Knocking woke Liza from her slumber, and she snapped upright in her bed with a startled squeak.
Milo was by her side in the next second, his nose in hers as he assessed her for damage.
"I'm alright," she assured him, her gaze trailing over him and down the hallway that led to the staircase.
Her bedroom was on the second floor of the condo, but she was grateful for that particular feature. The farther she was from the door, the safer she felt.
Unless, of course, Elijah was sitting on the other side of—
Elijah!
Liza scrambled out of bed, cursing under her breath at her own forgetfulness. How could it have slipped her mind?
Elijah had been gone for five days, on a longer cargo flight than normal, and Liza had actually missed him quite horribly.
She still had Milo, and she was still snuggled safely inside her condo, but things didn't appear nearly as bright as they did when Elijah was settled on the opposite side of her door, laughing at his own bad jokes and telling her stories that made the world seem a little bit less scary.
He'd told her he was meant to return that morning, and had even said he would stop by as soon as he showered, because, "I'd hate to show up and chat with a pretty girl while I smell like a shit bucket—can you imagine Mom's reaction? God, she'd lose her damn mind."
Unfortunately, the day of his return also happened to be the same day that Liza's memories had trapped her in a state of wakefulness until the wee hours of the morning, meaning she had slept in and still felt exhausted.
She tripped down the stairs just as his curious rumble of, "Liza?" traveled through the oak, followed by, "You alright, doll?"
Ignoring that strange slam-skip-slam trembling in her chest, Liza plopped down with Milo right in front of the door. "Hello."
"Ah, there's my favorite detective!" Elijah cheered, that thud bouncing off the door as he too got comfortable. "How have you been? I missed you these past few days; Austin is sucky company compared to you, let me tell you."
She highly doubted that, considering Austin could likely handle being in the same room as other people without having a panic attack, but she appreciated his gracious words, nonetheless.
"Was it . . ." Was it hard not to crash? She almost asked, before catching herself at the last second and asking instead, "Did you have any problems?"
"Problems?" He echoed, confused, before saying, "Oh! No, no problems, babe, don't worry. Austin and I have been in this business for about eight years, so we're pretty comfortable and things run smoothly."
Babe.
Her heart slam-skipped even harder, and she had to physically shake her head to clear it.
Had he broken her? What was he doing?
"And you brought Oreos?"
He laughed, and knowing the sound had been caused by her sent a zinging of something warm and unusual through her veins. "You know me pretty well, it seems. I did exactly that. He told me, as always, that I shouldn't shovel garbage into my body."
"What'd you do?"
"Flipped him off and told him to mind his damn business, of course. What he does is his problem, and what I do is mine. If I want to shovel Oreos into my mouth, balloon up to six-hundred pounds, and die next week, then that's what I'll do."
She passed Milo a secret smile. She wished often that she could see people without suffering a breakdown; to stand up to someone was an ultimate—but likely unattainable—dream. Maybe her new neighbor could teach her a tip or two.
One day.
Certainly not now.
"Did I ever tell you how Austin and I met?"
He hadn't, and part of Liza suspected he knew that fact perfectly well, and was simply asking because he wanted to get her talking. "No."
"It was pretty thrilling, actually, though that shouldn't be surprising. I'm sure you can tell I'm a very exciting individual. Anyway, we met in high school, which I think I may have mentioned during one of our previous conversations." He had. Liza remembered everything he told her. "I, of course, was very popular and at the top of the food chain thanks to my status as the stunning quarterback who saved the school from bombing another season of games."
Liza had the feeling he was exaggerating, but she didn't mind; she liked to way he told stories, with the dips in his voice adding a certain animation to his usually even tone.
"So, it's in the middle of October—otherwise known as the height of football season—and a new kid shows up. He's short, kind of ugly, and certainly a nerd, with a thick southern accent, and he was wearing glasses of all things, doll, can you believe it? A disgrace. So he's not exactly doing well with anyone, but especially not the ladies. Now, I was popular, but I was also nice, because Mama didn't raise a whiny brat, so I go up to him on his fourth or fifth day to introduce myself when I see him getting some books out of his locker.
"The problem though, doll, is that Austin had been bullied at his previous school. Like, badly," the dramatics in his voice vanished in that sentence, allowing Liza to understand that Elijah, for as lighthearted and goofy as he came across, was protective of those he cared for. "So, when the star quarterback, who, until then, had been the cliché villain in all his horrible experiences, came up to him and tapped him on the shoulder, Austin did not react well. Do you know what he did?"
"Ran?" She guessed, only because that's what she would do. Ironic, she supposed, since she'd actually been popular in high school as well.
And yet, had she been teleported back to high school now, she would've certainly been an anxiety-ridden introvert at high-risk for bullying.
Elijah laughed. "Not even! Doll, he turned around, his eyes shut tight behind those massive, hideous, coke-sized glasses of his, and kneed me right in the nuts."
A noise that was a mixture of a surprised gasp and a snort of laughter ripped its way from her throat, and Liza slapped her hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to cover the not-so-ladylike sound.
There was a beat of silence, before Elijah told her honestly, "You know, the sound of your happiness does stupid things to my heart."
The sound of such a confession did stupid things to her heart, too, but she didn't need him to know that information.
