Elita, Elita, Elita

“So…will you do it?”

Bellamy blinks, glancing down at her phone and pausing the music that was playing while Elita was talking. Because of it, she hadn’t even noticed her, until she felt a finger poke her shoulder. “What’dyousay?”

Elita rolls her eyes, leaning both hands on the table Bellamy has her textbooks stacked on. Her pinky’s a centimeter or so away from Calculus Intro and the teeny tiny mood ring wrapped tight around her finger circumference is dark purple. “I said,” She whisper yells, “That I need you to send your notes for our poetry class. The one we have together.”

“Um,” Bellamy murmurs, pulling her headphones out of her ears by the wire. “You need me to?” Elita nods. “I feel like…that’s…a weird way to ask for a favor.” By not asking.

“Bellamy.” Elita groans, rolling her eyes again. She looks back and forth from their surroundings, before reluctantly sitting in the chair beside Bellamy. Bellamy’s chosen a more secluded area of the library, a table deep in the heart of the thousands of shelved textbooks and far away from the center rows that the majority of university students take up with friends or classmates, because she didn’t want to be found or disturbed. It’s ironic, then, that Elita of all people was by her side now, a girl she rarely speaks to in said poetry class and knows, mostly through Instagram. 

“Yeah?”

“I’m really only taking this class for the art credit.” Elita starts, leaning in so close her arm covers a corner of Bellamy’s MacBook. “So I basically only need to pass.” She emphasizes the last bit, smiling with a bit of charisma. Bellamy tries not to let her eye twitch. “And because I only need to pass, I’d really appreciate it if you could send me the notes from the semester so far.”

“Have you not been taking notes?” 

“I have, but I lost my notebook. And I’ve been freaking out about it,” Elita leans back in her chair, sighing irritably. “But I know you’re, like, killin’ it in the class so I thought if I came to you and just got some of your notes I’d be okay.”

“Yeahhh.” Bellamy glances back down at her computer, her screen split between her Google Docs and a pdf reading she’s been fighting through. “Imma…get back to you.”

Bellamy doesn’t see Elita’s reaction, but from the silence she senses annoyance. “Are you serious?” She finally says after a moment, and when Bellamy glances up her brows are together, hands up in astonishment. “Why the hell do you need to get back to me?”

“Because…” Bellamy draws out her words, “I don’t…know you?”

Elita groans, “We’re in the same class.”

“And that constitutes as a friendship?” Bellamy fires back, feeling herself get hot the way she hates. She pauses, exhaling heavily. “If we were friends, I’d be more than down. But this is the first time we’ve spoken outside of class. And those times haven’t been…super riveting, so. I’ll just think on it. And get back to you this weekend.”

Elita stares at her. She’s waiting, Bellamy considers, for her to burst into laughter, for a theme song to play out of nowhere, for a camera crew to shuffle through the library towards them and for a host with a millennial quaff to saunter up holding Bellamy’s Intro to Poetry notebook. And when it finally registers that Bellamy is unwavering in her decision, Elita pushes her chair back, grabs her tote bag, and leaves. Swift, haughtily. Bellamy shakes her head, pressing play on her study playlist.

—

“The gaul.” Sydney shakes her head disapprovingly after Bellamy finishes her recap of her interaction with Elita.

“I know.” Elita agrees.

“It truly is unmitigated.” 

“Right.” Eita adds half heartedly, having no clue what unmitigated means. “It’s stupid, is what it is.” She leans her head back against the wall. The two of them are on Sydney’s twin xl. Sydney’s curled in a partial fetal position with her head propped up by her left arm, blonde box braids swaying behind her like a curtain. “No idea who she thought she was asking me.” Sydney suddenly giggles, no, snickers, into her palm. Bellamy raises a brow, reaching a hand up to scratch at one of the many scalp gaps between her cornrows. “What?”

“It’s probably ‘cuz we threw her notebook in the trash.” Sydney chuckles facetiously. 

Bellamy leans forward, “Waitwhat?”

