Kira has also found herself on the bitch's disapproval list & shares her complaints with Justin over a beer.

He couldn't see it well through the trees, but something happened between Eleanor & her mother, some arguing, some poking. Finally she walks over his way, her eyes watering up like they do, tears never falling. He wants to take her in his arms & carry her away from here, but the bitch mother is following up, and he pulls his hand back, refrains from touching her, and just asks her what's wrong. "I'm so sorry I put you through this Justin, I'm sorry I forced you into this charade," she says, her eyes all big & sad, lips pouting...this is really more temptation than he's ever had to withstand..

Though the mother is heading towards them with angry clicking heels, Eleanor reaches her arm around him, her hand a soft caress over his chest and back. "I love you, Justin," she says, her voice so quiet, he's not sure he heard it, or it was just what he wanted to hear. the shock of it. coming so unexpectedly, at the least likeliest of moments, knocks the strength from his legs & he has to steady himself to keep from collapsing.

It's the moment he's been trying to make happen since he met her, and he nearly missed it for the noise & tension, he won't let her mother ruin it, too. No matter how much she hmmphs & coughs behind him for attention, he will kiss his Eleanor.

"I've seen more than enough, you obviously cannot be left unsupervised without attaching yourself to riff raff," the bitch hisses, making Eleanor pull out of his embrace, "You will be returning home with us tomorrow: no more art school for you, young lady!" Justin shakes inside: she warned him they would take her away. In his head, he knows they can't really, she has the right to live where she wants, but it's become such a bizarre fairy tale, and his heart fears his princess could be whisked away from him by the evil bitch, locked in some tower with no doors. She looks up at him, as if for courage. "Stand up," he whispers, "You can do it." I'm counting on you, he thinks. He cannot imagine 'tomorrow' without Eleanor.

Eleanor turns & tells her mother she won't leave, she'll stay here.

All they have to hold over her head is money, so that is what she uses, threatening to cut Eleanor off the money train if she stays. And she calls him trash, obviously not caring that he's right there.

Eleanor pulls her arm back & strikes, slapping her mother on the face. Justin stands in awe; he's seen her do that once before, the beauty of it still impresses him. "You will not insult him like that," Eleanor growls at the bitch angrily.

"Understand that if you stay here, you will do so without any help from your father & I. You'll learn about your low class lover's 'generosity' when you can't pay your rent, child. When you are ready to apolgize & come home, we'll send you to Harvard," the bitch says as she walks away, leaving his Eleanor with him. The mother's final words puzzle him a little: he's sure he is the low class lover she's referring to, for who else is there? What did she mean about his 'generosity' then? Maybe he'll ask Eleanor sometime, what she & her mother were fighting about, if it had to do with him. But right now he has to just hold her & not let her start regretting it, having to come so far down just to be with him.