You're My Addiction

Ellie sat there and smiled as she watched everyone going crazy. She was on the couch by herself, slowly sipping her drink. The last couple of times she had drank too much alcohol, the result hadn’t been good, and so this time she was making sure to be extra careful. She had been distant from everyone lately, so she didn’t mind sitting back and observing everything that was going on. To be honest, she was having more fun this way anyway.

She watched as Zacky finished singing to Val obnoxiously off key, and smiled to herself. She had been thinking about the decision she was going to have to make sooner or later everyday for almost a week so far. Each day, it got harder, not easier.

“Ellie!” Zacky called out to her from across the room. He was ridiculously drunk at the moment, if you couldn’t tell already. “Ellie! It’s twelve, which means it’s your birthday! And that also means it’s only two days until your freedom as a bachelor is over forever, Matt!”

Ellie knew Matt was somewhere, passed out already. This week, it seemed that with everyday that went by, her brother got more and more nervous about his upcoming wedding. Tonight, he had taken full advantage of the fact that alcohol could calm his nerves. Actually, at that moment, he probably wasn’t feeling much of anything.

Instead of Matt and Val having their own bachelor and bachelorette parties, they decided to have one big joint party, which so happened to also fall on the day that Ellie turned twenty three. Matt actually liked the idea, claiming he had seen enough strippers to last him a life time.

At first, Ellie had thought that meant throwing some kind of destructive party at their house, but they had a completely different idea in mind. In addition to the house he currently owned, Matt had also bought a cabin up north, in the mountains. She didn’t know why he never had mentioned it before, but Ellie was glad that he finally had. The scenery was gorgeous up here, the weather was cooler, and his house was amazing.

Ellie had arrived home from work just that afternoon, only to be abducted by Zacky and Matt. They told her she had no way to escape going away with them, and they were going to force her to celebrate her birthday in style. Well, it was more like she was celebrating in drunken style, even though she was only feeling the slightest buzz at the moment.

They were right, though, she probably would have tried to get out of it, but they made sure she had no excuses. Matt had requested she ask off from work from the Thursday before his wedding to the day after, which was Sunday. She had put in the request months ago, and had gotten it approved, so Ellie had no excuse to stay home and avoid all drunken mistakes.

So, in the three hour car ride with Zacky and Brian, Ellie had decided her best bet was to consume as little alcohol as possible while around Brian. It was hard when almost everyone was too gone to even stand up, and numerous people were passed out in awkward places. But, on the bright side, Ellie was sitting by herself, basically sober, and she hadn’t even come close to doing anything that would be considered a mistake with Brian. Actually, she hadn’t even talked to him since they got here.

Ellie watched as Zacky stumbled his way over to her, and she had to laugh just a little bit at her best friend. Sure, she also considered Sara to be one of her best friends, but Zacky was so much different. She had known him since she was a little girl. She realized that leaving California would mean leaving Zacky again, and it made her sad.

She stood up from the couch and went over to give Zacky a big hug. He stumbled a little bit when she wrapped her arms around him, but then he sloppily hugged her back. He smelled overwhelmingly like alcohol.

“You’re my best friend, Zack,” she said into his shoulder. Of course, she was less than two minutes into her birthday already, and she felt like she was going to cry. “Never forget that.”

“I know, Ellie,” Zacky said. He sounded a little confused at the tone of her voice. “Don’t be sad though, it’s your birthday! Don’t let everything that happened in the past get you upset. He’s been my friend for as long as you have, but he’s not worth it. No guy is good enough to waste that much time on.”

She knew he was only rambling because there was no filter over what he said at the moment, but his words hit home for her. They only made everything so much worse. Zacky smiled at her for a second, but then was distracted by someone else who called his name.

Ellie was left standing by herself now, and she was no longer in the mood to be down here surrounded by all of these intoxicated people. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts, which, she realized, was probably going to make her feel worse than she already was.

She slipped away from all the noise and went upstairs to the room where Matt put all of her stuff. She sat down at the edge of the bed and sighed as she took a sip from the beer she was still holding.

