Becoming Ella: An Opposites Attract Romance Read online

  Will and I both seem shocked by the anger in my voice. As he backs Matilda out of her spot, I can see that I have struck a nerve.

  Good.

  Will needs to see as much as I do that this would have never worked out in the first place.

  "I think all of that is bullshit, Ella," Will murmurs. "You have told me multiple times how you haven't laughed harder since we started hanging out. And I do know you. And I love you. I know that you're going through stuff with your mom and figuring what you want out of life, but stop pushing me away."

  His voice is thick with emotion. By the end of it, my eyes feel heavy with tears. Part of me wants to tell him that I'm sorry. Tell him what's going on in my head. That I feel like we couldn't ever be together, which scares me because I want to be with him so bad.

  He makes me happy, and I love spending time with him. When I spend time with him, it feels like I'm allowed to be someone else, and I like that. I like being able to decide who I am with him and have that space to keep figuring myself out more.

  I feel that a part of him wishes that I would just give in to that too — give in to the feelings that tell me to be vulnerable with him, try with him, stop being so closed off before we've even had a chance, but I can't.

  I know that if I open up, there's a chance he still wouldn't get it, wouldn't be happy enough with who I am and am slowly becoming. He'd want more, and I don't know if I could give that.

  I think of all the other girls he must meet on the road. They are probably just as free-spirited as Will. He deserves one of those girls over me. A woman who isn't afraid to go after what she wants. He would eventually run out of patience, and that would hurt more than if we just nipped things in the bud now.

  "Will, we are just two different people. I don't think that we could ever work out."

  Something tightens in his jaw, and I can tell that I have upset him more. Something twists in my stomach, and I feel like the boy who confessed his feelings to me on the sky glider is long gone.

  "Ella, you are the one who has been thinking of us like that since the beginning. Why do you need a label for everyone and everything? Yes, we're different in many ways, but we're also so similar. Why can't you just let yourself be? Why can't you just let us be? And figure it out as we go along? There is no way to tell the future, but you keep trying to see ahead. You are so determined to find an end to anything that could potentially end up painful instead of just enjoying it for what it is right now, what it could end up being."

  Something hot explodes in my chest, and it feels hard to swallow around the lump in my throat. A couple tears escape down my face, and I take a shaky breath in, trying to get ahold of myself. I do not want to fall apart in front of Will.

  We drive in silence the rest of the way home. When Will pulls up to our street, he stops a couple houses back from mine. Neither of us says anything.

  Part of me wants to confess everything to him, tell him that he's right and that I'm sorry. But the part of me that wins is the part that keeps me silent, all of my feelings firmly under lock and key.

  "Ella, I want to be there for you," Will murmurs. "I love being with you. I love you. You are wonderful and brilliant and amazing and kind, and I can't get enough of you. Why can't you just give us a chance?"

  Will is turned towards me, but I am looking out my window. I know that if I turn and look him in his eyes, my resolve would crumble.

  I am terrified of things ending badly for us in the future. I am scared of letting Will in when he already means so much to me. I know that I am saving myself pain in the future by ending things now.

  It won't be long before Will gets back on the road and forgets all about me. He'll find more interesting people, more carefree women. Will will realize that the feelings he thought he had for me were wrong. He'll be glad that I ended things.

  "I'm sorry, Will," I say. It's true. I am sorry. I don't like seeing him hurt.

  "You don't have to be sorry, though," he emphasizes. "Ella, you never have to be sorry with me. You can be whoever you want to be with me. I will accept you and love you no matter what."

  I can hear the hurt in his voice, and I feel more tears slip down my cheeks. Nothing that Will has said to me has been unkind, and I realize that he really is too kind and good for me. He deserves someone so much better, someone with her shit together, someone that is more like him.

  "I just know we wouldn't work out," I say. "I'm sorry. I think you'll see in a couple of weeks that you're wrong about me, that you don't really love me, and you'll move on. I think you'll realize that I was right to do this," I say, chancing a look at him.

  His eyes are dark. I can feel the invisible wall come down and separate us. He looks like I slapped him across the face, and by how tingly and sick I feel, it feels like I really did.

  "You're wrong," he says. "But if you're determined to not let yourself enjoy things and shut down life, then I guess you should go."

  He turns away from me. I feel his dismissal deep in my gut, like a swift, solid kick. I struggle with my door and hop out, closing it gently behind me.

  Matilda roars to life again. Will backs up, turns her around, driving quicker down the road.

  I can tell he won't be back.

  20

  Before I can get in my house, I hear the garage door opening to the side of me. I step to the side as my mother pulls into the driveway, not even looking at me. As if I could feel any worse, now I am going to get a lecture.

  I brush the stray tears away from my face. If my mother sees that I am crying, it'll only make her madder. She didn't raise me to be a crybaby, especially over Will Keely. I don't want to even hear her talk about him, so I take a few deep breaths, hoping that it will clear my splotchy skin.

  I twist my key in the lock as the garage door closes. My mom slams her door shut at the same time that I am stepping into the living room.

