Chapter Twenty
Ella
September 12th, 2018.
Christian,
I think this is going to be my goodbye letter to you. I have written about you for too long and my heart is tired of the pain. There has to be a point in my life where I realize my self-worth and recognize the fact that I no longer mean anything to you.
First I want to say that I appreciate you being my friend for so long. I appreciate the fact that you cared about me for almost a year, even if it was fake. At least I can say that you genuinely made me happy for that short period of time when no other guy had. I can't, however, say that I wish you well. Maybe someday down the road I will be happy that you decided to leave. Maybe someday I won't feel like my heart is torn apart when I see you share pictures of you and the new girl you've found. Maybe someday it won't hurt me that you wanted to hide me for so long and never make me your girlfriend, yet with someone else it came all too easily.
I will never forget all of the excuses you had for me as to why I had to be kept hidden. I will never forget all of the lies you told me, or all of the times I sat crying my heart out for you. There are horrible moments that I don't think will ever leave my mind, but what I do know is that sitting here writing about you once a month is going to come to an end.
With that being said, I know you will never read these entries, but I just want you to know that I will find someone who loves me in a way that you couldn't. I may be self-conscious to the point of no return, and I may hate to look at myself in the mirror because of what you did, but one day I truly believe that I will find someone to mend all of the broken parts you created in me. Every lie, every heartache, and every tear in my heart will be sewn up by somebody who is willing to stay and sees what I have to offer. I am truly sorry that you couldn't see that, and I hope in the future you realize what you lost.
By the time you do I guarantee you this journal will be long forgotten about and I will be with someone who puts a smile on my face with no fear of showing me off. Someone who wouldn't even think about another woman when he's with me. Maybe I'll even be happy by myself five years from now, I don't know. All I do know is that I am letting you go. I guess I just spent so much time attempting to fix what you had broken between us that I had forgotten to fix what you had broken within me. It's time I start to put myself first, so that is exactly what I'm doing.
Goodbye, Christian.
__________
The annoying sound of my alarm going off on my phone makes me want to rip my hair out. I am so not a morning person, but when I feel Patrick's grip tighten around me I remember what happened last night and it finally registers with me that he stayed.
Last night is something I can't describe to anyone even if I tried. I've never felt more beautiful than I did yesterday as he continuously told me how beautiful I was, his body on top of mine, the both of us just completely in love with each other. I had fears that I would wake up and he'd be gone, that he'd regret last night, or that he would finally come to his senses and just think, what the hell did I ever see in her? But that isn't the case because he's with me, right next to me, almost clinging onto me for dear life.
"Hey." I whisper, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "Wake up."
His eyes slowly blink open after about a minute or so, and as they adjust to the light I bring my fingertips up to trace his jawline, which looks even more beautiful in the morning. What I really want to do is stay here with him, but my grandparents will be up soon. I really can't risk the chance of getting caught.
"Mmm..." He groans. "Just a little bit longer."
I try to sit up but he tightens his grip again and starts to kiss me, ignoring my morning breath, ignoring how horrible I probably look, and continues to make me feel beautiful. He never fails to make me feel like anything less.
"As much as I'd like that my grandparents will wake up at any second. If they catch me out here with you they'll probably kill me."
"Hold on!" He laughs, holding me tighter when I try to get away again. "Can't we talk about last night at least?"
Letting out a sigh of defeat, I trace my fingertips on his shoulder and just wait for him to say something first. I know that we have to talk about it and everything, but I just feel awkward because he literally experienced every section of my body last night. He discovered things that nobody else has before, and now that we have to talk about it I just don't know what to say. I feel embarrassed.
"Are you okay?" He asks.
"Uh, yeah." I reply, biting slightly on my lip. "I think so. I hurt a little, but I feel okay."
"And was it... everything you thought it would be? You aren't regretting it, are you?"
"No, not at all. Are you?"
"Nope."
I jump when I hear a seagull over our tent, him laughing immediately in response at how spooked I am. Sitting up in the comforter, I grab his shorts and tank top and toss them over to him. Then I try to gather all of my clothes that are scattered endlessly around the small area of the tent.
"Don't look." I giggle when he peeks over at me, staring at me in disbelief almost.
"We just had sex and I can't watch you get dressed?"
"We had sex in the dark." I say in defense. "You couldn't see me."
He then obeys my wish and turns his head as I clumsily put on my bra and underwear, practically stumbling into my dress. I'm muttering some incoherent cuss words when I trip over the comforter and land on my knees, seeing him staring at me still. Did he really not look away that entire time?
"I told you not to look." I groan.
"Well, guess what? You're beautiful, and I enjoy looking at you naked. Can I ask you something though?"
My whole body freezes from trying to gather the comforter up, and all I can do is nod for him to continue. Why does he always make me so nervous?
