hi ok am i doing something wrong? bc in the first 5 parts, there were 200+ comments but in the last update there were less than 100?
idk it just makes me sad bc reading your comments make my day/week/life.
ps, what do you think of the new cover? do you like the old one better or?
pps, i had (sort of) writer's block so this isn't really good i'M SORRY
ppps, ask me stuff on ask.fm @floriations [link on my profile]
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"SOMEONE'S HERE FOR YOU," ESTELLE said through the small gap between the door and the doorframe as she peered her head into Ellie's room. Her brown hair was tied up in a loose ponytail, an apron tied around her neck, covered in flour. Ellie assumed she was making pancakes to try and alleviate Ellie's mood swings.
And no, Ellie was not on her period. Just because a girl was in a bad mood doesn't give someone the automatic right to say that they are on their period.
After the surgery, Ellie had skipped school for the rest of the week. She insisted to her parent that she was perfectly capable of going back, but they - especially her dad - was extra worried that someone else might knock another one of her teeth out. So, she obliged, but was extremely unhappy. Ellie stayed held up in her room, only coming out to eat or to go to the bathroom. In less than ninety-six hours, Ellie had watched all twenty of the Japanese animated movies created by her favourite film studio, and binged watched the entire three seasons of some random drama she saw on the television. Adding to that, she did none of the homework her mom had retrieved for her from school the day after her procedure.
"Is it Mag?" Ellie asked with hopeful eyes. Magnolia hadn't come over the last few days because of her deep phobia of blood. Ellie didn't mind though, she probably would do the same if Magnolia was in her situation. It was just how their friendship worked.
But now, it had been five days later and even Ellie would have to admit: she (kind of) missed her best friend.
"Yeah," Estelle laughed. "She's downstairs, I'll call her up."
Ellie straightened her posture, her back resting against her really annoying metal framed headboard, and set her laptop on the other side of her bed.
"Elle!" Mag exclaimed, closing the door behind her and striding towards the end of Ellie's bed. "Let me see your tooth."
Ellie rolled her eyes. No "hello", no "how are you" - none of the usual, typical greetings you would usually use when you haven't seen someone in ages. Of course Magnolia would skip on those slightly cliché greetings and just go for it. Multiple times, she called it "being blunt and going straight to the point".
"No." Ellie's hands immediately flew to cover her mouth as she shook her head. "It's embarrassing," she said, her voice muffled. Magnolia raised her brows, and Ellie knew that her best friend was going to wait there until Ellie showed her.
"Okay, fine." Ellie slowly uncovered her mouth. Her tongue ran over the tooth before pressing against the roof of her mouth.
"Wait, Elle." Magnolia tilted her head as she narrowed her eyes, trying to focus in on Ellie's tooth. Ellie looked away - anywhere but at Magnolia - her cheeks already flaring. "It's not the same color as your other teeth."
"I know," Ellie whimpered, turning over to bury her face into a pillow. Even though Magnolia was her friend and she's probably seen Ellie in worse conditions, Ellie still felt so ashamed of her tooth. "It's so ugly. I might as well have no tooth than a yellow one."
"You could always not brush your teeth..." Magnolia suggested. Ellie almost choked on her water. "You know, so the rest of your teeth match the fake one," Magnolia elaborated as if it was nothing.
"You're so disgusting." Ellie cringed, lightly kicking Magnolia with her covered foot.
"But completely honest," Magnolia added with a smirk. Ellie rolled her eyes.
After about two hours of talking and watching random videos on the internet, Magnolia got ready to leave because she needed to babysit her brothers.
"You know," Magnolia started randomly as she stuffed her phone in her pocket, "Ashton came up to me during lunch on Wednesday."
"What? Why?"
"He wanted to know how you were doing." Magnolia shrugged.
Ellie scoffed, "Yeah, right. I bet he just wanted to know if I was pressing charges or not."
"Wait, he's the one that knocked your tooth out?" Magnolia asked.
Ellie only nodded her head.
"Weird," Magnolia mused. "It really sounds like Ashton likes you."
