Though the author herself was away, the cabin held signs of Florence's influence at every turn. The uniform layer of thin dust over each surface, the dated furniture packed into the rooms, and the threadbare curtains on the windows all attested to their owner's stubbornness. One glimpse at the cracked glass and dried blood in the study recalled Florence's decline in raw, vivid detail.

    Yet, as Elise lay awake on Cadence's bed, the writer's powerful presence all but blinked out of sight. Rich springs of morning light poured through the rain-smudged window, igniting the glossy rows of band posters and vinyl print stickers that ruled the wooden walls. Across the muted purple carpet, the weary tidiness that organised the rest of the house vanished beneath a pile of crumpled clothing, discarded bags, and battered shoeboxes rattling with miscellaneous clutter. It was bruised, it was honest, and it was Cadence's space all over.

    A whirlpool whipped around Elise's heart as her eyes landed on the girl resting on the duvet beside her. Lying on her back with her arms spread out, Cadence found a peace in sleep that eluded her during waking hours. Her messy brown hair captured the falling light to weave golden threads through its length, adorning the lines of her purple streak with a sparkling trim. With every easy breath, her lips drifted apart to present their light, curved shape in the sun's flattering glow. Even the slope of her nose and the line of her jaw fascinated Elise as she committed the keen strokes of their form to memory.

    With stirring eyelids and a twitch of her lips, Cadence bloomed back to life. She spotted Elise's misty gaze on her and smirked, stifling a yawn and pulling the hem of her oversized t-shirt back over her baggy black shorts. "I see you're still an early riser," she said as she wiped the sleepiness from her face. "Unless you just watched me sleep all night like a creeper, that is."

    "Like I'd waste the chance to sleep on a bed this cosy. I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow." Elise bounced on the soft and springy surface of Cadence's bed, a dreamy cloud compared to the concrete slab of a mattress she had in the flat. The chasm in comfort was down to more than the bed itself, Elise discovered as she watched her friend flex her arms, stretch out her legs, and arc her back in the morning sun's delicate glow. "Thanks for letting me stay over, Cade. I know yesterday was rough for you, and I'd have been fine if you wanted some alone time."

    "You're kidding, right? Yesterday being rough was exactly why I wanted you around, Ellie," Cadence said, her hair dripping sunlight over her silken skin as she flicked it from her face. A keen smirk shone from her face. "Okay, maybe I wanted to dress you up in more of my clothes too. But can you blame me? You look adorable. You're so keeping that."

    Elise blushed and cast her eyes down to her lap. "It is pretty comfy," she muttered as she fiddled with her shirt's collar. Its sleeves fell past her fingertips, it had a split torn through its left shoulder, and its bold red flannel was far from the kind of clothing she wore day-to-day. As Cadence's eyes scanned down her body, however, it was as if she had worn this shirt for years, its soft fabric falling around her body with a calming ease.

    Without a word, Elise slid herself beside Cadence and into the safe comfort her friend's arms offered. Quiet seconds ticked by, and a volcano roared closer to eruption in Elise's heart with every rumbling beat. Sharing a bed with Cadence, wearing her clothes, and having her friend's arms looped around her felt natural, easy, and right. She had kissed Cadence in the hope that satisfying her curiosity would chase the desire from her system, yet her heart only urged her further into the girl's embrace. Contrary to what she had believed, Elise did not like being so close to Cadence again. She loved it.

    A hot puff of air passed over Elise's forehead, and she looked up to see an amused smile on Cadence's face. "Chill out already, killer," she said, twirling a lock of Elise's hair between her fingers. "I can hear your brain working overtime from out here."

    "Cade, I..." As soon as she took the leap of parting her lips, Elise realised that she lacked the words needed to steady her descent. Her thoughts twisted into a tangled mess, every impulse leading her further from the hard ground of certainty.

    Cadence's eyes cut through the bright air, a pair of guiding stars through Elise's dark confusion. "What's up, Ellie?"

    "Being here with you is...amazing, and I'd love to stay over again," Elise said, her tongue giving voice to the fire that burned her cheeks. "Only if you want me here, I mean. There's no pressure."

    "You just want to crash on my bed some more," Cadence answered with mock indignation as her hand ran down Elise's hair, across her cheek, and past her neck. A shiver coursed through Elise's body as her friend's fingers threatened to continue down her body, yet Cadence confined her touch to Elise's shoulder. "Not that you'll hear any complaints from me. With the grump gone, I might even finally be able to get wasted with you. Feel like celebrating your awesome, superhero rescue of Flo any time soon? Like...right now?"

    With a roll of her eyes and a playful smack against the back of her friend's hand, Elise tore herself away before she sank too far into Cadence's embrace to ever surface again. "Nice try, but I wouldn't feel so super tomorrow if we did," she said as she perched on the side of the bed, the old carpet bristling against the soles of her feet. "Besides, I don't think James would appreciate me rolling up drunk to his writing workshop later."

    Falling onto her back, Cadence stretched her arms out and cracked her knuckles. "Like you'd be the only one," she groaned as she stared at the peeling wood along her ceiling. "What's the point of being an artist if you don't get to be drunk or high or out of your damn mind whenever you want?"

