Since this book is published, only a sample remains on Wattpad. Content stops after chapter eighteen. Please keep reading with this information in your mind.
Chapter 15
"Yo! Party at mine tonight! Everybody is invited, address is up on my Facebook!" Seth yells during lunch. Everybody starts to talk and soon the entire cafeteria is filled with chatter. Seth smirks and jumps off the table, walking over to his new group of friends. During the last couple of days he manages to be friends with a random group of juniors. To me, Seth seems like the type of guy who would only interact with people his own age, but there he is, talking to younger guys.
"Are you going to Seth party?" Kelly asks, nudging my shoulder with hers. I shrug.
"We'll see if I'm in the mood to party." I say looking over at Seth. My eyes meet with his and he gives me a small wink, then motions for me to walk over to him. I get up from my chair and walk towards him and his friends quickly. They all smirk at me, their hands in the pockets of their hoodies.
"What is it, Seth?" I ask.
"Baby, you'll come to my party, right?" He asks, taking my hands in his. His friends are staring at the two of us. I look down at the ground, letting my hair fall in front of my face as a curtain.
"I don't know yet." I murmur. "Will it be held in the apartment I bought you?"
"Yeah, that's why I want you to come. You're the boss, that way people can't destroy the place completely." Seth chuckles I shake my head lightly and look up to his beautiful brown eyes.
"Alright, I'll come. But I won't drink." I reply and a huge grin appears on Seth's face. "That's good enough for me," He says, placing a quick kiss on my cheek and leaving immediately. My whole body freezes once again. It seems so natural for Seth to kiss me out of nowhere but whenever he does that, I can't help but feel the tingles and butterflies in my stomach.
Kelly walks over to me, her mouth hanging open. "Did he just kiss you on the cheek? Did the Seth Lee kiss you, Ella Perry?" She asks, shaking my arms. I nod my head and let out a small snort. Kelly rolls her eyes, "How can Seth Lee like you? You're the most ungirliest person out there."
"My snorts brings all the boys to the yard." I wink and stretch out my arm to the right like a model while moving my hip to the right a bit. Kelly starts laughing and grabs my arm, dragging me out of the cafeteria.
I furrow my eyebrows, "Where's Calvin?"
"Oh, he's visiting his relatives in Alaska. At least that's what he told me."
"I hope his Calvin Klein boxers keep his jewels warm."
☯
Kelly and I got to Seth's party around 11PM. Judging from the way it seemed outside, the party is in full blast already. We enter the building and I lead Kelly to the apartment Seth's staying in. We walk inside and I'm blown away by the interior design. Everything looks really expensive and well put together. There's a small hallway to the right with three doors and another hallway to the other side. Most of the people are sitting around in the living room and drinking, some are even dancing. Out of nowhere, a blonde haired girl walks over to us.
"Hey, you must be Ella. I'm Melanie, I live with Seth here." She smiles, showing me her incredibly white teeth. I take a look at her outfit: a white tight dress that comes down to her mid thigh and white high heels. Her outfit made her already tan skin look even tanner. Her blonde hair is pin straight and reaches the top of her butt. All in all, she looks flawless.
"Yeah that's me." I force a smile at her and she pulls me in for a tight hug.
"Seth has told me so much about you, he really appreciates what you did for him." She says just as Seth appears and throws his arm over her shoulders. I furrow my eyebrows and glare at Seth as angrily as I can.
"That's totes cool." I mumble and walk away from them towards the drinks. I notice River and Maya dancing, both of them looking flawless. They really are the most perfect couple in my eyes. Maya is gorgeous and not to mention super smart and so is River. Yes, he might act like an asshole all of the time and annoy everybody but in reality he is a great guy and clearly cares about Maya more than anything.
I grab a red cup, which probably has vodka in it, from the table and take a sip of it. The liquid immediately burns my throat, making my stomach warm. Before I realise what's happening, I finish the whole cup. I take another one and walk to the rest of the people. I notice the small hallway going to the right and I decide to go find the bathroom. As I get there, I hear a quiet beeping coming from somewhere. I open the first door I see and step inside once I notice a small alarm clock there.
