Then you came along

Chapter Three

" How long as it been Ella? Why didn't you tell me anything?", She heard him say as they walked towards her car after the band practice. 

Ella stopped and stared at him with narrowed eyebrows as confusion clouded her face, she was wondering what Luke was referring to. 

" What are you talking about?", she asked and when she heard his answer to her question, it left her numbed, she stood there staring at him with a half-opened mouth. 

" How long have you had those sort of feelings for me Ella?", his words echoed in her mind. Her heart started to beat faster, she tried to bite on her bottom lip to stop herself from breaking down but as she looked at him,  she couldn't hold back the tears that were tickling her eyes. Luke pulled her in his arms and hugged her tightly. She laid her head on his hard chest, his heart was beating to a tune that was exactly the way hers was beating, fast and loud. Ella recognized the sound of fear and she was scared as well, scared of how he will react and if today would be the end of their friendship. She couldn't lie and tell him he got things all wrong because action speaks louder than words, her tears and her behavior the whole day towards him, spoke for themselves. Luke gently caressed her hair and then he suddenly stopped, just when she was getting comfortable in his embrace. He slowly removed his arms from around her and dropped them by his side. Ella took a step backward and stared at him, her eyes still shimmering with tears.

Here's your chance to tell him how you feel.., she said to herself.

" I saw it, written all over your face this morning Ella when I told you about Alexandra. I know you so well.. you couldn't hide your feelings ,well this time around, you couldn't fool me. I thought we agreed that ..", he was saying but Ella interrupted him.

" I'm sorry... I know we set the rules, but I can't help it, I just cannot explain how it happened. I'm in love with you Luke", Ella uttered in between sobs. Her heart started to race , she had said it , that she was in love with him. She had said the forbidden words.

Luke ran a hand through his dark hair nervously. Luke looked at her and shook his head, he didn’t know wether to put his hands in his pockets or remove them or what to say . He could see the hurt written on her face already but he couldn’t give her any false hope.

" Ella, I'm sorry.. but ...", he started to say.

Ella didn’t what to hear what he had to say, she did the unexpected as she pulled him closer and tried to steal a kiss from him.

" Ella stop!", he said raising his voice a bit as he gently pushed her back and glanced around the parking lot nervously.

Ella looked at him, she knew that she had broken three of their rules already but she didn't care.

" Why not Luke?! She doesn't know you like I do.. will never appreciate you like I do... why can't we forget about those rules and move out of this stupid friend zone!", Ella said in an almost pleading voice,  and Luke looked at her with a frown.

" Ella, I don't love you like that... I will never be able to. I don't see you in any other way except as my best friend... I'm in love with Alex", he calmly said and his words cut deeper than a knife. His words knocked the wind out her, but she couldn’t let him see how deep he was digging the knife into her heart. She stared at him as she wiped her tears with the back of her hands, then she smiled softly,

" Then Luke .. you and I, we could never be friends again! I broke the rules...I wish you all the best, please ... just stay away from me ", and she walked away quickly without looking back. She didn’t want to look at him, she couldn’t look at him. There were things in life that she didn’t mind giving up, Luke was surely not one of them. But, she didn’t have a choice, her heart was shattered in million little pieces, and being around him wouldn’t help to put those pieces back together. She had lost her best friend, the one she loved with all of her soul and now she needed space to heal her broken self. It was like a piece of her had died , she couldn’t understand if it was her soul or her heart. But she knew that she wasn’t this bubbly person that she was today , yesterday and even the day before.

If only she knew that there are worse things in life , that sometimes saying goodbye could be forever.

Two months later ...

Curled up under the covers at one in the afternoon, still dressed in her pajamas, Ella stared blankly at the ceiling. The room was still pitched dark as she had not drawn those heavy curtains to allow sunlight into her bedroom. She glanced at her clock on her bedside table and then she glanced back at the ceiling, she squeezed her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks. Today was exactly three months, three dreadful months and Ella couldn’t stop herself from being depressed. Her thoughts went back to her last conversation with Luke. Their last encounter was in the school car park after the band practice, the night she had told him that she was in love with him and he had reminded her that she was just a friend and will be nothing else. 

