They send their suitcases home and only carry wallets and a single cellphone.
Ellie knows she shouldn't be doing this. She knows that her life has been a series of messes and solutions filled with superglue and duct tape, that she can't keep running and running because it'll all eventually catch up to her.
But she's only nineteen.
She's only nineteen and has never had a mother figure in her life, a healthy breakup, or a single idea on what she's supposed to do that doesn't include everyone else's visions. That must give her a get-out-of-fail-free card on never being able to deal with her problems. It must excuse the fact she's not really brave or good or anything.
Her mother's upset--angry even. "Ellie, my god, what happened last night," she asking, with some feeling in her voice that Ellie's never heard. "Haley told me you yelled at her and David's mother said she cried for an hour."
"I'm sorry," she replies, almost robotically.
Holly Sheridan is sighing. "I know this is hard for you but . . . she's just a kid. She doesn't deserve any anger or resentment you have towards me."
That just riles her up because it's not fair for her to say that when she was just a kid once too.
"I wish you'd never invited me."
"You don't mean that."
Ellie's leaning against the door of the small bathroom of the train, ignoring the fact it's the most unsanitary thing in the world. She'll be washing her hands for an hour while crying anyways. "Mum, I know you've grown and you're different but . . . I hate you for what you did."
The line is silent and Ellie's crying. There's no way her mother isn't able to hear it because they're loud breath-stealing sobs, making her feel like she's gasping for some answer that'll never arrive.
When her mother speaks, her head is spinning and she's ready to throw up. "I'm sorry, baby," she whispers, the little nickname making Ellie's skin crawl. "I'm so sorry."
Ellie hangs up and throws up her breakfast in the toilet.
Once she's washed her face and texted her dad and Isla to make sure they know she's alright, she posts the picture she'd gotten the man sitting behind James and her to take. Ellie finds it funny how fast she's been able to move on from the incident--well, maybe moving on isn't right. She's suppressed it enough that it'll only reappear in a decade or two during some therapy session.
James is doing some crossword while she picks at her blue nails that remind her of her papa's eyes (not her father's or aunt Emma's or even Hugh's, this is specifically the Nathaniel Sawyer blue). She misses her grandfather like she misses waking up early on Sundays and eating unhealthily sweet cereal while watching Arthur on T.V, and her dad wandering in an hour later to do the same until the clock struck ten. He's growing old and she's still so young and that'll end up ruining her in an irreversible way one day.
All she does is worry, overthink, and romanticise.
"Last Conservative President in Canada and a boy in a Taylor Swift song. Seven letters."
She glances up at him. "Stephen."
He writes it down and his lips quirk up in satisfaction, but when he glances back up at her, she can tell he knows she's upset.
Ellie thinks back to when he'd told her two nights ago, about how he could just feel her thoughts buzzing and she knows that it's the loudest it's ever been at this moment. So, they stare and stare with so many feelings but nobody says anything.
YOU ARE READING
fundamentals of love ; james sirius potter
Fanfiction❛everything we do is just so we can be loved a little more.❜ ellie and james are heartbroken and terrible at love. but as summer begins and they find themselves constantly bumping into each other, they're both realizing they have a lot to learn a...