I turn it off and then take a look around the room. My eyes widen as I stare at the walls, which have pictures of Seth and a girl who looks exactly like me but it's definitely not me. I take a closer look and notice how in most of the pictures they're either kissing or hugging. The huge smile on Seth's face clearly shows he is, or was, madly in love with that girl. Seth and that girl both look really young, around the age of 15 or even younger. I grab one of the pictures from the wall and turn it around.
May 17th, 2012
Seth and Jessalyn at Uncle Mark's barbeque.
That's taken about four months before Seth and River met for the first time. Seth started attending our school during Sophomore year, which was the same year River and I were in. Never did I notice a girl with him though.
"What are you doing here?" A voice suddenly says and I turn around quickly. I come face to face with Seth, who looks confused and angry at the same time. His eyes move down and notice the picture in my hands. In a matter of seconds he's in front of me. "Who the fuck gave you permission to come in here?" He growls, shaking my arms lightly.
"I heard something beeping," I reply. "Therefore I decided to turn it off."
Seth sighs and rubs his forehead. "You shouldn't have entered this room," He then gets up and takes a random photo from the wall and shows it to me. "Can't you see that this is all my past that you should never see? I have pictures with a girl who looks like your fucking twin."
"Who is she?" I whisper.
"That's my Jessa," Seth smiles. "She was the love of my life."
"Was?" I ask, feeling dumbfounded.
"Yes," He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "She's dead now."
"What?" I exclaim, my mouth hanging open.
I see a tear escape from Seth eye as he starts talking, "I met her when I was 14. She was beyond gorgeous, she looked like an angel. I was whipped from the first second. I thought I'm going to spend my life with her, get married, have kids and then die in each other's arms but I was so wrong. Since I was thinking about her 98 percent of the time and always kept talking about her, my father got angry that I'm not doing my job of getting them drugs well enough and I'm distracted by her. So he decided to get rid of her."
"And that day when I saw you in Target with my mother, I knew I had to lie about you. After Jessa died I was devastated and my parents decided the best way for me to get over her would be to move here. I used to live in the town about 20 miles from here, Alex lives near there as well. That's where I met him." He chuckles lightly.
"When I came to school for the first day and I saw you walking down the hallway, looking like an exact replica of Jessalyn, my heart stopped for a second. I thought I was dreaming and seeing things but when I saw River talking to you and when I found out he's your brother, I knew I had to befriend him. And after that I first met you."
Seth finishes his small story and looks down at his hands. I stare at all the pictures for a good twenty seconds before I decide to get up and walk over to him. I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him close to my body. He just stays completely still for a few seconds, until he wraps his arms around me tightly and pulls me as close to his body as he can, inhaling my scent.
"You know what you should do?" I say and Seth pulls away, cocking an eyebrow at me. "You and I should take down all of these photos and create new memories." Seth smiles and nods. I pull away from him and take the photo from his hands.
"Do you by chance own a polaroid camera?" I ask and Seth points to a drawer at the left corner of the room. I walk over to it, pull it open and grab the white polaroid camera. I walk back over to Seth, a huge smile on my face and sit down next to him. Before Seth has a chance to do anything, I place my lips on his cheek and snap a picture of us. It comes out just as I look at Seth, who has slightly red cheeks and he's looking down at the floor again.
"Is wittle Sethy blushing?" I ask and nudge him with my elbow. He just turns away more and chuckles a bit as he wipes away his tears. Seth takes the photo from my hands and looks at it. I'm kissing his cheek and he looks a mixture of shocked and sad. In all honesty, he looked adorable.
Suddenly, I remember we're at his house. "Seth, there's a party going on right now." I say and Seth starts laughing.
"Oh god, I totally forgot about that."
I nod my head and quickly scribble 'Seth and Ella' on the bottom of the picture and place it onto a clear stop on the wall. Seth grabs my hand and pulls me out the room. The second we walk out, Melanie appears out of nowhere and wraps her arms around Seth's neck.
"Seth, where were you?" She whines, pouting out her bottom lip. I mentally gag and start walking away. Before I can walk a lot, Seth grabs my hand and pulls me back.
"Where are you going, Ellie?" He asks, a hint of fear in his voice.
"Nowhere." I chuckle.
