Being Shot

P h o t o #25 - Pink And Blue Pills

P h o t o #25 - Pink And Blue Pills

~Elliot's POV~

I was already way too ahead of myself. As soon as I saw her figure in the doorway of Cooper's kitchen, I knew what would happen. I wasn't supposed to be there, leisurely eating cereal in my dark sweatpants and t-shirt uniform that was always worn to bed in the house that I was basically freeloading in. I knew I didn't belong here, hiding from my father, and at night this realization always hit me the hardest. Ever since I began staying at this place, I would sit in the kitchen, trying to distract myself with food or the scenery outside or even the damn pots and pans that hung above the island. Trying to get away from myself.

I knew for a long time that if Emma Leighs was ever going to find me while I was in this state of mind, I would somehow, one way or another, be totally open with her about it. I would tell her everything, because for some reason, I could feel that she had felt something conflicting inside her as well. I could see it in her eyes. Whenever we said a certain thing, whenever she was around Kae, whenever she thought she had wronged someone in anyway, her eyes glossed over slightly and her cheeks lost they're usual flush of light pink.

Really, the only thing that stopped me from saying something I knew I would regret, shattering every promise I made with myself a long time ago, was the little plinking noises coming from below me.

Emma dived without a moments hesitation, completely forgetting that I was in front of her, and in mid-sentence. Immediately a wave of anger pulsed through me. I was about to spill everything I had worked my ass off just to keep under wraps. But that flame only lasted a second before it died out, being replaced by one of astonishment.

I finally looked down, my eyes widening as they watched a girl with panicked eyes behind faintly fogged glasses, her hair still dripping from a fresh shower, decked in a pink hue that was just a little too bright, wildly picking up pink and blue pills.

I was the next person to dive down onto the floor, my hands instantly wrapping around Emma's. They were ice cold, and my sudden grip made her drop the two pills she had just picked up.

I stared at her for a moment. Her head was down, keeping me from registering the look she held on her face. My heart was pounding in my ears. It was as if time had frozen for only a second. With me holding her small, pale hands in mine.

Then time, and my sanity, began running once again.

I let go of Emma's hands from my grasp, falling to my sides as I sat on the floor next to her. She went right back to picking up the two pills she had dropped, popped them into a small Ziploc baggie, and crawled on the floor, searching for more.

My first thought was drugs. I thought Emma was taking some kind of drug for an unknown reason I couldn't even begin to fathom. Something that could hurt her. That thought was quickly discarded, though, when I realized how closed off she was from the entire topic and world that came with taking drugs. Remembering the swift glance I had gotten of the pills as they had rained from Emma's back pocket, I could easily piece together that those were prescription medications. My father took pills similar looking to the ones she scurried to pick up off the white tiled kitchen floor; many years of rushing to his office as he began to sputter and wheeze with little orange bottles with plastic white caps had burned the image of medications into my brain.

My eyes caught on a blue pill next to my leg. I grabbed it off the ground and studied it. It was definitely medication. Suddenly, it was snatched away from where it lay on my hand.

I looked up, seeing Emma dropping it into the bag she held, her eyes not meeting with mine but her face a bright shade of embarrassed red.

We both stood up at the same time, almost smacking our heads into each others. Emma was clearly vulnerable, probably embarrassed she let herself get so worked up in front of someone like me, someone who's only been so tight-fisted to her all this time. I realized suddenly that she was feeling the same way I had felt only a few minutes ago in front of her. I went to grab Emma's arm again, seeing that she could take off at any moment, but she shrank away from my touch.