The Heart of Belgravia SOLO MEMORIES on hold

Best + Bitter = Better

Lately, I've been, I've been thinking
I want you to be happier, I want you to be happier

"我不会离你。"

I'm not going to leave you.

Elijah looked up from his tear-stained pillowcase, the dark silhouette in the doorframe blurred by his tears and lack of glasses. If he had been okay, if his mind was in an okay state, he would've looked at how the figure was leaning against the door frame, the slight lilt in the voice, and the haircut the figure sported. If he had been sane, he would've immediately recognized the silhouette as his sister, and he would've welcomed her with open arms.

Instead, he screamed- a loud, ugly sound that shifted into a sob halfway through, and he buried his face in his pillow once more, his body racked with shudders, trembling with the aftershocks of sobs. With a heavy sigh and a grimace, Celestine slowly stepped inside her younger brother's room, approaching his bed where he lay with extreme caution. Slowly lowering herself to sit on the bed beside Elijah, she stroked his back as he cried, a thin trail of tears streaming down her own porcelain face.

"为- 为什么爸爸说了谎? 为什么他骗我?" His voice, at seven, was normally strong and bold, full of curiosity and never afraid to ask questions. Now, it was broken, punctuated with dry heaves of grief, muffled by the pillow. It broke Celestine's heart to see him like this, but then again, she would've felt the exact same in his place. The outburst was loud, unnaturally so, and the sound of a plate shattering could be heard from downstairs, nearly making the older sibling jump in surprise.

For the first time in a long time, she didn't know what to do.

"你跟我说，吧!" Elijah sat up angrily, wiping the tears away from his face, his cheeks flushed red with anger. Celestine stared at him with wide eyes, not at all used to seeing her normally content brother mad. His voice shook with anger, dripped with hatred, and would've been able to stop Queen Elizabeth herself in her tracks. "他骗我了。为什么?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Her voice took on only the barest hint of exasperation- not with Elijah, no, but with their father. She slowly put her arm over his shoulder, pulling him closer to her, hugging him tight. "He did what he thought was right. Clearly, he was wrong, but surely, you've got to give him credit for at least trying." She, of course, was a good daughter, even during the rebellious age of sixteen. She, as a good daughter, would not insult her father in the same manner her brother did, even though she so desperately wanted to.

"His mistake killed my dog," Elijah shrieked, tearing his sister's comforting clutch away from him, a fresh flood of tears streaming down his face. He turned away from his sister, the only sound in the room his sniffles and gasps for air. "He had no right- no right to do what he did." His breath was haggard and his eyes were red and puffy, from crying for too long, and his normally perfectly groomed hair was a wild mess, now obvious that it was too long and had been allowed to grow beyond his mother's preferences. "And you know what? I loved Lia more than I'll ever love him, anyway."

"She wasn't just your dog, Elijah!" Celestine snapped, staring at Elijah with a hurt expression. Her voice shook as she continued on, remembering the golden retriever that had been at her side for so long, ever since her fifth birthday. Even then, she'd been a fan of the Latin language, prompting her to name her new dog. "Do you know who named her? I did. I named her because she was a fighter, El. Praelia means fighter, you know that?"

Elijah shook his head, finally shutting up. "And do you know who even found her? Mom found her, did you know that?" Getting to her feet, Celestine began to pace up and down Elijah's room, waving her hands wildly. Maybe today was the day she'd finally be able to get some sense into the boy's head, for once and for all.

She loved her brother dearly, yet most of the time, she feared that he lived on a planet far, far away from their own; immersed in his head, alone in his own kingdom of intellect, and world where everything made sense to him. She knew that she would never fully understand how he could just sit in his room for hours on end, barely moving, but that was just his way.

"I still remember it. Mom came home on my birthday with a dog on a purple leash, with the biggest smile I've ever seen. She said that the poor baby didn't have a home, and that she found her on the side of the street a week before. She took Lia to a vet and asked if she could be saved. She could, and she was my birthday present."

Pausing to take a breath, she jutted a finger out at Elijah, who could only watch and listen to his sister with his mouth hanging open. "There's a lot you don't know, you pompous ignoramus. I was here, living and breathing eight years before you were even a thought in mother's mind. There's a lot of history you haven't even heard the whispers of, yet."