Sydney sucks her teeth. “Bitch, don’t act like you don’t remember. We was at David’s lil thing,” She starts, moving the hand, formally propping her head up, for emphasis. “drunk. We left. We walked into Douglas Hall…we seen that notebook somewhere.” She shrugs. “I knew who’s it was, you knew who’s it was…we threw that shit away.”

“Sydney…” Bellamy gapes, eyes wide. “Are you serious?” She laughs, not humorously. “We threw away Elita’s fucking notebook?”

Sydney shrugs again, her brows raised apathetically. Bellamy, weirdly, feels her throat dry at her friends body language – the looks that she’s receiving are typically ones she’d watch Sydney give others. “She ‘fuckin Malcolm. Remember?” It isn’t a question, and at the mention of his name Bellamy stifles a groan.

Because Malcolm, suffice it say, is any other nigga. He studies biomedical engineering, he’s tall with dreads (though, yes he cut them over spring break, and yes it slightly differentiates him), has a wardrobe that rotates between Nike Techs in every rainbow shade (though most common, and Sydney’s favorite, he’s seen in the black fit) and Black Air Force One’s, and typically articulates himself between a series of mumbles and base laden vocal fries. Bellamy loathes every reaction she’s ever had with him, if only for the fact that he is boring, uninteresting to a point of pain, and ambitionless. It made her wonder the validity of STEM aspiration if someone like Malcolm can get accepted into the program, and remain – as it’s common lore for students to be weeded out by the end of their freshman year. Yet the three of them are seniors, months away from graduation, and Malcolm is as close to his degree as Bellamy is. 

“So…” Bellamy trails, sighing as it all begins to connect. “We found Elita’s notebook…and threw it out…because she might be fucking Malcolm?”

“There you go.” Sydney sucks her teeth disapprovingly, begrudgingly sitting up and pulling her phone from beneath her faux-fur decorative pillow. Her acrylics rap against her phone screen like keyboard clicks as she rapidly rummages through her virtual contents, before she pointedly extends her arm in the direction of Bellamy. “See?” Bellamy squints, leaning forward and scanning the screenshot Sydney’s pulled up. 

It’s a text exchange between someone unknown and Sydney, as proven by the contact name. A blurry, extremely zoomed in photo of what looks like Elita and a man in – Bellamy’s eyes widen– a black Nike Tech sitting across from another at a colorful restaurant. Maybe Flower Child? Or Sweetgreen? This you and Malcolm? The person texts. Bellamy briefly, and with fear for Elita’s life, wonders if Sydney is the person texting her. “Is this you texting her?” She raises her eyes above the phone to lock with Sydney’s. She rolls hers back into her head, flapping her eyelash extensions like butterfly wings. 

“No. Thas’ Edwina.” She drops the phone into Bellamy’s lap, and Bellamy quickly scans through it. Ughhhhh. Elita writes at one point. Nobody was supposed to knowww. I’m tryna keep this nigga locked down.

Bellamy shakes her head. “They’ve been dating for six months.”

Sydney shrugs, maintaining her apathy. Bellamy gently hands her phone back. Sydney tucks it back under her pillow, her eyes remaining on her nails. As Bellamy watches her, she recognizes the cracks in her resolve. The tight brows, pouted lips forced to the left as she chews on the inner flesh of her right cheek. As great of a length Sydney goes through to portray indifference, a symptom of her bad bitch persona, Bellamy knows well and deep that she’s lava cake sensitive – gooey and capable of collapsing at the slightest of digs. “She still fuckin’ my man. So yeah. I’on feel bad.”

There’s no pushing Sydney when she’s like this, so Bellamy keeps her mouth shut. But the next day, in poetry class, she follows Elita out of the university library basement, where their class is held, and agrees to help her with their poetry assignments. Elita reminds her that she didn’t ask for help, more so just screenshots of Bellamy’s notes, and Bellamy is instantly reminded of the aforementioned gaul. That, at least, was a valid Sydney assessment. Nonetheless Bellamy agrees to do it. 

