☀️She's Extraordinary ☀️

Takeout, Talking, And Goals

Sunday, Nov. 13th (505 East 74th Street) (Bella's Perspective)
"Home sweet home!" I changed out of my sticky outside clothes, hopped into the shower, and put on some pj's.
"Woof!"
"Hey, Ryan! Come up here! Come on!" He climbed on top of my bed.
"Me and you, we're gonna watch a movie. Doesn't that sound good?" He licked me.
"How about Twilight, never hurts to watch that again." Just as I gathered a snack and was ready a text appeared on my laptop.

Jake: I know you're home. Stop ignoring us.

"Oh, whatever. We're gonna ignore that and watch a movie, right bud?" I kissed my doggo and pressed play. Twilight is such a comfort to me. When I want a bit of nostalgia I just read the book or watch one of the movies. It's soothing. I heard a knock on my door.
"Bella, we're ordering food. Want something?" Noah asked.
"What you guys ordering?"
"Chinese."
"The usual please and thank you!"
******************
East 74th Street (1:11 PM) (Jake's Perspective)
I can't believe that I've been driven to this point but I love Bella and I can't stand the fact that she's ignoring me right now." I rang the doorbell.
"Jake!" Mrs.Stabler said.
"Hi, how are you?"
"Great, great! We just got back from the airport. Did you need to talk to Bella quickly?"
"I came here to surprise her, actually." She smiled.
"She'd love that. We actually ordered some food a while ago, would you like to stay for lunch?"
"I'd love to." Found my way in without even having to try.
"Bella, we have a guest. Your most favored guest."
"And who could that be?" I walked into the kitchen and when Bella saw me she instantly dropped her fork.
"Haha, your fork fell in your food! Jakey, how come you don't come over more?" Leia asked.
"Because I'm kinda busy."
"But you promised."
"I'll come over more, okay?" I hugged Leia and she led me to the table.
"You can sit next to Bella, Jakey."
"Now you'll be much happier, isn't that right?" Mr.Stabler asked. Bella didn't make any eye contact with me.
"There's rice, chicken, beef, dumplings, and egg rolls help yourself."
"So um, how was Florida?"
"It was amazing. Our co-worker and longtime family friend got married to the love of his life. It was beautiful. Did Bella tell you?"
"She didn't actually." Noah sort of squinted and glanced at me before looking at Bella.
"Bella, why are you not happy because Jake is here? You were upset at Florida and now Jakey is here and you're still not happy." Leia pointed out.
"You're a weird girl."
"Leia, that's not nice to say. Apologize now."
"I'm sorry I called you a weird girl."
"I'm going to finish eating in the basement. Come on, Ace."
"Trouble in paradise." Noah said under his breath.
"What was that?"
"Nothing." He knows. Great.
"Sorry about that, Bella's been in an off and on kind of state." This is not going how I planned for it to go.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
"Bella?"
"What do you want from my life?"
"Oh come on. Are you going to seriously not talk to me?"
"You shouldn't be telling me anything. You don't have the right. You're the one that caused this, not me." She tried to go upstairs but I blocked the staircase.
"Please, can we just talk this out?"
"No, move. Jake, move. Please don't make me have to push you."
"My dad got heart surgery. He has a heart defect and had to get surgery." I said suddenly.
*****************
(Bella's Perspective)
"Then why didn't you just say that, Jake? Why did you have to be like that about it?"
"I don't know...I just didn't know how and I was scared and-" I touched his face softly.
"I hear you, and I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Is your Dad okay? Do you want to talk about it?"
"He's doing alright, he's recovering. I don't think there's much to talk about now, I was just scared at the time."
"Then can we talk about the elephant in the room?"
"What?"
"The way that you treated me was like, not okay. You basically fat-shamed me at one point and refused to talk to me when you know how anxious I get."
"But Bella, you do the same thing."
"What do you mean?"
"When you're upset you don't talk and you get pissy too. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells around you, trying not to make you angry while worrying because I don't know what the hell is going on." I took a second to internalize what he was saying.

"Bella, what's wrong?" Jake asked while hugging me. I pushed him off and curled up into a ball, crying.
"Bella? You're scaring me.

He was right. But then again, two wrongs don't make a right. We both don't communicate, we both hurt the other emotionally when we're upset. I sighed.
"What is it?"
"We've got some stuff to work on."
"What do you mean?"
"You didn't know how to tell me what was going on, and you lashed out at me. When I'm upset, I push you away." He nodded.
"I don't think that I can be with you if it keeps going like this. Every time something bad happens, we both have to like...be destructive to each other instead of helping one another."
"Are you breaking up with me?"
"No, I'm not. I promise. I think that like we need to learn how to communicate better don't you think?" He nodded.
"I don't know how we're gonna do that though. I don't know how to go about that."
"Maybe we can start by talking about your Dad? If that's okay? Are you sure there isn't at least something there...to talk about?" He sat next to me.
"I've always seen my Dad as someone invincible. A superhero, I thought that nothing bad could happen to him. So to see him in the hospital scares me. It reminds me that he won't be here forever. And that really scares me. Are you not scared?"
"Of course I am, all of the time. I worry about whether or not Elliot is okay all of the time. I worry about the future because like you said our parents won't be here forever and Elliot's one of the closest people I have to a Dad. Think of your Dad's surgery like this if it makes sense, this is his second chance. Like if no one caught the defect who knows what could've happened, but now he'll have a better quality of life and you can enjoy his presence much more and probably for a bit longer too."
"Never thought of it like that." Jake said. We talked a bit more about the surgery and I comforted him. I'm really glad that we got this chance to talk and I got to figure out what was going on.
"Can you promise me something? Or more like can we promise each other something?"
"What?"
"Can we promise to be better about talking about what's going on in our lives? Can we work on that?"
"We can, as long as you promise not to hide everything from me. Everyone has private things but some things you can tell me as your boyfriend."
"Deal. And for yourself?"
"I'll work on controlling my temper when you're trying to help me, but I'd like some space as well. Even when I'm upset, I'll still talk to you. Maybe not, in the same way, I will normally, but I'll talk." I smiled. I hope things can be better now. I feel like my life has been pretty okay lately, the last thing I want is for our relationship to go sour.
^^^^^^^^^
Tribeca Therapy (Wednesday, Nov. 16th)
"How are you on this fine Wednesday?" Dr. Turner asked.
"Pretty good, but I've been through a whirlwind these past couple of days."
"Have you? Do you mind if I play our playlist?"
"Not at all, I think some k-pop would be nice."
"Would you like to talk about the whirlwind?"
"Yes, please." She grabbed her notepad and I fumbled around with my math homework.
"I have a boyfriend...Jake and we got into a bit of a scuffle." I told her everything that had happened.
"I want to make some goals for myself. I don't want to be the way I was, hiding everything from everyone and treating people terribly. Not just for myself, but for him, for my friends, and my family."