Closed Seeking you out

It was easier to pretend when he wasn’t with other people. Helping his siblings, Jonah, Rose, whoever needed it, and so his own grades had obviously suffered, because he’d spent way too much time trying to deal with his friends than focused on studying. He’d been so focused on everyone else that he hadn’t had time to look at his own grades, and falling behind just wasn’t acceptable. He refused to fall behind again and he was going to work hard until he had his perfect Os like he should have had last semester. There was too much at stake, his siblings all had something, Quidditch, a direction (like Hina) what did Eli have? Nothing, apparently.

As the door opened he’d almost expected to hear Jonah’s or Rose’s or Sayuri’s voice, having forgotten a planned meet up that he would have to cancel, only the voice wasn’t one of his siblings. His back stiffened and he turned slightly to peer over his shoulder to see Lili walking in, sucking in a deep breath because she was exactly one of the people he wanted to avoid. He couldn’t avoid everyone, because the boys in his dorm were in his dorm but he had tried to avoid Lili as much as possible because she was exactly the kind of distraction he didn’t need, especially after cowardly sending her that anonymous rose. She’d probably had a concerned reaction to it, most likely. Having no idea where it came from. He’d heard Eoghan had delivered it too. Yikes. “Hi, Lili, sorry if you don’t mind I’m actually really busy.” He was almost surprised to hear her call him Eli, he had expected to hear Meissa, but then, he wasn't Eoghan, so why would she call him it all the time? He certainly wasn't shining these days, maybe she could see that.​

ELi’s grip on his quill tightened slightly, though he did his best to keep his eyes on the textbook in front of him, trying not to let the guilt settle in too deep at hearing her voice. Looking at her would just be worse at this point. He hadn’t meant to completely avoid her, but he found it so difficult to concentrrate on anything at the moment that being around people was hard. He hadn’t done anything to make Lili think he wasn’t avoiding her either, and honestly because he sort of was avoiding her, everyone, really, it didn’t really come down to just her, though she was probably the closest thing to a friend he had right now. Well, no, he did consider her a friend, Vikram too - he supposed he considered Eoghan a friend sort of, when he wasn’t around Lili or Tori. Eli didn’t dislike Tori, but she was hard to be around because she was so… present - loud, he supposed. He knew she meant well—of course, she did—but if he let himself relax, he was afraid of losing whatever focus he had left.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said lightly, turning to look at her over his shoulder as she sat down, “you don’t have so sit in silence just because of me.” He took a deep breath, trying to loosen his body up from being so stiff with her in the room. She hadn’t done anything wrong, he had, and now he sort of had to live with that. He never should have sent her that rose either, it had been stupid. “I have a lot to catch up on, that’s all - fell a bit behind last semester.” He felt like this was an admission of failure, even if he wasn’t sure he had really failed anyone but himself - but wasn’t that enough to warrant his own criticism? “Ancient Runes, actually… I want to get a head start before next year so, I got a book at the electives fair to look at,” he said, pushing it to the side a little to show her. He was taking on more academic subjects to push himself, and it was going to kill him probaby, but he would get it done. He hesitated then, should he ask? The rose had been a stupid idea but it had been his stupid idea. If she hadn’t figured it out yet, maybe it was best to leave well enough alone, it wouldn’t change anything for her to know, it would probably make it worse in all honesty. So for now, he didn’t say anything.​