The Intern

Chapter Twenty-Three: Home

I walk through the door of the place I used to call home. Louise stands up from the kitchen table and hugs me.
"How have you been, Ella?" She pulls out of the hug, but still has her hands on my shoulders. I smile at her.
   "Pretty good." I think back to Mark, but shake it off before she notices something is wrong. "What about you? Are you still seeing David?"
   "No," she says looking down to the ground. "I can't even go into that coffee shop anymore. We dated for awhile, but broke up and now he's dating some blond bimbo."
   "I'm sorry, Lou," I say. She gives me a small, sad smile.
   "It's fine. I'm over it. And besides, this visit is about you. Meet any cute guys?" I smile and nod.
   "Yeah, kinda." She squeals.
   "Details, girl! Details!"
   I tell her the story of Mark and David and get to the part just before David kissed me at the airport. I stop and tears fill my eyes.
"El, what happened?" I sigh as compose myself, I tell the rest of the story and show her Marks texts. "I'm sorry, Ella, but hey, you found David at least."
"I know, but I didn't want to hurt Mark like that."
"You would have had to at some point. You couldn't string both of them along forever." I nod. She was right. I couldn't just not pick, and I couldn't just leave one of them hanging forever. Neither of them should have had to wait that long for a decision. Mark made mine for me, and now he doesn't even want anything to do with me. A tear falls down my cheek.
   "I just wanna lie down for a while, okay?" Louise nods and tells me that there's still a bed in my old room that I can use. I walk upstairs carrying my stuff. I plop it down on the floor next to the door and flop onto the bed. I fall asleep.
Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.
   I grab my phone and answer it. "Hello?"
   "Ella?" Lasercorn asks.
   "Oh, hey," I yawn. "What's... up?" My eyes shut again, but I quickly open them back up.
   "You didn't text me when you got there, so I thought I'd just check up on you that's all."
   "How sweet," I say. "I got here just fine, I caught up a little bit with Louise. Then I took a nap and now here we are," I say. Lasercorn chuckles over the phone.
   "When are you coming back to California? Like an exact date."
   "I'm probably next month some time. Like the middle of July."
"That wasn't an exact date," Lasercorn says with a laugh.
"I dunno," I say in a light tone. "Like I said, I'm only spending a month with Louise, maybe not even that. Then I'm going to see my family. Then I'll be back. The time will fly, I promise."
   "Well, Smosh Games is making some changes while you're gone."
   "What kind of changes?" I ask.
   "We're adding a few new members. We have Damien and Boze."
(A/N: I know they weren't both added at the same time, but I wanted to put them in the story because I love Damien)
   "Sounds cool. I can't wait to meet them," I say. Louise walks into my room. She sits on my bed waiting for me to get off the phone. "Okay, well, I have to go, Louise and I are gonna go have some food."
   "Alright, have fun. I miss you."
   "I will. I miss you too."
   "We're going to get food?" Louise asks. "I don't remember agreeing to that." I laugh and grab my brush out of my bag. I run it through my hair and put it up into a ponytail.
   "You want food or not?" I ask. Louise gets up from my bed.
   "Yeah, if you really want to," she says acting like she doesn't want to go. I laugh.
   "Come on, dork."

   We walk down the street passing shops and little diners. Louise looks at me.
   "Where are we going?" She asks. I shrug.
   "I don't feel like diner burgers. I was thinking we could walk to Taco Bell." Louise nods. Taco Bell wasn't a long walk from Louise's apartment, and we often ate there when I lived here.
   Once we get our food, we sit at a booth near the window. We dig in immediately. Louise stops eating abruptly and looks out the window. I give her a look.
   "What's wrong?" I ask.
   "Over there," she  says looking over my shoulder. I slowly turn around and see David, the waiter from the coffee shop, is standing in line waiting to order his food.
"He's not going to come over here," I reassure her.
"He might," she says.
"You never told me why you guys broke up." Louise sighs.
"He cheated on me with the girl he's currently dating... The worst part is, I didn't have the heart to tell that girl he's a cheater. She had no idea about me." Her eyes well up with tears. I grab her hand and rub my thumb over the top of it.
"It's okay, Lou. Let's just go, okay?" I say. She nods. We stand up from the table and head towards the door.
"Louise?" David's voice says from behind us. I close my eyes and sigh. I tell Louise to go outside and I turn around. "Ella, hey."
"Don't even pull that on me," I say.
"What are you talking about?" He asks.
"Louise told me you cheated on her." His face goes red and he looks down.
"I didn't mean to hurt her."
"Well, you did, and there's nothing you can do to fix it. Leave her alone. Also, leave me alone. You're a terrible human being. And you're lucky she didn't tell your new girl that you're a cheater." David looks at the ground. Now, everyone in Taco Bell is staring at us. I hadn't realized how loud I was talking. "Cheater." I walk out the door and Louise hugs me.
"Thank you, Ella." I smile.
"Anytime, Louise."