The Thing About Timing (The Becoming of Elliott Goode)

Chapter 27

The next two weeks Elliott cut off basically all contact with everyone. No phone calls, no conversations, nothing. She ignored the majority of Cordelia's texts, only giving her one word answers every few days to let her know she was indeed still alive, but barely. It wasn't until a month and a half after Elliott had left that anyone had actually seen her. It happened by accident, the girls deciding to go to the strip of shops down the street. Mallory was the one to spot her, screaming her name as she ran up to her and hugged her, startling the young girl. "Elliott! We've missed you! How are you? Are you ok?"

Elliott looked at her briefly before looking away, her eyes painfully empty as she shifted to pull her long sleeves even further down to cover her hands. "I'm fine. How are you guys?" She said softly, obviously uncomfortable. You could see the fear written across her face, and suddenly she wasn't their Elliott anymore. The loud, sarcastic joker she was replaced with a tiny, scared young girl.

It didn't go unnoticed the girl was wearing long pants and a hoodie in the middle of summer, and the girls were immediately concerned, but didn't want to say anything in fear of scaring her off. "We're hanging in there as best we can. Everyone misses you, it's been a mess. How are your foster parents, are they nice?" Mallory asked carefully, noticing the girl tug at her hood, giving a glimpse of the faint green fingerprints that were on her neck.

"They're ok. Listen, I gotta get going. It was nice seeing you all though, tell everyone hi for me." Elliott said quickly, her eyes scanning for the nearest exit before she took off, disappearing once again, leaving the girls shell-shocked.

They all just stared at each other for a moment, wondering what to do. It was obvious the girl wasn't ok, she was fucking terrified, and she resembled a skeleton more than a human being. That quickly ended their shopping trip, all of them congregating in the kitchen as they tried to think of what to do. "We have to tell someone, that's why she stopped calling." Mallory said.

"Yea but who are we gonna tell? If we tell Cordelia it will kill her, and Elliott obviously doesn't want her to know." Queenie said.

"Yea, telling Cordelia isn't a good idea." Madison said as Misty walked into the room.

"Tell Cordelia what?" Misty asked, eyeing all the girls as their faces fell. "What's goin' on?"

"We saw Elliott today." Mallory said, causing everyone to glare at her. "What? Someone has to know."

Misty was shocked, her mouth open as a million questions buzzed around her head. "Did ya talk ta her?"

"Barely. She was fucking terrified of us, she said maybe two things before she ran off. Something's wrong. She's lost a lot of weight, she was wearing a hoodie and jeans in the middle of summer. She pulled on her hood and I saw bruises on her neck. We need to do something." Mallory said as she teared up.

"I have ta tell Dee, she's gotta call the social worker." Misty said.

"She's already a mess, she's barely keeping it together Misty, you can't tell her. Can't you just call the social worker?" Madison asked.

"If somethin is going on and we keep it from her she's gonna be furious and ya know that." Misty said, already leaving to head upstairs, knocking lightly on the supreme's door.

"Now's not a good time." She heard from inside, ignoring it and pushing the door open anyways. "Misty, I can't talk right now I have work to do." Cordelia said, barely glancing up.

"Ya well we gotta, the girls saw Elliott today." Misty said, Cordelia jerking her head up to look at her, capturing her attention just like she knew she would. She relayed what she had been told to Cordelia, who's eyes quickly filled with sorrow and anger, picking up the phone and calling the social worker, who immediately went to do a wellness check.