Suddenly enraged without much of an explanation as to why, Celestine turned on her heel, leaving Elijah's sanctuary with a flourish and slam of the door. Staring at his newly departed sister, he moaned slightly, falling back onto his bed, the tears flowing faster now that no one was there to watch him. The gaping hole left in his heart just hurt so, so much, and he didn't want to have to feel it anymore.

The nightmare he was living through the aftermath of seemed to surreal, it was hard to believe that it was only that morning that it had even happened. It was hard to believe that it was only that morning that he had noticed that Lia hadn't been eating, that he had begged for his father to do something. Charlie had insisted that Lia wasn't hungry, not that she was sick and dying. None of them had known, but Charlie's insistence and confidence in himself was slightly overwhelming.

He had been wrong. So, incredibly wrong. Even as Elijah lay by her side that morning, stroking her golden coat lovingly as he did his homework on the floor, Lia was dying. Even as Elijah sighed in defeat as he failed to understand his science homework, she lapped at his chin, making him smile, a smile as bright as the sun.

She had been a good dog.

Reducio

Translations ↴
为什么爸爸说了谎? 为什么他骗我?→ Why did father tell a lie? Why did he trick me?
你跟我说，吧!→ You look at me!
他骗我了。为什么?→ He tricked me. Why?

Even though I might not like this
I think that you'll be happier, I want you to be happier

Anti-Social Social Club 2.0

'Cos it's easier to bury my head in the sand sometimes
Yes, it's easier to bury my head in the sand sometimes

The school cafetorium was a beautiful place if you just looked at it from the right angle.

At ground level, from where the students stood, it was absolute chaos. Chaos and darkness on the verge of all-out war. Students forming alliances with one another, swapping intel and dirt on their common enemies, with spies deep undercover in enemy territory; each and every word carrying another meaning that was next to impossible to discern unless you were 'in' on that specific dialect of the tribe... Most people from the general public would agree that the most dangerous time was during the second world war, but Elijah would beg to differ. For most of the student body, the cafetorium was the most deadly place to be during lunch time.

Not that any of their teachers ever saw any of this. From the top of the totem pole, all they saw were bickering children and snide glances at each other. They could hold as many anti-bullying protests as they wanted, but they would never truly vanquish the strange hierarchy that seemed to exist at every school in existence.

To Elijah, however, the cafetorium was his feeding grounds. He feasted on the rumours, the words, the dialects that made up the language of their school. As he silently slipped into the cafetorium that day, his bag over his shoulder, his eyes darted across the room as he took in all the different tables scattered across the room.

There were two tables that were bigger than the others at opposite ends of the room- that was, of course, where the two main "gangs" of children set up shop. On one end there were the pretty-popular people, those who thought they were better than everyone else, those who surrounded themselves with entourages of adoring children who all knew their names, and their names early. From his little bits of experience with them, he knew them to come from wealthy families, to wear clothes too fancy for school, and to put too much weight on their appearances. The other end was nearly the complete opposite- they were laid-back, chill, and didn't need others' validation to reassure their self-esteem. He stood on the very verge of the chill kids- he was a part of the athletes.

It was honestly more surprising to himself than anyone else that he chose to associate himself with the brawn of the school. He certainly wasn't the strongest boy at their school, but he was still the best defensive midfielder on their football team, so he was pretty well-appreciated. It was fine that he had been dragged into the group of rowdy boys, although no one had ever said that he actually had to become friends with them. His 'friend group', if it could even be called that, included quite a motley assortment of people. There was, of course, their unofficial leader, Robbie, the star forward and extreme ladies' man, who was outgoing and loud. The literal opposite of Elijah. His right-hand man was Owen, a tiny spitfire of a striker who could never seem to keep his mouth shut in front of the teachers. It was the two of them who had the idea to make the whole team sit together during lunches to show "team spirit" and whatnot, not that Elijah bought any of that.

No, he sat with them because he didn't want to be a nerd.

Sliding into his customary seat directly across Robbie, he sat on his hands, his lunchbox nowhere in sight. He normally ate at home after school, although he still brought a lunchbox if only to blend in with everyone else. The rest of the team, like usual, only nodded hello and turned back to whatever conversation had been going on before his arrival.