  The cool AC blasts me in the face. I slip my sandals off, realizing for the first time how sore my feet actually are. Walking around the fair with Will, I barely noticed.

  The side door opens, and my mother slams that too.

  "What are you doing, Eileen?" she screams, coming around the corner. "Skipping work? Again? Are you trying to get fired?"

  "No," I say, my voice low. "It only counts as one occurrence since I missed Sunday too."

  "Did Will help you figure that out?" she shoots back, twisting Will's name into something ugly.

  I don't say anything back. She stares at me with hard eyes.

  "I don't even know who you are anymore!" she goes on. "What happened to my daughter, who thought things through? Had a plan? Had goals? The daughter I have in front of me now seems to only be thinking about Will. Ready to throw her entire life away for him. And for what? So she can shack up with him in his van?"

  The ice in her voice makes me jump. I feel more ashamed with each word. I wish that I had just gone to work.

  Though I think that, a little part of my mind reminds me how lovely everything was today.

  I see Will's smiling face as he chugged down his milk. How he cuddled in close to me on the sky glider. How I felt like I was having the time of my life. How I felt more butterflies than ever when he told me he loves me.

  It was worth it.

  I know that I should have gone to work, but seeing all those things and doing all those things makes it impossible for me to regret it like I should.

  "Eileen, I've told you your entire life of how stories like this end up. You meet a guy, he makes you feel on top of the world, he brings you out of your comfort zone, and then he destroys you. He leaves you, putting you at your lowest low. Then, you feel like you have nothing. Since he brought you so far out of your comfort zone, you don't even have the things you once had. He ruined all of that. Is that how you want your story to end, Eileen?"

  I feel anger turn around in my stomach. While a part of me is beyond terrified at the idea of loving Will, I know that he would never do those things to me. He doesn't have a
mean bone in his body, nothing like my father, which is who my mother is talking about.

  My mom hates my father and blames him for how her life turned out. But hearing her lump Will in that same category makes me feel sick, almost blinded with anger.

  "Will is nothing like that," I say, standing up for him, although there really isn't a point anymore. Will is gone. I'm probably already gone from his mind.

  "Oh yeah? That's what all those guys make you believe. Eileen, no self-respecting young man with a good future ahead of himself, would live like Will does. You think that's a good idea? Getting together with some guy who doesn't even technically have an address."

  The judgment in her voice makes me think back to Will on the playground, telling me all about the judgment he got when he started living in Matilda.

  He told me how it seemed like overnight people's opinion on him changed, and they suddenly thought he was beneath them. He didn't seem too bothered by it, but I imagine it used to hurt. Hearing people say awful things about you, regardless of whether they know you or not. And the majority of the time, they seemed wrong.

  Will is passionate about his life. Every time he speaks about it, his face lights up. I remember sitting around the campfire, listening to him talk with Matt and Maddie about everything he's done on the road since he saw them last. They all looked so alive, practically scrambling to tell each other their newest stories.

  My mother continues to go on about Will. Telling me for the millionth time about what a dead beat my father was. How much harder it was for her to start a life for us after he left us to do what he wanted.

  I can see the hatred in her eyes as she talks about him, trying to pound it in my head for the hundredth time how dangerous those types of boys are. That they will lie to you, sweet talk you, do anything that they have to do to get inside your pants, and after they've gotten what they want from you, they'll be gone.

  Normally, I would try to cut her off, tell her that I know, that she doesn't have to remind me, that I won't be that dumb, but tonight, I just feel numb.

  "Eileen!" she screams, her voice getting shrill. "Are you even listening to me?"

  I nod and focus on her eyes, trying to make myself seem more there than I really am.

  In all reality, I am back at the fair with Will. If I hadn't seen my mother, we would have gone into the barn and seen the cute animals.

  Then, as the sun went down, we would have gone on all of the rides. Cozied up on the Ferris wheel.

  I get tears in my eyes thinking about how beautiful all of that would have been, should have been. The hollow pit in my stomach grows larger. I feel freezing.

  "Do you see what I mean, Eileen?" my mother screams, "you've been spending a couple weeks with that boy, and you're already different. He's already changing you into someone unrecognizable. I don't know where my daughter went. My daughter was responsible. And she used to have a good head on her shoulders."

  Her words cut me deep. I bite down on the inside of my lip, hard, determined not to cry. For the first time since she's been yelling at me, I look her straight in the eyes. She has a crazed look on her face, her eyes big and angry, the middle of her eyebrows furrowed.

  Usually, I would nod and say whatever it is that she wants me to say, promise to be better, but right now, I can't. I think of the look on Will's face when I told him off and the way that he wouldn't look at me when he dropped me off. Seeing that expression and knowing that it was there because of me cuts me deeper than my mom screaming at me.

  "I'm going to go to bed," I say when she looks at me expectantly.

  "What do you mean you're going to go to bed?" she shrieks. "You're just going to walk away from your mother?"

  "I'm tired. I've had a long day, and I don't need this right now."