    Elise paused her search for her clothes and glanced over her shoulder at Cadence. "Is that why you want to be an artist, Miss Graphic Designer?"

    "Obviously! It's the best part."

    The sudden cry of a distinct ringtone fired out, snapping Elise's eyes to the corner where her bag lay. "Shit," she said as she rushed across the room to find her phone. At some point during their late-night return to the cabin, all Elise's possessions had jumbled themselves around, leaving nothing in her bag's designated phone pocket but a pair of loose pens. "That's Robin calling. I forgot to tell him I was staying here last night."

    "No offence to the guy, Ellie..." Cadence rubbed the back of her neck as she watched Elise tear through her bag in search of her phone. "But what's the big deal? I'm sure you're not the first roommate he's ever had that crashed with a friend for one night."

    As Elise spotted her phone trapped inside her notebook, the device fell silent and pricked pins of disappointment along her chest. "I should still let him know, just in case."

    Cadence shrugged and slid off the bed towards her desk, laying a hand on the pile of messy clothes flopped over her chair. "Fine. See what Roomie wants. We don't want him reporting you missing because you skipped out on your morning chit-chat."

    Waving away Cadence's unimpressed face, Elise moved to return the call as an alert about a voicemail flashed up. Aware that Robin only resorted to phone calls and voicemails for serious business, she tapped through to the new message.

    "Hey, Ellie. It's Robin," her roommate began, nerves chattering through his speech. "So, not to stress you out or get on your back about anything..."

    "Get to the point, lad!" A muffled voice far from Robin's handset cut through Elise's rose-tinted bliss with a diamond edge. At first, Elise tried to convince herself she had misheard the other voice, or that the call quality had somehow butchered it, yet it was hopeless. She knew what she had heard, and she knew it was her father's voice.

    Robin choked back his shock at the man's sudden outburst, and his vocal shivers rocked harder after the struggle. "Okay. Alright. Your dad's here, and he wants to see you, but I don't know where the heck you are," he said with honed edges striking out from his every syllable. As the handset crackled in Robin's hand, his voice drew closer and quieter to Elise's ear. "Look, wherever you are, just get back here ASAP. This Leon guy is stressing out like crazy, and it's doing my head in."

    "Fuck," Elise whispered as the message ended, and her hand fell to her side with leaden density. "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

    With a shade of concern flitting across her face, Cadence passed the bed with slow, short steps. "That's a pretty hardcore move, killer, but if you insist..."

    The glimmer in Cadence's eye provided a momentary respite for Elise's fraying nerves, yet the safety in her friend's hazel halos faded with her next breath. "No, not like that," she said, drumming her phone against her thigh. "My dad's at the flat, and it sounds like he's driving Robin nuts. He probably just wants to try and snatch more money off me or something."

    "So, call back and tell him to shove his snatchy hands up his ass." Taking Elise's hand, Cadence jabbed her finger into the phone's screen. Her gaze still sparkled before Elise's eyes, yet Cadence's fire now burned with infernal anger. "I'm serious. Nobody has to stand up for you but you, you know? If you don't tell that asshole to back the hell off, nobody will."

    The image of Robin perched by his phone in the living room entered Elise's mind, followed by a glimpse of her father's well-rehearsed death stare. Decades of police service had imbued Leon's eyes with enough interrogatory intensity to send Robin retreating to his bedroom before the front door had swung shut. "That's not a good idea," Elise sighed as she stared into the device's black depths. "My dad's got a pretty short temper anyway, and he's going to be so much worse after travelling all the way here."

    Cadence pushed the phone into Elise's chest. "And? Flo's the least chilled-out person in the world, and I still fight back when she's bitching at me," she answered, her eyes fixed on Elise's shifting expression. "Wake up, Ellie – we're not kids anymore. You don't have to put up with his crap any more than I do Flo's. You can do whatever and whoever you want!"

    "I know, Cade, but I'm not like you. I'm not a troublemaker – I can't act up like you do."

    "Seriously? Acting out is so your thing." As she brushed the hairs from the side of her friend's face, a fond glaze coated Cadence's eyes. "Remember when you stood up to Matt in the café? Or how about when Flo had to go to hospital? It was a mess, and you totally swept in and took charge. You're a boss, Ellie. I know you can do it!"

    With her heartbeat crashing through her ears, Elise took a deep breath and balanced the weight of her phone in her hand. The lights of Cadence's eyes urged her on, and her weight fell away as she soaked herself in her friend's eager gaze. Numbed by fear and fire, Elise called Robin back without looking at her screen.

    Her roommate answered before the first set of dial tones finished ringing. "Ellie! Hi! Thank goodness, I got so worried when I couldn't reach you," Robin said, and the distinct tap of pacing footsteps below his voice betrayed how real his worrying was. "Where are you? Are you alright?"

    "Hi, Robin. Sorry for stressing you out, but I'm fine, really. I stayed over at...a friend's last night." Fiddling with the collar of her shirt, Elise sighed as the adrenaline that drove her to make the call ebbed away. The gentle touch of Cadence's hand landed on her shoulder, and she claimed her friend's hand with her own before continuing. "Is my dad still there with you now?"

