I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Twenty

Ellie

I knew later, I'd be staring into the eyes of a massive hangover, but for now I was just drunk. Drunk and disorderly, knowing nearly everything off the bathroom counter as I tried to regain my sobriety. I glared at myself in the mirror and frowned.

My lip was finally starting to become less noticeable, and the bruises on my arms were yellow, the sign of nearly becoming normal skin again. I ran my fingers over them, still tracing the outlines of them, the shape of Barns' fingers looking back at me. My ribs were another story, still aching and pulling when I twisted the wrong way or took too deep of a breath.

Barns vanished after I was settled in my room, but his bag proved to me he'd be back, and he'd likely be sharing with me. He hadn't spoken to me much since Van brought me back.

Van. His name danced through my mind too freely, and his ice blue eyes stuck with me long after his gaze left. I hated him for Red, hated him for calling me out, for knowing everything I've never told anyone, but admired him for his goodness. I questioned everything Barns told me of him. I questioned all the volatile things he said.

I knew I shouldn't. I knew I should put it to bed. I was too complicated to complicate things more with thoughts about Van. But I felt safe with him today, safe as he helped me down the street and back to the bus. Safe as sat across from me and watched me eat. His words replayed in my mind, now a memory I'd cling to when I needed peace.

Please don't hate me.

Not a chance.

I washed my face and returned to the bedroom to sleep off whatever was left of my drunken state. It didn't take long for sleep to claim me. It didn't take long for me to give in to it.

I woke to the sound of a guitar. I wanted it to be someone other than it was, but I knew who I'd find sitting at the edge of the bed practicing acoustic style.

Barns smiled when he caught me looking at him, but it was a forced smile. There was nothing genuine in the way he looked at me. He had something on his mind, something that was eating him.

"What time is it?" I groaned.

"Four." He played out the last chords of Little Boy and sat the guitar on the floor, moving closer to where I was laying. I froze. We hadn't been this close in days.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Ellie." His voice was soft and reassuring.

But he had. He did. I stayed rigid, the pressing punch of a headache settling in between my eyes and claiming my back as well. I swallowed the lump in my throat as he curled himself around me, mimicking the way was I lying. I didn't move, I didn't breathe.

"It's okay, babe. Relax"

I tried to, I wanted to, but I was afraid to. Afraid to fall back into the comfort of his empty promises. Afraid to take back everything Van and I talked about this morning. But it was my history, it was everything I've been for so long. Our conversation bled into the space between Barns and I. 

"It's all I've known."

"Well then learn more. Take a look around. Figure it out. You're broken but you're not dead."

I blinked at the words from earlier, fighting back the urge to cry. Barns shifted behind me and brought me back to now, to the distance that was evident as we tried to maneuver whatever road we were in.

"You know I love you, right Ellie?" His words cut through the tension I the room.

I nodded my response, too scared to try and speak in the moment. I felt his breath against the back of my neck, but it didn't comfort me. It should have but it didn't. This wasn't home. It used to be. It used to be my favorite place in the world. We'd lounge in a bed until two in the afternoon, Barns playing guitar and laughing at the lateness in the day. It used to be paradise. It used to be a lot of things. Now it was painful, forced.

"Please give me another chance."

He was trembling. I could feel him shake behind me, I could hear the nerves in his voice.

I turned to face him. "I never stopped giving you chances."

He brought his hands to my collarbone, and with his index finger, lightly traced the skin stretched over them. I stopped breathing.

"You won't even look at me." He was whispering, whispering and shaking. He reminded me of the boy I fell in love with. The one with the big dreams, and the high hopes. The one who was kind, unsure of himself in some regard even.

"You hurt me. What did you expect?"

His face fell deeper into despair. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I'll spend my entire life making it up to you. My entire life proving to you that I won't do it again. I won't hurt you."

My eyes focused on his face and I sighed. "Do you think...do you think things would have been different if-"

"I don't want to talk about it, Ellie." A warning in his tone. He knew where I was going, what depth of the past I was choosing to dig up.

"That's the thing Barns. We've never talked about it. We just lived through it, and let it live through us. For me...it became emptiness, for you it became...darker."

"I needed to cope." His words were monotone, but he was still shaking. "I needed to cope and I didn't know how to do it."

"You needed to cope and I needed you."

Barns rested his hands on either side of my jaw. "Please don't do this right now. I can't. I can't talk about this, I don't know if I'll ever be able to." His voice cracked and tears lined the edges of his eyes. He sucked in a sharp breath and something inside of me cracked. The walls; the walls around me crashed for a moment, into pieces all around me, all dust and rubble.

"I've spent the last year and a half hating myself everyday, hating everything that happened. I've tried to fill voids in ways I never should have. But none of it matters, nothing in my world matters if you're not in it." Tears were falling down his face, cascading against the plane of his cheeks. Instinctively, I wiped them away with shaking fingers.

Barns leaned into me and pressed his lips against mine, softly at first before intensifying. He avoided the cut and the puffy areas that lingered, but he didn't stop kissing me.

I didn't stop him either. Even though it felt like shrapnel, even though it tore through me and went against everything that was right or calm, I didn't stop him. I let him talk me into the one thing I did effortlessly and without question; love. It was something I gave out, something I did easily.

Old habits die hard.

*I realize that this may frustrate some of you. It frustrates me, too. But I wanted to write Ellie accurately, and unfortunately this is accurate for many people. The next few chapters are all mainly Van's perspective, so they'll be a bit of a break from Ellie's POV for a while.*