I could recognise those electric blue eyes and jet black hair anywhere and the way his lips curled up in a smirk when he noticed me staring only confirmed my suspicion.

It was him. The cause of my first heartbreak, the reason behind all of those ugly tears.

Lewis freaking Ray.

I didn't even notice when Penelope came to stand next to me. She placed her hand on my arm, as if trying to warn me or comfort me, I didn't even know. After throwing a questioning look her ways I walked towards Lewis, without waiting for her to say anything.

His smirk only widened as I neared him, but it disappeared as soon as my hand made contact with his cheek and a look of surprise spread across his face. Why was he even surprised? He had to see that coming.

"Ow, well. Still as strong as ever huh Ivy?" He said, rubbing his cheek.

I slapped him again. A little harder.

"Ow ow. What was that for?" He hissed.

"Do not call me Ivy." I hissed back.

We both glared at each other and then he suddenly looked away as if uncomfortable. "Ivory, are you okay?" I heard Penelope who was now standing next to me. I noticed that everyone was staring at us, some of them even looked a little frightened. I sighed and looked down, a tear ran down my cheek. He must have noticed because he came a little closer.

"Stay there Lewis. You've done enough damage as it is. I told you not to come today didn't I?" Penelope said stepping between us.

"But I-" He began but I walked away from them, back towards where I was standing earlier. Penelope came and joined me minutes later.

"Sorry about that, I didn't know he would be here. I told him not to come" she said in an apologetic tone.

"Wait, how do you even know about him?"

"I know everything about you" she said, looking at me with a straight face and then she burst out laughing after looking at my face which I'm sure showed how creeped out I was. "I was kidding, I don't know 'everything' about you. That idiot and I are kind of related, okay well not kind of, he's my brother." She replied with a sigh.

"Okay? So he told you about me?" I asked.

"No, you did." And with that she walked away after throwing a wink my way towards that white haired guy she was talking to earlier.

"His name is Colton"

What? Oh right. She could read my mind. That's how she.. oh.

I looked around, feeling awkward standing all by myself in a place where almost everyone's eyes were on me as they whispered amongst themselves, I was surely a hot topic amongst their discussion right now, after that scene I caused earlier.

"Bored already?" I heard Lewis ask, from behind me. I just gritted  my teeth in response, refusing to turn around. "Now now, that's not how a princess behaves is it, Princess?" He tsked. Princess. He used to call me that all the time. How dare he call me that now. I turned around to face him and give him a piece of my mind and somehow ended up tripping over my own foot, but he caught me before I fell. Oh my god, this was so dramatic, the way his eyes stared down on mine and then as if to irritate me some more, he brought his hand down and pushed a strand of hair off my face. Now if I was the Ivory from three years ago, I'm sure I'd have melted into a puddle by now, but I wasn't.

"What the h-" I started but he cut me off by lightly pressing his finger to my mouth.

"Shh Princess, the coronation will start soon. Maybe you should take some time off, yeah?" He mused, huh what time off? I wanted to ask him, but instead found myself getting lost in his eyes and unable to speak. Slowly, very slowly everything turned blur and I felt like I was being sucked into blackness but this time I knew what was happening.

I woke up with a start, not at all surprised when I noticed that I was wrapped up in my blankets just like I'd gone to sleep at night. The curtains in my room danced with the wind, maybe I left the window open after talking to my parents yesterday at night.They were coming back today.

I stared off into nothingness for a while, trying to make sense of the dream, why would I dream something so weird? And why would I even dream about Lewis? And Penelope, his sister? What was happening? Was it time I tell someone about these dreams? Would they even believe me?

These questions haunted my mind all throughout breakfast and I tried my best to push them at the back of my mind before my parents came back home. After showering quickly, I  dressed up in a casual tshirt and jeans. My parents would be home any minute now. I tidied up my room as I waited for them, I had missed them terribly and a hug from mom would always help me forget about my problems for the time being.

"Thank you so much, Aunt Lilly. Yes I'll ask mom to call you once she's home - Okay, bye. Love yo-"

"Ivy! Where are you? We're home!" My parents cut me off as I was getting off the phone with my aunt. I pressed the disconnect icon quickly and ran down the stairs whilst yelling 'I'm here', straight into my mom's arms. She laughed as she tried to pick me up and twirl me around as she used to do when I was much smaller.

"Happy birthday my dearie!" She cheered as she held me at arm's  length and then quickly engulfed me in a tight proper motherly hug.

"Happy birthday little one." Dad smiled and joined our hug. We let go after a while and they both pecked my forehead and asked me to come with them to the living room.

There were few bags from different clothing brands lying across the carpet. I threw a questioning look at my parents, they were always tidy, so how come these bags are just lying around? They both just smiled. "These are your gifts sweetie, we were going to hide them in your room but you were already there and we couldn't think of anything else so we just left them here" my dad said sheepishly.

"Oh, I left the other gift at the door, let me get it, just a moment" He continued before hurrying away.

I briefly looked inside each of the bags as my mom and I talked about their trip. Dad came back soon carrying a huge canvas in his hands. He placed it on the couch and removed the paper covering off it.