"Would you maybe want to come over for dinner later? You know, at my house?"
"Your house..." I trail off, a slight smile forming onto my face. "As in, having dinner with your parents?"
"Would you want to?"
Did I want to? The thought of meeting his parents seems like such a big deal. It's that one step in a relationship that really makes it serious, so I'm just scared I guess. I really want to meet his family, and I especially want to see where he lives, so I guess it won't be too bad. I just have this fear of meeting his mom and having her look at me with this look of disgust because I'm fat. I don't want her to think of me as some burden for him.
"Yeah." I say, despite every nervous feeling in my stomach telling me not to. "Of course."
__________
At seven at night I'm standing on the porch of Patrick Connelly's house, a black dress plastered on my body with makeup I thought I needed and a bouquet of flowers like he had brought my grandparents. I've never done this whole meet the parents ordeal, but he brought flowers so I thought I'd do the same. His house is exactly how I pictured it to be. It's almost as if it were out of a magazine or something. It's a big blue country style home with a wrap around white front porch and flowers all over the place in these big, brown pots. I somehow knew it would look like this because Patrick seems to be taken out of a magazine too.
The flowers seem kind of cheesy now that I'm holding them, but it's too late to get rid of them because a woman opens up the door, who I'm assuming to be Patrick's mother. She looks almost exactly like him, but instead she's the female version. Her hair is the same color, a bob that frames her chin, and her face is round and chubby. I didn't expect his mother to be overweight, but when I see that she is all of the nerves seem to flow right out of my system. This explains so much.
"You must be Ella!" She exclaims, pulling me in for a huge bear hug that practically knocks all of the air out of me. "Patrick has told me so much about you."
Has he really talked that much about me? I don't know where he is, but he better be here soon. I mean, I'm meeting his mother the day after we had sex for crying out loud.
"You're even more beautiful in person! Come in, please."
I send her a shy smile and carefully step onto the wooden floors before I slip out of my heels and put them with the rest of the shoes that sit on top of a black metal rack by the door. I immediately spot his blue Nikes that he wore yesterday and feel my cheeks go completely crimson. If only his mom knew.
"These are for you." I say, passing the flowers over to her. They're bright yellow sunflowers, some that I had hand picked from the garden my grandma has. I tried to wrap them up to make them look more expensive, but it didn't work out as well as I thought it would. The ribbon is slowly starting to come off, but luckily his mother hasn't noticed yet.
"You didn't have to get me anything dear, but these are lovely. Follow me into the kitchen so I can get a vase for this."
I pick up my step to follow her as she hustles away into a red and white designed room, all of the decorations staring back at me all at once. It's all overwhelming from the little knick knacks on the countertops, to the autumn inspired curtains hanging from the windows, to the big family signs hanging up all over the place. My mom isn't big on decorations, but his mother sure is. Where the hell is Patrick?
"He'll be down in a second." She laughs, almost as if she can read my thoughts. "He ran a little late getting ready. That boy slept all day. He told me he had a special guest coming over tonight, but when I tried to tell him to get up he just wouldn't hear it. You'll figure that out someday."
Or this morning, I think to myself. We are such bad people, we really are. If only she knew the real reason he slept in today.
"Yeah, maybe." I reply, letting out a nervous laugh. "Your house is really beautiful Mrs. Connelly."
Patrick finally emerges into the room wearing dress pants and a button down dress shirt, his hair neatly styled to perfection with an expensive watch surrounding his wrist. I didn't expect him to get all dressed up for dinner at his house but he looks amazing. I honestly can't keep my eyes off of him.
"You're too sweet, Ella. Thank you. I was trying to decide whether to go with more of a blue or a red, but I just think the red gives it more of a pop, you know?"
"It does." I smile.
Patrick's arms come around my waist and he kisses my cheek right in front of his mother, literally right in front of her, and I just freeze where I am in fear of what she'll do. She seems to be fine with it though because all she does is smile and checks the oven, where I'm assuming dinner is cooking. It certainly smells good, and so does he. The kitchen smells like a roasted chicken, and he smells like a rustic cologne of some sort.
"You look so beautiful." He whispers. "Do you want me to show you around?"
I shrug my shoulders, and after he tells his mom what we're doing he drags me down the hallway. Once we're around the other side of the staircase he gently pushes me up against it and kisses me. His hands come to the sides of my face as mine hook around his neck, and we stay there for a couple of seconds before he pulls away, the both of us breathing heavily as we try to come down from the high we're both on.
"I cannot stop thinking about you." He says quietly. "Ever since I got home I needed to see you. After last night I just..."
Running my fingers down his chest, I can't help but let the memories of last night come into my head that seem to be never ending. I've never experienced anything like it, but then again Patrick seems to be giving me new experiences a lot, though.