"Magnolia, shut up." Ellie wrinkled her nose in disgust. "He does not. You are delusional."
Ashton didn't like her, right? He was always annoying her; always in her way. He never left her alone, and he inflicted more pain on her in so little time. Ashton was just one of those infuriating, problem creating monsters that happened to prey on Ellie. He didn't like her.
"I can always go ask him if you want." Magnolia offered.
Ellie shook her head. She could already imagine it. Magnolia would ask Ashton in public, he would deny any feelings towards Ellie, maybe even laugh cynically, and then he would think that Ellie had a big, school-girl crush on him (which was the last thing Ellie had). Then her life, which had been pretty decent for eighteen years, would come crumbling down.
"Please, please don't," Ellie pleaded, seriously contemplating on going on her hands and knees for Magnolia. "Pretty, please, Mag. He's going to use it against me."
"Elle," Magnolia said seriously. "Some people are just really shitty people" -
Ellie laughed loudly, fully agreeing even though she knew there was a second part.
- "But some people don't mean harm."
"Yeah, but Ashton does all of this intentionally! He's like the spawn of Satan, I swear to you." Ellie looked at Magnolia with pleading eyes. "Please, don't ask."
After a couple of seconds, Magnolia rolled her eyes. "Fine, whatever. You're no fun." Magnolia gave Ellie a quick hug. "Get well soon, loser."
Ellie sighed in relief. "Bye, Mag."
Right before the door shut, Magnolia peered back inside. "I'm gonna ask him," she said quickly and with a childish voice as she stuck her tongue out. And then she closed the door.
Ellie wasn't sure what to do afterwards. She glanced over at her desk, where stacks of paper sat there, untouched. Maybe she should be the good girl and get started on her homework?
But at the same time, she really didn't want to. She wanted to lie in her bed and stare at her ceiling until the sun set and the stars began to glow.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard the thumping of footsteps coming up the stairs.
"I swear to God, Mag. Don't you dare ask him!" Ellie called out, already starting to pull her laptop back onto her lap, deciding that she was going to start on her homework. At least that way, Magnolia would not be able to bother her. She was waiting for Magnolia to trot back into the room to say something extremely loud and obnoxious.
But the voice that responded sounded nothing like Magnolia.
"Ellie?" -
Ellie froze in her spot. Her breathing stopped. Her arm went numb. Her mouth went wide. Her eyes bulged. Her heart might as well have stopped, too.
- "It's Luke, uh Magnolia just left."
And suddenly, a million questions appeared out of thin air and ran inside Ellie's brain. Ellie took a deep breath - inhale, exhale - and put on the best smile she could possibly manage as the door creaked open. Ellie saw a glimpse of quiffed, blonde hair and quickly bit her lip.
"Luke! Hi - what? I mean" - Ellie coughed into her fist, her cheeks already getting hotter - "What are you doing at my house? On a Saturday?"
"Well, your mom let me in," Luke started, fully entering Ellie's room (thank God she cleaned it up last weekend), and Ellie swore her heart fully stopped when she eyed him up and down.
Due to a stupid "no showing shoulders" dress code policy that the school heavily enforced, students were not allowed to wear shirts or tops that did not cover up their shoulders. So, half the time, Ellie saw Luke wearing long sleeved t-shirts, and the other half, flannels.
It was different to see Luke and his shoulders.
(Did Ellie mention really broad shoulders?)
"Ellie?"
"Oh, huh? Yeah, sorry," Ellie replied before squeezing her eyes shut to tame her inner beast. She was so nervous right now, that the butterflies in her stomach also had butterflies. "What did you say?"
Luke shot Ellie a funny look before breaking out into a huge grin. "I said that I wanted to come by to say hi. So...hi."
From under the bed sheets, Ellie felt her whole body numb, and then her fingers getting all tingly, and she was basically Jell-O.
"And," Luke continued, his smooth voice entering one of Ellie's ear, and then out the other, despite her attempt to concentrate on the actual meaning of his dialogue rather than the way his voice was deep and raspy, but not too raspy in a way that made him sound really pedophile-ish, "we need to start on out project, since you couldn't come over to my house yesterday."