They take the elevator up to the main level and find a study room, since it’s midday and most people are still in class. Bellamy splays her spiral notebook out on the table and stands back as Elita flips through the pages, her dark eyes quickly scanning before she lands on one of their older chapters and focuses her phone on the page. She takes clean, angled photos of each page, stopping after each one and staring at her phone before either flipping to the next page or retaking the photo.

Bellamy is silent in the corner as Elita works, her hands in a tight fists at her pelvis. The quiet between them is only interrupted by the sound of camera clicks, or an irritated sigh from Elita’s wide nose. “It sucks your notebook is…gone.” Bellamy blurts at one point.

“Yep.” Elita mumbles curtly, flipping a page.

“Did you try looking for it?”

Elita’s face as she turns to Bellamy does all of the work of making Bellamy feel stupid “Why would I not do that?” Her voice is a deadpan, she even rolls her eyes, turning back to Bellamy’s notebook. 

“I’m asking,” Bellamy starts, her face hot. “Because I feel like I should tell you…that it was me…who threw it out.” Her voice decreases in volume as she speaks, so that her final word is less of a whisper and more lip movement. 

Elita stops flipping, her brows knitting. She seems less mad, more confused. “What?” She asks, not facing Bellamy.

Bellamy is silent, swallowing softly. “It was me and my friend Sydney. We’re roommates, and we found it in one of the class buildings, but we were drunk. And Sydney lowkey has beef with you because…” She falters on the last bit, Elita’s eyes silencing her. But something in her wills her to continue. Female solidarity, perhaps. With whom, she isn’t sure. “She’s seeing Malcolm.” Elita’s face drops, if that’s even possible. Her eyebrows flatten, her lips plateau, and her irises darken. Bellamy waits for her to say something. It sends a nauseous embarrassment through her, as if she’s the one who’s been seeing two women. When Elita still doesn’t speak, Bellamy continues. “Well, Malcolm is…he’s cheating. On Sydney. And…on you.” Bellamy pulls out her phone. “I can show you–”

“Sydney Porter?” Her voice is an ax thrown at a tree.

Bellamy nods, slowly. “Yeah.” 

Elita looks down at Bellamy’s notebook. Softly, she closes it. She tugs her totebag further up her arm, swiftly walking around the table it rests on and past Bellamy, then out of the door. Bellamy watches as the door slowly shuts, the latch locking with a kiss. Through the windows adorning the room instead of walls she can see Elita’s pace quicken as she nears the exit, her head of thick curls floating behind her like a storm cloud.

–

Bellamy sees Elita again on Thursday, skin dry and eyes puffy, through sporadic glimpses during the next meeting of their poetry class. This entire week has been student critiques, work shared on their class Blackboard. The procedure is a full class summary of the feedback they wrote out for each of the 3-4 poets of the day, but when the student before Elita finishes sharing all that Elita does is cough. And briskly shake her head. The entire class, including the professor, waits for her to speak, a Siberian silence befalling the group of students. Elita keeps her composure, staring down at the table before her where her laptop rests, completely shut. Eventually, what feels like hours after, the professor urges the student to Elita’s right to continue their rotation. Bellamy keeps her eyes on Elita, willing her to so much as shift in her seat, but the girl is a body of strong and stiff bones. She’s stoic for the rest of the period, when the professor dismisses them she hustles out, her hair floating behind her the same as when she left Bellamy alone in the study room.

The rest of the week leading to the weekend is the same. Bellamy tells Sydney about Elita, about the study room and her reaction, the proof of heartbreak she expressed in class. Sydney laughs, celebrating as Bellamy expected her to be. “Period!” She squeals, immediately tapping away on her phone. “Thas’ what happens when you fucks–” She cuts herself off, slicing across her neck with her hand. “‘Wit my mans.”

“She seems super…upset about it.” Bellamy tries, almost wincing when Sydney cackles again.

“Upset.” Sydney sucks her teeth, setting her phone down to continue rolling the blunt she started for the two of them. S.O.S  is playing softly from Bellamy’s speaker, she gazes away from Sydney’s red acrylics and at the sunset aura cast onto their ceiling from the lamp on Bellamy’s desk. “Shit…I’d be upset too. She thought that was her nigga.” She leans forward, licking the end of the paper with her pierced tongue. “But.” Sydney shrugs. “It’s just a thought. She’ll get over it.” She sings the last bit, reaching her hand out towards Bellamy, who passes her the lighter. 