It was her birthday, and of course she had to think about the unbearable decision she was supposed to make sometime soon. Seeing Zacky and everyone so happy just made her so sad. She didn’t want to leave them again. Both he and her brother meant so much to her, and she would miss seeing them every day. She would miss the pranks they played on her, and the way they could eat everything in the refrigerator in just one day.

She would miss Brian. She would miss the way her stomach still tied in knots when he looked at her, even after seven years. She would miss just everything about him, and almost every part of her wanted her to stay in California.

There was just one problem, though: she didn’t know whether she could survive another heartbreak caused by Brian again. She had barely even got over this one, and she knew she couldn’t go through this again. Ellie didn’t know if there was any way to trust Brian because there was no way to know if he would hurt her again, even if he said he wouldn’t. She wouldn’t put herself through that again.

Ellie ran her free hand over her face in frustration because she realized nothing could ever be easy.

She heard the door open, so she dropped her hand into her lap to see who it was. Of course, it was the one person who could only make this process more difficult. He smiled tentatively at her as he stepped in the room.

If it was someone else, maybe she could have asked them for theoretical help on her current situation, but she couldn’t ask him.

“Hey, Brian,” Ellie said with a small smile. She quickly downed the rest of her beer to help her get through a conversation with him without crying.

“Hey, I was looking all over for you downstairs,” he said with a look of concern. Ellie realized he was sober, too. They must have been the only two people. “I wanted to say happy birthday to you, and I figured you would be in the exact same state as Zacky, but I guess I was wrong. What are you doing up here all by yourself?”

“Thanks,” she replied. There it was, that feeling in her stomach. It came this time over something as little as him being concerned about her. “And I don’t know, I just felt like being alone, you know? There’s been a lot on my mind lately. And you asked me, so I think I’m going to ask you the same question. What are you doing up here, sober?”

He laughed and then shrugged. “Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked. She shook her head no and then moved over so he would have room to sit next to her. “There’s been a lot on my mind lately, too. When your mind doesn’t want to stop thinking about something, it kind of takes the fun out of drinking.”

“Oh, don’t I know about that,” Ellie replied with a laugh. She turned her head so she could look at Brian. “So what’s been on your mind, then? I never thought that your mind worked that hard all of the time.”

“Hey!” he said, pretending to be offended. “I like to think about things all of the time!”

“So, what are you thinking about that is keeping you from having fun with everyone?”

“Nothing in particular,” he lied. He couldn’t stop thinking about his fight with Zacky and seeing Ellie with that guy she went to college with.

“I see,” she said, picking up instantly the fact that Brian wasn’t telling her the full truth. They sat there in silence for what seemed like forever. Their whole history was hanging in the air between them. The regret of leaving each other, the way they had missed each other while they were apart, and the feelings they still had for each other.

“That guy the other night, you dated him in college, didn’t you?” Brian asked. The way Ellie sighed let him know he had been right about his assumptions all along. He watched her look down at her hands, and he wondered if she was even going to answer his question.

“You dated Michelle while I was in college, didn’t you?” she asked, half mocking him and half accusing him. She knew what she said back wasn’t fair. She owed him the truth a little bit since she had learned about Michelle long before she had ever met her.

“I didn’t mean it like that-“

“No, I know. I’m sorry,” Ellie replied softly. She felt her tears that she had wanted to cry before get lodged in her throat, and she didn’t know if she could get the words out. “Yes, I did date Chris in college. For a little over a year, in fact.”

“What happened?” Brian asked curiously.

“I ended it with him a little bit before coming back here,” she said. “It felt terrible doing it, but it wasn’t fair to him to stay in the relationship. I wanted him to find someone else, but I guess what I wanted didn’t help. He just made me feel that much more guilty when I saw him last weekend.”

“Did you end things with him to move back?” Brian asked again. He was asking so many questions, but he just had to know how deep her feelings for this guy ran. He wanted to know who she cared about more. Granted, Brian was lucky Ellie still talked to him at all after everything he put her through, so he didn’t want to seem like he was expecting too much.

