Behind the Clouds

Ellie

What the hell is he doing here?

That question was repeating itself a million times in my head, and I started to panic. I was holding my head and pacing because I didn’t know how to process this. But then the girls came downstairs, and I immediately knew.

“You knew about this? What—What is going on here? I don’t know what’s happening. Can someone please tell me something?” All three of them came towards me giving me encouraging thoughts to soothe my anxiety, but what they don’t realize is that it’s hard to do that when the guy who turned your world on its side...the guy who knows your darkest secret...the guy who you’ve spent every day thinking of...and the guy who you have seen in over a month is standing feet away from me.

In the end, I decided it was useless to panic right there on the floor. I was gonna toughen up. No more crying. No more feeling vulnerable. If he was gonna come back, so was the Ellie that only he could bring out. I slowly walked towards him showing no emotion other than that calm anger that was burning inside me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked lowly.

“I want to show you something.”

“Why?”

“Because you need to see it.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I know. I want to explain it to you...but I can’t here.” He took cautious steps into my house and slowly came towards me. He was getting really close. Too close. I couldn’t stop him though. My mind was too busy thinking about his eyes and how deep and dark they looked. “Will you please come with me?” He asked sincerely. I took my eyes off him to have a moment to think.

Just do it. It’s the only way to finally say what you’ve wanted to all this time.

I faced his direction once again, but refused to look into his eyes.

“Fine.” I stalked away from him and didn’t give my friends or him a second look. Just got over to the Mercedes and sat with my seat buckled and arms crossed waiting for him to take me to whatever mystery place he decided to explain himself at. Eventually, he got in the car, but we didn’t say anything to each other. I didn’t even want to look at him.

“Thank you for coming with me,” he finally said breaking the silence. I wasn’t gonna say anything. I didn’t have anything to say yet. He took a second to start the car and grabbed his phone. “You mind if I turn on my playlist?” I didn’t have anything to say...but I decided that a shake of my head saying that I didn’t mind didn’t hurt. I shook my head a little, and he turned on the music. Collar Full by Panic at the Disco was playing and after that the song switched to Demons by Imagine Dragons. I was then reminded of that second day he came here and did a guitar cover of this song. I remember being so mesmerized by it and how beautifully sad it sounded.

I know I was mad. Furious really. But I was also sad and confused and a little relieved. I thought it wouldn’t hurt just to say something instead of nothing.

“I remember you playing this song at school,” I said quietly. “I remember hearing the first few notes and already feeling different. Different as in, I almost wanted to cry because of how beautifully sad it was.” I don’t know why I said this, but...it was one of those secret things I had never said out loud before and thought it was time to let out.

“Why did you say that?” Jer asked calmly. He better hope that he wasn’t trying to criticize me because if he was, then I was gonna get out of this car. Moving or not.

“I don’t know. Maybe I just needed to say something. The silence was killing me,” I replied. It wasn’t too hard to hear the anger in my voice, but I tried not to make it so evident.