Eternal | Paul Lahote

four

I made this chapter longer because I most likely won't update again for a while.

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Ella was struggling to pay attention in her last class of the day, replaying her interaction with Paul that occurred a few hours earlier. She couldn't help but feel a ping of annoyance with Embry, and how he had pulled her away from him.

"What is your deal?" She had asked him and pulled her arm away. "Stay away from him," Embry sternly stated. "Why?" She questioned, quickly glancing behind her only to see that Paul had completely disappeared.

"Do you need to know why? It's Paul." He stated in the same stern tone as before.

Embry was right. She knew exactly what he meant without needing any clarification. It was Paul Lahote. It only made sense that she kept her distance from someone like him. They had two very different personalities, she couldn't think of anything they had in common.

She had heard rumors about him since she first entered high school. She still remembers how Dawn Foster burst into the girl's locker room her Freshman year of high school boasting about how she snuck out the night before and kissed Paul Lahote. Then there was Samantha Hawk who went to the eighth-grade dance with Paul and kissed him in front of everyone, she's been obsessed with him since.

And here was Ella at eighteen years old in her senior year not having even experienced her first kiss. Well.. technically that's a lie. She had let a boy kiss her when she was thirteen but that was during truth or dare at a birthday party and Ella didn't want to but she gave in to the pressure when everyone was cheering them on. It was just a peck in front of a bunch of excited and hormonal pre-teens, she had yet to experience a real kiss.

"Just try to stay away from him, unless you want to be just another name on the list." Embry joked, nudging her upper arm with his elbow and letting out a laugh. She looked at him in disgust, "Can you shut the fuck up!" She groaned, turning away from him.

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"When are you coming over?" Ella saw the text from Quil flash across her phone screen.

"In about 15." She texted back

She had spent the better part of her Friday night and Saturday morning thinking about Paul and with each thought that passed she hated herself more and more. She couldn't understand why he kept crossing her mind. She had never cared for him before and now all of a sudden he was all she could think about. His warm dark eyes and charming smile would flash before her eyes at the most random times. She struggled to fall asleep the night before because every time she closed her eyes she pictured the veins that pulsed through his forearm as he opened the school door for her. This would make her shake her head and dig her face deeper into her pillow out of frustration. If Embry and Quil had found out about this she'd never hear the end of it.

She looked in her bathroom mirror, left her hair in its natural state, and applied light makeup. She wore the only clean pair of jeans she had left and the tube top she only wore on going out nights, like a party for Quils birthday. She had the jacket she planned to wear over it already laid out on her bed along with her everyday sneakers waiting by the front door.

Ella wasn't particularly excited for tonight, normally the group of friends would spend their birthdays just with each other. But now Quil and Embry had a new group of friends to celebrate with and it would no longer just be the four of them, especially with Jake gone. She looked down at her phone again forgetting Jake had sent her a text earlier telling her to take a shot for him at Quils birthday party. She wasn't sure why but she got the urge to call him, wondering if he'd pick up, and to her surprise he had.