The Perfect Words Never Crossed My Mind

She looked around and didn’t see Sidney anywhere before she pushed open the door.

‘He did tell me that I could look around, so hopefully he won’t mind me in here,’ she thought to herself.

Before she could help herself, she melted. The whining had belonged to an adorable Australian Shepard puppy, she opened the cage and the puppy ran around her in a circle, wagging its tail. She shushed it and picked it up, it started to lick her face and she giggled. She scratched behind the puppy’s ear and kissed its head.

“I see you’ve found Daisy,” Elle turned around and saw Sidney leaning against the door. He moved closer to her and scratched Daisy’s ear, just as Elle had done earlier.

“I’m sorry, I just couldn’t help it. She’s so cute!”

“It’s not a problem, I had a feeling you would find her, I just adopted her from a friend whose dog had puppies. Seems like she likes you more than me, I don’t think she’s ever been this hyper around me.”

“Well you know me, I love dogs. You know, I actually had half a mind of becoming a vet instead of a designer?”

Sidney’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, “Really? I didn’t know that. You never told me any of these things. But then again, there were a lot of things you never told me. Dinner is ready,” he left the room.

Elle immediately felt guilty. She looked back down at Daisy and kissed her head. She felt bad when she heard the whine when she placed her back in the cage. She walked out and found Sidney, who was moving things from the kitchen onto the table.

She felt even more nervous, “Do you need any help?”

He shook his head and finished bringing the last thing in. He looked at her and sighed, “Look Ellie, I’m sorry-“

“No, Sid. I’m sorry, we dated for those two years and I didn’t tell you any of those things. I feel so guilty that I hid things from you.”

“But why? I honestly thought we told each other everything. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Well at the time, I felt like it was all about you and your hockey career. We never really spoke about what I wanted to do. So, I didn’t. It was always a one-sided conversation when it came to talking about our futures,” by the end of it, she had slight tears in her eyes, but she brushed them back and made sure she wouldn’t give in like every other time.

Elle read the look in his eyes, he was upset, “Ellie, I never, ever meant to make you feel like that. I was just a dumb boy. I never meant for everything to be all about me. I mean, I knew you wanted to be a designer, but I didn’t know any of that-”

She wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault, but he still looked like he had more to say, so she didn’t want to interrupt him a second time and let him continue.

“I mean if I had my head out of my ass, I would have realized that you had dreams too and we could have made everything work, I would still have you. Ellie, please believe me when I say that I would have made everything work while you were at school. I would have done everything that I could to make us work. I loved you, Ellie, that’s the least I would have done.”

Loved, that’s all Elle could take from the speech was that he didn’t love her anymore. He loved her, past tense. She thought about it, she decided it would be better to have him in her life as friends than nothing at all.

She gave him a shaky smile and nodded, “I’m sorry about everything Sid, can we be friends? We can eat and we’ll catch up, as we planned? That sound alright?”

His breath caught in his throat and felt his heart crack a little. All she wanted was to be friends? After everything he had said? He decided that if the only way she would stay in his life was to be friends then he would be the best friend she had ever had.

“That sounds great, Ellie, let’s eat.”

The next hour was spent with telling the other what had gone on in their lives for the past four years. Sidney was amazed, how she had worked so hard in London to be successful and dropped it all to move to Pittsburgh to help Amanda. Even though she had told him that Liz had basically forced her to come, he knew she would have done it because she would always come running to someone in need.

While Elle amazed Sidney, he amazed her as well. Climbing the ladder to become what he was today, a captain of a NHL team. Not only that, but for them to have won the Stanley Cup, she was unbelievably proud of him.

After they finished cleaning up, they let Daisy out of her cage and played with her. Every time Elle giggled when Daisy would lick her face, Sidney would laugh too. Only because he loved how cute Elle looked when she scrunched her nose when she giggled. They then decided to watch a movie.

It was safe to say it was sufficiently awkward for them to sit on a couch together and not cuddle. She held onto Daisy as the puppy started to nap on Elle’s lap and Sidney sitting next to her and not being able hold her or put his arm around her, just about tortured him, but he told her he would be friends and he wasn’t going to push that.

After the movie ended, he walked her out to the car and they hugged each other goodbye and planned to hang out sometime later in the week. When she left, he sighed and walked back up to his apartment. He looked at Daisy and decided it was time for bed, but he couldn’t sleep without knowing she got back to her place all right so he sent her a text.

Hey, let me know when you get back to your place. Just so I know you’re safe, alright?

He got ready for bed and checked his phone to find a text.

Just got home. Thanks for checking. :)

No problem, have a goodnight’s sleep.

You too, sweet dreams.

He smiled and got into bed, leading to dreams about Elle.