Hold Me While You Wait

3|give your tears to the tide

give your tears to the tide

For the most part, Elis knew that nothing was going to change. She wasn't going to wake up to a happier life with completely different circumstances. She wasn't going to cry until she couldn't anymore if nothing was going to be changed. She wasn't going to hide in her room, pretending to not exist. Pretending she wasn't back in the lake house and confronted by so many outpouring painful memories of the past. She wasn't going to block everyone out if it meant nothing but take her pain away.

So it was seconds, minutes or even hours subsequent to her breakdown, that her tears stopped falling. Her heart has almost gone numb, her thoughts still. It felt like voices weren't whispering in her head anymore, and Elis couldn't comprehend if the silence was good or detrimental to her mental state.

At that moment when she sat on her bed, her face buried in the palms of her hands, it felt like so many things, yet felt like nothing at all.

So she looked up, not caring about her red puffy eyes or her tear stricken face surrounded by her unruly curly hair.

Elis fixated her gaze on Gray, the girl who had been standing in the same spot all throughout Elis's hostile behavior to her meltdown.

And then Elis felt bad for blocking the ginger girl out, for being unnecessarily mean. She understood that her behaviour was uncalled for, and that Gray was only trying to help.

Elis stood up from her bed, and she took in a deep breath. Gray became increasingly nervous upon seeing this, and wasn't sure what Elis's reaction would be. She didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable and if she has she didn't mean to, but for some reason, both girls failed to involve words in their long stare. Gray was trying to apologize for violating Elis's personal space as she felt that she did, and Elis not wanting to make her feel unwelcomed anymore.

It was a weird feeling, so to say, how willingly she let someone in so easily.

And that was when Elis walked over to open the glass door bordered by an old wooden frame, which led onto a smaller balcony. The balcony overlooked what used to be a garden. But now, only dead plants and dried soil remained. A part of Elis tore apart upon looking at what has become of the place she liked to stand and watch almost every morning.

Gray skeptically followed her, the ginger girl trying to fathom the curly haired girl's thoughts as she leaned against the rail.

Her steps caused creaks on the wooden floor, and Elis knew that Gray was behind her, until the smaller girl stepped next to her, looking over to the deranged garden too.

"The last good memory I have of him was in this garden," Elis suddenly spoke, her voice more so than her words capturing the shorter girl's attention.

"He was watering the plants and I was standing right here, looking down at him. And after that he left with his friends and he didn't... The last I saw of him was right here."

"What was he like?" The shorter girl asked, her voice delicately appealing to the ear that Elis yearned to hear more of it, but didn't quite process her desires as she thought of her brother.

"He was...he cared...about a lot of things. He had dreams, hopes, wishes. He wanted to be something, to grow and get out of this town. He wanted to make our parents proud and there's just... There's just so much I could say."

"It sounds like he was a good person."

Elis sighed, turning around to look at the ginger girl next to her. "He was. More good than the world he lived in. And I keep thinking of him a lot. Coming back here just made everything all too real for me."

"If you don't mind there's uh... My cousin is planning a bonfire to celebrate the start of summer... It's tomorrow night," Gray countered suggestively, making the taller girl look back at the garden, dismissing the suggestion.

"I don't really...parties are not my thing."

"It's not exactly a party it's--"

"Bonfires, then. Bonfires. They're not my thing."

"Is any type of human interaction not your thing?" Gray laughed, her voice much more confident than before, which Elis found to like.

In a way, Gray was trying to comprehend the mess that was Elis. And a part of her felt like she was succeeding at it.

"Yeah. Pretty much."

"I doubt that," the shorter girl contradicted.

Elis shrugged, feeling as deranged as she looked.

"Okay...fine. Maybe my parents would like that and finally get off my back," she fully turned around to look at the ginger girl. "Is that good enough for you?"

Gray couldn't help the grin that popped on her face, her tan skin warming up as she looked at Elis.

"Good," the shorter girl replied, reaching her hand out to Elis.

"I'm Gray," she introduced. "You and I? We're gonna have a good time."

Elis looked at the shorter girl weirdly. "How good of a time are we speaking?"

"Good enough for you to realise that it's not the end of the world." 

Elis scoffed, but took the smaller girl's hand nonetheless. Her had was soft, just like she predicted, and Elis acknowledged the feeling of not ever wanting to let go.