A Poetic Retelling of an Unfortunate Romance

Vince’s eyes widened when he saw Ella standing in front of his house, her lips attached to an unkempt youth that looked like someone out of a 1960’s documentary. None of the guys had ever seen her with someone. Fuck. None of them knew she was capable of having romantic feelings, to them she was just Ella an asexual being that made very crude sexual comments regarding booties every so often.

“Um, I think we should be heading out to practice,” spoke Vince awkwardly, hoping that his words would make them stop their kissing.

Ella grudgingly pulled away from James, his face moving forward to capture her lips again but she turned her face so that he got cheek instead of lip. “Hey Vince,” greeted Ella, “Have you met James?”

“No,” answered Vince, slowly stepping towards him, his eyes scanning James to deem whether or not he was worthy of his oldest friend.

James reluctantly removed his arms from Ella’s waist, knowing very well that she was going to want him to shake her friends hand and do the whole ‘oh pleasure to meet you’ bit that people always do when they meet someone that’s important to a loved one.

“Hey man I'm James nice to meet you,” spoke James, stretching his hand out for Vince to take.

Vince shot him an intimidating look while squeezing his hand in their shake, “So what are you to Ella?”

Of course he was going to ask that. Men always ask that question when they feel that their place is threatened. It’s the line that they use, the one that aims to make the other man look like a no good lowlife that’s not worth the girls time.

James puffed his chest out slightly, “I'm her boyfriend.”

“Her what?!” asked Vince in disbelief. “Ella you never told us you had a boyf . . .” he trailed off when he saw the bruising on her face, “What the fuck happened to your face? Did this douche do it to you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” spat Ella, shooting him a menacing glare. “This is the result of some fucking junkie mugging me yesterday when I was wandering.”

“Fuck,” muttered Vince, “Is that why you didn’t go to practice?”

“No shit, did you think I was going to go right after I got my ass beat? Fuck that. I had to relax a bit, but I'm good now and hopefully the coaches won’t be too pissed off about it.” Ella stepped away from James, “I think we’re going to be heading out already. I’ll talk to you later.”

James didn’t want her to go to practice after what she’d been through. “Don’t go. Your coaches will understand.”

“I have to go to practice, already missed one day and I don’t want to miss another.” Ella pecked his lips lightly. “Don’t do anything stupid while I'm gone.”

Questioning glances were thrown Ella’s way when she limped towards the field, her face covered in bruises that her brother had given her hours earlier. Everyone wondered what had happened, only one person knew and that was Coach Bull.

“Ella,” he whispered when she walked by him, grabbing her arm.

Her hands balled into fists at her side but her face didn’t betray her emotions, “Yes, sir?”

“Did he do this to you?” in reference to her brother.

Ella turned her face swiftly, narrowing her eyes at him, “What do you think?”

“This may not have been the right thing to do but he has a good reason for doing it, he’s saving, you’ll understand one day,” Coach Bull’s eyes softened.

Ella scoffed, freeing herself from his hold, “And how many more black eyes am I going to get until I understand? None of you are leading a righteous good life so fuck you. Fuck all of you, for thinking that you’re going to save me. I don’t need to be saved.”

“ACOSTA!” bellowed Coach John angrily from a few away.

She left her place beside Bull and turned to face the head coach, “Hello Sir, I'm sorry about not making it to practice yesterday.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he exclaimed when he saw the bruising. “What happened to your face?”

“I ran into a junkie that really needed a fix on my way to practice yesterday,” she lied. “He was quite an eager junkie.”

“Here I was thinking that you’d just ditched. How are you feeling? Do you think you can practice or do you just want to sit out for today and go home because you don’t look like you’re in a good condition to be practicing,” John may be a fierce coach but he always knew that his players health came first.

“Sitting out sounds damn good but I’d rather stay here and watch the plays so I'm not too lost when I can start practicing again,” answered Ella, not wanting to be at her house anymore than she had to be.

