Harrison Avenue // H.S.

The Thing About Elle

Hi, guys! I'm going to write here before this starts only because this one is different than what I've been doing here. We're going to go back in time even further than when Grey Street happened... and we're going to get a different person's perspective than we have.

So no Harry in this one. I know that sounds weird but I've been wanting to write this one for the last few weeks now, and that's what I've decided to do.

I hope you'll still enjoy it. PLEASE tell me what you think.

...

[Matt]

Here's the thing about Elle... she doesn't care.

She doesn't care if anyone smiles, hell, even acknowledges her in the hallway at school where she consistently holds a scowl on her face that I think is telling of how we all actually feel on the inside. She doesn't care that our chemistry teacher, Mrs. Hallman, has been riding her ass for the last month to actually put time into our lab experiments instead of blowing her way through them like she does. Elle always finds a way to prove her wrong with this too because she'll finish assignments in half of the time as everyone else with near perfect results.

She also calls Mrs. Hallman, Mrs. Hellman because if Elle is going to push someone's buttons she goes all out.

Elle doesn't care that Tamara has it out for her, which is something that I'm not sure I understand myself. She doesn't care that everyone else in high school treats every little moment like it's going to hold some significant importance in the rest of our lives and I think it's because unlike all of us she's already realized high school only matters so much. And she doesn't care that I've purposely saved the seat next to mine at the lunch table for her for the two years that we've been in this school.

She still sits in it every day... I just don't think she cares about my intention behind it.

It's something I've gotten used to, even if that sounds melodramatic. I think that was my error when we were younger where I attempted failure after failure of befriending her. Once I realized that she just doesn't care, I realized that not caring isn't always necessarily a bad thing. And I think that bled over to my view of things too because it made me a lot more carefree, in a different way than Elle is. I think that's part of what made me seem attractive as the sort-of-kind-of friend that I am to her.

Today isn't any different. I'm sitting here with the lunch my mom packed for me. It's probably lame that I let her do that still, especially since I'm perfectly capable of packing my own lunch... but she's better at it than I am. If it were my responsibility I'd probably pack six chocolate pudding cups and nothing else. As I'm inspecting the apple in my hand, Elle comes stomping over to her chair and takes an immediate slump as she pulls out a notebook from her backpack and starts to draw.

She rarely eats during lunch and at one point this worried me. I thought about asking her a couple of times but I could never think of words to use that wouldn't result in an explosion of Elle in my face. Then I realized the only reason she doesn't eat during lunch is because she does it in the class before.

I don't know why she does it. I only know that she does.

She's barely blinking in her focus, her hand moving quickly as she draws over the paper that's propped up in her lap. She's in this zone that I always feel hesitant to break. Her expression and movement don't give justice to the light that's in her eyes when she's like this. There are times where I don't think happiness is possible for Elle but that's only because it can be subtle, so subtle that I think anyone who doesn't pay attention to her wouldn't be able to notice it.