Dear Richie

How I Feel

---Author's Note---

I am sorry if you are confused with the updates. I simply changed the title of the last one because I realized that it didn't quite fit the chapter. Hopefully that clears things up. :) 

*****

"What are you doing here, Eathan?" Leia asks, dreading this moment. 

"Can I talk to you for a second?" she can see in his eyes how vulnerable he feels. 

"I'm, um, kinda busy, Eathan. I don't think it's a good idea to-"

"We have a few minutes," Auntie Judy says, smiling back at Leia. 

"Okay, I guess we do have time." 

Leia exits the van and Eathan takes her hand in his. Leia yanks her hand away. 

"I am going to sound like a broken record, but what are you doing here?" Leia lets all of her anger and frustration out in this moment. 

"We belong together." he says to her, grasping her hands in his, not allowing her to slip away. "No matter what happens, we will find our way back to each other."

Leia's eyes fill with tears, her heart shrivelling up. Her limbs shake.

"Not this time." 

Her voice drips with hatred, no longer regret. 

"Leia, we can do try this one more-"

"We can, Eathan, but I don't want to." Leia states coldly. "We are over, okay? I am not coming back to you."

"Why not?" 

"Why not? You have the decency to attempt to rape me, dump me on the street, and make me feel so dirty and then come back and ask why not?" Leia scoffs. "You've reached a new low." 

"Leia, please, I know that things went bad last time-"

"And you think that they'll be better the next time?" Leia stomps her foot. "I don't know what's going on in that head of yours, but it isn't anything logical. Because there will never be a next time."

"Leia-"

"Just get out of here, Eathan." Leia's voice trembles in anguish and emotion. "I never want to see you again."

Leia leaves him on the sidewalk, making way to her aunt's van.

"Leia!" Eathan calls out to her. "Eathan, please."

She simply ignores him and closes the sliding door behind her.

♡◇♡◇♡

Meanwhile, Chris lays back on his bed, staring up at the sticky stars that used to illuminate his room when he was younger. Now, they just sit there, useless.

He brings the little blue notebook to his face and reads the last page over and over again.

She wanted me.

She wanted nothing to do with me.

She wanted to kill herself.

He sighs, sitting up and making his way to his drawer that held his little dictionary. He wishes that he could go back and tell her- to make her feel wanted.

He wanted to tell her that he liked her too- that it was always her, that every moment he was with another girl he thought about her, that when he saw her with Eathan it nearly tore him to pieces.

That's all gone now. She's on her way to New York, and there was no possible way he could stop her in time from going.

It is a great opportunity for her. Why would she want to stay behind just for me when she could have the experience of her life?

There was nothing Chris could do. Nothing he could say that would change her mind. He knew Leia. Once her mind was made, there was no going back.

His phone vibrates beside him with a text message from Conner.

What could I do to bring her back to me?

I don't know, man. You had your chance. And now she's gone.

Leia would be back for Thanksgiving. That is the only next possible chance he had at telling her face to face.

That was nearly six months away. How could he wait that long to let her know how he feels? 

Seeing the picture of him and Leia in their beanies from inside his little dictionary made him have a change of heart. 

"She waited three years to tell me how she felt," Chris reasons with himself. "I can wait just a little while longer to tell her how I feel."