Coach John told her that that was fine before wandering off to scream at some freshmen that had tried to crash the junior varsity practice. The guys descended upon Ella like wolves, they asked her what had happened, what the junkie looked like so that they could beat the shit out of them.

Practice went by very quickly, but time always seems to go by faster when you’re dreading something. Her father soon pulled up to the parking lot, waiting for her and Vince with a strained look on his face, no trace of his loving smile visible.

It was evident to Ella that something was up when she saw Olivia along with her husband, Nicholas, sitting down on the couch beside her mother. Normally they don’t go over on weekdays, only on weekends when the traffic isn’t so horrible.

“Hey,” smiled Ella, happy that her sister was there but terrified at the same time.

Olivia left her place beside Nicholas. “Oh Ella,” she gushed as she held her younger sister in her arms, afraid of how she was going to take the news.

“Hi mom, hi Nick,” greeted Ella when Olivia let her go.

Margaret nodded curtly in her direction, not bothering to look her in the face, but Nicholas took her in a strong bear hug which made Ella’s eyes tear up because it reminded her of her brother’s embrace, an embrace that had grown cold overnight.

“Gabriella, sit down,” ordered Samuel when he walked in through the door.

She did as she was told and took a seat on the lazy boy, wincing from the pain that came from her derrière making contact with the couch. Her face moved towards her father when she was properly situated.

“Your father didn’t go to work today so we could sort out the mess you made,” began Margaret, her voice cold, void of any emotion. “Leo told us that this boys trouble, you’re enough to handle as it is without someone like him in your life so we’ve decided that you’re going to Sierra Vista High School from now on in Baldwin Park where your sister lives. Even though we shouldn’t care about your sports after your antics we somehow do and we learned that their hell week starts the first week of August and that’s when you’ll move in, weekends you’ll come back but don’t think that you’re going to have the freedom that you once had, you’ve lost our trust and you need to gain it back.”

If ever there was a time to scream out ‘you’re ruining my life,’ it was then but Ella didn’t bother raising her voice to her parents, because if they’d beaten her last night then they’d beat her for disrespecting them and she was in enough pain as it was.

“No more Venice,” muttered Ella.

Samuel solemnly nodded his head. “You’ll return to school here when you earn it.”

“When I renounce James you mean.” Ella clarified, staring at her calloused hands.

“Yes and the sooner you do it the sooner you’ll be able to get your privileges back,” answered Samuel.

Ella wanted to raise her gaze to meet her fathers but she was well aware that her father would feel attacked if she looked him in the eyes while saying what she was thinking, “Well then I'm going to be stuck in Baldwin Park for awhile.”

“Why are you throwing everything away for that boy?!” seethed Margaret, finally losing her temper. “He does drugs! He has no job! He’s no good for you!”

“I do drugs!” shouted Ella back. “Leo does drugs; dad does drugs so drugs aren’t the issue here! The issue is that all of you have this image of me being the baby and none of you want me to grow up and you’re going to these ridiculous lengths to keep me away from him but it’s not going to work because,” the tears that she’d been holding back finally escaped from her eyes while she whispered, “he’s Jim and I'm Pam.”

Samuel shook his head at his daughter. He knew of her love for The Doors, he had been the one that introduced her at a very young age. Hell, his reason for working so hard to get a house in Venice was due entirely to the fact that The Doors were from Venice so he knew of Jim and Pam, and he didn’t want that future for his daughter. “They didn’t have a happy ending.”

“Most people don’t have happy endings but what matters about them was that through everything they loved each other more than anything else in the world and that’s what we have. Go ahead and call me stupid and naïve, I probably am, but I'm not giving him up even if you beat me everyday until I turn 18.”

Ella scanned the room, waiting for someone to yell at her but when they didn’t she excused herself and limped up the stairs to her bedroom where she lay down on her side, muffling her angry screams into her pillow.