"Sethy," Melanie whines. "Can you come and put me to sleep? I'm so wasted right now." She giggles, leaning onto Seth for support. I don't know what happened during that moment but something inside me snaps and I grab Melanie's arm and pull her away from Seth.
"Okay, bitch, leave him alone and go to sleep. You don't need him in order to fall asleep, we all know you just want to hump him so leave before I break your face, got it?" I spit and Seth's mouth falls open. He stares at the both of us and clearly Melanie can't understand anything, since she turns back to Seth, just as Seth murmurs,
"Melanie's a lesbian." to me and my eyes grow wide. I stare at Melanie, my eyes wide, and she turns to me and smiles seductively. She walks closer to me and wraps her arms around me.
"Maybe you'd like to put me to sleep instead," She winks, biting her lip lightly. Seth chuckles in the back and I don't say a word to her. I awkwardly push her away and take a few steps back. Seth grabs Melanie's arm, along with me, and takes the both of us to a bedroom, which is probably hers.
Seth forces Melanie to sit down since she starts giggling and pulling me towards her. Seth just laughs at how awkward I am when it comes to lesbians. After about twenty minutes we manage to get her under the blankets and she calms down. Seth takes my hand in his and we walk out of the bedroom. By now, the earlier effect of the alcohol has completely disappeared and I don't feel tipsy or drunk at all, I just feel like my normal self.
Out of nowhere Seth pushes me against the wall and holds me tightly against his body. He leans closer to me, our breaths mixing, making it hard for me to understand what's going on. His hands hold my face lightly, as if he's afraid of hurting me.
"Thank you for everything," Seth murmurs, placing a small kiss on my forehead.
"Mhm," I mumble back, afraid of saying something right now. Seth continues to place kisses along my jawline and down my neck. The sudden urge to moan comes over my body and before I can help it, a moan escapes my lips. Seth chuckles and looks me in the eyes.
"God, you're so beautiful." Seth breathes out, kissing my neck and slowly sucking on the skin. I let my head fall back, giving him more access to my neck and before I have the chance to say something, he pulls away, a smirk on his face.
"Did you give me a hickey?" I blurt out, touching the part of the skin where he was just sucking.
Seth nods, clearly proud of his work. I give him a small slap on his arm and we walk back to the living room. By now, the party has calmed down a lot and only a few people are still standing up or somewhat adequate. Seth takes my hand in his, hands me an unopened cider and we sit down on the couch, where my brother and others are sitting and talking about random things.
"Ella, where have you been all night?" Maya asks, pushing herself closer to me.
"Oh, I was just doing some things." I explain, smiling at Seth shyly. Maya raises her eyebrow at me and then points to my neck.
"Clearly you were having fun," She winks and lifts up the collar of my shirt a bit so it would cover it. "You better hide it from River, he has been wondering about you the whole night and I don't think he'd like it if you had a hickey visible on your neck." I nod my head and hand the cider over to her.
"Here, enjoy, I'm not much of a drinker anyway."
Maya happily takes the drink from my hand and that's when River notices me. "Ella, did you give my girlfriend your drink? She's not supposed to drink," River says, taking the beverage from her hands. "She has had way too much alcohol for the night."
Seth chuckles, "Bro, just let your girl live for one night."
River rolls his eyes and turns his attention to me, "Where were you the entire night?" He asks.
"I was just—"
"She was busy making out with me." Seth smirks and everybody starts cheering on him. I feel an immense blush grow on my cheeks and River glares at me. I give him an apologetic smile and continue listening to what the others are talking about. During the rest of the night, until 4AM, the guys keep talking about their own things, while me and Maya discuss boys and other girly things. Occasionally I glance at Seth and see him looking at me and he gives me a toothy grin.
I keep staring at Seth as he does that same and I can't help but feel butterflies start growing in my stomach. The feeling of having him so close, yet so far, makes me angry. Seth and I exchange smiles once more and this time, River notices it.
"Would you guys please stop flirting? If I give you my blessing, will you just go on a date, the sexual tension is killing me." He groans and Maya giggles a bit. Seth looks over at me and winks. I roll my eyes at his behaviour but still smile. I know no matter what happens between the two of us, Seth's silly personality will always make me smile like a lunatic.
Always.