the scarlet letter.

[Elliot is on the edge.]

"slut ! "

The word seemed louder than anything Elliot had ever known before, and she could feel the dull heat of a blush flooding to her cheeks. Standing there infront of her bed, post-it note in hand, she felt disheartened, undone almost. If not the straw that broke the camel's back, it was surely something close. That ugly yellow post-it note in her hand, with the most agonizing four letter word on it in stunning black ink, it made her want to sink into the carpet forever, to leave her painful note above surface like a tombstone.

The day had been cruel and long and completely sober, and Elliot had planned to give in early; to skip dinner and just sleep. But as was often true with Elliot's plans, things didn't go quite accordingly as she dragged her weary self into her dorm only to spy that horridly ugly post-it on her four-poster. She hadn't the slightest clue who had left it there, but it went without saying that anyone could have left behind the nasty reminder for her.

Sighing heavily, the blond walked around her bed and sat down on it's edge, her whole body slumping down as if someone had defleated her. The note was still stuck to her first finger, which she held up before her, unable to tear her stormy blue eyes from the slander. Tears were lining the bottom of her lids, though she would keep them from spilling over, part of her still too mad to let herself be sad yet.

[Peyton Howard.]

The Almasian dormitories were so much better than the ones for Wingrose, hands down. These kids had sex appeal and hard liquor and so much herbal variety! But Peyton was flighty at best, and she had only seen Duke Bell getting it on with some anorexic chick from Edengrowth, so it was completely understandable how that one incident forever persuaded her to view Almasy House as being some sort of doped-up version of The Hills. All of this was completely irrelevant as to why she was even there in the first place. She had been pretending to be St. Nicholas, literally frolicking around both the boy's and girl's dormitory, stashing little presents for her friends/clients; but they were more her friends than mere business associates, because she liked to believe that she cared about them deeper than the size of their pockets.

She'd been furtively crawling behind one of the couches, trying to find evidence of a secret tryst between Nate Wakeman and an unidentified young male, Cylo, when she heard the door open. She caught sight of swishing blonde hair, and with a grin, gave Elliot a few minutes head start before beginning to take the stairs to the senior girl's dormitories, ninja style; she wanted to be able to see the look on her bffl^{^x'}s face when she discovered the surprise left to her by Peyton. Counting twenty Mississippi's, she jumped out from around the doorway.

"Boo! Scared ya!" And then right after, upon seeing Elliot sort of devastated and sober,
"Aww, don't you like my present?" Peyton pouted, wondering where it had all went wrong.

[Elliot is on the edge.]

Elliot jumped at Peyton's grand entrance, a little gasp of surprise escaping her as she laid teary eyes on her ever-chipper friend. For a moment she was simply some kind of stunned, not entirely sure of what to do with herself at first. Finally, the blonde inhaled slowly, swallowing back the lump in her throat before taking the ugly note and stuffing it in her pocket, making a mental note to throw it out later. The last thing Elliot would need was to find the note long-forgotten in his pair of jeans months from now and re-open the wound.

"Hey girl."
She quickly brushed away a stray tear before looking up and meeting her friends eyes. It took another second before she registered what else Peyton had said upon her surprise appearance.

"What present?" She raised an eyebrow, but already the flush had started to fade from her tan cheeks and there was a flicker of something pleasant lingering in her eyes. Peyton's presents were undoubtedly the very best kind of gift.

[Peyton Howard.]

"Oh, just some Ritalin," Peyton answered, her usual vague expression impish, "I took some;" which really explained a lot.
"Some herbal essence, some Vicodin, but you shouldn't take that El, it decreases your sex drive, and that would be tragic."

The flower child waltzed into the room, twirling her green skirt before practically collapsing on the bed next to Elliot.
"Duke Bell doesn't take Vicodin or anything like it because he prefers sex," she announced, grinning happily with her revelation; "over, you know, drooling and diarrhea."
Peyton giggled from her spot, playing with her fingers over her chest, and she looked up at Elliot curiously. Her friend was always so sad, even if she tried to hide it. Peyton liked to think of herself as a humanitarian dealer; she didn't quite understand how the title worked right then, but what mattered was that she was more than just some messed up girl, potentially ruining people's lives. Peyton dealt because she understood the need to become numb, and as far as she was concerned, she was keeping her clients off of death row; never packing too much in her deals, but just enough that they'd be sated to keep away from other deadly activities, like a gun or a razor.

Elliot was maybe her best friend. Peyton didn't have many friends, and some of them didn't even count as real ones, but Elliot was her favorite client and she had developed a soft spot for the blonde. She liked to think that she knew a little bit more about the Almasian more than anyone else; Peyton usually had the privilege of seeing her at her lowest, definitely her highest, and the really ugly in betweens.
"What was that?" she asked, poking Elliot's hip and looking a little retarded, lying sprawled on the other's bed.

[Elliot is on the edge.]

"You are, without a doubt, my favorite person on the whole planet."
Elliot smiled in relief over at her friend, some of the tension already having faded from her features. "Honestly. I love you. And you have such damn good timing." The blonde sighed, feeling a touch better despite the heavy weight of the note in her jean pocket. The post-it felt hot against her skin, even through the heavy denim, as if it could somehow burn her more than it already had.

Elliot's eyes traveled to her bedside table, where her selfless best friend had left a gift, and the Almasian wasn't the least concerned at the way her lips came together in some sort of grin at the sight of the drugs, as if they and Elliot were old friends of some sort; an idea what held enough truth that someone probably should have been worried.

