A Thousand Tiny Wishes // Ed Sheeran

Chapter Two - Let Me In

Her POV:

I wish I could sit down with Ed and pick his brain, find out each and every one of his fears and erase them one by one. He doesn't ever open up and I don't understand what's so wrong with me that he can't. He puts up a wall every time I try and get to know him and I don't think he realizes how bad it makes me feel that he doesn't trust me enough to let me help.

I see it in him that there's something wrong. Maybe it's the way he lowers his eyes when he talks to me, or how he always puts himself down, saying he's not good enough for me. I notice it more than I think he realizes I do.

Ed hasn't been doing so well in school, he hardly shows up and when he does he leaves early, and it kills me to see him just not care. I know he has the potential to be someone other than a dropout, but he tells me that he doesn't want or need an education for what he has planned. I want to support him and I want to be there for him when he needs a shoulder, but it's so incredibly frustrating when he pushes away.

One day during school, a month or two after we met, he asked me to come with him to the park we usually went to. It'd been a while since I'd gone with him, since I was too afraid to let my grades slip or get in trouble for skipping.

"Come on," he pleaded, tilting his head and resting it against his shoulder, trying his hardest to persuade me into coming with him. He even chewed his bottom lip to try and be cute, "just this once," he said.

I was torn between going with him or staying at school, and although I had an important class, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity for him to finally tell me what's been bothering him.

"Fine," I said, almost rolling my eyes, "but this is the last time, Ed."

It was the second time that week he'd skipped out early, but of course it wasn't a huge deal for him. He was pulled into the school's main office at least once a week, and I knew he had notices sent home and the like, but he still did it. I wished for a minute I could be like him.

We sat in the same spot we always did when we went to the park, at the top of the hill. I smiled when he sat a little closer to me than he normally did, our knees almost brushing.

"Ed," I started, catching his attention while he rummaged through his backpack, "are you going to tell me the real reason why you're always skipping class?"

He laughed and pulled out a blank sheet of paper and a pencil, resting a hardcover book against his lap and the paper on top. For a second I thought he was going to start doing homework and my heart almost stopped.

"There isn't any real reason," he shrugged, "I just don't see the point in it."

He kept his eyes on the paper, starting to draw.

I knew he wanted to be a musician, he told me once that the only class in school he took seriously was music, but he was convinced that he didn't need an education to become one. My eyes trailed to the paper where I noticed he was drawing a portrait of me, and once he finished we both got a good laugh since it hardly resembled me. Even so, I sat with it in my lap, smiling when I told him I would never get rid of it.

His cheeks flushed a shade brighter than his orange hair when I brushed my hand against his leg, glancing up at me as he said that all he needed to be happy was to see me smile.

He walked me home that day, like he normally did, but before I went inside he hugged me a little tighter than usual, pulling away just enough to keep our faces within inches of each other. I knew it was coming and felt the butterflies swarming again, heat rushing to my cheeks when he leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine.