Redefine Me, Redesign Me

“Tell me about the ex-boyfriend,” Alex suggested while they waited for their food to arrive. Alex had insisted that she let him take her out for dinner. So, here they sat in the middle of a restaurant that claimed the name Hill’s Diner, though it was far from it.

In Ellie’s mind a diner was a dinky place like Denny’s and served breakfast all day for dirt cheap. This place had classical music playing quietly, the tables were elegantly set and you were seated by a hostess. And it was best not to get Ellie started on the menu items and their prices.

“Here?” Ellie asked her tone practically begging him to wait until they were back in the privacy of her house.

Alex shrugged his shoulders, “Why not?” he asked, “You don’t have to go into the gory details here just tell me how it started. I imagine that he seemed like an okay guy in the beginning if you dated him. Unless you’re into the douche type.”

Ellie sighed, “He wasn’t bad in the beginning, in fact he was a completely different person.”

Alex nodded letting her know that he was listening as he sipped at his drink.

Ellie took a deep breath before going into the story, “I ran into him one day like straight into him and we had lunch. He was nice and he understood why I went to a school so far away from my parents. He had done the same thing for mostly the same reasons. We became pretty good friends and it grew into more. He met my parents when they came out to visit and they liked him. My mom and I started getting along and I felt like I actually fit into my family for once.”

“So when did things get bad?” Alex asked not understanding how something that sounded so good would end badly.

Ellie chewed on her lip for a moment and the waitress came by with their food.

“I thought we were keeping it on the good parts while we were here,” Ellie pointed out.

Alex looked around. They were in a pretty secluded area. It was early not many people were in the restaurant and they were seated far away from the rest of the people there.

“I don’t think anyone is going to hear you,” he said, “but if you don’t want to tell me right now that’s okay.”

Ellie nibbled on a bite of her pasta before continuing.

“We’d always fought. He thought we should take our relationship to a more physical level and I didn’t want to lose my virginity to just anyone. We fought about that a lot. But that wasn’t the worst part of our relationship. When we first started hanging out he had said that money makes you lose yourself. You turn soulless and I knew what he meant. I think that might have been what happened to my mom. But when we were in our last semester he turned twenty one and he got his trust fund for his birthday. He changed almost immediately. Overnight he went from being this really charming guy to being an asshole that thought he could buy anything,” Ellie bit her lip again because this was the part that hurt the most.

Alex reached across the table and took her hand rubbing circles into the back of her hand with his thumb.

“We were fighting one night at his apartment about my unwillingness to have sex with him. He thought I was being stupid, which was his opinion on most of the things I did with my time. It got pretty heated and I said a lot of things that were true but still shouldn’t have been said. He got really mad and started throwing money at me he kept shouting ‘am I worth it now?’ I got upset about it and I was just going to leave but he grabbed me,” she stopped to glance at Alex’s face.
Alex’s face was drained of color. His jaw was set and he looked angry. His free hand was no longer holding his fork instead it was balled into a fist knuckles white sitting on the table.
Ellie decided it was best to continue the story without another break. She met Alex’s eyes and began again, “He was a lot stronger than me and tried to force himself on me. I’d taken a lot of self-defense classes in high school so I knew what to do... and I did it. I grabbed his head and pulled it down and brought my knee up with as much force as I could. I heard his nose crunch and he let me go. I ran for it even though my knee hurt like hell. I ran all the way back to my apartment.”

Alex let out a breath that Ellie hadn’t realized he had been holding.

“What happened next?” Alex asked after he had time to calm himself down.

Ellie shrugged, “Brady was the only one home and is still to this day the only other person that knows what actually happened that night. He let me cry it out and sleep in his bed with him because I didn’t want to be alone. I wore hoodies and jeans so no one would see the bruises on my wrists or knee. Hunter told everyone he got into a bar fight and that he broke up with me because I was a prude.”

“What a fucking prick,” Alex spat clearly still mad but keeping his cool in the slowly filling restaurant.

Ellie shrugged her shoulders again, “I didn’t care what his story was because it wasn’t my problem anymore. My mom started hating me again and life went on. I got into Yale and probably would have been a pretty damn kick ass lawyer if she would have let me go.”

“You got into fucking Yale?” he asked in disbelief all but forgetting about Hunter.

Ellie nodded, “Yeah I was going to go there for law school but my mom said she wouldn’t let my dad pay for me to be so far away she was pissed as it was that I went five hours away let alone states. She didn’t think it was becoming of me to be so career oriented anyway.”

Alex looked disgusted, “It isn’t about what she thought you should be doing, it’s your life,” he argued.

Ellie smiled softly at him. “You just don’t know my mom. Everything is her business and it’s always her choice. Everything is on her terms. I’ve kind of enjoyed the idea of being exiled from home lately.”

“Is that why you aren’t answering your mom’s calls?” he asked suddenly amused at her actions.

“It’s not the only reason but it is one of them I guess. I came to Baltimore to get out from under her thumb but she still wants to keep me pinned,” Ellie finally felt comfortable enough to talk about her mom and nearly everything.

“So you and Brady,” Alex began, raising his eyebrows suggestively not finishing his thought but Ellie understood him quite clearly.

