8
Ella
3 Years Ago—September 2015
I stand outside the restaurant, smoothing down my dress and shuffling the loose strands of hair framing my face for the fifteenth time since I arrived. I stare at my watch: I’m still early. Five minutes early, to be precise.
My heart hammers beneath my ribs, the adrenaline fighting the current of nervousness through my veins. Despite having seen Matty yesterday for our seminar, and despite texting him nonstop since Tuesday afternoon when he left my flat, I still find myself ridiculously nervous.
What do you do on a first date? Do you talk about the deepest secrets that define you? What if that person already knows about them? Do you talk about the weather like an awkward couple? Do you talk about how much you want to carry on kissing them again and again despite being engaged to someone else?
I spot him walking across the road toward me, and instantly my body buzzes with excitement. My impeccable man is dressed in black jeans and a black shirt. I notice he’s not wearing the beanie so I can see all his hair. Just the way I like it.
Why am I talking about him like he’s mine already? He’s not, even though I wish he was. I suppose we’ve both clarified that we’re interested in becoming exclusive with each other.
I smile like an awkward kid. How do you act around someone when they know everything about you before that first date, especially after our introduction to each other was all alcohol, kisses, and truths?
“Ells Bells,” he greets. Immediately everything around me lights up at the mention of my exclusive nickname. The nervousness in my body doesn’t last long because automatically, we hug each other and I’m finding myself folding into him as if he were the missing puzzle piece I’ve been searching for my whole life.
“Shall we?” He gestures and we head into the restaurant.
We get seated and I look over the menus. All my life I’ve been taken to places where you’d hear classical music lightly in the background and the waiting staff would be dressed in black and white. In contrast, this is vastly different; I immediately feel like I belong in a place like this instead. I watch as a waitress walks past our table with a tray full of plates of ribs, chicken, and sizzling fajitas. My dad would have a fit, and maybe a heart attack if he knew I was practically drooling at the sights and smells that sizzling plate leaves as it passes. Smoke, meat, barbecue sauce…
“You okay, Ells?” Matt interrupts my fantasy, and I pout in response. “You haven’t been to a place like this before, have you?”
I smile, trying to hide my embarrassment. “How can you tell?”
“Because you’re staring at the food longingly and you look like a deer in headlights.” He laughs.
“Sorry.” I look down at the menu again.
“You haven’t got anything to be sorry for! You look cute. My own Bambi.”
I look him right in the eyes. The smile on his face radiates from his whole being. He’s like a one-of-a-kind jewel, shining brightly just for me. There’s always a rare beauty in the unique, and Matt encompasses all of them. I want to reach across the table and kiss him again, I want him to make me feel like I’m soaring again, I want him to hypnotise me and make me forget about my life outside this smoke and mirrors charade of my life.
“That would be cute if it wasn’t a backhanded compliment,” I point out, giving him a wink at the same time the waitress comes over to take our order.
∞∞∞
I pass him a bowl of cheesecake and ice cream as we sit beside each other on the sofa later that evening. I watch the coffee steam on the table.
“Thanks.” He gets stuck in.
“So… I wanted to ask you something,” I say before spooning in some cheesecake.
“Hm?” he answers.
“You don’t have to answer if it’s too sensitive,” I assure him. “I just want to know what your parents were like. You don’t talk about them much. I know we’ve only known each other a week, but we’ve talked about everything else!”
He falls silent for a moment and eats the last of his dessert.
“You don’t have to answer, Matty, honestly. I just thought you might like to talk about them. You can talk to me about anything you want to, or not if you don’t want to,” I reassure him, putting my hand on his arm. There’s an instant jolt of electricity between us.
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” he whispers. “I just haven’t had anyone ask about them before. Apart from Nick, obviously. It’s a bit of a shock.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“No, don’t be sorry. I’m glad you did; it means a lot.” He looks into my eyes with a smile. I smile back and put my empty bowl down. I face him so he knows I’m listening as he continues. “They were… I mean, I loved them. They were our parents, you know. But they were workaholics. They met at work and worked together for the rest of their lives. They were teachers, so I guess to an extent you’d need to be a workaholic, especially as they taught English. Probably how I got into sociology in the end: they loved to analyse, discuss, you know? When they were home, they were amazing. Nick and I resented them sometimes because they were either at work or sometimes working all night.”