"New phone, you guys!" The chirpy, cheery voice made everyone's heads turn as Caitlin pranced into the room, her full and bouncy hair practically glowing in the artificial, fluorescent light of the cafetorium. She sat next to Elijah, which made him stiffen and almost bolt for the exit, confused at her strange behavior. She didn't sit here. Ever. She always sat with her friends just a table over, chatting about the bogus assignments their English teacher gave them, or throwing popcorn into Ally's open mouth across the table.

But she was sitting at their table now, and everyone shut up to stare at her. It was customary, after all, to give your queen your full attention. Caitlin pulled her new phone out of her pocket, the sparkly pink case and touchscreen astounding Elijah- he didn't even have a phone! Everyone else seemed to be impressed by the phone, too, so Elijah tried to match their expressions. He couldn't stop himself from peering over her shoulder as she typed in her password- who could blame him when she did it so carelessly? 198346. A pattern, fairly easy to remember, and convenient for a forgetful child.

As Caitlin and the assorted kids in the football team fawned over the phone, Elijah left the cafetorium for some intellectual mental stimulation.

⇉ TWO WEEKS LATER ⇇

"Hey, Elijaaaaaaah..." Elijah looked up from his homework, scrutinizing the girl now sitting across from him. Caitlin smiled widely, folding her hands over each other as she met his eyes with hers, a blue-ish grey staring into his own irises the color of squid-ink. 

"Hello, Caitlin," he said quietly, setting his pencil down. "Did you need something?" He couldn't recall the last time that she had sought him out, one-on-one, and it was slightly alarming to see her sitting directly across from him, all of her attention focused on him like the laser beam of a sniper rifle on its target. He tried to muster a smile up from the depths of his heart of stone, but all he could manage was a half-hearted grimace. It kind of made him look like a scarecrow, but Caitlin didn't even seem to notice.

In fact, she didn't seem deterred by his prickly personality in the slightest. Sliding her phone across the table to him, already unlocked, she tilted her head and her smile grew even further. "It's my birthday this weekend," she said casually, lazily, like that was information that he was already supposed to know. Whoop-de-doo, he thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I'd be absolutely delighted if you could make it," she continued, and suddenly, he realized what she was asking.

She wanted his phone number.

Oh, hell no. "I don't have a phone," he said quickly, rising to his feet as he hurriedly gathered all of his materials and papers, ignoring Caitlin's completely offended expression in front of him. "Elijah, wait-" "I'm sorry, I have to go, Caitlin. I hope you have a good birthday." His ocean of thoughts churning as it threatened to explode into a hurricane, he fled from the classroom, his footsteps echoing down the corridors as he ran toward the boy's lavatory.

Sinking onto the seat of the toilet, he listened to the empty, hollow sound of his breath, his chest heaving as he felt the nausea sweep over him. What had come over him? Why did he feel... scared? Running a hand through his hair, Elijah tugged on his earlobes, releasing every bit of his nervous energy through his hands, through his fingers. He cracked his knuckles, tugged on the stiff collar of his uniform shirt, picked at the cuffs of his sleeves, did anything to distract himself from what had just happened.

It worked for about five minutes before he realized that he really did have to adress the issue. Why had he run? What had made him just stand up and bolt like that? He had felt the initial waves of fear lapping at his ankles when Caitlin first sat down in front of him, which was already not a good sign. How could he fly under the radar if he would be know as the kid who didn't like talking to other people? Besides, he had never really thought himself as one to be scared of social interactions- he didn't have social anxiety, did he? Because that was preposterous. After all, his family, his culture, practically ran on social interactions. It was an uncomfortable feeling he never wanted to feel again- this helplessness that engulfed him whenever he was faced with the prospect beyond just small talk.

The cafetorium he had thought so beautiful and tantalizing just weeks before had turned into a danger zone- a place where he realized that lying and choice of words were absolutely imperative. Every action, every smile, every hand gesture... he would be scrutinized from every possible angle. He couldn't let his act slip, he couldn't slip into the total oblivion that the nobodies of the school lived in. There was a careful balance between the shadows and the light, and he intended to walk on the fine line as expertly as a tightrope walker would.

And I know, I know, I know it's not the right way to go
But I pray for the ground to swallow me whole