The suicidal boy I mean everything to.

Chapter 19. What does he have to do with it?

Still Bennet's POV.

After I finished telling Ell everything that happened, she didn't say anything. She just sat there in silence. She was looking at her hands which rested in her lap. She finally spoke.
"So, we didn't have sex." She said, she then rose her head and stared at me. I just shook my head.
"I want to thank you for stopping me, but I wish you hadn't." She whispered.
"What do you mean you wish I hadn't?" I asked her. I think I know, I just don't want to jump to conclusions.
"I mean, I said to you last night to tell me so I can tell you I want you in more ways than one. But you wanted me to say it sober. I'm sober and I'm telling you, I want you in more ways than one." She said looking at me burning holes through my soul. "So next time this happens. Don't stop yourself or me." She finally finished.
"Ell, there can't be a next time." I said. I didn't want to say it, heck I didn't believe in what I said. But I had to say it, for reasons she can't know.
"Why? I want you, you want me, what else is there?"
"I can't tell you." I said quietly.
"Can't. Or won't?" She said raising her voice. I stood up.
"For fuck sake Ell! It's not your fault or my fault why it can't happen. It's nothing to do with who wants who! Tell me Ell, when you have sex with Matt, what do you think?"
"I don't!! I don't think about it at all! Is that why? Because if Matt?"
"No! It's Jason." I finally shouted. Her face fell. The reminder of her ex evidently pains her. Their relationship wasn't a good one. He was controlling. He wouldn't let her do anything. She had to go everywhere with him. I'm not accusing him of anything, I'm just putting a fact out there.
"What does he have to do with it?" She said. I could tell she was on the verge of tears, but I had to tell her.
"He still loves you Ell, a lot, I can't do this because I know how much he loves you Ell. He keeps all your photos. Everything you've ever left at his house is still there. He keeps all your texts, everything. He even is asking people to draw his favourite pictures of him and you. It sounds so creepy, but he loves you more than life." I could see her crumbling. Her emotions finally catching up with her. She's been running for so long she forgot to breathe and now she's fainted, everything is catching up with her. Then she went blank. Emotionless and unreadable.
"Does he think I didn't ever love him? Because I did. But he broke my heart. So now I'm returning the favour. I don't want to hurt him, but I have too, it's the only way I can live with it. I love him so much, but if he loved me half as much as he said he did he wouldn't have hurt me." She said, her face wasn't blank, it was a combination of anger, pain and sadness. She walked out the room. I stood up and went after her. She was already down the rooms stairs and walking towards the door. I sprinted down the stairs and ran for the door. Just as she opened it I closed it. She hung her head down.
"Don't go." I whispered in her ear. She inhaled sharply and looked at me. I saw the tears streaming down her face.
"Or what?" She whispered.
"Just don't. I need you here. With me." She wiped her face.
"And I think you need me too." I said as I cupped her face and looked at her. She closed her eyes before falling into my chest.
"Can we go for a walk?" She asked me. I stroked the back of her head.
"Sure."
We walked to the pier which was only a few minutes away. We reached the edge and stood in silence. I watched each wave crash against the poles that hold up the pier. Then sun was rising higher in the sky because it was nearly noon. I could hear Ell breathing slowly. She seemed nervous, for what I'm not sure. So I asked her.
"Are you okay? You seem nervous."
"I just, I'm not a big fan of the deep ocean. Why I wouldn't swim out yesterday and only went in waist deep. That's why."
"You should have said."
"But I like the beach, it's open water.
I don't like it because-" she stopped. For no reason, she just stopped speaking. I didn't want to push it but it's the only way to get her to say stuff.
"Because what Ell?" I said as I put my arm around her.
"My mother drowned. On the way to her trip, the plane crashed and landed in the ocean. She drowned in the open water." I knew her mother was dead, just like mine, and I knew her father wasn't mentally there, and her brother is the same. But I never got a reason for how her mother died.
"Ell, you know-"
"Don't say anything. Just- please don't say anything." She said. She turned to me.
"I just need to- I don't know but I need you Bennet, I've always needed someone like you. Now I have you,
I don't want you to leave."
"I could never leave you, because I have lost so much, I can't let you slip through my fingers. I just can't lose you." I finished, I wrapped her in a hug.
"Because the truth is Ell, I've been a suicidal guy for a long time, and things never look bright for me, so when I met you, it was like the moon finally moving from an eclipse. It was a sense of security. You saved me. I'm a suicidal boy. And you mean so much to me." I had to tell her. I don't know why. I just did.
"How would you do it? You know, suicide." I thought about it for a second. Then I knew.
"I'd take my last breath and jump from some sort of bridge and die."
"Right, you aren't going near bridges, balcony's or anything high again." I chuckled.
"And that's why I love you Ell, you're so lightly humoured at the darkest times." I smiled. We began to walk back to the hotel. I knew I had feelings for Ell, a lot of them, but she doesn't deserve a guy like me. She needs better. That's why I can't have her. I'm not worth it, and she has already been 'claimed'.