  I turn to walk away from her, fisting my right hand in my purse. My fingers run over Ollie's smooth body. It sends a pang through my chest.

  My mother's thundering footsteps follow me. A part of my mind tells me to apologize, promise to be better, say whatever it is that she wants me to say, but I keep walking to my room. She stops following me at the entrance to the hallway.

  "Eileen, you get back here right now. We are not done!" she shouts after me.

  I ignore her and slam my door shut behind me, sinking onto the ground in front of it. She doesn't pursue me any further, but I hear her throwing things around the kitchen and living room. I wrap my arms tight around myself.

  It is so quiet in my room. It's been weeks since it's felt this quiet.

  Since Matilda sputtered onto my street, there has always been some kind of noise from Will in my room. Whether it be the sounds of him working on Matilda with his dad or him knocking on the window or our shared laughs and whispers.

  I look over to the corner of my room and see the tangle of my sheets and comforter balled up in the corner where we laid together this morning. I smile, thinking back to how carefree everything seemed then, how close I felt to him. I wish that I could go back in time, stay in that moment.

  I always knew that things wouldn't work out.

  We were two completely different people from two completely different lifestyles. We couldn't have forged a path.

  After camping, I tried to convince myself that a bridge could be made if we both worked at it. But all along, I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn't matter. Something like today happening was inevitable, and I had been kidding myself all along, hoping that it wouldn't.

  I let out a heavy breath, feeling tired all over. My feet are tired from walking all day. My heart and head are exhausted from all of the emotions.

  I think about calling Violet but think better of it. She is like Will, and that would make me feel even worse about myself. She has been on my case for years about standing up to my mother. I don't want to hear that right now.

  I am glad that Will and Violet have it figured out, that they can go about their lives focusing on what makes them happy and having the guts to go out and get it, but that just isn't me, and it never will be. Instead, I will stay where I am comfortable, doing what I know needs to be done, and one day, that will be enough.

  I hang my purse up on my door. I slip off my sandals and crumple my sunflower dress into my hamper. The bright yellow flowers look dimmer than they did this morning.

  I only grab a blanket off the pile of bedding stashed in the corner.

  I try to convince myself that I am only lingering in the corner because my window is a little stuck, but I know it's because I am looking for Matilda.

  I foolishly let myself hope for Will to climb up my tree. We could talk, and I could apologize. We would go back to how we have been the last couple of weeks.

  But our street is silent.

  There is no blue van. Matilda is gone, and so is Will.

  My stomach sinks, and I can feel the tears start. I wrap myself in my blanket and sink onto my soft bed, crying even harder when I realize that all of my sheets and pillows smell like Will.

  I used to sleep like this every night, and it was fine. I would wake up in the morning and go to work or school. Then, I would come home, write, indulge in fantasies, do whatever else, and go to sleep, ready to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

  All of that was fine.

  Now, having the smallest taste of what it was like to be with Will, I realize that none of this is as fine as I used to try so hard to convince myself it was.

  21

  I wake up the next morning, my eyes puffy and irritated. I rub the sleep out of my eyes and sluggishly turn off my alarm. I lay back against my pillows for a couple moments longer, procrastinating about getting my day started. My whole body feels tired, sore.

  I laid in my bed last night for hours before I went to sleep. I cried harder than I have in a long time. By the time I fell asleep, it was because I was exhausted from crying.

  I still feel like crap.

  I want nothing more than to call in again, but I know that would be a terrible idea. I would
spend the entire day in bed, and that would only make me feel worse.

  Instead, I throw my feet over the side of my bed and start getting ready for work.

  After I am dressed and my hair is pulled back into a neat bun, I sit at my vanity. I look okay. I couldn't fool someone like Violet, who really knows me, but for coworkers and patients, this will do.

  I head down the hall and sling my backpack over my shoulder. In the back of my mind, I wonder if Will will be outside today. A part of me hopes that he is there, but the realistic part of me knows he won't be.

  Though I knew that he wouldn't be, my stomach still sinks when I face our empty street. I tighten my grip around my thermos so that the pain in my fingers distracts me from crying.

  The realization that I might never see Will again rocks over me like a wave.

  I turn my podcast all the way up as I walk to work. The volume distracts my thoughts from Will.

  I need to get focused. I cannot go into work like this, all vulnerable and sensitive. I need to get my thick skin back and push Will out of my mind.

  Hopefully, it will be busy today. Hopefully, patient after patient will be on their call light, and I won't have any spare time to even think of Will.

  Normally that type of day would be my own personal hell, but right now, my own mind is my own personal hell.

  In twenty minutes, I join the crowd of people huddled around the punch in clock. I get report from Kelly. She gives me what sounds like a disappointingly tame section.

  I vow that I will answer everyone's call lights in my spare time, even if they are on the other side of the unit. I need to stay distracted today.

  When my manager passes me in the halls, I expect them to fire me on the spot for not calling in, but they only smile at me and carry on.

  "Have a good shift," Kelly says, patting me on the shoulder as she heads out of the breakroom.