Having a front-row seat to a physical assault should have etched rough, raw scars into Elise's mind, yet any wounds faded in an instant. By the time she left Cadence's car, her recollection of the man's face had been scrubbed of all fine details until it was little more than a dwindling ghost. What stood tallest in Elise's memory was the film reel of Cadence's relieved smile, the coy promise that fluttered from her coral-hued lips, and the gentle feel of her soft fingers locked between Elise's. Such closeness with Cadence was instantly familiar, a return to a place Elise did not realise she had made her home.
The thoughts reigned in Elise's head throughout her day, whether she was trekking to her classes or wiping down the kitchen counter after one of Robin's less successful culinary experiments. For the first time in a long while, excitement flooded Elise's body in anticipation of her next work session. Whether she made strides with the client or not, she would have another chance to find Cadence and shuffle ever higher in her former best friend's estimations once again.
"But let's not get side-tracked. I want to hear what you guys think about the reading. Daniel? Sally? How about you, Ellie?"
Counting the pairs of eyes fixed on her only delayed Elise's plummeting fall back into her university seminar. "Who, me?" she stuttered, snatched echoes of the missed conversation amassing in the corners of her mind.
Sat backwards on one of the classroom's rolling chairs, James Drake better resembled one of Elise's fellow students than her seminar leader, an aspiring writer rather than a critically acclaimed thriller author. He adjusted the collar of his light-blue shirt, every second of silence plunging Elise further into her embarrassment. "It seems I was rambling a bit too much after all," he said, his affable smile doing little to stifle the flames that roared in Elise's cheeks. "The curse of academia, right? I'll try to zip it and stay on topic, and you can try to keep up with the discussion. Does that sound fair?"
"Yeah, sure." Elise mustered up her failing willpower to meet James' encouraging expression. Beneath his square-rimmed glasses and light stubble, he was clearly one of the youngest members of the faculty with an affable, approachable air to match. His classes were often the ones Elise enjoyed partaking in most, which made her descent into daydreams even more surprising. "Sorry. I just...have a lot on my mind right now."
"That's nothing to apologise for." Adjusting his glasses, James threw his gaze around the room, meeting every student's eye with a glowing smile. "In fact, I envy how many ideas you kids can hold onto at once. Overworked faculty staff like me have a hard time remembering to take their keys out of the door when they leave the house."
A chorus of chuckles circled around the desks, and a sigh of relief cooled Elise's glowing face when James picked on another student across the classroom. Though she fought off the desire to immerse herself in her memories whenever it crept back, she found herself without the words to enter the conversation at every interval. Before long, the rest of the cohort slid their seats back and packed their belongings into their bags.
"Hold on, Ellie," James said as Elise followed the lead of the other students. His dark brown brogues shuffled over the classroom's plush blue carpet, and he perched his hand on the filing cabinet behind Elise's chair. "Don't worry, I'm just checking in with you. You seem a little off lately. Everything alright?"
"I'm fine. I've just been busy is all," Elise answered, tearing herself from her seat and slipping her packed bag over her shoulder. "Work has been...a lot to handle lately."
A pleasant sheen dazzled across James' chestnut hair, his eyes darkening against the glare into two pools of black coffee. "The writing and editing gig, right? I caught your name on a review online just a few days ago," he said with a smile. Rubbing his neck in thought, the knotted string of a rope necklace shifted over his collarbone. "You're one of the hardest workers I've taught, Ellie, but nobody else is going to hit the off-switch for you. You need to give yourself a break now and then, else you'll run out of steam in no time."
Elise clutched her arm and sighed. "That's not so easy with this one client," she said as she prised her thoughts out of Cadence's increasingly comfortable car and into Florence's hostile study air. The filing cabinet's rattle provided a fitting soundtrack to the tremors that shook through the author's chair, glass, and limbs in every moment of silence. "I'm meant to be helping them edit sections of their novel, but they haven't even written it yet. I don't think they can write anything right now, honestly."
Furrowing his brow, James let his face fall a shade darker. "What do you mean by that?"
"I talked to their daughter yesterday, and we both think they might be showing signs of dementia." As Elise spoke, the door thudded shut behind the last of the other students, leaving the classroom empty save for herself and James. "I don't know what to do. Sure, I'm an editor, not a care worker, but they don't really talk to anybody else anymore. I don't want to leave them all alone, not after seeing so many worrying symptoms."
"Dementia is a serious issue, Ellie. If that kind of mental condition is a factor here, then that's something for the client and their family to handle, not you as an editor." James wiped the heaviness from his expression, yet shackles of severity prevented his smile reaching his eyes. "The best you can do is encourage them to go see their GP for an assessment. They might take some convincing, but if other people have noticed signs, then your client probably has too."
Returning her seminar leader's cheer, Elise turned to head for the door. "You're right. I'll try and bring it up when we next sit down. Thanks, James."
