small, polite grin before they continued down the path, narrowing as it diverged into several paths once again, the latter thirds of the split of the pavement leading to the Visitation Centre and the Veterans' Section. Swallowing the lump that had announced its presence once more within the bounds of his throat, Elijah directed the couple towards the farthest path on the left that, accounting for the curling slope of the terrain beneath their shuffling feet as well, provided an excellent view of the section in which Julia rested, the raven-haired boy's gaze already settling on her particular marker in the distance from memory. He couldn't be sure if he was simply humoring himself or not, but he could have sworn to see a fresh abundance of flowers strewn across the expanse of her plot, a rare occurrence. Julia's father was the only other person that visited her other than Elijah, he was sure of that--her stepmother had never once shown her honorary daughter an ounce of sympathy for as long as she and Julia's father had been together, which wasn't long--the man had divorced her within the same week that Julia had passed, a bittersweet truth that Eli had never been sure how to feel towards. Averting his gaze from their fixation on the blurred pavement running beneath her feet, Elijah glanced towards Katie once more, softly inquiring, "Are you alright?"
Katie advanced towards the meandering pathway, wedges of concrete shielded by overgrown patches of green thistle and weed underneath her shoes, various crowns of headstones peeking beyond the head of the soil as the assorted tinge of ancient rock and concrete littered the wide expanse of the cemetery, a momentary flurry of breeze causing the snaking daggers of grass to eerily sway grimly, the elastic limbs caressing the bare surface of the concrete. The brunette’s gem gaze trailed the varied silhouette of the many headstones engraved with uniform print, wondering what nature of the stories each plot of land had held, and suddenly valued the essence of human life for an ephemeral moment before she inched her frame towards Elijah, her hands seeking relief in his own. Biting the inside of her cheeks before mutely surveying the surrounding segments of dark colored slate with a wary eye, she nodded encouragingly at his inquiry and gave him a light clasp of his hand to reiterate this notion, her cerulean gaze dancing on the dissimilar wedges of concrete as she followed her counterpart’s general line of sight, his emerald orbs fixated on a certain headstone. Katie set her teeth so hard that her jaws began to ache, her free hand clenched to alleviate her winding apprehension, to no avail—she narrowed her eyes to focus on the profile of a dark marble gravestone out in the distance. Elijah’s emerald orbs, speckled with minuscule fragments of charcoal, held an introverted expression, the marble contours of his face flushed of color beneath the lackluster canopy of dye above them. “Are you alright?” Katie raised, concern drawn palpably drawn on the lines of her face. “I’m right here,” she repeated, her orbs gazing at the remote headstone a few paces away as she speculated the nature of her story, the desolate backdrop giving her another shudder.
Elijah nodded slowly as if to reiterate his own capability to continue, though his emerald orbs remained fixated on the slab of granite in the distance as the repetitive motions rolled onward, unmistakably familiar and distinguishable from the orientation alone upon the bed of lush grass, swaying against the winter chill accordingly and plucking at the very outskirts of the particular plot of land. The blades of grass danced about the assortment of flowers that were perched on her curve of the grounds, the fresh (Elijah had deduced, due to their vibrant nature) variety of colors and hues contrasting the bleak canvas of a sky overhead that trickled down the outer walls of the dome enclosing the resting place with dark blotches of grey. Elijah merely tugged at Katie's hand as he had been for the better part of the afternoon, clad in an engrossed demeanor that pushed graciously against the fleshy strips of his heels, propelling him forward with the brunette's hand still in his own, leading the two from the pavement to the finely-trimmed grass that bent and curled away from their heavy, intruding steps. The nostalgia that had once settled within the marrow of his bones gradually began to stir within him as the headstone expanded before his eyes, clarifying underneath his narrowed scope as they moved closer. The spell that was dizzying the contents of his mind plucked at the course of his scarred palm abruptly, Elijah swiftly obliging to its silent urging and setting the carrier down beside the width of the filmed granite slab, his hand instantly enclosing the upper rounded curve of the material without a hint of hesitation plaguing the aching filament of his being. "Hey," he breathed, the slightest of grins already teasing the folds of his lips as he crouched down besides the marker, all sense seeming to have left him as the smile upon his marble face broadened.
Katie scanned the rounded contours of the headstone with calculated pairs of azure eyes, the salt and pepper colored granite facing her, unvarying rows of letters indicating Julia’s name, birth date, among other pieces of information the brunette mulled over before crouching on the immediate, untouched soil of earth underneath her, her fingers still interlocked with Eli’s as he clasped his hold on the smooth concrete, offering a small smile that toyed on his lips without faltering. She blinked her crystal fixation on the tombstone once more, the uttermost awareness that resided in the farthest remnants of her brain preoccupied with reflection that pertained to Julia, and how deep her love ran for the boy who nonchalantly spoke to the marker as if it were a real person. Though there was an attentive demeanor in which the brunette’s body had implicated, her thoughts were in a wild flurry that it was difficult to identify where one thought had commenced and where the other had concluded. Though answers were divulged in the short time span of the couple finally arriving at their destination, such as the importance of the flowers and the relevance of the cemetery, there were fissures that pertained to Julia and Elijah’s relationship, and how the relevance of the location they currently inhabited had anything to do with Eli’s upbringing and the impact on the person that sat before her presently. Katie bit the inside of her mouth and distractedly tugged on the blades of grass that littered the patch of ground underneath her willowy frame before she gave her counterpart a gentle squeeze of his hand. “Hi,” she chimed in submissively, a meek expression painted on the delicate panes of her face as she lowered her head, her fingers toying with the terrain beneath her.
