Love & War | Brad Simpson ✔️

27. "Relationship purgatory?"

He chuckles and continues to look through all the photos, occasionally asking me about where and when the photos were taken. Then he comes across a picture of me aged around twelve, wearing a pair of boxing gloves and smiling through the gum shield in my teeth.

"Okay, this explains a lot" he chuckles, pointing to the picture.

"Yeah, I used to do boxing when I was younger"

"Wait, really?" Brad asks, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Yeah" I nod, "all my friends were doing gymnastics and horse riding, but I wanted to do boxing. I was the only girl that went and all the lads used to laugh at me because I was a girl so I kept going until I was better than all of them"

He laughs at that, shaking his head.

"I was smaller than all of them so I was a lot quicker" I tell him, "I ran rings around them all"

"Yeah, I can imagine that" he grins, "so if we had a fight, like a physical fight..."

"Oh, I would win, no question"

"Drawing, baking, boxing" he smiles, "you're a woman of many talents, aren't you?"

"Don't forget being a full-time bitch" I add, half-jokingly, "a lot of hard work goes into that, you know"

"Oh, of course" he nods, flicking onto the next page of the album, "the bitch was in-training at this point, I'm guessing" he snickers, pointing to a picture of me at someone's birthday party looking right at the camera with a very grumpy expression whilst the rest of the girl's at the table are all smiles.

"I didn't like her" I explain to Brad, pointing at the birthday girl, "and I didn't want to go to her party but my mum was friends with her mum so she forced me to go, so I spent the whole night with a face like a slapped arse"

Brad bursts into laughter at my little anecdote, and I can't help but smile widely and laugh too.

"I've never heard a more 'Ella' story" he snorts.

"I was a grumpy nine-year-old" I shrug. He looks at me and smirks.

"You're a grumpy eighteen-year-old"

"Old habits die hard"

Brad opens his mouth to say something else but a knock on the front door downstairs interrupts him.

"Hold on," I say as I push myself up and jog downstairs. When I get to the door, I find that it's just the postman with a parcel for my mum. I put it in the kitchen for her and go back up to my room. Brad has lost interest in the photo album and is reading another book now. I frown and step closer to get a better look.

"What's that?" I question, watching a smirk tug at his mouth. He doesn't answer and it worries me slightly so I take a closer look and recognise the familiar scrawl of my own thirteen-year-old handwriting. Ella's diary - Keep Out or Face Death!

Fuck.

"Shit, don't read that" I groan, quickly crouching down and trying to grab the book but Brad throws himself out of my reach.

"Dear diary, I think I have a crush on my brother's friend, Ben" he reads out in a girly voice that is nothing like my own, whilst I scramble to get the diary, "he's so cute and- ooof!"