Venice was her home, it’s all she’s ever known and Vince and all the guys, have been her friends since they were in preschool. How the hell were her parents going to take her away from everything she’s ever known and stick her in fucking Baldwin Park?

It pissed her off, it really did but she wasn’t the type of teenager to waste her time screaming at them for ruining their life because that wasn’t going to change a damn thing. Her parents don’t give into tantrums; they’re not that kind of people.

Fuck, if you cry without a reason they’ll tell you that they’ll give you a reason to cry about. Do they actually go through with the threat? No, the threat alone makes the kids calm down because they’ve seen their aunts/uncles do it to their cousins.

“Ella, do you mind if I come in for a minute?” asked Olivia from the other side of the door.

Her tears were quickly wiped away on her comforter, “Yeah, come on in.”

Olivia’s heart sunk when she saw the state her sister was in, seeing Ella sad was just weird since she was always running around the house singing off tune, playing pranks, and giggling at the stupidest things possible.

“Sorry about them dumping me at your place,” apologized Ella. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience on you guys.”

“Honestly, you may be annoying sometimes but you’re no inconvenience. I want to ask you something though, do you really care about that James boy that much or are you just doing this because everyone’s telling you not to?”

Ella chuckled lightly. “This isn’t me being stubborn just for the hell of it. I really do like him, I don’t know why but I do. He’s just everything that I dreamt in my head and the fact that he’s real makes it so much better.”

“He doesn’t look like a Mr. Darcy or Captain Wentworth to me,” interrupted Olivia, knowing that those were the type of men that the younger Acosta dreamt of.

“Of course he’s not either of them, but he’s my wild love.” Ella’s eyes lit up when she started talking about him, “He’s my classic rocker and he treats me really well. I know that mom and dad have been poisoned by Leo to think that James is a fucking douche but he’s not. He might be rough around the edges but he really does care about me and when he sings, oh god when he sings, it’s like I'm the only one in the world.”

Olivia was taken aback by her sister’s words, never before had she seen Ella so passionate about a boy. “I never thought I’d head you talk that way about someone but apparently I was wrong. I don’t know this James character but I want to meet him so I can decide for myself whether or not he’s good enough for you.”

“Do you mean that?” asked Ella, her lips tugging at the corners to turn into a smile.

Olivia nodded her head. “Yes, if he’s worth you getting beat then I want to meet him plus I'm really curious to see the guy that Leo hates so much, don’t worry though I don’t think that James is really all that bad, I think that our brother is just a jealous little boy that’s afraid of losing you.”

“He’s not going to lose me though, none of you are.”

“I know that, but you’re his little sister. He took so much pride in helping mom with you when you were little that I think he feels like you’re his daughter in a way,” Olivia grab hold of Ella’s hand, “Just promise me one thing, you won’t aim to be like Jim and Pam if anything be Marianne and Willoughby, without his leaving of course.”

“I’ll try, maybe he could be Willoughby, they both do have a certain air about them.” Ella bit her lip nervously, “What does Nick think about my living with you guys? What does he think about this fucking mess?”

“I think that they’re overacting,” spoke Nicholas as he walked into the room, shutting the door behind him. He ruffled Ella’s hair playfully, “I'm not one for stereotypes but you play football and wrestle this kind of stuff is expected, the only reason they’re freaking out is because you’re a girl and that’s lame. And don’t worry about living with us, you’re like a sister to me so things will be good, just wander somewhere to smoke. We don’t live in a 420 friendly neighborhood.”

“Don’t worry I wasn’t going to smoke in your house, that’s just rude,” responded Ella, “I’ll find a place to smoke discreetly and chase away my Baldwin Park blues.”

Nicholas let out a booming laugh. “Don’t be so overdramatic, the first In-n-Out ever is walking distance from our place.”

At least she’d have an In-n-Out close by to stuff her place with, but so far that was only good thing about the move to Baldwin Park, everything else was just a downer.