𝘚𝘖𝘕𝘋𝘌𝘙 ⁽ʲ ᵐᵒˡⁱⁿᵃ⁾

𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠-𝘍𝘖𝘜𝘙

The plan was put into place.

If everything went to plan, today was the last day Elise would be able to hold any hope at all. Tomorrow would determine the rest of her days - alive or dead, with or without Julie, misery or happy ending.

Elise found herself back in the the last place she wanted to be, for reasons much different than when she was alive. The memories hurt too much, and to her oblivious family she was simply gone. She had no idea how they would be taking it, what they would think. But she knew for a fact that her absence would at least be registered, no matter how it would be interpreted. 

What she wasn't expecting when she apparated at the foot of her bed was to immediately be greeted by the sight of a certain blonde. Elise was frozen still, eyes locked on the girl in front of her who's hunched shoulders shook violently in silent sobs. She sat on top of Elise's sheets, which were almost untouched since the last time she resided in them, along with the rest of the trinkets in her room. Lifeless, frozen. As if they were ghosts too.

Her phone sat where she'd left in on her nightstand, right next to a porcelain horse figurine. 

"Elise," she managed to make out as her sister began mumbling, near incoherent. For a single second, she thought Carrie had understood her presence. This shock was immediately dissuaded as she continued. "I'm so, so sorry. This is- this is all my fault." 

Tears pricked at her own eyes, Elise didn't notice they'd begun falling until her vision was blurred and the drops landed on her hands. She wanted to wrap the girl in her arms and tell her it was all okay, that she would never leave her. Is that what they thought? That she ran away?

Elise took a step forward and lowered herself to sit beside her sister, unable to look away from her tear stained cheeks and cloudy eyes. 

"I love you, Lisa, please come back." A whimper escaped her lips and her sobs increased. Elise swallowed thickly. She remembered the nicknames they'd given each other when they were little, which hadn't been used in quite some time. A pain went through her heart.

"I love you too, Ria. I didn't mean to leave. I'm still right here." Though she knew for a fact that Carrie couldn't hear her, something on her face changed. As if she'd had a sudden realization, her tears stopped for a brief moment, and the tiniest trace of a smile lingered at the corners of her lips. 

She could have sworn, for just a moment, that their eyes met. 

After almost a week of being nothing, she'd somehow lost the will to try simply for herself. But for Julie, and for her sister, Elise would go to the ends of the earth to return to them.

She sat beside Carrie for a while, listening broken-hearted as she repeated apologies that were not needed, occasionally responding, until she was curled into a ball on top of the covers - fast asleep. This peace was not nearly as peaceful as the last one she'd witnessed, not with the remnants of tragedy and a broken frown etched on her face. Still, it would be good for her.

Elise leaned down to kiss her forehead softly, wishing her happiness at least in her dreams, and tore herself from what once was her bedroom.

She decided against paying her father a visit, per the irrational fear that he would not even notice her absence - or care. He'd caused her far too much hurt, though redemption was not out of the question.

Though she could simply reappear back in the studio, she wandered through the large corridors of her childhood home. This could be the last time she really felt even the slightest sense of belonging within these walls. She savored it, taking mental pictures of the tiniest scratches on the floor and the chipped glass table tops - all evidence off the relationship Elise and Carrie used to have.