He lights up the room with love when he talks about his parents and it makes me smile, albeit sadly. It’s clear he adores them, despite how he talks about resenting them at points. It spikes me with a bit of jealousy; I’d love to feel that way about my parents. I’d love to say that my mum and dad loved me as his parents did. It just goes to show: my family may be rich financially, but it’s never been rich in love; in comparison, Matty was never rich financially, but the way he speaks about them suggests he was rich in love.
I guess it always depends on how one defines rich.
“We would do so much together; our dad was in the middle of building a globe with Nick and me; we were building it and then we were going to turn it into a light for the dining room. We never got to finish it when they died. I mean, we were sixteen and twenty, which sounds ridiculous looking back, but he was trying to help me with geography, and he roped in Nick on the promise of family time. It was genuinely the highlight of my week, though. We’d put on the radio and bond. My mum loved cooking; she’d rope in my help on a Sunday for the roast, and Nick would help on Saturday nights. We’d both help her on Wednesdays when my dad worked late. They were so in love with each other; I remember being embarrassed whenever we’d all go out for our Sunday walks after dinner. They’d hold hands or put their hands in each other’s pockets or kiss or something. But looking back, it just shows how in love they still were after twenty-odd years together. I always wished for love like that, you know?”
“I understand. More than I probably should.” I put my hand over his and he looks at me with a small glisten in his eyes that shows he’s emotional. “It’s okay to cry, you know.”
He smirks. “I’ve known you for a week and here we are, exchanging tragic stories and secrets as if we’ve known each other all our lives.”
“Maybe because I feel like I’ve known you all my life.”
“I feel the same way.” He smiles and downs his coffee. I quickly get up and grab him a beer from the fridge, giving it to him without a word. “You hate beer.”
“Yeah, I know. But you like it, so I got some in.” I shrug and sit back down.
“You’ll make an excellent wife when you get married—” He shuts himself up by drinking some beer and the awkward knowledge swims between us like an Olympic swimmer. “Sorry, that was tactless.”
“It’s fine.” I wave it off.
“Okay, random question time,” he announces. “Let’s lighten the mood – deep on a first date should only last so long.”
“This is my first, first date,” I say quietly.
“You’re kidding?” he exclaims.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been practically engaged for the past two years – that negates the need for dating, doesn’t it?” I snort.
“Ells was I your… was I your first kiss?” he asks quietly.
“No. I kissed a boy called Ryan when I was nearly sixteen. Behind the bike shed at school. Was kind of underwhelming, seeing as it was just a peck on the lips.” I laugh, remembering how nervous I was in the seconds leading up to it and then feeling utterly destroyed afterwards. Matt laughs. “You were my second kiss.”
His eyes widen in shock or pride; I’m not sure which. “You haven’t even kissed this Dean guy?”
I scowl. “No, don’t want to either, though I suppose I need to get over that fear.”
“Knowing that they control your sex life as well, I shouldn’t be surprised.” He scoffs and shakes his head. “How did your second kiss go?” I can hear the suggestive tone in his voice, and it sends tingles down my spine and fireworks off in my mind.
“It was better than the first,” I tease. “Let’s just say I never want to kiss anyone else.” With those words, his lips meet mine and before I can get into it, I force myself away.
“I’m sorry, Ells, I—” His voice falters, and it sends knives through my heart at the mere look of his confusion.
“No, it’s not you,” I say and immediately laugh at my choice of words. “I’m not going to finish that thought. What I’m trying to say is… I’m just finding this hard.”
“Because of the marriage,” he finishes my thought for me, and I nod. “I get it, okay? I can’t imagine how hard this is. But I get you don’t want to get any more confused than you must be already.”
“I don’t think I’m confused. My feelings are perfectly clear.”
“I know the stakes, Ells Bells, and I’m still willing to go all in,” he says. “But if you need time, or if you need us to call this off, whatever this is right now, then I’m fine with that too. Just let me know what you want, and we’ll do it.”
I close my eyes. My head and my heart are at war right now and I’m the one that can decide who wins. Like actual wars, it’s not about the individual battle, but the tactics which you use. They both have good points and they’re both after the same thing, they just differ on which is less hurtful for both Matty and me.
“I think, for now, we should stay friends,” I whisper, knowing in my mind it’s the absolute worst decision I’ve ever made because when I open my eyes all I want to do is kiss him and never let go. I want to melt in his hold, drown myself in his scent and leave kisses all over him. But I know this would be the least hurtful path for him. I will hurt whatever happens, but the least I could do for Matt is to make sure he doesn’t get hurt.
“Then friends it is.” He nods and folds me into a hug that feels so stiff and hurt that it leaves icy tears of regret falling from my eyes and stops the air from entering my lungs.