My jaw dropped in awe as I saw what it was. It was a painting of me on a swing, my hair flying with the wind and my eyes crinkling in laughter. It was beautiful. It was signed with my Dad's name. I knew he painted in his free time sometimes, but I'd never seen any of his works before. So I had no idea he was so good.

"Oh my god, it's so beautiful Dad!" I hugged him and then pulled away.

"Thank you so much you two. I love the gifts" I beamed at my parents.

"And we love you. I can't believe my baby is eighteen years old now." My mom cooed.

"Oh stop it mom" I blushed and then we all burst out laughing because this was what she said every year, of course changing the age every time.
"Okay let's clear everything up and watch a movie" my mom suggested, me and dad nodded in response and began clearing everything up.

"So what are your plans for today?" Dad asked as we neared the end of the movie, You've got Mail. "I don't know yet" I answered looking at my phone. It had to be time now, they usually called at this time.

"Oh you guys still do those surprise birthday celebrations things?" My dad asked in amusement.

"Yeah we do" I chuckled.

"Speaking of the devils...." I smirked as the phone rang in my hand. Dad just laughed in response as I answered the call.

"What are you wearing?" Amy shot as soon as I held the phone against my ear.

"Woah calm down, I'm not sure if I should reveal that in front of my parents" I said teasingly and just mouthed a 'nothing' to my parents who looked at me with a questioning look and started walking to my room.

"Oh stop it you, you know what I mean" Amy said from the other side. (a/n: 😉)

"Okay okay, just a casual tshirt and jeans, will that suffice madam?"

"What? No no. Go change now. Now. We're reaching in fifteen minutes. Wear something nice- yeah Sarah just a minute- so yeah wear a nice dress, something comfortable but also something that'll turn heads."

"A dress why? Where are we going?" I asked ignoring the last part.

"Oh no way, that's a surprise! Yeah Sarah I'm putting it on loud speaker can you not wait- so yeah the call is on speaker now-" Amy said, I could faintly hear her shuffling around before they both screamed "Happy birthday" I flinched and pulled the phone away from my ear and placed it back on once I was sure they stopped.

"Ow, thanks guys!" I chuckled. 

"So we'll see you in fifteen! Get ready! I'm so excited!" Amy almost squealed.

"Yeah me too, okay I gotta go now, have a deadline to meet" I teased and disconnected the call after we said our goodbyes.

I quickly rummaged through my closet to find a good dress to wear, after throwing almost everything that looked flashy or too gaudy aside I found a dress that I liked, though it was nothing compared to the dress in my dream, oh no I can't think about that now. Focus. I didn't waste anymore time and pulled the dress over my head after freshening up. It was, violet in colour, flowy, reached just above my knees, and was supported by two spaghetti straps on each side. I pulled my hair into a high pony and kept the make up minimal.

I padded down the stairs barefoot with my purse, jacket, phone, keys and flats in hand. After texting Amy that I was ready and slipping on my flats, I walked to the kitchen where my parents were.

"Hey, I'm going, they'll be here any minute now" I said taking out a bottle of water from the refrigerator.

"Alright dear, just be home before your curfew okay?" Dad said.

"Yes of course dad." I smiled. The curfew wasn't so bad, and don't get me wrong, I loved my friends but I loved sleep too, and it wasn't even noon yet so I was sure I'd be home before 11 pm.

After minutes Amy called to say that they were waiting outside. I saw her white Toyota pull up in my driveway as I stepped out and closed the door behind myself.

I jumped inside the car once it stopped, landing almost on Sarah. 

"Hey watch it." She laughed pushing me away. Amy and Vanessa got out of their seats and without any warning all three of them pounced on me and engulfed me in a hug which was quite awkward since two of them were half outside the car and it felt like I was being squeezed to death and also my hair was getting tangled in Vanessa's watch and it hurt like hell.

"Ow ow ow get off me you fatsos" I screamed trying to save myself. They all laughed in response but got off me nonetheless, except Vanessa who was trying to get her watch out of my hair, after yanking it a few times she was successful in removing it. I took my hair out of the pony and tried combing out the tangles by hand.

"What was that for?" I pouted as I looked at myself in my phone screen, it wasn't that bad. I could survive.

"Happy birthday!" They screamed in unison.

"How many times will you guys wish me" I laughed but hugged them all one by one as a thank you.

"Eighteen" Amy winked.

"Two down. Sixteen to go." Vanessa cheered. Without any doubt I had landed myself the bestest friends in the world, weird and stupid but the best. The next thing I knew we were already on our way to wherever they were taking me.

"Where are the boys?" I asked after some time into the journey.

"They're riding with Nick, why?" Sarah replied.

"Oh okay, nothing just wondering."

After what seemed like hours, but only was about one hour in reality, we pulled up in an all too familiar parking. After getting out of the car I squealed in joy and hugged the person next to me, which was Sarah.

"Oh my god! This is awesome! It's been so long since I've been here! Thank you guys!" I said to all of them. We were at 'Waterworks' the only water park near our town.

