Shadowed Desires

Chapter Nine

"I met Benny about a little over a year ago." I took note how she used the name Benny, instead of her usual Benjamin; but I kept quiet about that. Ellie kept her eyes downcast, fiddling with the edges of a napkin.

"I was a completely different person, too." She gave a minor grand gesture from her head to her hip.

"Let me guess. Emo girl? Mean girl?"

Ellie gave a silent sigh, before lazily waving a hand. "The latter."

I kept my eyes from going round but my tone said it all. "Really?"

Ellie only nodded. Defeated. A little ashamed. Not all that pleased to be talking about this. But this was Ellie, opening up, to me. Who else was there who could say the same?

"It started out the way it usually does." And that was when her eyes went elsewhere with a light shine to them. So it would seem, happy memories. "High school crush. Me being one of the hottest girls in the school, and Benny being one of the hottest guys. It was as my old crew used to say, a match made in heaven. There were four of us and four of them."

I tried not to make a face at that. The very thought of someone else who wasn't all that great of a person with eyes for Mason, just didn't sit well with me.

"Don't give that look. It wasn't my idea. It was Chelsea's."

"Yeah but . . . "

"Let me finish?"

"Okay."

"So as I was saying, I kind of always had my eyes on Benny since high school first started." Aww. "But I didn't have the guts to do anything about it, and neither did he it seemed. Until last year."

"Wow, so it actually took you two years for one of you to make a move?"

Ellie gave me a hard look. Not a quite a glare, but enough to get me to shut up so she could continue.

"But yeah, it was me who made the first move."

"You go, girlfriend!"

"Shut. Up."

Whoops, but it wasn't like I could help myself. I couldn't say I heard of the girl making the first move very often. Most of the girls I've seen here, and even at my old school, were an annoyingly immature group who made themselves appear weak just so the boy would ask them out.

"And that's when Chelsea got an idea in her head. She was about a year older than me, by the way. Well actually they all were. I was the youngest. Being a part of their little group was actually a big deal back then." Though she didn't look all that pleased by this. "Even to this day, I don't know what she saw in me, or why she accepted me into their group."

"That must have been . . . "

"When will you ever learn?"

"What? I like asking questions. If you haven't noticed, every time I'm left out of the loop, bad things seem to keep happening."

"Hmm. Good point."

"Yeah. Wait! Did you just agree with me? Is that like a record or something? Did Ellie Johansson just agree with me? Should I announce this to the whole room so I know I'm not crazy?"

"Don't make a big deal out of it. Now can we please move this along? I think there's a slice of cheesecake in it for you after I'm done."

"Now we're talking, sistah!"

"I'm not your sister."

"You're like my soul sister."

"Eeeeeeeeeeeew. No."