Chapter 19
Ellie
I’m not feeling up to working out today. Sorry.
Ellie stared at the text from Sierra and tried to figure out how to respond.
She was pretty sure they had almost kissed the day before (at least, that’s what she was hoping was going to happen), but ever since then, Sierra had been avoiding her like the plague.
They spent time together with their families, but even during that time, Sierra barely looked at her.
Before going to bed, Ellie had made one last ditch effort to talk to her by asking if she wanted to watch a movie. When she said she was too tired and slumped away into her bedroom, Sienna stuck around to remind Ellie not to give up on her, then followed Sierra into the bedroom.
Are you okay? Ellie texted back. Maybe that was a dumb question, but she wasn’t sure what else to say.
I will be. Don’t worry.
What did that mean? Ellie was so frustrated, she was tempted to chuck her phone across the room, but that wouldn’t have done anything but leave her with a broken screen.
What she could do was workout, so she quickly changed into shorts and a T-Shirt and headed down to her basement.
She pushed herself even harder than she usually did, so by the time she was done, she was completely exhausted.
She checked her phone to see if Sierra had said anything else and was disappointed to find she hadn’t.
Her disappointment grew when she noticed Sierra’s door was still closed.
She didn’t even bother changing before lying down in bed and letting herself drift to sleep.
When she woke up a few hours later, the only text message she had was one from Juniper asking if she was still alive.
She assured Juniper that Sierra hadn’t killed her then sighed as she sat her phone back down.
She was pretty positive Sierra wasn’t actually sick and that the avoidance had more to do with their almost-kiss than anything else, but no matter what, it definitely seemed like she could use some comfort.
She might not want to get it from Ellie right now, but Ellie knew someone else who could give it to her.
She walked over to her closet and searched high and low until she found what she was looking for. She walked across the hall, knocked on Sierra's door, and waited for a response.
“Come in!” Sienna’s voice called from the other side.
Ellie walked into the room to find Sierra lying in bed reading a new book, and Sienna in the process of trying to stand up.
Sienna pointed toward the doorway. “I’m going to go downstairs and make sure the moms are behaving.” She looked over at Ellie and smirked. “I’ll be gone for a while so take your time.”
Ellie waited for Sienna to leave, then walked over to the side of the bed where Sierra was lying.
“I brought you something to help you feel better.” She pulled the ratty, old stuffed bear out from behind her back and held it in front of Sierra.
“His name is Boo Bear. He always makes me feel better whenever I’m feeling sick or scared or sad.
As you can probably tell, I’ve had him since I was little. ”
Sierra didn’t say anything, but the cutest smile came onto her face as she took the bear from Ellie’s hands.
Ellie stuck her hands in her pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Well, I just came here to give you that, but I’ll leave you be.” She waited a few seconds in the hopes that Sierra would ask her to stay, but when the request never came, she took that as her cue to leave.
She was almost at the door when Sierra finally said her name. When she turned around, Sierra was holding Boo Bear tight up against her chest. “Thank you so much for this. Seriously.”
“Of course.”
Even though Sierra hadn’t asked her to stay, Ellie couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she left the room. It wasn’t much, but it was something, and that something was enough to fill her with hope that maybe things weren’t completely ruined.
She held onto that hope for the rest of the day, as the hours passed without any sign of Sierra.
She continued to grasp onto that hope when Sienna informed everyone that Sierra wouldn’t be joining them for dinner.
Her hope only started to dwindle when she crawled into bed that night without another word from Sierra, but at least tomorrow was a new day.
***
“Attention! Can I have everyone’s attention?”
Ellie was startled awake the next day by the sound of her mom’s voice. Even though all she wanted to do was cover her ears and roll over, she listened to what her mom had to say.
“All women with two working ankles need to meet downstairs in fifteen minutes. I repeat — all women with two working ankles should be downstairs in fifteen minutes. Not a minute later.”
Ellie groaned, but stood up out of bed and got herself dressed. By the time she got downstairs, everyone else was already down there, including Sienna, who didn’t need to be.
“What’s the big emergency, Mom?” Ellie asked before letting out a long yawn.
“The snow is finally slowing down, so we need to start the process of getting it removed. I just remembered I never got the snowblower fixed last year, so it’s just the six of us and some shovels.”
This was actual torture. Maybe Ellie was still asleep and she was having a nightmare. “But that’ll take days!”
Her mama smiled and lifted her eyebrows. “Exactly. That’s why we need to start now. As much as we love having the Finnegans here, we can’t hold them hostage forever.”
Ellie’s stomach dropped. She had kind of forgotten this arrangement was only temporary until it was safe for Sierra’s family to get home.
