Isla's confession shook him.
Elias was used to the fiery redhead calling him names like daft, tosser, bell-end... well, the list goes on. But this time, her words that day in the gymnasium had struck a chord.
It was the way she had said them. Spitting the phrases like poison in her lips. It wasn't clouded by foul words or blatant screaming matches, and it helped that the irrational rage blinding both of them started to simmer down—because now, she could speak her thoughts clearly, and in turn he could hear her with clarity.
I was labelled.
I was easy.
I was a slut.
He remembered the slight shakiness of her voice, like she was on the verge between tearing up and shouting. Her hazel eyes, fixed on an empty spot like an old film was playing only she could see. The girl who carried a wild and consuming hatred towards him... suddenly fell apart.
He hadn't been able to do anything except stare at her.
I have none of your privileges, Elias. I'm no Sabatier.
Because you're you. And I'm me.
I'm never going to leave.
He wanted to go up to her and just shake answers out of her. Or maybe shake the sudden guilt —strong and uninvited—festering inside of him.
Elias declared that he had lost his fucking mind.
"Allô? Are you still there?"
"Yes, mother."
Elias was laid out on his bed, his white dress shirt wrinkled and navy tie loosened after another day of cleaning duties. He'd just arrived in his dormitory house when his mother's name popped up on his phone. It was standard protocol for the parents to be informed on their child's misdemeanours, but usually his mother—who lived with his father in the neighbouring region of Belfort Academy—sent a warning message.
She must be royally pissed off.
"You still haven't told me what this is all about."
"I've told you everything you need to know," he grumbled.
The feuds, the fights in dining halls, the house arrest. It was overwhelming enough for a mother. He didn't want to add the... the complexity of Isla into the situation. For one, Elias knew his mother would psychoanalyse him to a frightening degree. And second—well, he wasn't sure what the second point was. Just that anytime Isla was involved in something, it was bound to go to hell.
"Manners, young man." He heard her mother shift. "Is there a reason why this is all happening at the start of your last year in the Academy? I've gone accustomed to your antics, chérie, but not of this magnitude and consistency. Something's the cause of all of it."
"Someone."
"What was that?"
Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. "It's someone," he cleared his throat. He didn't know why, but his head burned. Neck. Hell, his whole body. "They're in Sixth Form, but a year below me. I don't... fare quite well with them. So that's why we've always been... clashing."
More like been in war.
His mother's silent response didn't help his nerves.
"Is it a girl?"
He could literally sense her smirk. "Maman," he groaned.
"Ah, c'est vrai!" (So it's true!) His mom squealed so loud he had to hold the phone away from him. "It's always a girl with you, n'est-ce pas?"
"It's not like that this time, Mom. I don't fancy the girl." He rubbed his neck a few times. "In fact, I loathe her."
"What? How do you mean?"
"She's rude, insensitive, has anger issues, all over the place..." he just kept going, one bad trait to the next, an endless list of details and knacks that boiled his blood.
"I see." His mother's two words sounded too uncanny to be normal.
"Maman!"
"Quoi?" (What?)
"I know you're psychoanalysing this. Arrête, s'il te plaît." (Stop, please.)
"I'm doing no such thing." But his mother laughed into her sentence, and he groaned. "Just sounds like someone I know."
He glared at the ceiling. "I'm nothing like her."
"Okay, sweetheart."
On the other hand, he was grateful of one thing, though: there was no mention of his disgraceful video. Elias guessed that even the headmaster didn't want to spread it into an even larger picture—and how it represented the school. And if his parents found out... Elias couldn't handle the shame.
That, he would admit.
But he didn't want to admit that Isla's words had stayed with him as he was sprawled in bed, staring at the blank ceiling. His thoughts a whirlwind until only the moonlight became his only company for the night.
It was like a sudden wake-up call.
And Elias realised he'd been asleep for far too long.
—
His next few days felt like multiple slaps in the face.
Elias wasn't taken aback being the centrepiece of everyone's attention. That was as normal to him as waking up in the morning. But what he didn't expect was the glares, the hostile looks, and the angry whispering that were suddenly directed towards him.
What kind of alternate dimension was this?
He knew the old wretched video of his would have some repercussions. So he'd figured that he would deal with it the same way he had with any other rumour that sprang his way since he stepped foot in this bloody Academy: let it slide. Let it play its own course. It was the same thing he told Isla during that first fight in the dining hall—that it was worthless trying to parade your truth or half-truths.
And it'd worked. It'd always worked.
Until now.
Someone bumped into him.
"Hey, watch it," Elias snapped, knowing full well the Sixth Year lad crashed into him on purpose as the hallway had enough space.
"What are you going to do, Sabatier?" Sixth Year retorted. "Call your daddy to bail you out? Or donate a generous amount to the Academy again? Hit me with your wad of bills?"
"Cocky snob," his friend hissed.
The two lads shared a high-five, their laughter echoing the hall as they disappeared from view. Elias just stood there, along with a few spectators, dumbfounded.
What the hell just happened?
I didn't fucking do it. I didn't use my money to steal or keep my place in the Academy. That was a cocky fifteen-year-old who wanted everyone to know the power he had. He was insecure and wanted control. Dominance. Power.
Things that Elias didn't desire as much anymore.
For the first time, he wanted to discredit the rumours. Maybe because it was the first one that actually gave him backlash—actually painted him in a bad image. It didn't work in his favour. It hurt, and it sucked, and he so badly wanted to set the record straight.
He realised this was what Isla must've felt.
Stop it, he scolded to himself. She was being irrational.
