Not Your Average High School Experience

Staying the night and talking things over.

Elaine was now sitting on the love seat, her fingers drumming on the arm of the seat as she impatiently waited on Elizabeth to return from Jamie's house. So far, the younger woman had been gone for over an hour and Elaine was starting to worry that something had happened to her. Also, she was nervous about having to talk to the girl once she returned.

After she had talked to Jamie, she had started to think about some things. Most of those things involving Elizabeth. Like, what were they exactly? Yeah, they had kissed and they both liked each other, but were they going to be willing to make their relationship just that? Or would they do things the right way and wait until Elizabeth was no longer Elaine's student? However, they planned on wining things out, Elaine needed to know because it was practically killing her.

After sitting there for what seemed like years, though it was only a matter of minutes, Elaine finally saw a pair of headlights cast a shadow on the far wall of the living room. Immediately Elaine stood up and got ready to meet Elizabeth at the door, wanting to help her if she needed help with the bags. Standing for a little longer than a minute, Elizabeth soon walked through the door with three full duffle bags and her head hung low. Elaine quickly walked over and took ahold of two of the bags, walking them over and setting them at the foot of the stairs before she looked back over at Elizabeth.

"Did you get everything that she will need while she's here?" Elaine asked softly, not wanting to wake Jamie as she looked at Elizabeth, wondering why the younger girl had her head hung. Suddenly she noticed why Elizabeth had her head hung when she lifted her head, showing that on the right side of her lip was busted open as if she had been hit as well as a place where it looked like she had also been struck on the cheek. Immediately Elaine walked over and gently placed a hand over Elizabeth's cheek, causing the girl to wince slightly.

Without saying anything, Elaine moved her hand off of Elizabeth's cheek and walked into the kitchen. She opened the freezer and got out one of the ice packs that had been meant for Jamie and walked it over to Elizabeth. Not saying anything as the ice pack was held out to her, Elizabeth took it and put it to her cheek before starting to walk up the stairs, still not bothering to say anything to Elaine. Biting her lip slightly, Elaine picked up the bags that she had put at the bottom of the stairs and walked up them as well, wanting to talk to Elizabeth about what had happened while she was at Jamie's house as well as a few other things.

When Elaine reached Elizabeth's bedroom, she found that she wasn't as curious around the room like she had thought she would have been. The last time that she had been in here, she wasn't really looking around the room because she just really wanted to shower and thank Elizabeth for offering her the house for the night. Now, she was a little too focused on trying to talk to Elizabeth rather than looking around the room; it didn't seem all that important to her. Actually, it didn't seem important at all. Looking over at Elizabeth, she could see that that girl had already sat the bag she was holding onto on her bed and soon Elaine walked over, doing the same before turning her attention to Elizabeth.

"What happened while you were there?" Elaine asked softly while looking into Elizabeth's bluish-green eyes with her bright green ones, really wanting to get an idea of what went down that could have caused Elizabeth to come back with a busted lip as well as a swelling cheek. Elizabeth simply shrugged her shoulders, her gaze soon leaving Elaine's when she looked down at the carpet of her bedroom.

"Told him that he was an ass and that Jamie deserved better. Also, may have mentioned that he was a drunken d**k head and that he needs to get his head out of his ass so that he could see that what he is doing to Jamie when he gets to drinking isn't right." Elizabeth explained while once again shrugging her shoulders as if what she had said as well as what had happened afterwards didn't bother her at all. Elaine bit her lip slightly while moving to sit on the bed that she had been standing beside a moment ago.

"You really have no fear, do you?" Elaine asked, looking up at the younger girl just in time to see her crack a smile. Shaking her head slightly, taking a seat next to the older woman while removing the ice that had been held to her cheek.

"I'm not going to let a man that beats his own child scare me. There are very few things in this word that truly scare me, and I refuse to let him scare me and I refuse to show him fear. I'm not someone that he can scare into listening to him when he raises a fist at me and makes a threat." Elizabeth said while looking down at her lap, playing with the ice pack that was in her hands. Elaine could see that Elizabeth had meant every word that she had just spoken and to her this showed that Elizabeth really wanted to be strong all of the time. She never seemed to allow the bullying at school get to her, the accident only caused her to snap, never break down and then the fact that she refused to fear a man that quite honestly scared Elaine was just impressive to her. Elizabeth was one strong girl.

"You're really strong. I hope you know that." Elaine said softly while offering Elizabeth a soft smile as she said this, wanting Elizabeth to know just what she thought about her standing up to that man. Elaine could see Elizabeth's cheeks flushed slightly as she shook her head slightly and mumbled something about it not being anything special. Elaine was about to say something to counter that before she remembered that she needed to talk to Elizabeth about something else. Seeing as there really was nothing else to be said about to topic of the visit, Elaine decided that there was no better time than now.

Looking down at her lap, she bit her lip a little nervously, not really wanting to upset Elizabeth with what she was going to say here soon. That is if she could get her act together and muster the courage to finally say something about it. However, she didn't need to gain her courage and mention it, because Elizabeth seemed to pick up on the fact that she was nervous and spoke first.

"Elaine, what's on your mind? What's bothering you?" Elizabeth said in a clear soft voice. Elaine closed her eyes for a moment before looking up from her lap, meeting Elizabeth's gaze for a moment only to soon drop it and look back down at her lap.

