1.1 | constellations of you and me ✓

28 | orion

PEOPLE MAY COME AND GO, BUT PROMISES REMAIN FOREVER. Whether broken or still rarely kept, it's a silent vow of commitment that can't be undone; maybe there's no point to these arrangements considering that most have no intention of staying true to their word, but perhaps it's like some sort of placebo—calming, assuring, and deceiving all at once.

Eloise doesn't keep hers.

***

With Valentine's Day around the corner, they don't formally celebrate. Instead, Jonah introduces Eloise to his childhood friend, Sora Lee, and they grab a cup of coffee after she finishes her shift. It takes some effort to place an easy expression on her face, but she manages to smile through it. And she likes Sora—she really does. By the time that they leave, Eloise hopes that the girl is happy with her new boyfriend (someone named Rylin Carter), and when Jonah holds her hand in the car ride back, she finds it all too easy to fall asleep.

She tends to gain weight easily within a week, but when Eloise doesn't eat (like now), feelings of fatigue and fatal exhaustion slam into her from behind, and she's metaphorically scraping her knees on the concrete of stress. There's always too much to handle: her work, her school, her friends, and her relationship; she's bending over backwards only to taste the bloodiness of internal war, of her bones cracking and rebuilding in a single cycle.

It storms in Los Angeles—a mixture of cool, rare rain and obsidian clothes. And it's comforting, Eloise realizes, to think that even the sky cries, too. But her thoughts are cut short with the jingle of keys tossed on the kitchen counter, and Eloise looks up to see a whisper of dark hair swaying slightly before her.

"My parents cut me off," Chase says, tossing a leg over her chair and taking a bite of the butter croissant resting in her left hand. "I told them I wouldn't attend therapy anymore. Again."

Which is good. This is really, really good news—the best Eloise has had in weeks. "What was their reaction?"

The girl shrugs and types something on her laptop (she's an aggressive typer). "They tried to turn the tables, you know? Manipulation and shit," Chase sighs, looking unbothered. "But I'm so tired of sessions that just waste my time, so I figured that I'll look for my own."

Eloise freezes. "Did you find any?"

In response, her friend slides a few business cards across the breakfast table and nods her chin in a silent direction. "I visited a few and sat through consultations," she explains, "and these were the only ones that I felt were good for me."

"I'm happy for you," Eloise admits while smiling softly, because she is. And maybe she'll miss their midnight sleepovers after a few months of treatment, but she keeps her mouth shut.

Chase gets up and opens their small fridge before pouring a cup of cold brew into a glass cup. "Maybe we should visit together," she suggests, voice tiny and unusually still. "I think it'll be good—for us."

At this, Eloise's shoulders tighten and she looks at her fingernails, which are now painfully blunt from her nervous tic of biting them when feeling compelled. "Really?"

She looks so, so fragile. Feels even worse.

"Why not? Maybe—maybe it'll help sort out what we're both going through."

Maybe, Eloise thinks silently, but she takes the white pieces of card stock and slips them in her back pocket.

Just in case.

***

Jonah won't talk to her. When he'd picked her up after she finished a long evening shift, one look at her expression told him everything.