“No, that’s not the reason,” she said with a sad sigh. Ellie knew that this was it, and that it was going to be the end of all of her secrets. She wanted to keep them longer, but there was no way to get out of this conversation without him knowing, whether she ended it now or told him everything. He was about to find out just how strong her feelings for him still were after all these years. “I ended things with Chris because even after a year, I still hadn’t fallen in love with him.”

Brian looked at Ellie’s face and he saw all of her emotions written right across it. She was bearing her soul to him, and everything that she felt was so strong it overshadowed the ever present pain that had been plastered to her face since she had come back.

Brian wanted to ask her why she hadn’t fallen in love with Chris, but he knew she was about to tell him in some way. He just had to give her a few moments, but it was so hard to wait when he knew everything he wanted to hear was right on the tip of her tongue.

Ellie looked him in the eyes, the way she had so many times before, and searched for an answer. She looked there, wanting to know if she should say it or not, but she found nothing. He was waiting for her to make her own decision.

She realized she always looked to the wrong places for her answers. The right one was always screaming out to her, but she always chose to ignore it because it was always the voice that dangled her closest to the edge of heartbreak. She knew she had to listen to her heart at that moment. In a few hours, she could go back to ignoring it again, but she had no choice but to give in this time.

“I couldn’t bring myself to love him because he wasn’t you.”

That was all Brian needed to hear to know where her true feelings stood. He could tell she wanted to cry, but he wasn’t going to let it happen. He had been the cause of her tears for so long, and he didn’t want to be anymore. He was going to show her that he wasn’t like that anymore.

Brian took Ellie’s face in his hands and he looked into her eyes again, and there was that brief second of tension and anticipation. He was making his intentions known this time, and she wasn’t refusing them.

Slowly, at first, his lips touched hers, and it was a very different kiss than the last time. It was slow and sweet, and the same shyness Ellie always had was still there. It was something new again for them, yet, at the same time, it was something so familiar and irreplaceable.

Ellie wanted to cry because everything felt so right and so wonderful. She had been holding back for so long that it felt so good to give herself complete freedom once again. She brought her free hand up to the side of his face and she realized she never wanted this to stop, and that’s what scared her.

She had the answer to her problem right there, in that very kiss, yet her mind still wouldn’t allow her to give in completely to her desire. So, with everything she possessed, every ounce of strength she had in her body, she stopped kissing him back and removed her lips from his just enough so that she could just feel them brushing against hers.

“Brian, we can’t do this to ourselves again,” she pleaded, barely making a sound. All of her heartache was present in her voice as she spoke.

“Stop worrying about what you should and shouldn’t do,” Brian replied. He had let her run away so many times before, but he wasn’t going to allow it this time. “Don’t think about what’s right and what’s wrong; think about what you want to do.”

Ellie backed away from Brian quickly and stared at him, so confused because every part of her body was yelling out something different to her.

He thought that what he said had actually pushed her away rather than making her stay. He thought that while she sat there, looking liked a lost child. Brian watched as she calmly placed the empty bottle she had been holding onto the floor, but at the next moment she moved so fast that he barely had time to register in his mind what was really happening.

She threw herself at him, forcing him onto his back, and she roughly tried to pull his shirt over his head. She let out a frustrated noise when he took too long to help her, but the noise Ellie made was the only thing he required to make his mind catch up with hers. Needless to say, he quickly got rid of his shirt.

Brian pushed himself up so he wasn’t lying on his back any longer, and he ran his hands over her back and up into her hair, where they got lost. This was the first time in years they were interacting without restraining themselves, and it shouldn’t have surprised anyone to know that they had been holding a lot back emotions. When something that strong finally broke free, it was as strong and as powerful as an explosion.

Brian unzipped the purple hoodie she was wearing and removed it so roughly that Ellie worried for a second that he had ripped it. She quickly forgot about that, though, as he quickly changed their position so she was on the bottom and he was on the top.

