Elise
Did I return that pink glittery wallet? Yeah, I did. Hayden didn’t let the matter drop, and I saw an awful lot of him over the months after I joined the boring book club his mom had forced him in.
I had copped a lot of dirty looks from school, especially when Aston came to spend every other weekend with me, but we didn’t care what anyone thought. Michelle and the other bitches kept their distance. It’s funny what happens when you fight back. Nobody wants to mess with a difficult target.
Mom was still switched off, and she didn’t show much affection, but she handled our relationship easily. As long as we still came to see her, that was all that mattered. Plus, she was less lonely now that Adrian was really on the scene. They were taking it slow. Like, painfully slow. I warned him he might have to wait years for Mom to make that leap, but he loved her, and he told me he’d wait however long it took. I knew Dad would have approved. I don’t think he’d have found better hands to put her in.
Deck switched schools, but his reputation was tarnished and it gave his family a bad name. I still saw him around town, but he kept a good distance from me. He was fighting his intent to rape charge, and I’d probably have to come back down to testify, but it turned out I wasn’t the only girl who had something to say about his forcefulness. There were two other girls that came forward, determined to put him away. He had very little chance at winning, and I hoped by the end of it his life would be forever marred with a criminal charge. I heard it was hard to find a respectable job with one of those…
Everything was taken care of before I left. I touched base with Cindy and told her to take over my homeless musings with Ray the pigeon and bird feeder. She vehemently refused to do it. I slapped some sense into her. It took days of nagging before she finally agreed, but only once a month, which was better than nothing.
I finished out the year with decent grades. I applied for colleges. I figured I’d attend a few classes just to pass the time before I really found something I was happy to do. If the dancing worked out then great, but if it didn’t…well, there were a million other things in life I could try.
This whole bullshit of choosing your path at eighteen was absolutely ridiculous. What was the goddamn rush? I was still trying to figure out who I was, let alone my forever job. Maybe it was one thing, maybe a dozen others. Life was a journey, and so long as Aston was by my side, I was willing to venture into the unknown with both feet in.
I battled a lot of depression. Nothing was easy and there was truly no happily ever after with a cherry on top, but Aston made a difference. He gave me support and a shoulder to lean on. He made the tough days bearable, and I hated that he had to cop those emotional shifts in me, but he proved time and time again that he was staying by my side, no matter what.
There was something beautiful in that kind of love. I wanted us to work. I wanted to prove Dad wrong and say, “Yeah, you were right to worry, you were right to express those fears, but look, Dad. Look how hard we’re working to be together. I can do this. I know what I want, and it’s him.”
It was nerve-wracking leaving home, and god, the new apartment we leased was small when I walked in with Tuck pressed to my chest. Aston seemed proud to show off the empty space, opening up the curtains to every room, letting the natural light inside so I could see the monstrosity in all its horrible glory.
“We have a lot of work to do,” I told him, frowning at the derelict walls.
“You can turn this into a home,” he replied, squeezing my ass as he stopped to stand next to me.
“It’s bearable as long as we have each other, I guess.”
“Don’t sound so excited.”
“I am.”
He wrapped his arms around me, and kissed my neck. “One day I’m going to buy you a castle. I’m going to make you my queen and fuck you on every marble surface of our abode.”
I cringed. “You know, for a second there, I thought you were on to something.”
“You’ll be on to something hard in a minute.”
I laughed as he removed Tuck from my hands and set him on the floor. Then he picked me up and I wrapped my legs around him as he placed me on the tiny kitchen counter five feet away. Yeah, it was seriously five feet away. Our place was a shoebox, but it was the first building block to our empire.
Aston kissed me, running his hands up my short shorts and around the curve of my ass. “We’re going to make it,” he told me. “It’s going to be hard. I’ll probably shut down when I’m locked inside my head, but you’ll bring me back again. I know it.”
I nodded, kissing him lightly on the mouth. “And I might freak out and scream at you. I might lose my shit and act like a baby who’s starved of attention, but you’ll bring me back again too, right?”
He looked at me with his disarming green eyes and nodded solemnly. “I’ll do anything for you, Elise. I promise.”
We kissed me and he slipped my shorts down my legs. I complained about Tuck bearing witness to our sinful ways, so Aston picked me up and took me to the bedroom.
The first leg of our journey was done.
The end