Maybe it was because she was caught without an answer or maybe it was just Lucinda's judgmental tone that was really grating at her, but Elsie was pretty sure she'd never actually been this angry in her entire life. Embarrassed, she could feel the frustrated tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she tried to formulate some kind of retort, but she didn't have a solid answer to her cousin's accusations. They didn't know what they were doing and they were okay with that for now. It wasn't ideal, it might not last, but right now and for several years, it had worked fine.

Her tone was low and almost bitter, entirely unlike her. There was a hint of desperation to it that she couldn't hide, but she had to say something. "There isn't one," She said honestly. "And hasn't been one for years, Lucinda." Years, minus a few very long months of not talking. It wasn't like this was the first time they'd tried to steal time together since graduating. "Not everybody is cut out for marriage and children and being a housewife like you are. I'm not you; I'm not Adella. You know that, no matter how much everyone tries to push me to be, I'm just not." Elsie didn't begrudge or judge her sister or her cousin for what they'd done with their lives, it's what they wanted to do. "Those things make you happy and I'm glad for that. But the library makes me happy, catching a few minutes alone with the person I love makes me happy, even if we have no idea what's going to happen in the long run." She sighed, her voice more resigned now than bitter. It wasn't like she hadn't thought about what could happen.

"I'd say I'm sorry if you don't approve, but I don't need your approval." There were few times that Elsie had ever felt that way, but standing here, defending her choices was certainly one of them. "So you can either run and tell my mother like a tattletale and make me deal with the fallout, and likely make my life miserable; you can stand here and make more crazy, inaccurate accusations; you can give me a lecture about how immature I'm apparently being, but you can't change how I feel." The first of those options was clearly the worst and honestly Elsie had no idea if she'd made Lucinda angry enough for that, but that one aside, there wasn't much that would really stop her from doing what made her happy.