No one hated after-school activities more than Katie Matlin. No one. Even despite the fact that she was involved in three of them. Most students at Degrassi were involved in one or another, mostly just for the socializing aspect. Katie had absolutely no interest in that part of them. She just wanted them to look pretty on her college applications. Anything to give her an edge and make her look better than the people she was competing against for a spot. She wasn't exactly positive where she wanted to attend yet, but she knew she wanted to get the hell away from Toronto. The dark haired girl rolled her eyes as she exited the girl's locker room. Her hair was still damp after soccer practice but she couldn't stand being around the cheerleaders filing in the crowded and humid space for one more second. Anyways, she had bigger fish to fry. All she was concerned with was getting this date (she used the word date extremely loosely, even in her own thoughts) over with.
To say that Katie was confused about Eli Goldsworthy's sudden interest in her was an understatement. The two barely even knew each other. They had a couple classes together in the past but, besides that, he was a complete stranger. He never attempted to even so much as befriend her in the past. Not even a simple 'Hey Matlin, can I borrow a pencil?' So, his sudden interest in wanting to take her out, let alone speak to her, left her completely befuddled. And annoyed. Really annoyed. Especially his persistence. If it wasn't for him, she'd be getting in her car to go home and edit articles for The Degrassi Daily. She wouldn't be headed towards The Dot to be around more of the people that annoyed her to her core.
Katie parked her car around the block so she could have a moment to be alone with her thoughts as she walked to the busy café that seemed to be a favorite for Degrassi's least desirables. She had ran into Eli before 7th period and agreed to meet him there if he promised never to talk to her afterwards. Her intent was to stay just long enough to make him realize that she had absolutely no interest in him whatsoever. Her slender fingers ran aggravatedly through her hair, ruffling her dark bangs as she entered the building. She casually tuned into some conversations—most including the phrases 'oh my god' or 'he is so hot'. A scoff escaped from her lips as she approached the counter raising her eyebrows at the boy working furiously to get orders right. "Um, can I just have a medium black coffee?" she asked, fishing some money out of her back pocket. She heard him make a comment about how her soul was blacker than any coffee he could possibly serve her which gave her some weird pleasure. "Thanks," she said, giving him a fake sweet smile, exchanging the money for the cup. After turning on her heels, she narrowed her dark blue eyes, scanning the busy room for Eli but not noticing him in the crowd of people.
Start Of Something New || Keli (scriptedgoldsworthy).
Tucking a dark lock of her hair behind her ear, Katie entered her English class. Her blue eyes darted around as she searched for an empty seat. Only two were left over—neither of them really seeming like a prime location. One was right behind the new love birds Drew and Bianca. Even if that seemed like an option, the other brunette noticed her glancing their way and quickly set her bag on the empty seat. The other open seat was in the back corner, surrounded by people that she had never talked to before. "Take a seat, Miss Matlin," Ms. Dawes spoke, gently nudging the girl's shoulder. She nodded and sighed as she made her way to the back of the classroom and plopped down in the vacant seat.
"Okay class," Ms Dawes began. Katie stopped listening before the teacher even began saying anything important, opening up her notebook and flipping through the worn pages as she looked for a blank one. Her ears perked up when she heard giggling from the other side of the class. She peaked up from her notebook and glanced over at the source—Bianca Desousa. An immediate reaction erupted from her as she ripped a piece of paper out of the notebook before crinckling it up and aiming it directly at the girl's head. "Miss Matlin!" Ms Dawes scolded, glaring right at the teen. Katie shrunk in her desk, her cheeks turning a tomato red. "I - I, um...," she stumbled over her words, not being able to explain herself. "I'm sorry." Her teacher shook her head and let out a sigh. "Don't let it happen again."
Katie wanted to disappear. By now, the entire school knew about what had transpired between her and Drew. Even her teachers knew about her immature sabotage attempt. The fact that Ms Dawes was taking pity upon her wasn't really comforting. It just made her feel sad. Pathetic. Wrong. Instead of getting lost inside of her own mind, she kept her brain carefully focused on the words drifting from the front of the room instead of anything going on around her. Some assignment, project, was being explained. When it was announced that everyone would have to pair up, Katie's arm immediately shot up. She hated working with other people. She'd much rather just do everything herself. Ms Dawes must have known what her request was going to be because she looked directly at her. "Sorry, Miss Matlin, but no negotiating. You can't work alone." The raven haired girl crossed her arms over her chest before sulking low into her seat.
