𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐁𝐋𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, Robby Keene

S02:E07

Ellie gulped. Was it just her, or did Daniel sound angry with her? That made her mind race. He couldn't be mad at her. If he was mad at her, she would do whatever it took to make up for it. But she couldn't figure out what she'd done.

That was what made her drive to the LaRusso household. If her parents came home and noticed her car gone, she'd be in deep shit. If they wondered how she knew the LaRusso's wanted to speak to her, she'd be in deep shit. She'd be in deep shit either way. She didn't care, she needed to get to the LaRusso household fast.

"What's wrong? What did I do?" Ellie asked, almost immediately, as she walked into the LaRusso home. Daniel furrowed his eyebrows, wondering what Ellie was talking about.

"Nothing, just..." Daniel sighed, gesturing to a seat at the table. "Sit down please." Ellie felt as if her heart was in her throat, beating a million times a minute. What if Daniel told her that he didn't want her around anymore? What if he didn't want to work on cars with her anymore? Sure, Johnny was cool and everything but she couldn't see herself finding him as a father as she did with Daniel.

"Mr. LaRusso, what did I do? I promise I'll fix it, just please-"

"Ellie you didn't do anything wrong." Ellie didn't believe him. "Is everything okay? You haven't been around much, and typically that means something's wrong." Ellie began to speak, but Daniel spoke up again. "You were the one that told me social isolation is a telltale sign of depression." Ellie mentally cursed herself for that, trying to keep a straight face.

"Nothing's wrong." Daniel knew she was lying, but, then again, Ellie didn't know how to express what was wrong with her. There were many things that upset her in her life, things she didn't express, but Ellie needed to know what Daniel was talking about.

"Robby told me you got mad at him today, which isn't typical for you two, is something going on with you two?"

"No!" Ellie announced loudly, pressing her lips together tightly once she realized just how loud she was. "I'm sorry, I just...I can't be friends with Robby anymore." Daniel's eyes softened, as he came up with his own explanation to Ellie's cold shoulder to Robby. "My brother doesn't want us to hang out anymore-"

"So you're trying to distance yourself." Ellie sighed, nodding. She wasn't exactly lying, but she wasn't exactly being truthful either. "I understand, Ellie...can I ask why you got grounded?" Daniel had texted Ellie's mother, but since she was grounded her mother immediately replied with no. However, she never gave an explanation. Ellie told him that she was typically always with Eli, which made Daniel wonder what she did to end up grounded.

"I um...I yelled at Eli. I told him he wasn't really my brother anymore and that I was scared of him." Ellie cleared her throat as she drew circles on the table in front of her. Daniel could practically feel his heart soften. He yearned to rescue Ellie from her terrible home life, as did Amanda. However, there was nothing they could do. Ellie was very familiar with CPS, and she knew that they only cared about physical abuse. Most of the time they didn't even care about that.

Ellie knew her mother's attitude towards her was normal, that it was borderline emotional and verbal abuse. Ellie had done much research, and factually she knew she was being emotionally and verbally abused by her mother. Internally, however, a part of her told her she just needed to toughen up and that she was just too sensitive.

But did that even matter? Even if Ellie was a bit more sensitive than others, did that means she deserved her mother's treatment? Ellie had done everything she could, to try and make up for whatever she'd done to make her mother hate her so much. She could never find out what she'd done, or if she'd done anything. Ellie wasn't sure if it was her guilty conscience, but she was sure she'd done something wrong to make her mother hate her. That was the only reasonable explanation. Her mother didn't just hate her for no reason, right?

Ellie knew that 90% of mothers treat their sons and daughters differently while knowing it was wrong in the first place. She also knew one in four mothers questioned in a survey confessed to loving their sons differently than their daughters. Ellie wondered if her mother was part of the 90%. She wondered if her mother was one in four mothers.

However, she sadly knew the answer.

"I'm sorry, Ellie." Was all Daniel could say.

That night, after sneaking her phone back, Ellie got a text from both Robby and Miguel. Neither of them really knew that Ellie had her phone back. Miguel was now dating Tory, and Robby said he and Sam got together after she kissed him. Ellie's congratulated Miguel, but she just couldn't reply to Robby. She hated that she was being so distant to a friend, but she felt like he was stomping on her heart. He wasn't doing it knowingly, but he was doing it.
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A/n: y'all, I worked outside (taking orders on these little tablet things) and I GOT A FUCKING SUNBURN it hurt SO BAD imma kms😭 btw all of the facts/static's I use in this book aren't made up. I actually research these statics to make it as factually correct as possible!
Word Count:1,613