** wendsday december 19th 2035**
-taylors Pov-
Today I'm dropping the kids off to last day of school before the holidays. The school is having meetings tomorrow and Friday so they're letting the kids out early which the girls are excited about. But what they don't know is that today joe is coming home finally. We decided to not tell them and just have him surprise them when they get home from dance. And on Friday the rest of joes' family is flying over because they're all spending Christmas with us over here this year, and my dad is flying in from Tampa.
I reach the hospital and joe is sitting on the edge of the bed smiling at me when I come in "this guy is discharged" he says and grin at me and pull me by my waist closer to him so I'm standing between his legs. "Well, this girl is happy about having her husband back home" I say and kiss him softly.
It's been over a month since he got admitted to the hospital when the car crash happened and I'm so excited to have him coming home. But it's also emotional because there were a few days where I didn't think he would ever come home again because of the severity of the accident. He could have died and is one of the luckiest men in the world. I'm never taking a day with him for granted ever again. "what's wrong love, why are you crying" he says softly and drag me out of my thoughts.
"i'm just happy you're coming home. I was so scared I was going to lose you" I say and my voice crack. "i'm happy I get to come home to you too. Now I will just have physio come to the house Monday through Friday and a nurse come and do a neuro exam a few times a week too. But it's going to be nice to be home with you all again" he says and kiss me softly.
The nurse tells us that he is free to leave and that his prescription of pain meds is ready at the pharmacy to be picked up whenever we get there. So we walk out of the hospital hand in hand.
I'm obviously driving because he hasn't been cleared for that yet. "Oh my god, it's so nice to be outside" he mumbles, and I squeeze his hand. "This feels like a dream, I'm so happy that you're coming home"
-ellies pov-
It's the last day of school before the holidays which is exiting. It's going to be two weeks off vacation days and several of those are without dance too as it's the holidays.
I'm standing by my locker, and someone comes up behind me and cover my eyes, but I could recognize those hands anywhere, so I giggle "good morning baby" Alex says and turn around and I give him a hug "good morning, babe. I'm so excited for Christmas break" I say and grab my books for the next class. "Me too, especially because it means I get to spend a lot of time with you" he says and peck my lips which always make me smile.
"And since tomorrow is our one-month anniversary I want to take you out somewhere" he says and brush the hair out of my face "I would love that" I say and bite my lip. I can't believe that it's been a month already, time has flown by so past and my feelings for him grow stronger every day.
"We could have fun all day" he says and intertwine our fingers and I giggle "that will be fun. We have dance though. But other than that, we are free to do whatever we want"
**
Its lunch break and I'm sitting with Katie, Lauren and Caroline. Lauren has a boyfriend now too, Lucas, because Alex's best friend has been hanging out a lot with us, so they grew feelings for one another.
"Did your mom have that sex talk with you too" Lauren groans and I giggle "yeah, she had it a few weeks ago and it was mortifying. But she gave me lots of details though so that was good. Aperently the first-time hurts" I say and start to eat.
"I wish my mom would talk to me about that, she said that I'm not allowed to have sex before I'm married" Katie groans. "You can ask me anything and I will try to answer you" I say and shrug. I know that she doesn't have a good relationship with her mom sadly and she is really different than mine.
"Will your mom let you have sex?" she asks, and I shrug "she said that she can't exactly prevent me from doing it because I'm not around her 24 hours a day. But she hopes that I wait until I'm ready and feel like it's something I truly want to do. But I'm in no rush. For now, I'm happy with making out and cuddling" making out with Alex is amazing and he is taking everything at my pace.
Alex and Lucas come over to where we are sitting and Alex slide down next to me and I lean my head on his shoulder for a second before I continue eating.
"look it's the girl that will have to tell her sob story again in front of the jury in a month" Rebecca comes over to us and I tense, I know we are having a trial, but I haven't gotten the date yet. "Leave me alone Rebecca. Its none of your business" I tell her and I'm proud of that because I usually get really quiet and just let her talk.
"it's all over the internet so its everyone's business. You're facing the guy that raped your mom again. You sure he didn't rape you too and you're just covering it up?" she says and laugh, and my lip start to tremble. I hate her, I hate her with a burning passion because she always has some sort of remark to come at me with.
