I Understand Now (Ricky Dillon Fanfiction)

Chapter 27

"Hey," a girl in my class named Dani says, probably because I wasn't focusing on what she was saying. I look over at her.

"What?"

"Are you even listening to me?" Dani asks. "I said that we should probably make some sort of booklet. Does that sound good?" She's referring to a Geography assignment we have together.

"Yeah, that's fine," I reply, not really caring. Don't get me wrong, Dani's pretty, but she's nowhere near El-her. It's gotten to the point where I can't even say her name in my thoughts anymore. It causes too much pain.

"What are you thinking about?" Dani asks.

"Nothing," I lie. "I'm just tired." I attempt to smile at her, but it clearly doesn't work, because she rolls her eyes.

"Whatever," she scoffs. "Let's just get some work done, shall we?"

"Yeah, alright," I agree. I don't really want to do work, but anything to keep her off my mind is much appreciated right now.

Dani gets to work on planning out what the booklet we're making will look like, and she tells me some stuff to look up. I get as much work done as I can, given how distracted I am at the moment. I almost force myself not to keep my eyes shut for too long when I blink, because whenever I do, I see her.

An image of her stays in front of my eye for longer than the others, and I rub my eyes to get rid of the image. The last thing I need on top of all this crap is hallucinations. It takes me a moment to realise that it's not a hallucination at all. Ellie Waters is standing in front of me.

"Hi," she says, smiling like I've never seen her smile before. I almost forgot she's in my class. Dani looks up from her work.

"Who's this?" She asks rudely.

"This is Ellie," I answer before Ellie can. "She's my....friend." I glance over at Ellie, who gives me a very small nod as if to say that I said the right thing.

"And who might you be?" She asks Dani, who scoffs.

"I'm just his work partner," she replies. "What, you jealous?"

"No," Ellie says, looking at Dani in disgust. "Besides, I thought Ricky told you we were just friends."

"Yeah right," Dani sneers, but goes back to doing her work. I turn to Ellie again, and I could swear she's gotten even more beautiful since the day we ended. She opens her mouth to speak, but I stop her.

"I know that you're probably gonna say that you still love me," I begin, "or something like that. But I honestly don't think you have any reason to. What I did was so stupid, you can't deny that. I never should've hurt you the way I did, and I would say I'm sorry, but I know it's not enough. I don't want you to dwell on what happened-even if you aren't right now, I don't want you ever to. I want you to move on from me, and find someone else who treats you the way you deserve to be treated. You shouldn't come back to me. I'll only hurt you again."

"Wow," Ellie remarks. "I'm....I'm really proud of you for being able to admit that, Ricky. I never thought anyone ever would, but I guess I was wrong. I'm going to try and move on from you, but I hope we can still be friends. I want there to at least be something between us-I don't want to have to treat you like a stranger."

"You don't have to," I remind her. "Of course we can still be friends. I don't hold grudges." I attempt to smile at her, and she smiles back, filling me with relief.

...

There is a knock at my bedroom door while I'm doing homework.

"Ricky?"

"Come in," I tell my mum. She opens the door and steps through it.

"There's something I need to tell you," she begins. "I don't know how well you're going to take this, but we don't have any choice."

I frown. "Okay....what is it?"

Mum sighs. "My boss called me today."

"And?" She casts her eyes downwards.

"My boss from America..." She informs me. "Julie's going on long service leave, and....and my boss wants me back at the office in LA." My heart sinks.

"So we have to go back?" I presume. She nods sadly.

"I'm sorry, honey," she says. "I know you probably want to stay here because of Ellie." The mention of her name makes me flinch. For some reason, it still hurts, despite the conversation we had today. "But there's barely any work for me here anymore, and it would be great to be back in my old office."

"It's okay, I understand," I assure her. "Have you told Christina?"

"Yeah. She's upset, but I think she's coming to terms with it."

"Okay. Thanks for letting me know," I say. "I'll have to tell Ellie."

Ellie's POV.

I spoke to Ricky yesterday, and I think things are better between us now. I'm happy that he wants me to move on, but I wish he could do the same himself. It hurts me to see how upset he is over what happened. I want him to be happy, but it seems like he's only happy when he's with me. But we can't be together, as much as I wish we could be.

"So, what is it that's bothering you?" Amy, the school counsellor, asks me. My teacher noticed that I was acting a little differently, but I didn't really want to tell him about Ricky, so he recommended I see a counsellor about it.

I sigh. "A lot of things," I admit. "Have you ever had some sort of....relationship with someone, but you don't really know where you stand with them?" Surprisingly, Amy nods.

"Yeah, I have," she replies. "A good friend of mine betrayed me a while ago, and for a long time, I didn't know if we were still friends or not. It can be a really difficult situation, and you often don't know how to feel about it. Why? Has that happened to you?"

I nod. "There's this boy, Ricky, that's been my boyfriend for some time now. But there were some complications between us, and I decided we should take a break from each other. He talked to me yesterday, though, asking if we could still be friends and saying that he wanted me to move on."

"That does seem like a hard decision to make," Amy says. "I think there should still be something between you and Ricky, but he doesn't have to be your boyfriend again. I don't know the sorts of things that have happened in your relationship, so I think you need to talk to him about this. If he still wants to be something to you, then that's great. But don't make any decisions until you hear his opinions. There are two sides in a relationship-you have to make them equal."

"Ok. Thanks, Amy," I say and stand up from the chair I'm sitting in.

"Let me know if you need to see me again," she reminds me.

"I will," I reply and head out the door.

I look around for a bit after school until I find Ricky walking around the front of the school, seeming like he's looking for someone as well. Maybe me. When he sees me, he smiles and walks over to me.

"Hey, Ellie," he says. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Me too," I say. "You go first."

"Okay." Ricky sighs. "So....my mum's boss has work for her back in LA, and....I have to go back there."

Whoa. Out of all the things I expected him to say, this is not one of them. I am speechless for a moment before I find my voice again.

"Oh," I simply say. "When are you leaving?"

"This Saturday," Ricky replies. That's too soon, I think to myself.

"Okay," I tell him and smile. "I'll come to the airport with you."

"I'd love that," Ricky says, returning the smile. "See you tomorrow then."

"Bye." I wave to him as I walk away, thinking about how you never realise what you have until it's gone.