"I'll get that out of you again," Elijah continued, and she wondered what it must be like to carry oneself with so much confidence that such words didn't bring with them even the slightest trace of embarrassment. "So, back to my enthralling tale. He knees me in the nuts, and it hurts like a bitch, naturally, even though he was basically a string bean. Out of pure reaction, I may have punched him in the nuts in return, which caused him to knee me again, which led to a full-on fist fight, which led to us in the principal's office with an ass-load of detentions. Not to mention that I was suspended for the rest of the season, which made me not-so-popular with the student body."
Liza was invested, and asked, "But you became friends?"
"Well, we weren't friends at first," Elijah admitted with a sigh, and she wondered idly what he did when he made that sound. Was it accompanied by a hand dragging through his hair? Did he look up at the sky when he was frustrated like her mother always used to—
Wait. Stop.
Focus.
"It was almost like The Breakfast Club—have you seen that movie?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good, we can stay friends. So, imagine that movie, but instead of all those well-fleshed-out characters, it was one kind of ugly nerd and a super stunning, extremely funny, wildly intelligent, and stupidly charismatic football player. Are you imagining it?"
"Yes, Elijah."
"And I'm super handsome?"
She smiled at the floor. "Yes."
"Thanks. You're the best, babe."
Slam-skip-slam.
"So, at first, we hate each other. We're stuck in this tiny room together for an hour every day during lunch, he thinks I'm an asshole, and I know for a fact that he had the nerve to get me in the nuts first, which automatically means he's the scum of the earth."
Liza could think of multiple people who filled that definition better than Austin probably had, but she kept that observation to herself.
"We didn't say a word to each other for at least a month. And then Thanksgiving is coming up, and one of our teachers asks us to announce our holiday plans during class. We go down the line, and it's all good and normal until we get to Austin, and he tells us in this really tiny voice that his mom ditched him for the week to spend Thanksgiving with her new boyfriend, his grandma lives too far for him to go see on his own, and that he'll probably just buy some pizza and listen to Billy Joel or something. Class ends, and then we're back in detention, but I can't forget what he said.
"Finally, when detention is over and we're walking out together, I stop him and ask if he wants to spend Thanksgiving with me and my family."
Liza couldn't even imagine what Austin must have been thinking at that point, and Elijah must have known, because he chuckled and mused, "Pretty crazy, right? It's no wonder he looked at me like I was about to murder him; he probably thought it was a weird trick of some kind. I ended up making a contract that stated I wasn't just shitting with him to get him to agree."
"And he showed up?"
"Sure did!" Elijah crowed. "Trust me, doll, I was shocked too, but he came, I swear. I still have a picture of us from that day that my stepmom took, since I sometimes like to remind him that I've always been the more handsome one between us."
Liza shook her head with amusement. It had been a long time since she'd seen her friends, since she had no siblings, but she remembered that, back when she was normal, she'd had a very similar relationship with her loved ones—a relationship made of teasing and laughter and friendly jibes that never held any real weight.
"Turns out we got along really well once the whole 'nut-punching' incident was cleared up. We went back to school as best friends, and I sent three kids to the hospital for being mean to him."
Liza blinked, stunned.
"What?"
Elijah coughed awkwardly. "Okay, I didn't actually send anyone to the hospital, but I totally would have, if I needed to."
Ah. Right.
It was a joke.
"I did tell a few kids to leave him alone one day for messing with him, but don't worry, no fists were thrown, and no teeth were broken. The moral of this long-winded, exhilarating story that has no doubt kept you entranced is that Austin and I were unlikely friends but have been inseparable since the moment we finally got over our differences. How's that for a tall tale, Liza?"
She allowed her head fall back against the oak. "I liked it."
"I like your voice and your laugh," she didn't say, because her anxiety would likely never permit such a thing.
"I like to hear that," Elijah replied easily. "I'll have to tell you another one. In fact, I already have one. Would you like to know about the time my neighbor's dog revealed to us that our uncle, Jeb, wears a toupee?"
Liza's eyes slipped shut as she smiled, content. "Yes, please."
"Great. Okay, so I'm still in high school at the time, and my older brother, Zachariah, and I are in the middle of babysitting our neighbor's dog, Hero. He was a puppy, so he wasn't the best at listening, and honestly we're lucky Mom even let us take care of him, seeing as how she feels about dogs. Anyway, Zach had just graduated from high school, so Mom wanted to have a family get-together to celebrate this accomplishment. Well, it just so happens that Uncle Jeb, who was notorious for being a judgmental wiener and ragging on Dad for anything and everything, showed up and sat in between Zach and I at the dining table, and Hero was underneath just minding his own business . . ."
Liza let his soothing rumble lull her into a state somewhere between unconsciousness and awareness, her body relaxed, so unlike its usual tense state. Milo dropped his head on her leg, and she absorbed the sudden feeling of peace.
Still trapped inside the four walls of her world, but with a representative to the big, scary world who turned out to not be scary at all.
Perhaps opening her world to someone else wouldn't be so bad after all.
****
A/N:
Do I . . . Do I smell the beginnings of a romantic connection???
*swoons*
(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Are y'all good? I'm in NC, and we got some rain and wind from Hurricane Ian, but I'm praying for folks in Florida and SC; the situation is devastating.
Hope everyone is alright,
A. R.