"I know, Patrick. I feel the same."
He grabs my hand and shows me the office of his dads – who he said would be home from work soon – and then shows me the living room, which is filled with nothing but family pictures. I especially enjoy looking at the pictures of him as a child. He has the biggest smile on his face and he's in superman pajamas, probably on his birthday or something. The pictures of him when he was younger made me fall in love with him all over again, and I think he can tell because I glance up and kiss him, but only for a second.
It's not until a half hour later after we're finished looking through an endless amount of scrapbooks his mom had made that he finally opens the door to his bedroom. His walls are a dark blue, the floors being covered with white carpeting, and he has a huge bookcase with hundreds of little trophies he's won over the years of his childhood placed on the shelves.
"Well this is it." He laughs, opening the door wider for me to walk in.
I feel like I'm intruding or something, but I carefully step in and go straight to the trophies, examining each one and what he had won them for. Most valuable player, most improved, most likely to succeed, you name it. He had them all, and I'm so proud of him. I never even knew he was on the basketball team when I met him. I just assumed he was an ass.
"This is pretty cool." I say. "I was never really into sports if you couldn't tell."
"That's because you were into cooler things like writing and being creative. I think that's a hell of a lot better than basketball. Don't you?"
"No comment."
He laughs and watches me as I move to his bookshelf, seeing not books, but music albums. From Drake, to Coldplay, to One Republic. There are tons of variety. I scan them in awe of what an eclectic taste in music he has. I never knew he liked music so much, but this is really cool because we actually have a lot more in common than I thought.
"You like music?" He asks me.
"Well, I'm not much of a rap person, but I love Coldplay. Fix You is my favorite song of theirs."
"Really? Mine too."
"I guess this is where your guitar playing makes sense now." I giggle, putting a couple of his CD's back onto the shelf. "I would love for you to play for me sometime."
"I'll bring my guitar the next time we hang out then." He smirks.
I smile back at him when he says that and lean against his shoulder, feeling his arm come around my waist to pull me closer to him.
"Patrick are the both of you upstairs? Dinner's ready!"
"Damn." He mutters when his mom's voice echoes into his room. "I was hoping we could..."
"You are out of your mind." I tease and stick my tongue out at him, running quickly down the staircase and erupting into laughter when he catches up with me in the dining room. The both of us stop when his mom and dad are staring back at us, his mom with the biggest smile on her face as his dad looks somewhat confused.
"Sorry." Patrick laughs and pulls out my chair for me. "We were just joking around about something." He takes a seat next to me while I make eye contact with his father, leaning over the mahogany table so I can shake his hand. He looks nothing like Patrick. He's tall and lean, that being the only similarity, and his eyes are more hazel than Patrick's. He also looks like someone you'd find out of a magazine.
"It's nice to meet you Mr. Connelly. My name's-"
"Ella." He smiles, a dazzling smile that matches Patrick's. "Trust me, we've heard a lot about you."
"Dad." Patrick groans.
His dad then changes the subject and starts to ask me about what I want to go to school for, and I tell the both of them about my writing, which he's intrigued about because he works for a newspaper. Patrick continuously keeps looking at me and smiles ever so often when I laugh at something his parents say. I don't think he knows I can see him, but I do out of the corner of my eye. I love the fact that he wants things to go well with his parents, and I also love the fact that his parents are so welcoming and non-judgmental. They are the kindest people I've ever met besides my grandparent's, and that's when I realize why Patrick is the way he is. It's because of his parents.
Our dinner of roasted chicken – just as I guessed – with mashed potatoes and corn vanishes quickly, and when the hour is over I help pick up the plates to bring them into the kitchen. Patrick and his dad want to watch a game of football, so they go off into the other room. It's just his mother and I alone, an awkward silence overwhelming us as she rinses the dirty plates off and I dry them.
"I've never seen my son so happy." She admits as she hands me another plate. "I think you're wonderful for him."
I'm taken aback by that, but quickly collect myself. "Thank you. I'd like to think so too. Not many people would say that we're good together, so it's refreshing to have someone reassure me that we are." I confide too quickly, blushing immediately once the words leave my mouth. I guess she just has a trusting face to her, so it's easy to tell her how I'm feeling. I haven't been able to talk about how I'm feeling with anyone else, so why not explain it to someone who might understand?
Her hands place the plate on the counter instead of handing it to me, and she turns so she can face me. I get the strangest sense that I'm going to cry and I don't know why, but the look on her face tells me that she does in fact understand.
"People in this world can be cruel, Ella. Believe me when I say that I know exactly where you're coming from. Patrick's father, Dan and I, met in high school. I can't begin to tell you the amount of stares and rude comments we got because let me tell you, I may be curvy now, but I was even curvier back then. Just because people don't approve and think you aren't a perfect couple doesn't mean that you aren't. What you think is always going to be more important than what others think. If you always carry that advice around with you then I can promise you the two of you will last."
