Coffee at 5 AM √

Authors note

This entire story is dedicated to @laceycass, the author of "The Mistake". She was the reason I even gave Wattpad a chance, and her story inspired me to write my own. Thank you for that, and for reminding me of how much I love to write.

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Hi everyone, welcome to the very last piece of this story!

God, I don't even know what to say. It was really fun to work with this book. The idea for the story struck me a few years ago, long before I even started writing this. At first, I wasn't sure if I wanted Ella and Connor to be non-romantic soulmates instead, and I nearly ended up going with that, but after writing the very first chapter, Ella's introduction, I knew how I wanted it to end.

I know some of you might be disappointed with the ending not being happy, in a way I am too. Our first love is always special, and while we're in that relationship we're often convinced it'll last forever, and sometimes it does, but in most cases, it doesn't. Ella and Connor would never have worked out romantically, I want you all to know that. Not because they don't love each other, no, but rather because they never saw one another. They both had this picture of who the other person was, which resulted in them both cracking under the pressure of being what the other wanted.

Of course, their cases are different, Connor couldn't get past the fact that Ella was this perfect girl, and even though he admitted to loving her flaws as well, he never really saw them as flaws as much as delicate details that made her different and special.

Ella, on the other hand, saw Connor for what he was, but she used him in a terrible way. She felt alone and broken and he accepted her for who she was, so she took advantage of that, allowing him to fix her, which is a terrible thing to do to someone. Don't get me wrong, she was in fact in love with him, but I'm not sure that's how it started.

Some of you are probably wondering about the Ella-Easton situation, and I want to make it clear that they do in fact end up together. As a writer, I usually like writing endings where the reader gets to decide how the book ends, but for this book, I have a very specific ending in mind. If Ella had not met Connor that morning in the café, she would have met Easton, they would have had coffee, slowly fallen in love and ended up in an apartment in New York. Connor would've fought through his depression, and he'd meet his first girlfriend at an art club of some kind. She'd be sweet and would've known how to handle him a bit better than Ella did. Eventually, they'd break up and he'd meet his future wife while taking an internship in Italy. Maybe their lives would've been better, but there's really no way of knowing. And clearly, it wasn't supposed to be that way. (Says the writer with all the power, trying to pretend this was actually the doing of the universe)

Ella and Connor were important for each other's stories in the way that they both settled down after their breakup. Connor's depression actually went away after a couple of years because he was satisfied with his life, and Ella found a way of being selfish without hurting other people.

Now, on a happier note, thank you guys for reading this book, I hope you enjoyed it, even the ending. I'll admit that I both loved writing this book for all the feelings and amazing pictures it put in my head, and hated it when I had writer's block, when I wasn't sure how to work towards the ending, and when I myself felt like shit during some of Connor's depressed moments.

But for better or for worse, this book is a part of me, and I hope you'll carry it with you as well.

Goodnight America, I'll be back someday.

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Coffee at 5 am