"Piss off Rebecca. You're anoying. Go find someone else to talk to because this conversation is over" Lauren says, and Alex wrap an arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him. "Take deep breaths baby" he whispers in my ear, and I close my eyes. I don't want to have a panic attack here in front of everyone, that would be mortifying. The whole incident in the basement is a really sore subject for me.
"Alex do you really want to be with a girl with so much baggage. She probably doesn't even give you sex, which is a disservice to you. She probably had sex with that man down in the fucking basement but won't sleep with you. Pathetic all--" once again she is cut off but this time it's by Alex "that's enough Rebecca. How dare you speak like that about her, or about anyone else for that matter. Get over yourself and leave the girl alone" he says sternly at her and I lean my head into his chest so no one can see that I'm crying.
She says something more before walking off laughing with her sidekicks but I'm just focusing on trying to breath and not have a full-blown panic attack in the middle of the cafeteria. Alex wrap both of his arms around my shoulders pulling me closer, and I wrap mine around his torso and rest my head in his chest.
"She needs to leave you alone. She has bene doing this for years and its pathetic" Lauren groans and everyone else agrees with her.
"Ellie take deep breaths" he tells me but it's really hard and I'm trying to suppress sobs but it's really hard. "Baby take a deep breath for me" he whispers in my ear. wish the bullying would stop, I wish that she would just leave me alone. I've never done anything to her, and I don't understand why she is always targeting me. What did I ever do to make her be so mean to me.
**
I'm done at dance and waiting for my mom to pick me up but I'm not feeling like myself. What Rebecca said earlier today is really imprinted in my mind and it's making me feel panicked and triggered.
"Ellie how are you doing?" Alex says and come over to where I'm standing outside the studio and wrap his arms around me and now, I can't keep the tears come coming again. "Oh baby, she doesn't deserve your tears. She is the pathetic one" he says and hold me close.
"it's messing with my head... its... I just can't deal with this" I cry into his chest, and he tighten his arms around me.
"Ellie are you okay?" my mom's voice comes from beside me and I shake my head and turn my head to look at her but still keeping it against his chest. "What happened sweetie" she asks and come over and rub my back "Rebecca has been a nightmare all day" I mumble. I feel so bad that my boyfriend is seeing me being such a mess, but he doesn't seem to mind, he always just holds me close and whisper sweet words in my ear.
"I hate to break this up, but your sisters are waiting in the car, and we have a surprise for you at home" she says and continue to rub my back. "Okay, I'll come to the car in a second" I say and hint that I want a moment alone before we go so she goes to the car.
"Call me if you get sad again baby and I'll talk to you until you feel better. I wish I could cuddle you all night" he says and brush some stray hair out of my face and softly kiss me "i wish you could sleep over" He agree.
**
We get home and when I walk into the living room my eyes widen "Dad!" all three of us girls gasp and run over to him "Hi there you are" he says, and we all cuddle close to him on the couch.
-taylors pov-
The girls are over the moon about seeing joe again and I'm so happy that he is home. It's been over a month since he has sat on the couch and it's so nice to see him at home and relaxed.
**
The younger girls are in bed and Ellie is sitting with joe and I on the couch drinking tea "so I have a question I want to ask you" she mumbles, and we get ready to listen "you can ask us anything Ellie"
She hesitates for a second "could... could Alex sleep over? In my room" she says and blush and look down at her hands and I'm exchanging looks with joe.
She wants to have her boyfriend sleep over. Does that mean sex, or does it mean that she just wants to cuddle him at night. This is for sure a big step and I'm unsure about where we stand regarding this.
-joes pov-
"Why do you want to have him over, let's start with that. Is it about sex?" I ask her and I don't know if I even want to hear the answer to that. Taylor and I haven't talked about her having a boy at a sleepover before and in hindsight we probably should have had that conversation because thinking about it it's something that would naturally come up around this time.
"no, it's not about that" she says and can't keep from giggling slightly "I just... we talked about it today and it would be nice to... to have a sleepover" she says and keeps drinking her tea.
I don't know how I feel about this because there are lots of thoughts in my head. The fact of the matter is that we can never keep her from having sex because she isn't around us 24 hours a day and there is no way to completely cockblock anyone. Kids always find ways to have sex if they really want to regardless of what the parents feel about it because they don't need to do it at night, they can do it any time of day. Not to mention that we hear stories about kids having sex at school too so there is no way to completely keep it from happening.