I can't help but let a few tears fall onto my face, mostly because I've never been able to relate to anyone before until her. She wraps me in another one of her warm hugs before Patrick comes in and immediately sets his glass down when he notices me crying. "Mom, what did you say to her?" He says sharply. "Ella, what's wrong?"
I just shake my head and slowly wipe underneath my eyes to get rid of the tears. Crying seems stupid now, but his mom is right. Other people's opinions don't matter. What matters is how I feel and how he feels. That's it.
"Nothing." I laugh slightly, feeling ridiculous. "Just girl talk."
He gives me a look as if to say, we'll talk about this later and glances over towards his mom again. "Alright, well we're going downstairs to watch a movie in the basement. Do you want popcorn El?"
"No thank you, I'm fine. But thank you Mrs. Connelly for everything. Dinner was fantastic and talking with you was great too. I can see why Patrick is as sweet as he is."
"Well I think you're wonderful Ella. I don't think Patrick could have chosen better."
He's dragging me by the sleeve of my dress before I can respond to her and we're downstairs in the matter of seconds. His basement is furnished and finished, wall to wall carpeting along with a leather wrap around couch and a plasma screen TV. There's an air hockey table in the left corner and a bar in the right one. It's like a man's dream.
"Wow." I scoff, stifling back a laugh. "This is pretty impressive."
He walks over to a huge case and removes a movie before he pops it into the DVD player and tosses the case over to me so I can see what it is. Evil Dead. My favorite movie of all time.
"You remembered!" I say with too much excitement.
"Of course I did."
The room goes dark when he turns out the light and grabs the remote off of the table as I sink down onto the couch and cuddle right up next to him. This night is perfect. Everything is so perfect and it's all because of him.
When his arm comes around my shoulder, he reaches over and pulls a huge blanket on top of us so that we're covered. A huge black fuzzy blanket engulfs my body, this fabric being way too comfortable. I'm watching my favorite movie with my favorite person in the entire world, and he remembered. He remembered our first phone conversation just like I had.
"What happened with my mom upstairs?" He asks. "What did she say?"
"Nothing." I shrug. "Just that we make a good couple. It's nice to know your mom feels that way because I love you a lot."
The movie starts up, but I don't think either of us are paying attention because when I look up at him he just nods and presses his lips against mine, letting me know his answer too. Before I know it I'm straddling his thighs as his hands come down my waist, pulling away breathlessly so I can look at him in the dark as best as I can.
"I really love you, Patrick. I don't care what anyone has to say about us. Your friends can think that I'm bad for you. I don't care. What matters is that I love you and that you love me. This is the first relationship I've ever been in and I'm so happy, you know? You don't hide me, you don't make me feel like I'm not worth anything."
"El-"
"No, let me finish. You make me feel beautiful even when I don't. I had my guard up so much since Christian hurt me the way that he did. I never thought even for a second that I would find someone to genuinely make me happy and want me the way that you do. My walls are finally coming down, Patrick. I can't thank you enough. "
"I love you too." He replies. "I've waited so long for you to say all of this to me. Christian treated you like shit, alright? He treated you like his girlfriend behind closed doors, but didn't introduce you to anyone, not even his parents. He's an asshole. You deserve someone great Ella, and I'm glad I'm the first one to truly have you and fix what he fucked up. I mean that. I even told Drew and everyone about us. I don't care what people think."
"Really?" I reply in shock. "What did they say?"
"They didn't care. It doesn't matter what they think anyways because you're beautiful to me and that's all that matters."
I find it extremely hard to believe that they didn't have anything to say about this piece of information, but it feels indescribable to know that everything's out in the open now. For the first time in my life I have a man who loves every inch of me and isn't afraid to scream it to the universe.
"This is just not what I expected to happen at all this summer." I finally laugh in disbelief, gathering my thoughts.
"It almost didn't!" He exclaims. "You really didn't want anything to do with me when we first met, did you?"
"It's not that I didn't want anything to do with you, I just had trust issues. I didn't really know you. I didn't have the option to not get to know you though. You were pretty damn persistent."
"Because when I see something I like..." He trails off, wrapping his thumb and pointer finger around my chin. "I get it." His lips press against mine again, and I start to laugh from how completely corny he is, pulling myself away before things go too far. As fun as last night was, there is no way in hell we're doing a repeat in his house with a chance of getting caught. No way.
"Still haven't changed your mind I see." He chuckles. "What a shame."
"Sh." I smirk, lying down so my head is in his lap. "The movie's on."
A/N:
I hope you guys are enjoying this story so far!!
There's not many comments, so it's kind of disappointing :(
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