She had turned her back to him, walked away without looking back, leaving him standing there calling out her name, but she kept on walking faster towards her car. She didn't even glance back as she quickly drove away, he kept calling her the whole night but she grabbed her phone and shoved it in her bedside table and didn’t look at it until the next day. She told herself that she didn't want to hear his voice or even see his face. For some reason, Ella felt like Luke had betrayed her and she wanted nothing to do with him. She even pretended to be sick so that she didn’t have to go to school and asked that she didn’t want to see any visitors.

But only two days later, everything changed for Ella. She never dreamed that things would end this way, she never wished for him to be gone forever, to a place where she will never be able to see him again or hear from him again. She would have preferred that he was around, happy with someone else rather than to lose him forever. With that thought, she wondered if maybe she had been making the wrong wish all of those years.

Maybe I should have wished for him to always be protected.. to keep him safe .. instead of always wishing for him to notice me more than a friend.., Was I selfish in a certain way? Ella asked herself. 

She would listen to his voice messages in her voicemail until she fell asleep almost every night. Watched the videos they made together and cried until she couldn't cry anymore. Even there months later, she didn't want to admit to herself that he was gone...forever. She looked at the last message which Luke had sent her of the smiley emoji, she placed the phone close to her heart and dozed off. That was the story of her life now, wake up and sleep again. She no longer looked at the world outside of her windows the same way, her life had changed and she preferred to hibernate away from everyone.

Carol walked into her daughter's bedroom and sat down next to her on her bed. She gently caressed her daughter's hair. Ella slowly opened her eyes, she blinked a couple of times, and then she softly smiled at her mother. The scene reminded her of the day her parents had walked into her bedroom in the middle of the night. Her mother had woken her up in the same way.

" Mum, dad what's going on?", she had asked sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She noticed her phone was flashing indicating there was a message, as she grabbed it her mother quickly grabbed the phone from her hands and she looked at her mother with narrowed eyebrows . She was surprised by her mother’s  sudden reaction. Which made her asked herself, what was going on?

" Honey, we need to speak to you about something”, her mother had calmly said and Ella knew that it was about something serious, she could see it on her mother's face, and she knew that whatever words which will come out of her mouth next wouldn't be any good news.

" It's about Luke..",

The tragic news hit her hard, leaving her in disbelief, so much that she had asked her mother in a trembling voice to repeat what she had told her twice. And when reality sank in, she had broken down, screaming hysterically that both her parents had to hold her to calm her down. A drunk driver had crashed into Luke's bike when he was on his way home after leaving Alexandra’s house and he had died instantly. This wasn’t the kind of things that she had wished to happen to her best friend.Devastated she had asked her parents to take her to Luke, wherever he was, she wanted to see him.Her parents had no choice but to do what she asked of them. It was the only way that they could have calmed her down.

Ella had gone to the hospital, wearing her pajamas, she couldn’t be bothered to get changed, all she wanted was to see to believe that Luke was really gone. All the way to the hospital, she had wished that this was a terrible joke, that her parents would turn around and tell her that this was a joke, that they had pranked her. But when they pulled up outside the hospital, she knew that this wasn’t a joke. She had run into the arms of  Luke's mother, begging her to tell her that it wasn't true, that Luke was still alive, the scene was heartbreaking for anyone who was around the hospital that night. She had turned towards Alexandra who was sitting there crying her eyes out and she had accused her of being responsible for Luke's death. Everyone had tried to calm her down telling her that it wasn’t Alexandra’s fault, but she didn’t want to hear any of that and she didn’t like the fact that they were defending Alexandra. She had demanded Luke’s parents to allow her to see Luke and they had agreed to allow her to see him, on one condition, that she was strong enough to handle seeing the truth.

