Hidden

chapter seven

emma's pov

ellie and olivia had finally decided to talk about it. 

one question that got thrown around was if there was a possibility that they'd get back together.

 the answer was no.

i honestly didn't know how to feel about it.

the second question was why ellie did that out of the blue. we had anticipated that ellie would have a good reason. what she said caught everyone off guard.

"i had this feeling that i wasn't where i should be, but i tried to push it off thinking that i would be losing someone so important at the cost of that feeling. and then one day, i just decided i would do it. and i did." that was all ellie said about it.

later that night, after the talk, olivia slept over again. 

"i can't believe it was that easy for her to do," she said, bitterness filling her voice. "i don't even know if what i saw in her was really what she was," she continued.

i had thought the same. ellie is such a great person. she's genuine, and we know that. we feel that way, and it's not forced. you could ask literally anyone who knows ellie and they would all have something good to say.

 but i understand what olivia is saying. what we saw from ellie earlier wasn't at all like ellie. but i can't hold that against her. everyone who's hurt has tendencies that make them vulnerable. sometimes if you're hurt, you tend to hurt other people. 

olivia scooted over me, and clung tight. she cried to me, and she cried so hard i had started to cry myself too. of course, i couldn't let her know, so i stifle mine as i let hers flow.

"i hate this, i hate her," she says.

"you don't," i say. i would never want to curate hate within olivia. 

"you don't hate her. you hate the pain," i say. olivia continues to cry until eventually she falls asleep. she rolls over. 

the next day olivia posts the video. 

we have separated ways 

a few hours later and ellie posts her video.

addressing the elephant in the room

it was haywire. the fans were all over the place. everyone was all sad and few had confirmed their speculations. the one good thing i liked about everything that happened is that no one attempted to create tea over it. no one spilled fake tea, and no one made anyone a villain.

"there were no third parties. it wasn't like that." ellie said in her video.

"a lot of things happened and we're not going to talk about that, but i would tell you one thing: we realized the same thing in different times. " this was the most heartbreaking thing that liv said in her video. i knew the context, i knew the intensity of this statement. i knew that ellie had realized it way before olivia had, and it was hard for olivia to go through this, especially because there was a period where she literally did not understand why ellie did what she did.

but now, she knew. and she agreed with the breakup, eventually. there are things that both and ellie and olivia decided to keep to themselves, and amanda and i decided to not ask olivia. besides, being a public profile doesn't necessarily mean you should expose every part of your life. 

i just know that the both of them felt something off, and that that feeling was so powerful in their relationship that it had caused displacement. 

after the peak of the breakup, olivia finally unfollows ellie on every platform. ellie unfollows too. 

amidst this chaos, i find myself having the same feeling as i had before. nothing changed. i still liked olivia. and nothing changed with the fact that i would not act on my feelings. olivia has gone through so much for me to add on to it. it doesn't matter anymore. these feelings will go. 

these feelings are to be hidden.

amanda's pov

i could see emma's strain with her emotions. now that she's aware of her feelings, she has masked her tendencies. if you're watching her from outside, not knowing of the feelings she has for olivia, you wouldn't know. but i see it, and i see how much she's putting effort into diverting herself away from whatever she's feeling. and while i know that she's thinking of olivia, i still feel kind of bad that emma has to undergo this painful feeling of having to suppress feelings. 

olivia, on the other hand, has her problems to overcome. the way that ellie explained why she did what she did was borderline unacceptable. but you know, although it's unclear, i feel like the two of them know more to it than they would like us to know. 

they talked in the private, the two of them. they talked at emma's apartment. they talked for two hours, and then afterward talked to us. obviously, they had settled on what to say to us, and what to say to the fans. everything was set. everyone was okay. 

at least before ellie left. right after that, olivia sits down. at first we thought she was just tired, but then she rushes to the bathroom. of course, we know. so we go to her and we end up seeing her crying, absolutely torn down. she had held up so good in front of ellie, acted like she had understood too, but in reality, she was struggling to understand it. it was unfair on her part for ellie to desert her like that. 

but at the end of the day, ellie has her reasons too. and it wasn't long after that olivia understands it too. in fact, she knows how ellie is feeling too. at some point, the breakup finally becomes mutual. 

olivia lives through it. there are those obvious things she did to cut off ellie. she dropped brands where she and ellie both endorsed it, she unfollowed her on social media platforms, and she finally decided to move all of her and ellie's photos to her computer. finally, she hid those photos, where you could never encounter them by accident. 

i understand why she didn't delete them. for olivia, who had a civil breakup, keeping things like these aren't destructive. she told me she was lucky to have a civil breakup, although it was still so sad and messy. 

"other people had it worse," she said. she understood that her ability to keep remnants of the relationship was not something every broken person could do. because of that, it had become more special to her. 

olivia, you sweet sweet girl.