They all just laughed and put their arms around me and we walked to the entrance like that. We met the guys at the entrance and I was surprised to see Eliot with them. I mean, yes he sat down at our table for lunch almost everyday but that was it, he hardly talked to us other than that so how come her agreed to this?

"Happy birthday!" Nick, Matt and Jack yelled pulling me into a hug. I was hugging a lot today it seemed.

"Thank you guys!" I said as Vanessa yelled a '3 down!' and people started looking at us weirdly. I shook my head at her and looked around as we got our tickets. My face flushed when Eliot's eyes caught mine. The last time we talked was when he returned my notes, and it was a brief conversation but at least longer than the ones we had at our lunch table. So the last time I really talked to him was when I asked him to hang out as as a joke. I noticed I was still looking at him so I smiled at him, my jaw dropped when he smiled back, not smirked, smiled. If his laugh was any good, you should see his smile.

I quickly turned my gaze away as Sarah and Nick came back with our tickets. We wasted no time and rushed inside, so many rides, so little time. After changing into our bathing suits we decided to go to the 'Spiral master', it was bunch of spiral shaped slides connected together in such a way that we could come out of any of the ends of that slide, even we didn't know which one.

It was the most fun I had in days, I loved playing in water so I loved being in a water park. Fun times with friends, I would always cherish this.  Even Eliot looked normal today, I mean as normal as he could be. He laughed and smiled a little more, as if finally trusting us or something.

After eating something, we just lazed around on the man made beach near the food shack. I built a sand castle with some of the little kids there and Eliot and Sarah helped me. Conversations between me and Eliot were still the same, limited. I could practically feel Sarah getting uncomfortable at our awkwardness towards each other so I left and let them build the sandcastle instead as I lay down next to Vanessa to sunbathe.

"Happy birthday by the way" Vanessa said from my side, I looked at her and saw that her eyes were closed and her mouth was curled up in a mischievous smile.

"5 down" I laughed.

Ten more 'Happy birthdays' and ten more rides later, we decided that it was time to head back. It was almost 6 pm, but the girls said we were going out for dinner too.

After changing back into our clothes we piled up in our cars and started on our way. We were hungry, but the fast food kind of hungry so we stopped at a McDonald's on the way. It wasn't very busy but we still had trouble finding a table big enough for us, but luckily we found two adjacent tables which could accommodate us. Matt and Nick wrote down everyone's orders and went to place them, Jack soon joined them after a while to help them carry the plates, leaving us girls alone with a very uncomfortable looking Eliot. It was kind of cute to see him like that. I heard a snicker from the table behind ours, I turned around slightly just to see who was it and saw a red haired girl sitting all alone, she looked like someone I knew. I turned back around in thought, when my eyes caught Eliot's, he was staring at something behind me. My eyes widened in realisation and I turned back so fast, I'm surprised my neck didn't snap, there was no one at the table anymore. Maybe I was just hallucinating? But why was Eliot looking there?

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud voice, asking everyone to sing the 'Happy birthday' song. Wait what? I looked around to see that it was Nick, he was standing on a table and asking everyone to sing the song - for me. I blushed and sunk down in my seat as everybody actually started singing the song. "16 down" Vanessa cheered over the noise. "Thank you" I quickly mumbled after they finished and looked at me expectantly.

We left soon after that and the thought about seeing Penelope there still lingered at the back of my mind, my friends were doing one hell of a job in distracting me but still the events from my dream kept coming back to me. We reached my house at around 9ish and then cut the cake my mom had baked for us. After watching a bit of telly everyone left at around half past 10 but not before shouting "Happy birthday!" from their cars, Vanessa even yelled a "18 down" and I laughed as it was only 17 but was too tired to correct her.

I removed my flats and walked up to my room after wishing my parents goodnight. I quickly changed into my pajamas and walked over to my bed. Noticing something shimmering from the corner of my eye, I walked towards it to check out what it was.

My window was open and on the table next to it, lay the black box I'd seen at Eliot's place. Wow it was so beautiful. As soon as I picked up the box in my hand to see what it was, all the memories from the past few weeks came rushing back to me. I no longer felt tired. I was wide awake now. I opened the box and found a four beaded necklace inside it. I stared at it in awe as I remembered where had I seen those four beads before. The park. I remembered picking these out- with the symbols of a leaf, a heart, a snowflake and a star. What did this mean? I noticed that there was a note attached to the back of the box on a closer inspection. I opened it and scribbled on it in a very neat handwriting was:

I know you have questions,
I'll be happy to answer them if you want. I'll be waiting in the backyard, same place.

P.S. Happy Birthday
(18 down)

-Eliot.

---

Oh my god hi!
So here's the longest chapter I've written so far! Seriously it's like more than 3000 words!
I hope you like it!

Sorry for keeping you waiting for so long!

I've not proofread the chapter as it is almost 1 am here and I'm sleepy as hell and really tired also my phone's dying but I'm updating it as I told someone I will update today! xD

Sorry if it makes no sense, I'll edit it later! Feel free to point out the mistakes! And please please tell me it's not "blah" because that's why I don't like writing longer chapters as they can get boring.

So what are your views on Lewis?

Please vote and comment ♡ 

Laters. x