s u p e r n o v a

“hi.” she smiled a little bit, hugging her book tight to her chest. “how are you feeling?” she asked, nodding towards the other girl’s cuts. elina felt bad that she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but also didn’t want to push her to talk about it if she didn’t want to.

“i mean, i’ve felt better and i’ve felt worse, so... pretty whatever.” she shrugged, walking over to sit next to her. “how ‘bout you? been a hot minute since i’ve seen you at the house. you and dev get in a fight or something?”

“did they give you any medicine for that? or do you want me to go get you some?”

“yeah, but i can’t take any more for like... four hours or some shit like that. and i’m like, 90% sure fin has ‘em. she’s been giving them to me, i don’t even know where the bottle is.”

“refresh my memory. who was driving?”

“i don’t remember.”

“yeah. oh, darn. that’s intense. you’re okay now right?”

“eh, yeah. m’not dead, so...” she shrugged. “where were you?”

elina sat in front of her house, gripping a book tightly in her hands. she’d been avoiding everyone since she’d gotten back from her “adventure”, preferring not to talk about it. hearing footsteps near her, she looked up, accidentally making eye contact with the person. she quickly shoved her nose farther into her book, pulling her knees closer to her chest, hoping they’d get the hint.

it was the first time emory had left her house since the accident, and she was honestly just walking around avoiding going back. she ended up at the gardner’s house and noticed elina sitting on the front porch. she hadn’t seen her since before the storm, so it was both odd and nice to see her sitting out front. “hey, stranger.”

“i was kinda off grid during the storm. what happened?“

“oh shit, really? i don’t remember, but we were going to disney, and then i woke up and we were in the hospital. i think someone hit our car or something.”

“what happened to you?”

“did you hear about that accident? maddie was in it?”

“are you doing ok?”

“eh. i wanna like, do shit, but i can’t.”

“are you feeling any better em?”

“i guess. not really, my head hurts like a bitch.”

“okay, but do i still smell like chlorine? because i took like four showers.”

“yeah, ya nasty. maybe you need another one.”

“See, I try not to make impulse buys, but making them for your dog is fine, right? Because, okay, Bark fuckin’ loves tennis balls, but he tears them up in, like, three seconds, I swear. Buying him, like, four more is just economical, right?”

“you have a dog named bark?”