She looked out the window and found the snow coming down much slower now.
This sucked. Sierra wasn’t talking to her and the weather was taking a turn for the better.
If she didn’t figure out a way to break the wall that had come up between them, she might never get the chance.
Then again, maybe shoveling was the perfect way to do that. There was no way Sierra was going to say no to Ellie’s moms, so this was the perfect way for them to have time together. Sure, they wouldn’t be alone exactly, but she would worry about that detail later.
“Let’s do it!” She realized she probably sounded much more cheerful than she should, but whatever. Her moms probably wouldn’t think anything of it since they were just thankful to have the extra help.
Her mom snapped her fingers. “Oh, you know what? I just remembered something I have to do for work.”
Her mom’s tone immediately gave away the fact that she was lying, but Ellie had no idea why she would be.
Did she really want to get out of shoveling that badly?
Wasn’t it her idea? She was the one who woke Ellie up, for god’s sake.
“Your work is closed. What could you possibly have to do?” Ellie asked.
“Oh, you know, I have to…” Her mom’s voice trailed off as she looked over at her mama.
“Call the patients to let them know we’re still closed,” her mama answered for her. “And I should probably help her with that.”
Brooke pointed between herself and Tiffany. “We actually have some work to do before we can come out too. Sorry, girls.”
Their parents were definitely up to something, but Ellie wasn’t going to question it since it worked out perfectly for her. “No problem. Take your time.”
“Yeah, we can do it. That’s fine.” Sierra’s tone wasn’t nearly as convincing as Ellie’s, but it must have been good enough for their moms, because they all walked away without another word.
Once they were gone, Ellie turned toward Sierra. “It looks like we’ve got some work to do.”
“Um, yeah.” Sierra pointed toward the stairs. “I just need to get changed into something warmer. Meet you back down here in five?”
Sienna, who Ellie had almost forgotten was still standing there, chuckled and began to hobble down the hallway. “You two have fun with that. Don’t call if you need me, because I can’t help anyway.”
Less than ten minutes later, both Ellie and Sierra were dressed in full snow gear and headed outside with shovels.
Seeing as how they could barely even get the front door open, this definitely wasn’t going to be an easy task.
Sierra immediately got to work shoveling out a small path, so Ellie followed her lead.
The whole time they worked, her mind was running through all of the things she could say to try to break the ice, but nothing seemed good enough.
Much to Ellie’s surprise, Sierra was the one to finally break the silence after almost an hour of work. “What the fuck are they doing in there? This fucking sucks.”
“Does it suck because it’s hard or because you’re stuck out here with me?” Ellie wasn’t sure if that was the right way to start this conversation, but it was the first thing to come to her mind, so she decided to go with it.
Sierra dropped her shovel and turned to look at Ellie. “Why would you ask that? I obviously meant because of how hard this is. We had a fucking blizzard and the two of us are out here alone with below average shovels trying to move mounds of snow.”
Ellie dropped her shovel too and took a step closer to Sierra.
“Is the process taking too long? Do you wish we could get it done faster so you could leave here? It would make it a lot easier to avoid me, right?” Ellie meant for it to be a tease, but the pain she felt over spending the last twenty-four hours wondering where things had gone wrong kept it from coming out that way.
Sierra shook her head vehemently. “I wasn’t avoiding you.”
Ellie closed the remaining distance between them, leaving Sierra with nowhere to go because of the high pile of snow behind her. Ellie rested her hands against the snow on either side of Sierra’s body. “Oh yeah? Then what were you doing?”
Sierra stared down at the ground. “Okay, I was, but not because I don’t actually want to spend time with you. The problem is, I want to spend all my time with you.”
Ellie brought a finger underneath Sierra’s chin to force their eyes to meet. “Why is that a problem?”
This time, Sierra didn’t look away when she spoke. “You scare the shit out of me.”
Ellie understood that feeling all too well. “Honestly, the feeling is mutual.”
Sierra shook her head. “I don’t want to get hurt.”
“All I’m asking is for you to talk to me. I don’t need any more than that.” Her words felt like a lie with how her body was thrumming from their close proximity, but she would take something with Sierra over nothing.
“Okay.” Sierra took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she blew it out. When she opened them back up, they were an even darker shade of blue. “You’re right. I can do that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Ellie put her hand on Sierra’s hip, because she couldn’t help herself. She needed to touch her. “Don’t run away from me again, okay?”
For the first time since coming outside, a genuine smile came onto Sierra’s face. “Only on the track.”
Ellie let out a boisterous laugh, because she couldn’t help herself. She squeezed Sierra’s side before dropping her hand and backing away. “You wish, rookie.”