The Art of Living

[6] Arrogance?

Ellie didn't know what to say. She was frozen in her spot and stared at him with anything but an elegant expression. There was complete silence in the room, except for the Beatles record playing quietly in the background.

"You know each other?"

Lynn was the first to break the silence with that question, but Ellie couldn't get herself to look away from Brian.

"Yes, we know each other." The bitter undertone in Brian's voice was obvious to anyone who heard that sentence.

Ellie just shrugged. "Well, knowing each other may be pushing it a little... we met before."

Brian scoffed and crossed his arms. "Yeah, and we talked a whole of five sentences after we had sex and you then ran out on me."

"Had you just let me leave it would not even have been five sentences." Ellie finally got her body to move again and copied him, also crossing her arms.

"Oh yeah? Shows the kind of person you are. Get drunk, fuck someone and then leave without a word. Glad to see your parents taught you manners."

She could hear the guys of the group gasp in surprise, but she didn't care. "They did, but they also taught me only certain people are worthy."

Another gasp from the group, and Ellie was quite certain that she could her Mary mutter something along the lines that she should behave, but she didn't care. Brian was the one who had been hostile towards her as soon as he had entered the room.

"You are so unbelievably arrogant. I can't believe I thought you would actually be nice, different from all the other girls. But no, you're even worse. You're the worst of all of them, rude, arrogant and incredibly ungrateful. It's a normal thing to make someone breakfast if they stayed the night, and I don't even expect a huge reward, just a simple thank you. But you're too good even for just that, aren't you? All I did for you, tea, pancakes, fruit, everything and you acted like I was trying to poison you. Not even a little thank you. Nothing. You didn't even touch it. I let you have a shower, I wanted you to feel at home, I let you get close to me, you have no idea how hard that is, and you? What did you do? You cowardly ran out at the first chance you got. Without a word. How pathetic is that? No thank you, no goodbye, nothing. If you really think that makes you a great person, then wow. Wow. There is no hope left for the world."

With that he turned around and stormed out of the room, slamming a door further down the hallway. He left everyone in the living room stunned, Ellie was at the top of that list. This was exactly the reason why she never wanted to see her one night stands again. It never ended well. As her interaction with Brian probably just proved very well.

"You wanna explain this, Ellie?" Lynn asked and looked at her friend curiously, just like everyone else in the room. Except for one of the guys, Dave as far as Ellie remembered. He shot her a dirty look before he got up, probably going after Brian.

Ellie just shrugged, fiddling with her hands. "He's the guy I told you about on Wednesday.."

Mary and Lynn sighed simultaneously. Because they knew what Ellie had said and done to him, the weekend before and now that evening.

"Don't sigh like that, it was the impression I got of him, it was what I always do. How was I supposed to know he would make such a huge deal of it? He could just have accepted it and moved on, like any sane person would."

"You do realise that not everyone is the type for one night stands, right?" Lynn looked at Ellie.

"Brian is definitely not good at not having one night stands," another voice joined the conversation. It was the guy Lynn had said would be for her, Roger.