"What was what?" She acted oblivious to Peyton's inquiry, playing her best poker face as she reached for the bag on her nightstand, grabbing two of the Ritalin and bringing them close to her face, toying with the pills in the palm of her hand for a second. Finally, she popped the twin poisons into her mouth and held her breath for a long second before swallowing hard, too anxious to head to the bathroom for a glass of water.

"You should tell him to try sex on Vicodin sometime." Elliot leaned back on her bed next to Peyton, propping herself up on her elbows as she looked over at the other blond with a lazy grin. "It's a fantastic enough experience, nearly holy really." She winked, already beginning to forget about the crude word hiding in her pocket.

[Peyton Howard.]

"What," the girl said, sort of drawled, rolling her head to the side and totally burrowing it into the covers. It was so soft, like clouds but not really; it made her giggle.
"You tell him," she returned, speaking backward, and she turned on her side, curling up as much as she could, "he doesn't listen to me."
She scrunched up her face, not really wanting to imagine Elliot having sex, but the images proved to be too strong and she erupted into another fit of laughter.
"Yuck!" she exclaimed, "El, please, I don't want to chuck on your covers, not that you don't look pretty, even in my head, but you know, that was totally TMI."
And then she stopped, completely horrified that she used chtspk IRL, like some dumb blonde.

"Omg, I'm losing it," she muttered to herself, and then sat up, scooting backward a bit until she could comfortably cross those ridiculously long legs of her. Peyton, ever careless, didn't bother to fix the skirt of her dress, and so the already tattered design bunched up near her upper thighs. And Peyton, ever unembarrassed, didn't notice or at least didn't care.

"I love you too," she replied dutifully, like a child reciting the words. She nodded her head, as if it worked as anymore of an emphasis.
"I meant that," and she uncrossed her legs a little too fast, having to curb her hurling foot before she accidentally booted her biffle. Unable to really sit still, she flopped to her side again, this time landing on the pillows. She leaned over to poke Elliot in her side, promptly giggling like it tickled her.

[Elliot is on the edge.]

"Well I suppose if I was to waste anytime talking to Duke, it would certainly be about drugs or sex." Her lips curled upwards and she couldn't have possibly held back the giggle that spilled over her lips. The blonde grinned as she tipped her head back, thoughts drifting aimlessly for a half second until she came to a verbal conclusion. "He's hot."

She tucked a loose blonde curl away from her face and let her head drop, blue eyes landing on Peyton as the other girl prodded her side.
"Awh, I would totally be lost without you Pey," and Elliot had managed to erase all traces of earlier sadness from her features by now. The Ritalin, the Methylphenidate, the prescription stimulant that was all ready to screw with her natural levels of Dopamine and make her feel positively giddy, had yet to really set in, but Peyton's upbeat nature had a contagious way to it, and Elliot was doing her best to catch on and forget everything that had went before; she was so tired of being sad.

The Almasian reached over and snatched up a pillow from the head of her bed, looking sweetly childish as she rolled onto her side and hugged the pillow to her chest, grinning over it as she spoke.

"I'm hungry. Skipping dinner was a dumb idea."

[Peyton Howard.]

"Hmm," Peyton murmured, and screwed up her expression again; ok, if she tilted her head the wrong way and squinted her eyes a lot, maybe Duke would be kind of cute. As it was, he was a nasty boy that always got into her face about her runs, and why they never seemed to come at a convenient time to him; nah, Duke was kinda ugly that way, but she totally loved his music. Shaking her head, because she spent far too much time considering the attractiveness of a clearly unattractive boy, Peyton blinked up wide eyed at Elliot, a little confused as to why her friend was saying all that nice stuff about her. Maybe she was just emotional?

It would figure too, that just when Elliot was becoming more lively, and smily, she would be the one to go quiet and say things in a Ring-esque voice.
"You skip too many meals, El," Peyton said, a sad little tilt to her mouth and whole expression, and it was in that moment that girl really thought about cutting off her friend for a while. Surely all that drinking and pill-popping didn't help the not-eating and barely sleeping? Peyton suddenly felt criminal.

"I don't think we can be friends anymore, Elliot," she declared solemnly, the lowest she'd ever been on Ritalin, "it's, it's for the best!"

[Elliot is on the edge.]

"I don't do it on purpose. I'm not a starver like Mae," When she had first moved away, Elliot's sister had taken a great dislike to eating, or anything that would cause her to gain weight in general, and had fell into something close enough to an eating disorder for quite some time; but since being bit, Mae had grown unnaturally fit and could eat more or less anything now, without gaining an ounce. "I'm just forgetful." Shrugging, the blond rolled onto her back, sighing dramatically as the began to wonder about absolutely nothing in particular.

"What?" Opening one bright blue eyes and then the other, Elliot regarded Peyton curiously for a minute, before realizing that some twisted part of the girl was actually serious.
"Are you retarded?" She asked abruptly. Sitting up and tossing aside the pillow, the Almasian tucked a leg under herself, fidgeting just for the sake of restlessness.

"We have to be friends," like it was some sort of law, "because I don't have any others and you're stellar." Elliot tipped her head to the side, looking like a blonde-haired, blue-eyed parakeet as she tried to figure out just what the other girl was thinking, even though the inner workings of Peyton Howard's mind was simply God's own private mystery; but Elliot was an atheist, and so she continued to ponder.

"But if you really don't want to be friends anymore, I understand." And in complete contradiction to her words, the girl scooted forwards on the bed, closer to Peyton as she stuck out her bottom lip and offered up her most convincing pout, accompanied by the occasional puppy whimper.