Why you? Is this the price I have to pay? she had questioned herself as she stood there next to his cold body covered under a white sheet, at that moment she had hated herself for what she had said to him the last time they had spoken to each other. Luke’s parents gave her a few minutes alone to say her goodbyes, she wanted to cry and scream at the same time. The cocktail of emotions inside of her wanted to explode out of her chest. She couldn’t stand seeing him like that , this wasn’t the person she knew . She said a silent prayer for him and then slowly walked towards the exit. 

" I will always love you ", she had whispered before walking out of the morgue taking with her only the memories of him.

" Ella, you have to get out of the house. We moved here so you can leave those painful memories behind... I know he meant so much to you .. but it's three months already. You are going to start college soon, go out and get to know the new place we now call home ", Carol said waking her from her daydream.

" You spent the whole summer inside the house, locked up inside your room. Sometimes I wished Nana could have moved with us to California  so that she could speak some sense into you", her mother added. 

One could see the frustration and sadness on her mother's face. Carol couldn't watch her only child curled up in bed like that as if her life didn't have a meaning anymore. Ella couldn't understand why her parents were pushing her to get out of the house, she was very comfortable where she was. They couldn’t see that she was still trying to come to grips with Luke's death. Without asking about her point of view or how she felt about moving to a new city, she had found herself packing her things and two days later woken up in a new city. A new surroundings, a new beginning and she will be attending a new school. She was now away from her friends, her nana, and most importantly away from Luke's grave the only place that she could go and speak to him.

Her father had accepted a long outstanding offer to become a partner in a law firm in California  and her mother now stayed at home with the intention of helping  her to get over her grief.No one seemed to care about how she truly felt, they thought that they were helping her but never asked what she wanted. Her parents weren't aware of the fact that Luke was not just a friend, that she was actually in love with him. She couldn’t tell her mother that she had lost the love of her life, she preferred to keep everything bottled up inside.

" Mum, please leave me alone", she mumbled softly pulling the cover over her head, but Carol pulled the bed cover off her head and off her. She stood up and walked towards the curtains, and pulled them open. Ella put a hand up to cover her eyes, shading them against the strong afternoon sun rays  flooding into the bedroom through the clear glass door which leads to her bedroom balcony.

" Mum, why did you have to do that?!", she asked angrily.

" Now listen Ella, you better change your tone and that outfit and get out of this room, Go downstairs and have something to eat. Did you hear me? I wonder if you even had a bath!”, Carol said with a serious tone matching her facial expression. 

She couldn't believe that she had to kick her daughter out of the house. Ella had been mourning Luke's death and had been ignoring her own life, her parents, and her other friends. She hadn't been eating properly and she couldn't remember when it was the last time that Ella had seen the outside of their new home. Even if she had asked her to go shopping with her for some furniture for their new house, Ella had completely ignored her invites, she did not even attend the orientation day at her new school.

Carol knew that somehow she was to be blamed. She had told Gregory that Ella needed space and loads of understanding, but after nearly three months her daughter was going too far. Ella got out of bed mumbling something as she headed towards the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

Changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt Ella left the house and got inside her car. Her father had bought her a new car for her 18th birthday, which she was yet to celebrate but it was right around the corner. This time around she didn't plan anything for her birthday, she did not even ask for a birthday cake. Her mother had asked if she wouldn't make her wish like every year and she had replied that her wish wouldn't come true. Her parents had looked at each other and didn't ask her any more questions.

Ella knew that somehow she had been too hard on her parents. They had tried so hard to put a smile back on her face but ,she would rather exchange all of those gifts she got for Luke's life. She took in a deep breath as she looked back towards the house and then backed out of the driveway. Lost in thoughts she didn't realize that there was a truck coming at the same time that she was reversing and the driver sounded his horn loudly to warn her that he was coming.

Ella pressed the brake hard and sat there with wide eyes as she glanced through the right-wing mirror looking at the truck as it drove away only inches away from the rear of  her car. Her heart was pounding like crazy as she sat there in shock and then she started to calm down as she  looked at her reflection in the rearview mirror, 

Maybe that would have been the way out of this misery, she said to herself.