Ella's Twisted Senior Year(24)
“This is really good,” Ella says after the first bite. We’re back in the truck and less than a mile away from the school, which really sucks because I’m not ready to leave her just yet.
“They’re seriously the best in town. And the shop is so small and hidden that barely anyone knows about it.”
“Thanks for breakfast,” Ella says, looking over at me with what appears to be a genuine—not an I hate you—smile.
“You’re welcome. And get used to it. I go every day.”
She flinches, holding the donut a couple inches from her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “You will be riding with me for a while, right? I’ll buy our breakfast every day. It’s the least I can do for someone who hates me.”
She rolls her eyes. “I can’t take your charity donut and coffee money. It was just this once.”
“It was a dollar and fifty-seven cents,” I say. “Not a big deal.”
“You don’t have to take me to school. I’ll figure something out.”
“You can’t ride the bus, El. That’s social suicide.”
“Duh,” she says, bursting into laughter. It’s sweet, seeing her carefree and having fun, laughing at my comment but not belittling me for it.
“Well how are you getting to school before you get your car back?” I ask as we turn into the parking lot. “You have a pair of invisible wings I don’t know about?”
She shrugs and takes another bite of her donut. “I’ll have my friend April stop by and get me.”
I shake my head. “No way. We live in the same house for the time being. I can take you. I don’t mind and it saves gas so we’re being environmentally friendly.”
“The environment ruined my house, so I don’t really care about it right now.” She shakes her head in an adamant no. “I refuse to inconvenience you. I’m already taking over your rec room and that’s bad enough.”
I want to tell her that Kennedy frequently had me drive twenty minutes out of the way to pick her up when she didn’t feel like driving to school, but that comparison wouldn’t really help anything. I’d already ignored a handful of texts from Kennedy since last night, so the last thing I want to do is talk about her.
Instead, the hollow feeling in my chest that’s been lingering there since the day of the tornado seems to grow bigger until I can’t overlook it anymore. I pull into a parking spot and lift the shifter into park. “Why do you hate me so much?”
Now that the question is out in the open, I wonder why I didn’t ask it earlier. We should have cleared the air years ago. So, she didn’t like me? So what? We could have stayed friends.
“Umm . . . do you really need to ask?” Ella’s expression isn’t sarcastic, but more genuine than I’ve ever seen her. “You crushed me that day, Ethan. How could I stay friends with you when you dropped me so freaking hard?”
My brows hurt from how tightly they’re pulled together. “What the hell are you talking about? What did I do to you?”
Her jaw falls open. Looking at her mouth makes me remember last night, and those glorious few minutes where her lips were on mine. I bite hard on my bottom lip and wait for her reply.
“Are you seriously asking this? Are we seriously getting into this right now?”
I nod. “Hell yes we are. I’ve been dying to know what happened to us. I would have been fine staying friends, Ella.”
She looks at the clock on my dash. “Fine. We have four minutes until the bell rings. Let’s just get it all out in the open now.” She takes her coffee and downs the rest of it in a few gulps, tipping her head back. Then she lowers her gaze on mine. “You were my best friend, Ethan. And when you rejected me that summer before eighth grade, it just totally crushed me.” Her eyes fill with tears and I reach out to grab her hand but she pulls it away. “It felt like you betrayed me. You didn’t have to be so rude about it. You didn’t have to call me a stalker.”
“Whoa.” I hold up a hand to stop her. “What are you talking about? I never called you a stalker. Never. I was in love with you.”
Her eyes widen. “Then why did you tell Corey to reject me for you?”
A ball of anger rises in my chest. “Corey told you that?”
She looks at me like I’m dumb. “Of course. When he pulled me away the day we were in your pool and he told me you didn’t like me and that ‘honestly, he thinks you’re a stalker, Ella,’” she says, making her voice low and stupid as she mocks him.
“Oh my god. Did he tell you that after you had him tell me you didn’t like me?”
Her lips tighten and a muscle in her jaw twitches. “He told you that?” She looks past me, as if she’s staring into her memories instead of the high school parking lot. All around us, students are filling into the school and we’re sitting here in our own little world, revealing one hell of a story and I don’t think either one of us knows all the details.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “That day in the pool, the last day you ever came over. You went inside with Dakota to get a drink and he told me you wanted me to deliver a message that you didn’t like me in a boyfriend way, just in a friend way. He told me you wanted me to lay off.”