"I love you." He said randomly and it had the same impact on me as the first time. Only this time, he wasn't drunk and I felt like he actually meant it. He strode towards me and kneeled down in front of me.
"I love you too, but-" I panicked, thinking he was about to propose. But he laughed and shook his head, before getting the familiar weaved box from under his bed. He placed it on my lap, before taking a seat next to me on the bed.
"My soccer jersey." He pulled out said object and placed it on his lap.
"I really enjoyed soccer, you know. I was fifteen when I started. The boys on my team accepted me as one of theirs, even though I was small and lanky." He grimaced.
"But as soon as they realized Jason, the great football player and his girlfriend, the biggest bitch of Easton hill bullied me, they decided to do the same. I couldn't even do the only thing that distracted me from all that bullshit your friends caused me." He growled in anger, gripping the shirt tight.
"I'm sorry." I felt as if I should've done something. Even though both of us knew, it wouldn't have helped. Elijah chuckled, before putting the jersey back into the box. He closed it and sighed.
"You wanna know why they called me lanky woods?" He asked and I nodded.
"Well, my name is Elijah. Apparently the most famous Elijah that bitch knew was Elijah Woods form Lord of the rings. And lanky, because well. I was lanky and smaller than most of the other guys in class." He told me before standing up.
"They say kids can be mean. But in my opinion, teenagers are the worst. They know what kind of impact their words and actions can have on people. It's up to them if they actually say it or do it, or not." He opened his closet and reached towards the top shelve.
"This-" He sighed, blowing the dust off the black box. This box was just as mysterious as he came to sit next to me again. When he opened it, I saw a bunch of baby pictures and family portraits in it. He handed me a baby picture of him and I smiled.
"That's me." He shot me a small smile. He was so cute with his chubby legs and arms and his beautiful grey eyes. He also smiled, showing off his one tooth. Then he handed me another picture of the same baby and my breath hitched.
"That's also me. A few days after the first picture was taken." Tears were forming in my eyes when I looked at the unconscious child. He had bruises all over his body and his lip was swollen. He shoved another picture on top of that one and I shook my head.
"What kind of people-" A tear escaped my eye and it fell right on the baby's swollen eye.
"My birth mother." He simply stated, before taking the photos and putting them back into the box. I sniffed, my heart hurting.
"I wasn't planned, not wanted. My mother was sixteen when she got me. Her mother wanted the abortion, but she never had it. Instead, she took the money that was meant to go to the abortion and left her hometown. She was determined to raise me." He told me, wiping my tears away.
"But she obviously had no idea where to go or how to handle a newborn. She started looking for people who could adopt me, but as soon as they saw that she was homeless, they turned her down." I placed my head on his shoulder.
"She finally found a place to stay, but the people weren't nice to her. They hurt her to that point where she almost had a miscarriage. I was born way too early, but survived. And when I was ready to go home, I did. My mother took me back to the people who hurt her and she started getting violent towards me. When I cried for example." Oh no.
"It wasn't after I turned a year old that someone in the hospital finally took notice of what was going on. All this time, they sent me back as if my broken bones and bruised skin was normal." I swallowed hard and he kissed the top of my head.
"That's when it all started. I was sent from foster care to foster care and back to the orphanage." He took out a stack of pictures and handed them to me.
"Nineteen. These are only nineteen families that I've been to. Each of them had like seven other kids already." He told me.
"Elijah, that's awful." I said, looking through all the pictures. No wonder he had troubles opening up to people. I couldn't even imagine what I would do if I had a childhood like his.
"Now imagine how my life became when I got bullied in school. Normal kids would go home and have parents who tell them that all the mean kids at school were lying and such. You know, somebody like a mom who would cheer me up." He chuckled darkly.
"But I never had that. So it came naturally that I fell into a deep depression. I started hurting myself and starved myself. It was horrible. I was at the lowest point of my life." He said and took the photos again. He put them into the box and then closed it.
"Now, these two boxes come in handy as motivation. They make me realize that no matter how bad my day might be, I've had worse ones." He smiled at me, before placing the box next to the other one at the ground.
"It's hard for me to open up and it's even harder for me to trust people. Other than Toby, no one ever really cared for me. And mind you, I was twenty when I met him." He said and I nodded, before wiping my tears away.
"Don't cry. It's all fine now." He took my chin in his hand and kissed my wet cheeks softly. I wrapped my arms around him, he hugged me back. I let out a shaky breath, before pulling away.
"You're an amazing man, Elijah. I'm so happy you're here and I don't know what I would do without you." I told him honestly. I kissed him and he kissed me back as eagerly. A spark of electricity erupted in my body.
"Wait." I said, remembering something. He frowned at me in confusion.
"Why didn't you let me inside that club then?" I remembered the very first question I wanted to know.
"You're not letting that one go, are you?" He chuckled, before looking away, his cheeks flushed. Uh oh.
"Elijah." I said in an authoritative tone and he sighed, scratching his neck.
