The Beautiful Monster

Alyssa wished he would just leave her alone now. She felt like he was playing with her and playing with Elias, despite him not even being here right now.

This guy was tricky, and he seemed to be looking for trouble.

"It's fine. Nice seeing you," she said, even though it wasn't nice seeing him at all. He made her even more upset than she already was.

For all she knew, he could be lying about everything, but what would he even gain from lying? She felt like he was being honest.

"Night, dear," Scott replied, watching her go with a smile on his face.

Alyssa turned away from him and walked down the path. Once she got about twenty feet away, she turned to look over her shoulder just to see that he was gone.

She narrowed her eyes in confusion, wondering where he had gone. Did he just run off? He was kind of weird.

She turned back forward and kept walking. She had so many questions now. Even more than she had before.

It was awful having so much go on in her head. She came out here for peace. All she was given was more confusion and more doubt that things were going to turn out okay for her.

*******

After all of her classes were over with the next day and she got done with work, Alyssa dragged herself back to her dorm. She was relieved to finally get back home.

She was going to light a candle and have a bath. That was her way of relaxing since the walk hadn't panned out that well.

She tried not to think about what happened last night too much throughout the day. Luckily, she had so much work to do that it was almost impossible to sit there and listen to her thoughts.

So, the day wasn't entirely awful because she couldn't think about how awful her life was right now.

She shed off her backpack once she got to her dorm and put her hair up into a bun. Even just doing that made her sigh in relief.

Her body was nearly sore because she had been running around so much today at work, but she learned a lot. That was what counted.

Alyssa grabbed her candle from the drawer of her desk and set it down on top of it. She only brought the sugar cookie scented candle out for special occasions.

Relaxing was a special occasion to her at this point in her life. She found her lighter and lit the candle, watching the flame dance in front of her eyes.

She was just about to go into the bathroom to turn on the water for her bath when she heard a knock on her door. She narrowed her eyes in confusion, wondering who could possibly be at her door right now.

She opened the door to see Elias standing outside with a glare on his face and a leather jacket on his body. Dangerous combination.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him. He shouldn't even be here because he needed to check in first. "You can get me in trouble being here."

"They won't find out," Elias merely said before walking inside the room. He shut the door behind him, keeping his gaze level on her. "I told you not to talk to Scott."

How did he even find out? She guessed that Scott said something and tattled on her. That snake. She crossed her arms over her chest as she stood near her desk.

"I ran into him," she merely said. He couldn't control who she did and didn't talk to. He wouldn't even talk to her.

Elias scoffed and shook his head.

"It sounded like you blabbered a lot to him. I told you that he's bad news," he said.

Alyssa wanted to throw her hands up. She couldn't win with him.

"You should've told me more! You should've told me that he was your cousin. Why don't you ever tell me things?" she asked him with a shake of her head.

She felt so in the dark all the time, and she was sick of it. Of course, she was going to be curious and ask Scott questions when her own boyfriend never told her anything. It was the only way she could find anything out.

"Because I don't consider him family. I didn't even want you to meet him in the first place!" Elias said sternly. "When it comes to my family, you have to trust me."

"What's so wrong with them? If it's family drama, I know all about that. I can handle it!" Alyssa said. Even if she was arguing with him, she still sounded like she was pleading with him.

She just wanted him to be honest with her and to stop hiding things from her.

"It's more than family drama," Elias muttered as he shook his head. He clenched his jaw angrily.

"What is it? You have to talk to me. If we're going to work, we have to be honest with each other," Alyssa told him.

Didn't he know this? Did he think that he could hide things from her forever and they be okay? She hoped that he didn't expect that.

"There are some things that I want to keep to myself," Elias replied as he shook his head.

"Fine. What about Scott? What happened between you two? Can you at least tell me that?"

Alyssa asked, trying to find something that he could tell her about. She felt like he was shutting her out. She couldn't be with someone who shut her out.

Elias tightened his hands into fists.

"No, Alyssa," he said sternly.

"Tell me something!" Alyssa said.

"I can't!" Elias shouted as his eyes seemed to flare in the light.

Alyssa stumbled to the side as the candle flame next to her suddenly flared wildly. It grew so big that it caught the edge of one of her papers, setting it ablaze.

She gasped and tried to pat it out with a notebook. Her hands trembled as she killed the fire.

Elias stepped back, looking down at the floor.

"What the hell was that?" Alyssa asked as she turned to look at him. She couldn't even explain what happened. The fire just randomly grew big and then died back down.

Maybe a gust of air hit it, and she saw something that wasn't actually there? Did she imagine it? She was so confused and overwhelmed right now that she couldn't even think of a good explanation for what happened.