They smoke the entire blunt between each other for an hour, leaning out of the crack of air provided by their eighth floor dorm window and watching the university population bemusedly. Tonight one of their mutual friends, Reese, is throwing a kickback at the Omega Psi Phi frat house and before they hit any function they’ve made it a habit to smoke at least a little bit so that 1. The party is much more of an experience and 2. They don’t have to crowd around a poorly rolled joint packed with month-old bud passed from the lips of one acquaintance to the other. Bellamy doesn’t smoke nearly as much as Sydney does, and learned this through an unfortunate green-out in their dorm before winter break, so her pre-game is always three hits max. Enough to get her giggling, yet she maintains her conscience. Plus, she has her wits to police Sydney from overreacting to strangers on the street or violently blabbing to their friends. 

Sydney handles the roach, tossing the burnt bit out of the window, and they saunter out of their dorm and make the five minute walk to the other side of campus where the divine 9 row resides, but they hear it about two minutes in. The front door is wide open when the walk up, all of the lights in the house are on and the group of eight or nine people is gathered out back in the small patch of lawn around a bonfire, everyone loud and uproarious enough for Bellamy to know they’ve started drinking. She and Sydney make their rounds of greetings with hugs and bits of small talk, she even takes a cup of jungle juice from Reeses roommate even though she wasn’t planning on drinking tonight. But she welcomes the spontaneity, a product of her good mood. Or her good high. Maybe both, she thinks to herself as she takes a sip of the almost syrup-y concoction. Her tongue tickles something soggy and sour that enters her mouth from the cup. “Hey.” She pokes Miguel, the roommate. “This has Sour Patch in it?”

He nods, proud of himself. “Yuuup.”

“Why?” She laughs.

Miguel shrugs, his teeth white and his smile wide. The bonfire is to her left, casting a timid blaze on the right side of his face, the locks that swing like moss. His brown skin seems smooth despite the goatee forming on the dent of his chin. “It’s good.”

“It is good.” She agrees, taking another sip. “Did you make it?” Is this flirting? Or are we just having a conversation? Bellamy swallows her drink.

“Nah.” He says at first, “Well–it was me and them.” He points behind her, presumably to one of the other Q’s, but Bellamy keeps her eyes on his. This is flirting. She confirms, proudly. “And there’s more inside if you want.”

“Ok.” She nods, starting to smile.

“But don’t take too long.” Miguel’s smile is back, a bit sheepish. “‘Cause I’m tryna talk to you.”

Bellamy grins, stupidly. “To me?”

Miguel laughs, “Yeah. You don’t be nowhere.”

“Well I’m here.” She chirps happily. “Which is good.”

Miguel nods, his hands in the pocket of his jeans – dark like the oversized hoodie hanging off his thin frame. “That is good.”

Bellamy quickly sips the rest of her drink, swallowing two Sour Patch Kids whole. “Okay.” She gups, Miguel laughs. “I’m gonna go get more. And then be right back.”

“You drank that hella quick.” He teases as she begins walking backwards.

“Yep, so you’d remember me in my absence.” Quit while you’re ahead. She turns on her heel in the grass, the damp strands squishing beneath her Doc Martens, doesn’t even try to fight the grin still on her face as she walks briskly back into the house. She’s shaking with elation, the entire interaction with Miguel playing in her head as she squeezes past a Q, and almost pushes right into the swinging door leading to the kitchen before she hears Elita’s voice cut someone off. 

“Remember when you said you wasn’t talkin’ to her no more?” Elita jabs at the other voice, her voice thick and fragile. Yet, it’s a razor edge tone, enough to scar. Bellamy glances around her to see if she’s the only one hearing this. She’s alone save for a couple connected from body to flesh on the couch pushed deep into the farthest corner, close to the front door. “You remember that?” Elita’s voice raises. “When you lied to my fuckin’ face?”

