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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Eleanora Hadley laid across the full length of her bed, her head pulled in Sydney Taylor's lap, the blonde's hands brushing through Ellie's hair absentmindedly, her focus mostly on her broken friend.
A few used tissues laid around her, like demented white flowers alongside a huge ice cream tub with two spoons sticking out. It was a habit that Ellie and Sydney had gotten into when they were younger. Stealing the large tub of ice cream out of the freezer at whatever house they were in, hiding somewhere and eating as much as they could. Before spending way too long hiding just how much they had eaten, by rearranging the remaining ice cream in a weird shape that would hide the missing volume. They had gotten away with it too many times to count, their parents often too amused at the girl's efforts to properly reprimand them.
Ellie would give anything to go back to those times. Before Bella, before the Cullens, before Ellie got wrapped up in a lot of drama she would rather ignore but at the same time, the reward had been huge. Ellie had gotten a whole new second family out of it, one that loved her despite everything, but they too had all left her. It felt like a breakup. One of those dramatic scenes in movies with the protagonist sobbing over icecream and romantic movies before experiencing some undefined character growth. But not only did Ellie have no experience of a real break up to line that up against, but it also somehow felt worse.
"I don't even know why I'm so torn up about it all." Ellie admitted into the silence of the room, which had occasionally been broken by the occasional sniffle, an 'ow' as Sydney pulled on a particularly tough knot in her hair, as well as the sounds of the girls' eating out of the ice cream tub. "I only know them all for a few months."
"I know, it hurts." Sydney started, stopping her brushing for the moment and looking down at her best friend. "He was your first love-"
"He was not." Ellie defended but her face soon scrunched up at the thought of him.
"He was, whether you admitted it to yourself or not," Sydney continued. "You didn't even get the chance to tell him, that was always bound to hurt."
"It's not even just him though Syd," Ellie added with a frown. "I was close with all of them and they just left, without so much as a goodbye. He warned me that they wouldn't stay for much longer, they all wanted to get out and see the world, but I thought they would graduate before doing so."
"So, they all just left. Off to travel the world despite not finishing high school?" Sydney clarified.
"Yeah," Ellie said softly, it was a cover story that she would have to clarify with Bella later on. "Oh my god." She muttered the realisation coming to her.
"What is it, El?"
"Bella," Ellie muttered.
"Bella?" Sydney repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, Bella. Edward must've said goodbye to her as well, oh my god, Bella!" Ellie returned before springing up off the bed. "We've got to go over to the Swan's to check on Bella."
"Why?" Sydney asked before the situation clicked in her own mind.
"And I'm sure that her goodbye was considerably worse than mine," Ellie continued, bringing her hair up until a ponytail on top of her head. Sydney had only ever managed to brush one side of her hair, so knots and all ended up in the messy ponytail but Ellie couldn't quite care, her thoughts residing only with Bella, her own tragedy forgotten for the moment.
The Swan residence was chaos by the time Ellie and Sydney finally arrived. A swarm of people and lights, panic clear in the air. It almost felt like the entire population of Forks was gathered on the Swan's front lawn and Ellie's head swirled with it all until her eyes finally landed on the frantic Charlie. She had only ever seen the Chief of Police like that one time before when the news of Bella in the hospital had first reached him.
"Charlie!" Ellie called to the Chief desperately. "What's going on? Where's Bella?"
"She's missing," Charlie called back to her.
Those two simple words were all it took for Ellie to start forward towards the forest that also surrounded the Swan home again. Although night had fallen, Ellie wasn't about to leave her best friend alone, especially when she was probably the only person who completely understood what Bella was most likely going through. Unless. . . . Ellie soon pushed the thought out of her head continuing forward. If Edward had taken Bella with him, he would've at least given her the choice to come with surely, unless he truly didn't care about her. . . . . .
"You can't, Ellie," Charlie called once more. "We've already got people out there searching for her, besides Allison would kill me if I let you go."
Ellie started forward once more despite Charlie's shouts of her name when a figure broke through the trees. It was a man, one of the Quileute's she assumed, carrying a shivering Bella in his arms. At the sight of Bella, cold but alright, a sigh of relief washed through her.
"Bella!" Ellie called, her cry clashing with Charlie's identical one before her body started to sag.
"Woah, I've got you El," Sydney assured as Ellie continued to sag her body weight against her best friend, her eyes shutting without her permission. "It's going to be alright, Ellie. I promise."
