Repressed.

“Sal, I said no.” “And I heard you,” Elsa replied. “I simply decided you were wrong.” Eloise Hartford stared at the envelope being held in front of her. Then at Elsa. Then back at the envelope. “You cannot give someone a course they have already refused.” “Of course I can. I paid for it.” “That makes it worse.” “It makes it a gift.” “It makes it expensive harassment.” Elsa smiled and pushed the envelope closer. Eloise leaned away from it. They had been doing this for nearly ten minutes. The envelope contained a place on a short personal makeup course in London. Several sessions spread across a few weeks, covering everything from basic application and skin preparation to colour and evening looks. It was exactly the sort of thing Eloise would have quietly looked at online, considered booking, and then closed the page without doing anything. Which was probably how Elsa had known. “Why?” Eloise finally asked. “Why what?” “Why are you so determined to make me do this?” Elsa lowered the envelope. “Because I think you'll enjoy it.” “I own makeup.” “Yes. An alarming amount of it.” “I use some of it.” “You own three drawers of makeup, Elle.” “Four.” Elsa stared at her. Eloise immediately regretted correcting her. “Four,” Elsa repeated. “You have four drawers of makeup, a wardrobe full of beautiful clothes, more shoes than any reasonable person needs, and jewellery everywhere.” “I design jewellery.” “That explains the jewellery. It does not explain the shoes.” “I like shoes.” “Exactly.” Eloise folded her arms. Elsa leaned back against the kitchen counter, looking unbearably pleased with herself. “You like these things,” she said. “That's my point. You buy them because you like them, and then you act as though you're not allowed to enjoy them.” That took some of the humour out of the room. Eloise looked away. Her flat was evidence enough. She had spent years filling it with things she found beautiful. Books lined the shelves. Fabric samples and sketchbooks occupied one end of her workroom. Her wardrobe held clothes she had carefully chosen and rarely wore anywhere interesting. There were bottles of perfume on her dressing table and cosmetics tucked neatly into drawers. She liked beautiful things. Creating them had become her career. Allowing herself to enjoy them was apparently more complicated. “I don't need a makeover,” she said. “I didn't say you did.” “You were thinking it.” “No. I was thinking my friend likes makeup and doesn't know what she's doing with half of it.” Eloise gave her a flat look. Elsa laughed. “Elle, this isn't about fixing your face.” “I know.” “Do you?” There it was. Eloise reached for her tea. Elsa had known her long enough to recognise when she was trying to escape a conversation. They had met during their first year at King's College London and somehow survived student jobs, bad flats, worse deadlines and several questionable financial decisions together. Elsa knew when to leave something alone. Unfortunately, she also knew when not to. “What is actually stopping you?” she asked. “Nothing.” “Then take the course.” “I have work.” “You work from home.” “That is still work.” “I know.” “Then why did you say it like that?” “Because you haven't been doing much of it.” Eloise went quiet. That one landed. Elsa's expression softened. Eloise had once been difficult to separate from her work. Jewellery sketches appeared on napkins, receipts, margins and occasionally the backs of envelopes containing important correspondence. She could lose an entire afternoon developing a clasp mechanism or working through variations of a setting. She wrote, too. Less reliably, perhaps, but seriously enough to have an editor waiting for the next draft of her novel. Or at least, she used to. Her drawing desk had remained almost untouched for months. Panoply had been patient. More patient than she thought she deserved. Eloise had worked with the jewellery house for years, and several of her designs had sold extremely well. They valued her work and had made it clear that the door remained open when she was ready. The problem was that Eloise had stopped feeling ready. Her novel was in much the same state. She had tried forcing herself back into both. It usually ended with several hours at her desk, an empty page in front of her, and the growing certainty that whatever part of her used to make things had quietly packed its bags and left. “I'll get back to it,” she said. “I know you will.” There was no doubt in Elsa's voice. That somehow made it worse. Eloise rubbed her thumb along the rim of her cup. More than a year had passed since Trent. She disliked measuring time that way. Before Trent. With Trent. After Trent. As though a mediocre man had somehow earned the right to become a calendar. She had loved him. That was the irritating part. For two years she had loved him seriously, faithfully and with the quiet assumption that they were building towards something together. Trent had apparently been operating under a different assumption. The evening he ended things, Eloise had made dinner. She remembered that detail more clearly than she wanted to. She had spent most of the afternoon cooking. Trent barely touched his plate. Eventually, he put down his fork. “I don't think we're right for each other, Elle.” She had looked at him across the table. He wouldn't quite meet her eyes. Then came the explanations. They had grown apart. Things had changed. He wanted something different. And finally, when she asked him to stop circling the point and simply say what he meant, he did. “You're just not enough for me.” A pause. “And if I'm being truthful, I've never really found you that attractive.” That was the sentence that stayed. Not because Eloise believed Trent possessed some great authority on beauty. He didn't. But he had found an old wound and pressed directly into it. Her mother had spent years doing much the same. Trent had simply arrived later and confirmed what Eloise had already been taught to suspect. She remembered waiting for anger. She wanted to throw something. A plate would have been satisfying. Instead, she looked at him and said, very quietly, “Get out.” So he did. The anger arrived later. Unfortunately, so did everything else. Eloise withdrew. She stopped answering invitations. She stopped going anywhere she didn't have to go. Work became difficult, then impossible. Some days she accomplished very little beyond moving from her bed to the sofa and convincing herself that tomorrow would be different. Elsa was one of the few people she hadn't managed to shut out. Possibly because Elsa refused to cooperate. “Elle.” Eloise looked up. Elsa was holding the envelope out again. This time she wasn't smiling. “I'm not asking you to become someone else,” she said. “I'm asking you to go somewhere on Friday, learn something you've always been curious about, and spend a few hours doing something that has absolutely nothing to do with Trent.” Eloise looked at the envelope. Friday. It seemed ridiculous that such a small thing should require courage. “What if I hate it?” “Then you hate it.” “And you've wasted your money.” “My money has survived worse.” “What if I'm terrible?” “Then you'll be terrible at makeup for an afternoon.” Eloise laughed despite herself. Elsa smiled. “There she is.” “Don't.” “I didn't say anything.” “You were about to.” “I was about to say that being bad at something for five minutes has never killed you.” “You don't know that.” “I feel reasonably confident.” Eloise looked down at the envelope again. It was only a makeup course. A few Friday mornings. Some brushes. Some colour. A room full of strangers she would probably never see again once the course ended. Nothing about it required Eloise to become beautiful. Nothing about it required her to become confident, healed or suddenly interested in rebuilding her life. She only had to turn up. Perhaps that was why Elsa had chosen it. Eloise had spent the past year thinking she needed to feel better before she could start living normally again. Maybe she had it backwards. Maybe she could simply do something first. The feeling could catch up later. She reached out and took the envelope. Elsa's smile became triumphant. “Don't make that face.” “What face?” “That one. Like you've conquered a nation.” “I have achieved something much more difficult.” “You bullied your friend.” “I motivated my friend.” “You weaponised friendship.” “Friday,” Elsa said cheerfully. “Ten o'clock.” Eloise stopped. Slowly, she looked up. “You already booked it.” Elsa picked up her handbag. “You weren't going to.” “Elsa.” “You're welcome.” “Elsa!” But Elsa was already laughing. Eloise looked down at the envelope in her hand. Friday at ten. For the first time in months, there was something on her calendar that had nothing to do with work she wasn't doing, people she was avoiding, or a life she was trying not to think about. It wasn't much. But it was something. And for now, something would have to be enough.