The knots in my stomach are gone and I don’t feel sick anymore. My head stops hurting and I feel warm inside.
I want to touch her so I do. I reach out and put my fingers in her hair. I like the feel of her hair. It’s soft and smells nice.
“I know this is hard for you, Flynn. I’m asking a lot of you but I love that you’re trying,” Ellie says and her voice is quiet. She puts her arms around me and I get that tingly feeling inside that I like.
It feels good when Ellie touches me. No one else.
Only Ellie.
“Leonard helped plan the trip. I didn’t have any trouble driving here,” I tell her. I want her to be proud of me like I’m proud of her.
“That’s great, Flynn.” She looks up at me and I stare at her. She’s so pretty. The prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.
And she’s my girlfriend. She loves me. She tells me all the time.
I smile because I’m happy.
“You’ll come back to Wellston one day,” I tell her because I hope she will. I want her to come home. I want her to live with me and be with me there with Murphy.
Her face looks strange and she’s not smiling anymore.
“Why can’t you come live with me somewhere? We could go anywhere. New York City. Chicago. We could find some small little town in Florida where it’s warm all the time and never snows,” she said, her words running together as she talks so fast it’s hard for me to keep up.
“But I live in Wellston. It’s where I work. I have a house there,” I tell her, not understanding why she hates it there so much.
It’s just a town.
That stuff doesn’t matter.
It has nothing to do with me. Or her.
Ellie doesn’t say anything else. But then she’s kissing me. And I like that.
I think only about Ellie and how much I like touching her.
I think she might be happy.
Chapter Sixteen
-Ellie-
I haven’t talked to Flynn in days.
He tried to speak to me during English class, but I ignored him. I’m being mean to him, and I don’t really know why. I hated being mean to him. I saw how upset he got when I wouldn’t turn around when he said my name.
I don’t know what’s changed for me, but I just know that I can’t be his friend anymore. It hurts too much to know I’ve done nothing to deserve his loyalty. His friendship. I allow my friends to tease him. To mock and ridicule him.
And I’m a coward.
I won’t stand up for him the way I should.
I tried to once.
Stu had stolen Flynn’s lunch, and had dumped the contents on the ground, picking through it.
“He eats the same shit every single day! Doesn’t he understand the importance of variety?” Stu complained, picking up the chicken salad sandwich.
I snatched it out of his hands and shoved it back in the brown paper bag. “Don’t eat that! It’s not yours!” I said, trying to look intimidating. But it was impossible to intimidate Stu Wooten. He didn’t care if you were a guy or a girl; if you pissed him off, he went for you. Guns blazing.