Someone sucks their teeth, “I’on even wanna do this shit right now.” Malcolm groans, and Bellamy inhales heavily, her hand gripping tighter to her empty cup. “I already told you,” He starts, his voice a deep and condescending baritone. “I don’t talk to nobody no more. And you not lookin’ through my phone again so you can forget that. Forget that shit, man.”

“Malcolm–”

“Man…” He trails, his vocal fry dragging. “You always comin’ at me with some shit.”

“Because I don’t fuckin’ trust you!” Elita shreaks. Bellamy jumps, quickly glancing back at the couple to see if they reacted as well, but they’re laughing happily mid-conversation. Bellamy inhales once again, and enters the kitchen with a polite but placid look on her face, hoping to slip in, get her drink, and go back outside to continue talking to Miguel.

But she sees the knife.

And the blood.

And Malcolm, his mouth agape, collapsing to his knees as if praying. But his hands are nowhere near clasped. They’re clutching his stomach, dark crimson seeping between his fingers coating the fabric of his black Nike Tech, dripping precariously onto the floor. He makes a noise, a combination between a groan and a gasp that Bellamy can’t hear because she’s screaming, but the ringing in her ears blocks it all out. She drops her cup, rushing over to Malcolm and pushing Elita out of the way, her hands cupping his face, and then his stomach, the blood from his organs or his flesh or his body coating her hands like the stickiest most viscous paint she’s ever seen. Suddenly she’s crying, Malcolm falling forward onto her, his head in the crook of her neck right before he roars a wail so ferocious that she does hear it. It wakes her up, she’s shaking as she tries to pull him on his feet, his body heavy and uncoordinated beside her own. 

Facing Elita, “Elita.” Bellamy sobs, swallowing a wad of spit formerly coating the interior of her lips. Elita’s face is cliff-side jagged, each bone pressing against the skin from the strain of her muscles. “Elita.” Bellamy repeats, struggling through her thoughts and therefore barely able to speak her words. “Elita, we–we” She stammers, stumbling as Malcolm slips in her grasp, the blood, his blood, lubricating her fingers against the slick fabric of his jacket. “We–have to–help. We have to get him help.”

Elita shakes her head, “Why did you tell me?” She asks, her voice weak and sopping with heartache. She’s crying too, Malcolm’s wailing, Bellamy’s heart and stomach lurch at the same time. Bellamy opens her mouth, staring into Elita’s bloodshot eyes, her trembling jaw. 

“For Sydney.” Bellamy chokes, beginning to sob again. It’s all she can think of.

Elita steps forward, the sound of shears cutting fabric, and then a gaping ache in Bellamy’s stomach. Bellamy sees Elita’s lips moving as her fist connects with her flesh after the blade does. Once, thrice, more. She can no longer hear it over Malcolm’s howl of a scream, can’t feel the weight of her tone over the flow of blood exiting her body the wrong way — onto the wood floor of the kitchen and not through her veins – can barely think of anything besides the jolt of thunder to her joins as her knees meet the floor. 

Malcolm falls forward and her hands move to her own gut, she drops her eyes down to her own blood – she feels it far more than she does the gashes in her body, the fear from that replacing any pain. Slowly, she raises her head. Elita is gone. Bellamy’s eyes blur from her tears. She raises a hand to the counter, looking down at Malcolm, his mouth is wide, wailing, his hands still at his gut, his eyes tightly shut, and when she looks up again she sees the kitchen door open. Miguel enters, bewildered, his face tearing wide at the sight of them. Bellamy tastes her blood, it coughs up like phlegm, she tries to speak. Miguel’s hands are everywhere, red from her or Malcolm. She thinks of Sydney; of a knife; of her own blood.

“My parents.” She chokes out, blood pouring from her tongue, tears mixing with it at the base of her chin. Miguel cups her face, his mouth creating words that float in her ears and out like a cheap radio – static…noise…static. She notices the acne on his face thanks to the lazy, amber overhead light. “Jesus…” She garbles, slowly falling forward, her cheek meeting his shoulder.

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