Ellie couldn’t help herself from laughing. “No,” she said managed to choke out as she shook her head.

“No friends with benefits?” Alex asked only halfway joking at this point. He liked Brady well enough now that he’d gotten to know him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t see him as a threat when it came to Ellie.

Ellie blushed but shook her head again, “No not with Brady.”

Alex’s eyes grew wide, “With who?” he asked leaning forward and resting his elbow on the table.

“Let’s drop this, yeah?” she suggested blushing furiously her eyes darting to the surrounding tables.

Alex wasn’t about to forget about it. Brady had mentioned that Ellie was basically a virgin and hearing that she’d had a friends with benefits relationship blew his mind. He definitely wasn’t going to let her get away with keeping this one a secret if he could help it.

Alex narrowed his eyes at her trying to decide if he was going to let it go or keep pressing her for details.

“How about a new subject,” Ellie suggested getting antsy under Alex’s stare. “What’s new with you? Do you have any big plans for the week before you leave for tour?”

Alex let go of Ellie’s hand that he hadn’t really even noticed he was still holding and cleared his throat.

“Actually I wanted to ask you something,” he said smiling while looking down at the table, “I’m going to my parents’ house for dinner on Thursday and my mom really wants you to come with me.”

Ellie choked on her drink. Why on Earth would Alex’s mom want her to come over for dinner? She wasn’t the meet-the-family type. She wasn’t really the dating type. She wasn’t even dating Alex.

“I’m sorry, what?” Ellie asked laughing nervously.

“Come to dinner with my parents on Thursday?” he asked practically begging.

Ellie sighed, “Alex we are already overly complicated do you really think that taking me to dinner with your parents will help the situation?”

Alex bit his lip thinking of a response. He sighed sounding frustrated.

“Will it really hurt?” he asked.

Ellie thought about that, and she really couldn’t come up with a reason why it would.

She shrugged her shoulders hoping that Alex would just let her out of it.

“Look I get that we’re complicated and that we can’t even say we’re in a relationship no matter how much I would like to. I understand that you don’t want that right now but it doesn’t change the way I feel about you. Just because we’re complicated doesn’t change the fact that you are important to me,” He reasoned not holding back.

“Dammit, Alex,” Ellie whined in defeat leaning back in her seat. “I’ll go to dinner but that doesn’t mean I know what to do or say and I’ll be an awkward mess.”

Alex smiled triumphantly making Ellie return the gesture involuntarily.

“You’ll be great,” he insisted still smiling like a fool.

---------------------------------------------

When they returned to Ellie’s house Alex broke out the wine. They exchanged silly stories about their pasts and Ellie asked Alex things about himself. She realized that they mostly talked about her and she didn’t like the fact that she knew very little about Alex.

“Refill?” Alex offered holding up a new bottle of wine.

Ellie smiled and held out her glass, the wisdom to say no had been lost after her fourth one. Alex wasn’t doing any better.

“Tell me an embarrassing story,” Alex suggested scooting closer and facing Ellie.

They were both sitting sideways on the couch. Ellie had one let tucked underneath her and the other off the couch. Alex had one leg on the couch ankle resting on top of the opposite leg’s knee, one foot on the floor.

Ellie shrugged her shoulders giggling, “Okay so Grams hired Collin to teach me how to play guitar and I developed a huge crush on him. He was seventeen so I knew nothing was going to happen and I told Grams thinking it was no big deal.”

Alex propped his elbow on the back of the couch listening intently.

“Well apparently Grams thought it would be a good idea to hang up this huge poster in the high school’s cafeteria stating that Ellie Emanuel had a crush on Collin Daniels,” Ellie was blushing just at the memory and Alex was laughing. “That wasn’t even the worst part. Not only did every high school student including Collin know, but the whole town too. She had put up posters all over the place.”

Alex continued to laugh and eventually Ellie was laughing too, it was contagious she would swear it. She definitely wasn’t laughing just because she was a little buzzed.

Alex eventually stopped laughing but Ellie had caught a case of the giggles and couldn’t make herself quit no matter how hard she tried, not that she was trying very hard. Alex didn’t really mind he like seeing Ellie happy. He liked watching her laugh, especially uncontrollably. She tossed her head back still laughing and only trying the tiniest bit to calm herself down.

The urge came over Alex too quickly for him to make sense of and even if he had, he was too buzzed to tell himself not to do it.

As soon as Ellie straightened herself, still laughing, Alex took her face in both of his hands and pressed his lips to hers. Ellie’s mind went completely blank erasing the need to laugh and then in an instant Alex was all that she was capable of processing. Her alcohol clouded mind told her that this was completely okay, and she went with it. Her eyes slipped closed and she kissed back letting Alex pull her in closer.

“You are going to hate me so much tomorrow,” Alex breathed as his lips ghosted over hers.

“You’re going to ruin it,” she mumbled against his jaw, “shut up.”

Alex chuckled and pushed her back onto the couch laying her down and hovering over her. He was determined not ruin a damn thing tonight.

He knew his limits, even drunk. He knew that this couldn’t go any further and he wouldn’t let it, no matter what Ellie said in her drunken state. He knew that she would be upset about it in the morning and he really was determined not to ruin this. Not to ruin them.