Ellie had never wanted something so much in her life, and, in her opinion, Brian was moving way too slow. While he did whatever he was doing, which included paying a lot of attention to her neck and collarbone, Ellie tried to get rid of Brian’s belt. But, he always did have to find and wear the most complicated and confusing things.

He stopped and looked at her, a worried expression on his face. “Are you sure you-“

“I’m not eighteen anymore, you don’t have to ask me if I’m ready to do this,” Ellie said with a large amount of exasperation. She was so frustrated he had stopped, but to her advantage, Brian wanted her just as bad as she wanted him, so it took him less than a second to get right back on track again.

Her skin felt like it was on fire, and her mind was going crazy because she couldn’t get enough of Brian. She was starting to lose control over everything, and her body just started to do everything on its own. Her soul was telling her this was how it was supposed to be, and that this was the person who completed her. She was giving herself to Brian for the moment, and that meant she got her heart back in return. It felt so wonderfully weird to have the hole where her heart had been missing for so long to be filled again.

Brian pushed her shirt up over her head, and what felt like electricity ran up and down her body as his hands and lips traced over her bare abdomen. She lost her shirt for good, and as his body weight descended on her own, their first skin on skin contact felt better than anything she could ever describe.

Ellie gripped onto his back with her fingers as hard as she could, feeling as if they could never be close enough, and the way he was touching her just sent her further into a state of intoxication.

No one could ever compare to the feel, the touch, or the smell of him.

Somehow, Ellie managed to work Brian’s belt, and once that was done, Ellie sealed her own fate for what was about to come. She didn’t know how she was ever going to be able to let him go after this.

A bright light shone onto Matt’s face, and he wondered who would be rude enough to turn the lights on in a room where someone was sleeping. His senses slowly seeped back into his body, and he realized he was, in fact, not in a bed, but on a cold tile floor. His whole body ached from the position he had been sleeping in.

He opened his eyes, only to close them again a fraction of a second later due to a shooting pain in his head. He realized the light was actually sunlight beaming in through one of the windows in the house.

He tried opening his eyes again, but only managed a slight squint. He had to bring his hand up to shield his eyes in order to function. Matt slowly raised his body off of the floor, wincing in pain. He realized he must have over done it way too fast because he barely remembered anything that happened night before.

Matt risked opening his eyes to see what everything looked like around him, and he saw that all of downstairs was completely trashed with empty bottles of beer and liquor and other garbage. He also noticed that many people were passed out all over the place, just as he had been. He smiled and shook his head, thinking that even though they were getting older, they still knew how to party.

His brain felt like it wanted to explode, and he knew that he was going to have one hell of a hangover for the rest of the day. He knew he had to get Tylenol, Advil, or anything else that would relieve his headache as soon as possible.

Matt knew the person who most likely thought to bring anything of that sort was his sister, Ellie. He climbed up the stairs, ignoring his terribly achy body. He focused on the thought of a nice bed and a quiet, dark room as he made his way to the room he had put Ellie’s bags in when they arrived there.

When he first entered the room it was dark because the blinds were closed, so he couldn’t really see much. As his vision slowly made its way back into his eyes, the scene that unfolded before him was utterly dumbfounding

There was a girl lying on the bed on her stomach, clearly without clothes on, but the sheets on the bed covered most of her up. Next to the girl, Matt instantly recognized Brian’s messy head of hair. He was surprised that Brian had gotten with someone that night, but he thought maybe he and Michelle had fallen under the influence of alcohol.

Matt was just about to turn to leave the two of them alone when something alarming caught his attention. On the girl’s lower back was a tattoo. It was of a dandelion, and Matt couldn’t help but remember the day Ellie had shown him such a similar tattoo. He stared at it for a minute, still utterly confused, but realization started to flow into his brain, no matter how much he didn’t want to accept it.

The aches and pains of Matt’s hangover quickly faded as it was replaced with pure anger. Not caring how early it was in the morning, or how many drunken people were still passed out downstairs, Matt stomped over to the bed and put his face right in the sleeping one of Brian.

“You better wake up right now, motherfucker, and give me a good fucking reason of why I shouldn’t kill you!”