@Simon-Says
Elizabeth held her breath to stop herself from hyperventilating. She stood up slowly, still unable to look at the dog. "I - don't - like - dogs," she managed tightly.
Elizabeth held her breath to stop herself from hyperventilating. She stood up slowly, still unable to look at the dog. "I - don't - like - dogs," she managed tightly.
Loren gave a forgiving smile, while Gracie's smile disappeared off her face. "O-oh… sorry…" Gracie mumbled.
"That's quite alright, I understand. You've been through a lot after all," Loren said in a warm voice. "Come on, I'll show you where you'll be sleeping," Loren put a guiding arm on Elizabeth's back and moved to the stairs.
Elizabeth flinched at the contact, but forced herself not to shake Loren off. "Thank you. I'm sorry, I - I didn't mean to panic."
"No, no, it's quite alright." Loren continued, leading Elizabeth up the stairs and into a guest bedroom.
Gracie called upstairs after them, "I'll be up in a bit, just going to go check on Etta and put Ace away," and afterwards followed Loren and Elizabeth, no Liza, she forced herself to think, up the stairs.
Elizabeth looked around the room, careful not to touch or move anything. She wasn't sure what to do, so she just wandered around, looking at the room. After a minute, she set her bag down and sat next to it.
Bounding into the room, Gracie asked Elizabeth, "So, what do you think of the room? Feel free to make it your own now, it's yours forever and ever!"
Elizabeth hesitated before standing up and going to sit on the bed. "It's… nice. Really nice," she assured Gracie. And it was. Ridiculously so. She was afraid to move too much; she might break something. An entire room for her to… what? Sit?
"Great! I'm so glad you like it!" Gracie all but squealed.
"Did you bring a phone with you?" Loren asked gently.
Elizabeth shook her head. "Just a notebook."
"Alright then, we'll get you one tomorrow morning, you might feel safer if you know you can contact us at any point," Loren said gently.
Gracie resisted the urge to run over to Elizabeth and give her a bear hug, she was afraid that Elizabeth would reject it, in her mind Elizabeth seemed so… fragile. She had barely survived a war, and she was so jumpy.
Elizabeth absentmindedly traced the tattoo on her wrist, thinking for a moment. "You - you really don't have to do that."
"No, really, it's no problem, you're one of us now," Loren smiled.
"What's that?" Gracie asked, pointing to Elizabeth's tattoo, just noticing it.
Elizabeth immediately put her hand over the marking. "It's - nothing. It's nothing."
"Don't push her, hon," Loren said gently, giving Gracie a warning look.
"I wasn't- Fine. It's ok Liza, if you don't want to tell me, it's fine," Gracie rambled, hoping she was saying the right things.
Elizabeth nodded silently, staring at the floor for a moment before making a decision. "They gave it to me at the… facility that I… stayed at for a while," she explained quietly.
"Hon, maybe we should give her some alone time…" Loren warned Gracie, giving her a look that said, We're probably pushing her too much.
Gracie didn't want to leave, but she didn't want to push Elizabeth too much, so she just nodded in agreement, and turned to exit the room.
Elizabeth nodded, then turned to her backpack, pulling out a journal and scribbling wildly in it, pouring all her emotions and everything that had happened onto the page. She wasn't quite sure what to do when she was finished.
Loren and Gracie were downstairs making dinner, but Loren took a break so Gracie called Max and made him help.
After several minutes of sitting and not knowing what to do, Elizabeth cautiously walked over to her door and peeked out, tentatively walking down the stairs to see what was going on.
Loren had walked back into the kitchen to check on the kids, and spotted Elizabeth out of the corner of her eye. "Liza! Come on down, what would you like for dinner? The kids are just preparing some salad."
"I - um - I don't - " Elizabeth stammered, pressing back against the wall.
Hearing the commotion from the kitchen, Gracie quickly rinsed her hands, and joined Loren. "What do you like?"
(I have to die for a little bit, sorry!)
"I'm not - I'm not really hungry," Elizabeth protested. What do I like?
(Oof that's fine)
"No no, my growing children must eat, they need their nutrition," Loren insisted.
Elizabeth sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't have a favorite food or preference."
The following keyboard controls are supported across Notebook.ai. All keyboard controls are disabled when editing a document or notebook page.