Still Loving You

Part 7

The alarm went off and Elizabeth groaned out loud. She had barely slept, unable to stop the movie that was her past with Eddie playing in her mind. Slowly sitting up, she placed her head in her hands. Her eyes felt swollen shut and horribly dry and her head was absolutely pounding. She wanted nothing more than to cocoon herself in her blanket but she had work today.

Dragging herself out of bed, she gathered her things and walked down to the showers. After her shower, she looked in the mirror and audibly gasped. Her eyes were bloodshot and horribly puffy. Her skin was blotchy, red patches covering every square inch of her face. She looked like hell, but she just couldn't bring herself to care enough to bother with makeup. What did it matter?

Throwing on jeans and a striped tee, she headed back to her room to grab her purse. Robin was just getting out of bed. She took one look at Elizabeth and couldn't hide the shock on her face.

"Jesus," she commented. "Don't take this the wrong way. You know I love you but you look like shit. Are you sure you don't want me to cover your shift today?"

"No," Elizabeth responded, shaking her head. "Thank you, but I have got to get out of here and keep myself busy. I need something to get my mind off last night. If I stay here, I am just going to dwell all day."

"Okay. Well, if you get there and decide it's too much, just give me a call. I'll be here most of the day getting caught up on schoolwork. I may have procrastinated a bit too much this past week and now I am paying for it with my Saturday. I can come in and cover for you if you need."

"Thanks, I don't know what I would do without you," Elizabeth said, giving her a quick hug.

"Clearly, lapse into an emotional coma you may never wake from."

"You're so funny. I'm going to head downstairs. Steve should be here any minute."

They said bye and Elizabeth headed downstairs and out of the dorm, walking across the campus to the parking lot. Steve often picked her and Robin up when they worked together. It was just easier and she didn't have a car. Most of the places she needed to get to, she could just walk. She sometimes walked to work when it was decent out but she wouldn't be able to muster the energy for that today if she tried.

She heard a horn and glanced up to see Steve's burgundy BMW coming around the corner. She waved to him as he pulled up and walked around the side of the car, hopping into the passenger seat.

"Goddamn!" Steve exclaimed, cringed as caught sight of her face.

"Gee, thanks asshole," she muttered, slamming the car door and setting her purse on her lap. "I am well aware that I look like hell. I don't need you to remind me."

"I'm sorry," he said, quickly trying to backtrack. "I didn't mean it like that. You know you're always gorgeous. Just, did you get any sleep last night?"

"Not really."

"Is he..."

"Look, I don't want to talk about him anymore," she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose to try to ease her pounding skull. "Can we please just go to work and do our jobs and not talk about it? I just want to forget I ever saw him and get back to normal."

She reached over and cranked the radio up and turned to look out the window, shutting down the possibility of conversation. They were silent the whole ride to work. She felt bad because she knew Steve meant well. He had been there for her all through college, celebrating the good stuff and drying her tears through the bad stuff. She just couldn't deal with any of this right now.

When they got to work, she opened the door and immediately went to the returns box and started shelving movies. Steve went into the back to work on inventory. She kept going back and forth between watching to talk it out with Steve and wanting to just be left alone with her thoughts.