Yeah. Completely irrational.
Elias bolted for the bathroom, needing to clear his very confusing consciousness. His bag dropped to the floor, hands on the cool metal of the sink, water splashed on his face as he crouched his head down. Grey eyes met his reflection.
He wasn't sure who he was looking at.
The stall in the corner bursted open, a lower Sixth Year he vaguely recognised coming out just as he closed a cap of a marker. They locked eyes, but the boy must've been intimidated by Elias's stare, because he all but ran out. Leaving him alone in the bathroom.
Elias squinted at the stall before going in.
It wasn't anything unlike he'd seen. They had separate bathrooms for the students and professors, and there was a damn good reason why. Almost each stall in the lads' bathrooms around the Academy had scribbles and doodles on its walls, so he hadn't really paid attention to any of them. But now that he actually saw it...
Blair's fanny is loose as fuck, boys
Sofia Kapoor definitely has a growler
Amber Davenport is not that innocent, a girl never is
Elias's eyes glued to every name he recognised, and the more he read all the scribbles, the more horrible the sinking feeling in his chest grew. He knew that something in here was wrong. The things they were saying were wrong.
But... it was all just boy talk, right?
And then he saw her name.
You reckon that Isla Kingsley's carpet matches with the drapes?
I'd beat the bishop over that redheaded chick
Tits or board with warts?
Isla's name was scribbled probably triple the times of all the other girls' names, he realised with horror. Elias hurried over to the stall next to him, sudden adrenaline in his veins. Isla. Isla. Isla. Onto the next stall. Again and again.
That Kingsley girl looks like she was gagging for it
It was everywhere.
Gingers are fucking wild in bed
She was everywhere.
He finally exited the last stall, going back to the sink and burying his fingers across his dark hair, messy strands now sticking out. Took a deep breath. His body tightening.
He knew people would talk, but... not like this.
Because you're a womaniser, a player, someone to keep tallies on how many girls he's been with, a God... and I'm the slut, I'm the joke here, I'm desperate, I'm the lucky one you took a shot with.
Grey eyes once again met his reflection.
And he didn't like who he was looking at anymore.
—
When Elias waited by the East Wing Girls' Dormitory, he ignored all the stares thrown at him, from all the underclassmen and sixth-formers alike. He didn't care what it looked like. Only cared who he was here for.
And what he was about to finish.
"Elias!" Blair gushed, her polished, ebony hair cascading behind her. He remembered the first time he saw her. He thought she was the most gorgeous creature he'd ever seen. Of course, that had been when he was only thinking with his downstairs brain.
Now that he's had his head back, he could see that pretty mask fall apart.
She threw her hands up for an embrace but he held his hands up, stopping her by the wrists. That giddy smile instantly disappeared.
"What did you do to Isla?"
Blair blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"I'm not going to ask again." He put her hands down. "What did you do to her?"
"I—babe, I don't know what you're talking about—"
"Have you been terrorising her behind my back this whole time? Are you holding something over her head?" Her pause was a clear answer. "You are."
"I thought you'd be ecstatic—"
"I don't bloody care, Blair. Maybe I would've before, but I've grown exhausted with these games," he sighed, the tiredness of fighting finally oozing off of him. "In fact, it seems like you're enjoying this game far too much."
"But I did it for you!"
"For me?" Elias let out. "I didn't ask you to blackmail the girl! And—wait a minute." He pointed a finger at her. "You were the one who proposed fake dating me in the first place. From the start, you were ready to torment her. For what? What has she done to you?"
Blair's mouth opened as if she was ready to justify her actions, but she immediately shut it, as if she had second thoughts. "She's just... a fucking slut, and rude, and incompetent..."
On and on she went, saying all these sordid things about Isla, but for some reason, this time it felt... dreadful in his ears. He had said some of the same words about her, but...
"Stop it."
Blair stared at him.
"Stop it." He looked her dead in the eye. "I'm stopping this."
She let out a laugh. "You're not serious—"
"I am." Isla's speech and the bathroom scribbles flashed in his mind. "You said you did this all for me. From this point on, that's done. You have no reason to go after her." Before saying his next words, he took a deep breath, like he truly meant what he was going to say. How hard it was, but how easy it came out of his own lips:
"And I have no reason, either."
Blair gaped.
But Elias didn't give her a chance to retort. He immediately nodded a goodbye and went to the other direction, towards the boys' dormitories, away from the environment he had foolishly allowed himself to reign in.
"Did I just see you—" a familiar voice, Charles', appeared next to him as he seemingly ran up to his dark-haired friend, "—having a chat with the wicked witch of the west?"
He chuckled. "You sure did."
"Okay, mate, you have to tell us what you said to her," Nolan's voice came next, his lanky figure appearing on his other side. "The poor girl is gaping so much I'm worried a fly would enter."
Elias chuckled, throwing both his arms across his best friends' shoulders and pulling them in for a hug as they continued walking. "It's about time you guys caught up." He paused. "But right now, I think I need a bloody drink."
"That's more like it!" Charles hollered.
Nolan laughed. "I'm always down to get pissed." His brown-haired friend leaned in to slyly whisper to him, "but you're going to have to remind us why."
"You've always been keen on secrets, haven't you, Parrish?"
But there was perhaps one secret he wasn't willing to share yet.
A secret that he himself had been struggling to accept in the past few days. That he might, in fact... not hate Isla Kingsley.
Yeah, he needed more than one drink tonight.
A/N: I love this chapter, even though there were no Elias/Isla content. A little reminder that while this is primarily Isla's story, Elias also has his own.