When the song ended, Eloise glanced up from the page, giving Evan a look -- maybe a little playful, a wrinkling of the nose as if to apologise for ruining this page of his sketchbook. Well -- really it wasn't so bad. It was even starting to look more like a face and less like a shifting cloud formation.
She reached over to remove the bud from his ear on her own, still quiet, and quickly wrapped up the iPod to put away again.
Really, it was hard to understand why anyone would want to say sorry about something they couldn't help. Ellie could have told him that, too; she was developing quite a list of those. Instead it felt better just to smile at him. That had been their best form of communication thus far, honestly. It came to her rather easily.
Actually --
Ellie paused, turning back to her scribble. She tapped the pencil on the corner of the page as though thinking, and quickly scribbled a tiny smiling face.
A question mark followed it.
Now she looked at Evan again, eyes level and calm. Then something occurred to her; she furrowed her brow and crossed out the little grin, replacing it with another face that was decidedly more neutral. Okay -- it definitely looked at least content -- but neutral seemed more fitting for the situation. Now she was imagining this somewhat apathetic face in the place of all the exuberant smilies of her youth. On sweatshirts, stationery. In yearbooks. Have a great summer. :|
Ellie giggled. Maybe more of a titter, but it was there.