"I've been thinking about us lately...I-I'm not denying that I have feelings for you, you know that I do seeing as I made the first move, but with me being your history teacher..." Elaine had a feeling that she didn't need to continue for Elizabeth to understand that they couldn't exactly allow their feelings to become something more due to the fact that she wasn't supposed to have relationships with her students. Elizabeth looked at Elaine while playing with her lip ring slightly, trying to think things over for a moment.

"Yeah, I know that you're my history teacher, but will you really be able to wait until I'm no longer your student to finally express your feelings for me? Elaine, we don't have to allow anyone to know about this, I swear. I meant what I said on the soccer field." Elizabeth countered, only getting a shake of the head from Elaine.

"Elizabeth, I know that you wouldn't tell, I just don't want someone to find out somehow. That wouldn't be good for you and it really wouldn't be good for me either, you and I both know that." Elaine noted while slowly looking up to meet Elizabeth's gaze once again, not liking the look of sadness that was on Elizabeth's face.

"So, you're willing to give up on any chance of us working out because of the small risk that we might get caught when there is also a chance that we won't? Elaine, over a year will be hard if you feel the way that I do. Are you really willing to wait that long?" Elizabeth asked, running her tongue over her lips after she had spoken before she started to move her lip ring back and forth on her lip.

"I-I don't know...it's...it's just the right thing to do. I don't want to get you into trouble and I really need to keep my job, so if that means I have to wait that long, then I'm going to try my hardest to hold my emotions in...that's all I really can do, b-but I don't want to upset you..." Elaine said while looking back down at her lap, closing her eyes as she was no longer able to stand the look that had come over Elizabeth's face. She knew that it would be hard. Hell, it would be the hardest damn thing she had done since studying for her college finals, but she would have to try. It was the right thing to do, right?

"Will you at least consider the possibility that we could manage to make things work...? Just...don't give up on a chance for something to happen between us completely, alright? Promise to think about it at least...? Allow your emotions to talk over your brain." Elizabeth said before standing from the bed, not really giving Elaine a chance to say anything in return before she walked out of her bedroom.

Elaine though about maybe following the girl to see if there was anything that she could say to make the girl feel better, or maybe be able to answer some of the questions that she had been asked right before Elizabeth walked out of the bedroom, but she ended up just remaining still on the bed. She really didn't know what else she could do at the moment, other than think some more. Think about what Elizabeth had said and see if she would be able to take the risk and allow something more to happen between them. Was Elizabeth right when she had suggested Elaine allow her heart to speak over her head? Had Elaine really made the right decision in her heart, or was it only the right decision in her mind?

With a rather loud grunt, Elaine moved her hands and covered her face, rubbing her eyes for a moment before moving one of her hands to rub the back of her neck slightly. Not knowing what else to do, Elaine slowly rose from the bed and started walking around the room, starting to take it in so that she didn't have to think anymore.

Now that she was actually paying attention, she was able to see that the room was rather dark and could clearly be labeled the room of an artist. The bed sheets were black, with a comforter that was a light grey, matching the grey pillows that sat at the top of the bed, leaning on the headboard. The nightstands on either side of the bed were white and they matched the headboard of the bed as well as the dresser that was sitting against the wall when you first entered the room. There were black curtains on the windows, matching the bed as well as the two book shelves that were sitting in front of them. All of these things were the reason that the room was dark and the artists touch was all around the room, taped to the walls.

Since the walls started to slope after about four feet up the walls because her room was over the garage and in the roof space, almost every space on the flat sections of the walls were covered in various drawings, paintings and sketches that all appeared to have been drawn by the same hand. Some of them were larger than others while others were smaller and the subject of the artwork varied on where you look around the room. In some places, sketches of what looked like quotes were more noticeable while in other spots the artworks contained a human or people in them. On the sloped sections of the roof however, the theme seemed to be the same and it all seemed to be going in order from left to right. The drawings all seemed to be pages from a manga, resembling the ones that Elaine had caught Elizabeth with one her desk in class one day. Only this time Elaine was able to see that there was a rather good story behind them from the few pages that she had read and she could tell that it was still being worked on as far as she knew.

Walking over to a section of the wall with the quotes on it, seeing as one of them had caught her eye. When she got closer to the sketch, she was able to see what the quote said and that it had been drawn in a nice cursive style of writing that made her smile slightly, though the quote caused her to raise an eyebrow in curiosity. 'They say that love is forever, your forever is all that I need. Please stay as long as you need. Can't promise that things won't be broken, but I swear that I will never leave.' Getting curious about when the quote had come from, she pulled her IPhone out of her pocket and pulled up the Google search app before typing in the quote. Once finding out that it had come from a song by the band Sleeping with Sirens called "If I'm James Dean, You're Audrey Hepburn." Quickly she pulled up the YouTube video and allowed it to play out loud as she walked around and viewed more of the artwork that was on the walls.

The song playing as she walked, looking at the various quotes and pieces of art that lined the walls of the bedroom. As she studied the art, she soon found that there was a certain theme to the quotes that were on the walls. Despite the fact that not all of them fell into this category, most of them did however and she was starting to wonder something. 'Never give in. Never back down. Never give in.' 'Don't give up because you're losing, you haven't lost.' 'There's still hope for you.' 'Darling, you'll be okay.' To Elaine they seemed to be quotes that were about staying strong and know that there was still hope that things could get better soon.

Seeing these quotes started to make Elaine wonder something. How strong was the dark-haired girl on the inside? Maybe Elizabeth was a lot stronger then Elaine had ever thought.