Want You Back

Chapter 8

•Elliana•

I could see the sun peaking through my curtains. I hadn't been able to sleep because my mind wouldn't stop. It just kept bringing up a million memories. My phone lights up and I glance over and reach for it. My heart pounds hoping maybe it was him, but my heart fell when it was a text from my cousin, Sean, telling me he arrived back from New York.

I sit my phone down debating on asking the one question that I wanted to know since he arrived there. Esther and I haven't spoken in two years. She left with out even telling me good bye. I pick my phone back up and ask how Esther is. No matter how upset I am, her well being will always be important to me.

I sigh thinking where she and I fell apart. It all started after that weekend with him. She hadn't seen the real him like I had. She wasn't there for when I finally told him the truth of what happened with Branson, Daniel, and Landon. She didn't see the way I feel apart and he held me slowly pulling me back together. He was the only person who understood what I had gone through. No matter how close she and I were she could never understand the way he did. To understand you had to experience something like it. She didn't understand how it changed you. Although he had let it effect it differently than me. He showed his anger and hurt while I tucked mine away. Neither of our coping mechanisms was healthy, but once we showed each other our scars we began to heal.

He always said that was the night he fell for me because he saw me for who I was instead of the person he created in his mind. I wouldn't let myself fall for him. I had walls built around my heart since Branson. I promised I wouldn't just give anyone my heart. Except he pushed and pushed making every tower I built crumble and he stood waiting for me in the wreck of it all with open arms. He had loved me so fiercely that I was almost scared. Now I wish I would have made every second last because now he was gone.

I close my eyes and remember that night

-two years ago-

Warm salty tears streamed down my face. He had a coldness in his eyes I had only seen when Daniel was mentioned. I knew I had to tell him the truth. He deserved to know what happened. He needed to know he wasn't alone and that I understood.

I wiped the tears away and took a deep breath. Now it was my turn to expose my past. The past he hated me for. The past that I still had nightmares about. I bit my lip and looked down at my feet. I wasn't even sure where to begin. I thought for a moment trying to bring myself to relive a time that made me often wish I would wake up with amnesia.

"You know Roselen was wild and threw parties in the girls' common room. I told her she shouldn't and it was stupid especially since someone was bringing in weed. Till this day I don't know how the school never found out about any of it," I began. Ashton nodded remembering those days that at the time seemed fun and harmless, but little did we know a lot can change in a few months.

"I told you how Roselen set Branson and me up. He was a senior and popular I mean that's what every girl dreams of. Except he was something from a nightmare. After we started dating he would talk me into going to the parties because it was known that if you were in his and Roselen's friend group you went. I went to a few and I knew the risk of being caught and possibly losing my ride to uni wasn't worth it. When I stopped going we started arguing a lot. He said I was up tight and that the only reason anyone was friends with me was because of him. He started controlling who I talked to and it got to the point the only time I could talk to Esther was when we were in our dorm room," I looked away feeling pathetic. He controlled my life and I was so terrified of him that I let him.

He had always felt threatened by Esther because she wasn't afraid of him. She would tell him exactly what she thought and he knew if I spent too much time with her I would become the same and leave him. He thrived off of control. He didn't want me in a romantic way he wanted to control me.