    "Oh, he is. He says he's not going anywhere until he has a word with you, too," her roommate said through a laugh that was equal parts frustrated and exhausted. A voice rang out in the background, yet Robin did not respond to it. "I think he's serious, Ellie. He's brought a work laptop over and everything. When will you be back, do you think?"

    Elise lowered her phone, cursed under her breath, then returned the device to her ear. "He can have a word with me right now. Can you pass him the phone, please?"

    A confused sound crackled down the line, and Robin brought his frantic pacing to a controlled halt. "Sure, I guess. You are on your way back now, right?"

    "I'll be back later today, and I'll tell you about what's been going on then, I promise," Elise said, shutting her eyes to steel herself for the verbal barrage that loomed ahead of her. "Just let me deal with my dad for now."

    "Better you than me," Robin replied with a sigh. "You weren't kidding when you said he was a lot to handle, were you?"

    "I wish I was."

    The receiver fell silent for a moment, yet an iron fist smashed through the peace and seized the handset just as Elise gathered a lungful of steadying breath. "Ellie? Where the hell are you?" Leon cried, his voice already drowning in foaming rage. "Did you forget how to answer your bloody phone?"

    Battered by the fury in her father's words, Elise searched Cadence's eyes and found she had no choice but to match his energy. "No, Dad, I didn't. I've just been busy with uni and friends, and not harassing people's very understanding flatmates," she said, washing out her father's stuttered response with a drawn-out groan. "Why did you even come here, Dad? What do you want?"

    "I told you in the message you ignored." Anger pulsed through her father's breaths, yet sharing a room with a stranger forced Leon to keep his flock of furies in check. "I've heard...things. Concerning things. I'm worried about what you might be getting yourself into, and I think we need to talk."

    "About what?" Elise snapped, her father's weak charade of self-control stoking her own frustration's rising flames. "I'm not a kid. I know what I'm doing, and I don't need any lectures from you anymore, okay?"

    Her pointed retort drew a staggered gasp from her father, and Leon fell silent to collect himself. "This is really something we should discuss in person. I didn't come all this way for you to avoid me."

    "I'm not avoiding you," Elise replied, scoffing as Cadence mouthed the word 'liar' with an amused smirk. "I just can't drop everything and run over because you want to pretend to be a good dad for a few minutes."

    "Don't be so dramatic! I want the best for you now like I always have," her father cried as he fixed his jaw in place. The spectre of his anger lurked in the crackles of the phone line below his voice, and Elise searched for Cadence's hand to steady herself. "Your mother would agree with me if she were here, I know it."

    A stormfront swept through Elise's body with the snapping of her patience. "Really, Dad? I can't believe you're still trying to boss Mum around even after she died," she said as she paced across the bedroom carpet to the window. The lake's rippling surface glittered in the sunlight outside the cabin, yet Elise missed the view as she massaged her temples. "You're such a control freak. Why can't you just leave me alone?"

    "Leave you alone to do what? Daydream in class? Skip extra sessions to slack off with your useless freelance crap? Smash places up in fights like a damned thug?" Stinging Elise's ear with the venom laced through his words, Leon huffed and carried on before his daughter could answer. "You don't have a bloody clue, Ellie, and I won't sit back and watch you screw your life up."

    "Like you screwed yours up, you mean? Thanks, but the ship on you giving a shit about me sailed years ago," Elise answered with a shaking voice, staring out at the little bower of lakeside peace her work had introduced to her. "I work hard on my writing, you know. I'm building a decent portfolio for myself, and I'm actually making a difference to other people's lives too. If that's 'useless crap', then I'd rather be useless than be like you!"

    "Now, don't be –"

    "You can get the hell out of my flat now, arsehole."

    A wail of stabbing syllables lunged from her father's stuttering speech, the verbal assault falling silent as Elise threw the phone onto the bed. The device sank into the sheets without a sound, and Cadence watched the bed bounce with her eyes wide. "Holy shit," she muttered over the sound of Elise's thumping heartbeat. "That was fucking incredible!"

    Folding her arms and shrugging, Elise winced as her mind imagined the tirade she would face the next time she met her father. "I don't know, Cade," she said, trying and failing to hush her screaming thoughts. "He sounded pretty mad before I hung up. I don't think I'd ever have the guts to do that to his face."

    "Give it time. You might be surprised how quickly you get a taste for talking back." As her friend's face remained rooted in worry, Cadence glided over and slid her arm around Elise's shoulders. A tender pride unfurled its budding blossom across her cheeks as Elise looked up at her. "Cheer up, Ellie. You just stood up to your dad and totally called him out for the asshole he is. This is huge!"

    Tears burned in the corners of Elise's eyes. She fell into Cadence's chest and hid her face in the girl's shirt, the first rush of heat soaking into the fabric as it breached her crumbling defences. Breaking free from her father's hold was meant to liberate her, yet Elise's heart hurtled in a hurricane of joy, sadness, anger, and loss with no end in sight. The only solid ground she had left was Cadence, and she clung to her with enough force to turn her knuckles a ghastly white. She would stick by her girl's side no matter what, for both their sakes.