But the question is will we let him sleep over here and stay in her room. That's a big pill to swallow for me because in my eyes she is still my little girl, but she has had this boyfriend for a month and is over the moon happy and I love to see her like this. She has a sparkle in her eye that I haven't really seen in her before, its different than her usual sparkle, it's the sparkle of someone in love. We don't want to keep her from spending time with him, but we don't want her to move too fast either.
"The biggest question is do you think you're ready for that? If you think really hard to you think you're ready. Because that's taking the relationship to a new level, and we don't want you to do that unless you feel like you're ready. If you're not ready, we can be the bad guys and say that you're not allowed to have him sleep in your room" I tell her. I just want to make sure that it's something she really wants to do and not just something she is doing because he wants to do it.
"I really want to. Today I had a really bad day. Rebecca was horrible, and she brought up the trial that aperently is happening next month. And all I could think about on the way back here form dance is how nice it would be if he could... If he could hold me all night when I'm sad. Or when I'm happy, but it would be nice" she says and blush and that makes me feel loads of things. I hate that those girls are still bullying her, she doesn't deserve that because she has never done anything to that girl. But I'm happy that he could comfort her and that she let him.
"I can hold you at night when your sad?" Taylor suggests and Ellie giggles "it's not the same thing mom. I love cuddling with you, you know that. But it's different with my boyfriend. I want... I don't know... I just want to have him spend the night"
"How about you go to bed and your dad, and I talk about it, and we will give you a response?" Taylor suggests and we all agree so Ellie goes to bed, and we go upstairs to our bedroom. I'm able to walk stairs thankfully, that was one of the criteria for being able to leave the hospital. Thankfully my broken leg wasn't serious, so it healed rather quickly. I have to wear a protective thing on it but other than that its fine. But my body still hurts to before we go upstairs, I take some pain meds.
Both of us climb into bed and we lay facing one another. "Having you in bed again is perfect. I think I might actually sleep good for the first time in a long time" she says, and I bop her nose. "Speaking off sleeping next to someone. What do we think about ellie and alex"
She sighs "I mean the fact of the matter is that they are hormonal teenagers and keeping teenagers from having sex if they really want to is absolutely impossible. Obviously, we don't endorse it, and I hate the thought. But I don't think having a sleepover means that they will have sex while we are sleeping. I think we should just trust her when she says it's not about that" Taylor says, and I sort of agree but I just want to protect her.
I don't want to facilitate any situation where someone could take advantage of her, especially sexually. And spending the night is a big step in my eyes, so we need to think this through.
"I think that if we give her the breathing room and that trust she will be more likely to be honest about sex and not feel like she needs to hide the feelings or such. If we put a stop to everything, she will do things behind our backs" Taylor has a point there, I guess. It's better to know what they're doing instead of her trying to spend time with him behind our backs and maybe not be able to come to us if something that she isn't comfortable with happens.
We agree to let her have sleepovers with him as long as her bedroom door stays open, that's a compromise, I guess. And that we make it clear that someone could come and check on them at any time.
"I love you joe. Having you home is perfect" she says and come closer so she can lay her head on my chest. "i'm happy to be home too. I love you so much Taylor Alwyn. To the moon and to Saturn and even further. It's you and me together forever"
-ellies pov-
My bedroom door opens and it's my mom coming in as I'm sitting on my ipad in bed "hi sweetie, I'm going to bed I just wanted to tell you that your dad and I agree that alex can sleep over. But your door needs to be open, and you need to know that either one of us could come in at any moment" she tells me
"Okay. But can I ask why you always insist on that, don't you trust me?" I ask and she sits down on my bed. "We do trust you, and that's why we are letting you have him sleep over. But we also want to protect you, so the door needs to be open, that's the rule." she tells me and atleast she is letting me have him over here.
I find it anoying that I can't close my room because I would love to have some privacy, but at least it's a step in the right direction. "Can I ask if he wants to sleep over tomorrow?" I ask her she says I can before she leaves and I put away my ipad.
Ellie- hi babe. Talked with my parents and if you want you can seep over tomorrow. That could be fun. My parents made a rule that the door needs to be open though.
I text him and it doesn't take him long before he responds.
Alex- that sounds perfect. Can't wait baby. Kissing you goodnight and a good morning kiss sounds amazing, not to mention holding your body close to mine all night. I asked my mom too and she said that you can sleep here too as long as we keep the door open here too
Ellie- can't wait. See you tomorrow babe
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