"I even made sure my mom had the fridge and pantry stocked up!"
"Oh," Ellie whispered, her throat tightening. "Sorry."
Luke laughed, nudging Ellie's leg gently with his elbow. "I'm kidding."
"I have snacks downstairs," Ellie offered weakly. She entirely sure if she did, as her mom liked to maintain a "healthy family diet", but she was just so embarrassed - even though there really wasn't a reason for her to be.
"Apology accepted." Luke grinned. He turned his head and took a look around Ellie's room. Ellie just sat there, biting the inside of her lip, wanted to literally melt into a puddle right then and there, but she held the urge in, because she didn't want to do it in front of her long-time crush.
When Luke's eyes stopped in front of the wall of posters on the opposite side of Ellie's bed, a small laugh escaped his lips and a small smile formed on her's.
"Cool room," Luke finally commented, getting up to walk over to Ellie's covered wall. Ellie probably didn't blink when Luke leaned forward to examine the posters carefully.
"I didn't know you liked this band," Luke noted, turning back around to face Ellie, but his finger pointed to an orange poster with three people posing.
"Yeah," Ellie squeaked quietly. "Mag dragged me to a couple of their gigs before, and I guess I got hooked."
"I have a band, you know," Luke said proudly, puffing his chest out as he smirked triumphantly.
"Oh really?" Ellie questioned with a raised eyebrow even though she knew well enough that he had a band, along with Ashton, Calum, and Michael, called 5 Seconds of Summer.
Although, Ellie never really listened to their music before, mainly because she felt that hearing Luke's voice would be too much for her to handle all at once. She was the kind of person to ease into things slowly.
"Yep." Luke nodded. "We're still working out the kinks."
"Sure," Ellie snorted softly. She lifted the covers off her body and got out of bed, her walking a little shaky because the last time she stood up was at least fourteen hours ago. "I need to brush my teeth and stuff..." Ellie said as Luke continued to tour around Ellie's room, leaning forward to look at pictures captured in frames and little figurines from countless family vacations.
Luke mumbled something Ellie couldn't quite catch on but shrugged it off as she ambled towards the bathroom.
Shutting the door behind her with a soft thud, she peed and then washed her hands. As she fumbled with her toothbrush and the toothpaste, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. It was strange, how one moment, Ellie couldn't be bothered with the way she looked, but circumstances change when there was a super-hot boy in her bedroom. She brushed her teeth rapidly - spitting and rinsing and then washing her face. Ellie figured she would just comb her hair, because at the moment, it looked like a bird's nest sitting on her head.
Yet, even after Ellie brushed through all the knots and tangles in her blonde hair, she was still unsatisfied. Now, Ellie was never a particularly insecure, nor was she confident. She was just self-conscious, but at a dumbed down level. So even though she didn't like the way her hair still stuck out in random places, and the fly-aways just could not seem to stay down, Ellie hope - prayed - that other people thought she looked okay.
When she walked back into her room, her hands stuffed into her sweatshirt pocket, she found Luke sitting on the edge of her bed, presumably looking out of the window.
"What are you doing?" Ellie asked cautiously. Luke's head perked up and a lopsided smile formed on his lips when he saw her. Ellie let her hair fall in front of her face to cover up her pink cheeks.
"Your room is really cool," Luke said instead of answering her question. "I really didn't know you liked all these things."
"Yeah, well I guess there's a lot you don't know about me." Ellie shrugged, maneuvering her way to her closet to pull out another jacket. Even though Ellie was wearing at least two layers, the cold, cloudy weather was still able to make her shiver. She tugged it on and turned back to Luke. Her eyes widened twice their size when she realized that Luke was watching her.
Okay, it wasn't like he was watching her take off her clothes and put on new ones, but he watched her put on another layer. And maybe Ellie was being extremely over dramatic (she really was), but that was a close second.
"Didn't we already go through this in English?" Luke grinned cheekily.
