Sign Your Name Across My Heart

Chapter eleven

I wake up in the morning, almost forgetting what happened last night, but the memory soon pops back up in my head. I groan quietly, trying to shake the memory out of my head, but it's hard. I groan again.

I check my phone, seeing that I have a message from an unknown number.

Hey, it's Ash. Sorry about leaving in a hurry yesterday. I miss you.

I bite my tongue. How could I have been so stupid yesterday? I should have made sure it was Ash messaging me before sending him that dumb picture of myself. I'm so angry but mostly, I'm just embarrassed.

I get out of bed and take a quick shower, hoping Ivy is still sleeping. I get out, put my clothes on, slip my socks on my feet, leave the bathroom, and walk towards the living room, expecting to see Ivy still knocked out.

I stop in my tracks, almost jumping when I see Ivy straddling Bram on my couch, kissing him. I frown, staring at her. "Um, Ivy? What the hell?" Why is he here? Why did she let him in? She always does this to me. She never asks before doing things that she knows will upset me. This is my home! She can't just let him in when she wants.

Ivy quickly pulls away from Bram's lips. He slightly turns to look at me and he has a big, cocky smile on his face. "Libby! Hey, I'm sorry. I thought you'd be asleep a little longer." I stare at her, not knowing what to say. "I was going to suggest we all go for breakfast together. Maybe we can invite Ash too?" She smiles. I don't like that Bram knows where I live now. I would have felt better with him not having that information. How could she?

"I don't want to go out for breakfast." I say, feeling irritated. I walk to my kitchen and start preparing myself a cup of peppermint tea in hopes to ease the anxiety storm going on inside my stomach. I can't believe Ivy. I know she doesn't know what happened last night between Bram and I, so she can't possibly know the extra hatred I hold for him but nonetheless, I've expressed countless times to her that I'm not a fan of him. I'm not sure if I should tell her about last night, about the text. It'll upset her so much, and who is it to say that she'll even believe me? She's weird around Bram, possessive. She's never not touching him when I'm around. Maybe she thinks I like him and I'm just trying to steal her boyfriend.

"Okay, then let's make breakfast here! You should still invite Ash." She insists. I sigh. I don't want Ash to come over. Don't get me wrong, I do want Ash here, but not when Bram is here. Bram is even more insufferable when Ash is around. It's like he's constantly trying to prove something. What is he trying to prove? I don't know.

"I'll make breakfast but I'm not going to invite Ash over." I say sternly. Ivy looks at me and gives me a look, showing that she's thrown off by what I said, but is trying to hide it. Bram on the other hand looks pleased.

"Okay, well, is it okay if I take a shower? Bram and I are gonna go out after breakfast." She asks me.

I shrug my shoulders as I start taking out ingredients to make omelets. I can hardly believe myself, how I'm really going to just make breakfast for them before they go out for the day. I feel like their mother. But, that's just the kind of person I am. A people pleaser. Ivy is my only friend and I don't want to lose her over something so ridiculous, over a misunderstanding.

Ivy awkwardly gets up, not used to me being so defensive towards her. She walks over to me, and I'm confused, wondering what she's doing. She gives me a kiss on my cheek and I side eye her, wondering why she did that. "Thanks." She says, before walking away. I glance up and I see Bram staring at me from over on the couch with a stupid smile on his face. He must have enjoyed that. I turn on the little radio I have in my kitchen so that it's not so quiet and I slide in a cd, pressing play. A Bob Marley song starts to play.

I start cutting up some mushrooms and green peppers, keeping to myself, not speaking to Bram. I have nothing to say. He's on his phone, typing away. I secretly wonder what he's doing, who he's texting, what's going on. I wonder if he's texting Ash, telling him that he needs him to go do something for him, meaning it'll be even longer before I hear or see him again.

Eventually, Bram slowly gets up and makes his way over to me. Goosebumps rose on my arms. I don't want to be alone with him. Despite being angry with Ivy, I wish she were still in the room with us.

"I wanna love ya... And treat you right. I wanna love ya, every day and every night. I love this song." Bram sings along to the song softly, and I look at him, frowning. Why is he singing? He's not bad at it, certainly better than Ash is, but it's throwing me off that he's singing, as all it's doing is reminding me of when Ash sang my favourite song when he was driving me home that night. I cringe to myself.

I don't answer, only I keep cutting vegetables. I turn around and place two pans on my stove, turning on the heat for both of them, putting some butter in as well. I turn back to the vegetables on my cutting board. "I can tell you don't like me." Bram sighs. "But, I'd like to get to know you, Libby. I've told you that before. I wasn't lying." He continues. I can feel his stare burning a hole through my head. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off. "How about a dance to ease the tension between us?"

I finally look over at him but with a frown still on my face. "What are you talking about?" I scoff.

Everytime I look at him, all I can see is what he showed me on that facetime call last night. "Give me your hand." He says, holding his hand out. I look down at it, the frown not leaving my face. I'm unable to change my facial expression, I can't help it. Bram looks at me in this way that makes my face relax. I can't describe it. He looks soft for the first time ever. His eyes look... warm. Without really thinking, I place the knife down and I wipe my hands on my pants, before taking his hand.

He smiles and grasps my hand, twirling me, making me do a spin, before he pulls me close, but not too close. He holds his hand in mine and places his other hand on my waist, dancing with me to the music. Part of me feels weird, but part of me feels like it's interesting to see Bram in this light, in this way that I've never seen him before. He's not like this with Ivy. He's not nice to Ivy.

I apprehensively dance with him, keeping my distance. This dance doesn't magically change everything, it doesn't change the fact that he exposed himself to me last night, which was really inappropriate. Or even more so, when he messaged me and asked me to send him a picture of myself. Of course, he never said he was Ash, he was never pretending to be him - but it didn't change the fact that it was all very sneaky.

We dance for a minute or two, before I awkwardly pull away as I come to my senses and I go back to the vegetables.

That was weird and I don't think I should have done that.