"Well, I haven't told you how I managed to overcome my bad phase. And that's where you come in." I tilted my head in confusion, which he couldn't see. Since he still avoided eye contact.
"Well, I told you how no one cared about me and I know you didn't either. But when you sat down next to me and smiled whenever our gazes met, I kind of liked you. I slowly started focusing on the good things in life and after graduating. Do you remember what happened when we got our diploma?" He asked me and I shook my head.
"What do you mean?" I wasn't even sure what he meant and couldn't think straight after he just told me that he had a crush on me. I found it incredibly cute and really wished we would've talked at least once. I should've started the conversation, why didn't I start it?
"Of course you don't remember. It's silly. But on our very last day, you-" He suddenly let out a breath and threw his head back, chuckling slightly.
"Jesus, I sound so stupid." He said embarrassed and I slapped him.
"Just tell me already." I really wanted to know. He sighed, before looking at me again. He licked his lips and took a deep breath.
"You- oh my god, it's so fucking embarrassing that I remember that." He covered his face with his hands and let his upper body fall back onto the mattress.
"Elijah!" I scoffed, glaring down at him. But he didn't lift his hands from his face and I got frustrated. I slapped his stomach hard and he shot up from the bed, holding his stomach.
"Damn." He commented after coughing. I shot him a look and he sighed, before looking down at my lap, where he intertwined our fingers.
"You hugged me." He finally whispered and my heart melted.
"Oh yeah I remember that. Everybody hugged me, so I thought it was normal. You didn't hug me back though." I remember it exactly now. Elijah scoffed.
"I didn't get enough time." I shook my head in amusement.
"But why didn't you let me into the damn club that night? I feel like I've asked this question so many times and you just don't want to answer it." I said impatiently.
"Calm down, I'm getting to that." He laughed.
"So after graduation, I started working out and you know how I needed motivation. We both accomplished that was you. And you were always this perfect little thing to me. You know, like a good girl." He shrugged.
"I knew what was going on in that club and would've never expected you there. I didn't want to believe that you would be the girl to party and such, since good girls don't do that." He answered me finally. Ohhh.
"Yeah and I knew that you were younger than all of us, so I asked for your ID." He nodded and then stood up.
"Well, that was enough embarrassment for a week." I giggled at that and he smiled down at me.
"Come on, I'll make us some breakfast." He said and I nodded eagerly, only now realizing that I haven't eaten anything yet.
"Or maybe you'd like to fix that creature you call hair." He joked and I scoffed at him. He chuckled, before kissing me lovingly.
Damn him.
»»»
I stood up in the middle of the night, my throat feeling sore as heck. It took me a few seconds to realize where I was when I heard the faint snores of my boyfriend next to me. He didn't even move when I sat up in bed, managing to detangle myself from his body.
I stood up and walked out of his room, careful not to make too much noise. It's like one a.m. or something. I couldn't help the smile on my face when I thought back to what happened earlier. How easy Elijah and I communicated and how much I enjoyed his company.
I opened a cupboard and took out a glass, so I could get some water in me. I just finished gulping the whole thing down when I heard a door open. I expected Elijah or even Toby but obviously not my best friend.
"Stacey?" The glass almost slipped out of my hands when she stood in front of me in only her underwear. I blinked rapidly and her expression was as surprised.
"Lilah." She breathed out, before quickly walking towards me and throwing her arms around me.
"What-"
"I'm so sorry. Toby told me everything. He eavesdropped and I realized what a bitch I was. I tried reaching you, but you never picked up." She squeezed me and I sighed.
"Toby eavesdropped?" Was all I could manage to say and she nodded, before pulling away.
"I swear Lilah, if I would've known he had a past like that, I would've never even said anything. I just wanted to know if he was good enough for you." She sighed.
"I was the biggest bitch to him and I-"
"Oh, good. You met Lilah." We heard and Stacey's eyes widened before she turned around. I looked past her to see Toby smiling at us lazily.
"Yeah. Hi, I'm Sarah." Stacey held out her hands towards me and I raised my eyebrows, before she shot me a look, telling me to play along.
"Uh, hi. I'm Lilah." Toby rubbed his hands together and smiled like somebody who just won the lottery.
"Now that you two got to know each other. I've been thinking about a possible threesome-"
"No threesome, Toby!" Elijah barked and rounded the corner, at first still smiling. But then his smile dropped upon seeing Stacey.
"I was just asking, calm down. Anyways, I don't think you've ever met my girlfriend. Sarah, this is Elijah, the roommate I told you so much about. Elijah, this is Sarah, my girlfriend I told you so much more about." My eyes widened. He spoke so highly of her, yet he didn't even know her real name.
Stacey held out her hand and Elijah glanced at it, before looking back at his best friend. Then his eyes searched mine, his look asked me: what the fuck is happening?, and I shrugged in response. I had no idea.
He then looked back at Stacey. Then back at Toby, who frowned at him. Elijah sighed, before walking over to me and taking my hand in his.
"We just fixed our own problems." He yawned as he pulled me back towards his room.
Yeah, we did. Three times in a row.
The End