Ellie had no clue on what to do next, so she suddenly clapped her hands and bursted out, "Okay! Romeo and Juliet." Luke probably jumped from Ellie's voice, as there was a small booming sound followed by a small string of curse words. Ellie cringed, but quickly ignored it as she turned around, her copy of the book in her hands. With a fabricated grin - with teeth - she said with fake enthusiasm, "So how's this going to work?"
Luke cleared his throat. "I was thinking we could do an essay." When he saw Ellie crinkle her nose, he let out a small laugh, but continued, "You know, we could talk about the Montagues and the Capulets and compare" - Luke paused looked up at Ellie, who was staring straight ahead - "and you're not listening are you?"
"Huh?" Ellie ran a hand through her hair as she snapped out from blankness. Honestly, English was one of her least favourite classes, so reading Romeo and Juliet was bad enough. But writing an essay? That was like going to Hell. "Sorry, but essays are a big no from me."
Luke laughed knowingly, making Ellie feel ten times better. "Okay, agreed," he laughed. "What are we going to do then?"
Ellie and Luke stared at each other until she felt like her face was literally going to melt off (which wasn't that long for Ellie), and then she shrugged curtly. "I have no idea."
"Hmm." Luke pursed his lips together, his eyebrows scrunching together as he thought, a finger on his chin. After a while, his shoulders slumped and he pouted. "This is hard."
"Yeah," Ellie agreed as she fell back on her mattress. With a groan, she said, "English will be the death of me."
"I feel you," Luke said, also falling back on the mattress. Ellie shifted, and squirmed as the two looked up at her ceiling, which was adorned with glow-in-the-dark stars. "I can't believe Mrs. Brooke is actually married."
Ellie snorted unattractively, her hand on her stomach. "That's mean," she said despite her tone being slightly in agreement with his words.
"It's true!" Luke defended. "She's mean to everyone."
"Not to you, though," Ellie pointed out. "She loves you." Immediately, Ellie's cheeks turned red (wow, that was what - the millionth time of the day?). She basically just revealed that she paid attention to Luke in class.
"She does not!" Luke exclaimed, turning over so he faced Ellie. "I don't know, I try to stay away from her, she's scary as fuck."
Even though Luke cussed, and Ellie cringed a little, she let it slide because it was Luke.
"So, uh," Ellie started a little while later, "what should we do for our project? Something easy please, because I've only watched the movie."
"Movies," Luke mumbled more to himself than to Ellie. "Movies, movies, movies! That's it!"
Luke's sudden gesturing made Ellie scream a little from surprise. "What?" she asked almost immediately.
"Let's do one of those video projects!" Luke exclaimed, shooting straight up. Ellie did the same, albeit, slowly. "You know, we could just watch the movie and compare the differences between them and why it was done," Luke added once he saw the look of utter confusion on Ellie's face.
"I mean, I guess."
"It's Ellie-friendly, isn't it," Luke attempted to joke. It was a really, really bad joke, but Ellie laughed nonetheless.
"Sure." She shrugged, tossing the book on her nightstand. "I could borrow the movie from Mag, if you don't have it."
"That would be perfect." Luke smiled. He raised his arms up, stretching them as he yawned. "So what day are we gonna meet up?"
"Huh?" Ellie asked. Luke shot her a funny look.
"We need to meet up again so we can watch the movie," Luke elaborated slowly, even though it should have been clear to Ellie already.
"Oh, yeah," Ellie replied sheepishly as she scratched the back of her head. "So, um, what about next Friday?"
"Next Friday?" Luke thought to himself, his finger once again on his chin. "Yeah, that'll work."
"Cool." Ellie nodded.
He changed the subject. "So, uh, do you have food? I'm kind of starving."
And there it was. Probably the first time ever, too. A pink hue lit up Luke's cheeks as he scratched the back of his head, a lopsided smile on his lips.
"My mom made pancakes," Ellie said after a while. "You want some?"
Luke broke out into a massive grin, his dimples etching deep into his skin. "I could never turn down free food."