"Not so fast." With one finger in the air, James cocked his eyebrow at Elise and huffed. "What do I have to do to get you to show up at one of our creative writing workshops? And please don't tell me you don't write. Someone with your keen eye for characterisation must enjoy telling their own stories."
"I guess I do, and I do want to come," Elise said, adding a spark of artificial enthusiasm to her tone. She had seen the flyers for the workshops taped around the faculty building, and the thought of her peers reading her work ignited a burning nausea in her gut. Compared to showing other students her writing, submitting her stories for rejection by faceless editors was nothing.
James tucked his hands into his pockets. "Then come. We'd love to see you."
Heat from the palms of the other students lingered on the door's steel handle, and Elise pulled it open to hold the door open with her foot instead. "I'll see how I feel," she promised with a cursory nod before leaving the room.
A metallic jingle darted to Elise's ear from the corridor ahead of her. "See how you feel about what, pal?" Cadence asked, her eye flicking to James' shape through the crack in the doorway. "Wow, Ellie. I didn't think you were the type to get a private eyeful of the teacher after class. Or does this dude always ask his 'favourite students' to stick around for extra 'one-on-one' time?"
"It's not like that." Elise rolled her eyes, yet could not contain the snicker that Cadence's hard stare eked out of her. "James just wanted to check on me. I think he's trying to be nice so more people to go to his writing workshops, that's all."
Cadence stopped and caught hold of Elise's wrist, her free hand gesturing to a flyer for the workshops on the common room's door. "James like James Drake? With a name that sexy, he's absolutely trying to get into your pants." Resuming her walk, Cadence kept her fingers around Elise's hand as if to guide her down the corridor. "Why else do you think he keeps up that whole 'trendy single dad' look? People turn to mush for guys like that."
A string of glitter sparkled across Cadence's dark fingernails, and the tip of a butterfly's blue wing winked at Elise from beneath the girl's rolled-up jacket sleeve. "I'm not about to turn to mush for any kind of guy, thanks," she said, gagging at the image as they passed through the doors out onto the campus quad.
Outside, uneven cobblestone paths tracked between the quad's large green patches drenched in rich, leafy shade. In all directions, gothic faculty buildings rose towards the overcast sky, dark streaks spattered across their sea-facing sides. Salty spray hung in the air to fill Elise's nostrils with every breath, and the chill breeze faltered against the warmth of Cadence's persistent touch. The main building's clock loomed ahead of her, its lack of a hand for seconds casting a timeless spell over the quad.
As they strolled onto a shaded square of grass, Elise pulled back on Cadence's hand. "What are you doing here, Cade?"
"That depends on what you're doing." With a flourish, Cadence produced a car key from her pocket. A calico cat figure, a silver butterfly, and a tiny tin sheriff star hung on keyrings around the key itself, along with a round metal-trimmed fob. "Up for a ride? We can grab lunch before you have to sit with the grump again. My treat."
"I mean, of course, but..." A branch buckled under the breeze into Elise's face, and as she stepped around it, she landed inches from Cadence's face. The sea air made way for a heady concoction of fresh tea tree blossom and cool mint leaves, the mix drawn together by a delicate hint of perspiration. To Elise's surprise, Cadence did not move, and Elise found herself not wanting to back off either. "I was asking why you're here, at the university."
Cadence feigned a wince of pain. "Ouch. Is it really so hard to believe I study here too?" she asked, flicking her car key out in the direction of the art school building, its façade obscured by the tree's canopy. "Graphic design and illustration. Flo thinks it's a waste of time, but then I think her sitting at home not writing all day is a waste of time too, so we're even."
Even in the shade, Cadence's small movements made her tattoo pulse with pure colour. "I don't think it's a waste of time," Elise said, wondering if her ears looked as red as they felt hot. "It sounds wonderful, and it's so...you."
"It's me for now, sure. If you ever need flashy social media ads for your bougie hipster bakery or want a sweet dragon tattoo across your back, I'm your gal." After a long pause, Cadence released Elise's wrist and jingled her keyring by her ear. "Now, forget about all that. You, me, lunch. Are we good to go?"
Elise gripped her cast-off wrist and blinked the blur of surprise out of her eyes. "Yeah, of course we are," she muttered, managing a smile through her daze. "Ready when you are, girl."
"Careful, killer," Cadence answered through a laugh. "People might start believing we're friends, and I'm not done thinking about it yet."
As Cadence ran to bring her car around to the nearest stretch of pavement, two thoughts grew louder every time they rebounded off the walls of Elise's mind. The first defied Cadence's mock-fears to take pride in being seen as her friend again, and Elise focused on that feeling as much as she could. With the rumbling approach of Cadence's car, however, Elise's concentration slipped low enough to let the second thought prevail.
For one stolen, crystal-clear moment, she noticed the electric thrill flickering in her breath, the weakness coursing through her legs, and the mush she turned to with the promise of the girl's company.