Redefine Me, Redesign Me

Alex was there every day. This entire week, if he wasn’t there when she left in the morning he was there before she got home. She’d decided that he could bring his dogs over after checking with her land lady about it. Ellie knew that what she was doing was going to get herself into trouble. Before she even told Alex that he could bring the dogs with him so they didn’t have to be home alone she knew what she was doing. She was inviting Alex into her life.

She already had Lisa. Lisa was a good friend. She kept things in the present; she never asked about where Ellie came from or what made her want to come to Baltimore. She was safe. She needed safe, so why did she keep coming back to Alex.

Why was she constantly allowing him to invade her life and personal space?

“Good morning,” Alex said from Ellie’s bedroom doorway.

“Where are Sebastian and Payton?” she asked stretching and deciding that she would stay in bed for a while longer, after all it was Saturday and she didn’t have anything pressing to do.

Ellie could swear that Alex could read her mind sometimes as he walked into her room stopped beside her bed to take off his shoes and then proceeded to climb into bed with her. She should have been caught off guard by his actions. After all, she’d only really known him for a little over a week, but she was growing comfortable around Alex. She wasn’t sure that there was much that he could do that would bother her anymore. She didn’t even pull away from his kisses anymore, as long as they were on her cheek or neck.

Ellie still wasn’t allowing kisses on the lips, to Alex’s strong displeasure.

“They are in the back yard,” Alex told her slipping under her covers.
She sighed snuggling further into her pillow. “Can I just sleep all day?” she asked without opening her eyes.

She felt Alex’s fingers brush her hair from her face and his lips press to her temple. “Not if we’re getting your furniture today,” he said snuggling the pillow on his side of the bed. It might as well have been his, or one of the dogs. They were the only ones who used it.

“I got a phone call from Mrs. Peters last night,” She told Alex, “She’s the lady that lives in the yellow house next door.”

“Yeah what about her?” Alex asked letting his fingers brush against her hand under the sheets.

“She’s a good friend of my land lady, Mrs. Bells, and she was calling about a shaggy haired hooligan that she’d seen coming in and out of my house all week,” She told him chuckling, “apparently you gave her quite the scare.”

Alex chuckled with her, “I’ll be sure to go apologize to her at some point,” he promised, “But you need to get up so we can go get you some furniture.”

Ellie groaned and rolled on to her back. She just wasn’t feeling up to getting out of bed today. Maybe it was the air outside getting colder. She just couldn’t bring herself to leave her blankets behind.

“Is your hair wet?” Alex asked reaching for a bit of the hair she had been laying on.

She pushed air through her lips as she sat up and started messing with her hair. “Yes,” she mumbled, “Stupid stuff just won’t dry.” It was true. She had the hardest time with getting her hair to dry. “Maybe I should have waited until today to wash it,” she thought out loud.

“Nothing a blow dryer won’t fix,” Alex said sitting up next to her.

“Yeah or a hat,” she said, “I like hats.”

Alex chuckled at her as she got out of bed and wandered over to her closet going straight to her jeans and picking a comfortable pair of skinnies. Alex followed after her looking around at all of the clothes.

“Do you ever have to do laundry?” he asked eyeing the vast amount of clothes in the closet.

Ellie shrugged, “I actually ran out of clothes once when I was in college,” she recalled looking through her t-shirts, “I was too engrossed in studying, working, and hanging out that I just didn’t do it.”

Alex smiled at her, “You just told me something about yourself,” he pointed out.

She rolled her eyes and snatched down a red t-shirt that she had bought at a concert with Mallory while she was in high school. It was a Fall Out Boy shirt. “So I was a slob in college,” she said, “how much information can you get from that?”

She left the closet and started for the bathroom.

“I got that you were in college which means that you either dropped out or you couldn’t get a job using your degree,” he said following her and making himself comfortable on her bed, “and you just clued me in on your musical tastes as well,” he pointed to her shirt in her hands.

Ellie shut the bathroom door changing quickly. “For your information,” she said through the door, “I did not drop out, and I could have gotten a job with my stupid degree but I didn’t want it.” She opened the door after she was clothed. “And do you have a problem with Fall Out Boy?” she asked.

Alex chuckled like she had told him some sort of joke. “I have no complaints over Fall Out Boy, but what was your major?” he asked trying to get more out of her.

She frowned, “I wanted to major in music,” she admitted. That was all Ellie was going to tell Alex. She had had enough of sharing for now.

“So why didn’t you?” he asked as he picked up the mail that Ellie had left out on her bedside table.

She thought the reason was obvious. It probably would have been obvious to Alex too if she had shared anything about her mom with him, but that wasn’t something that she was planning to do; or at least not right now. “Things don’t always go the way you plan,” she told him shrugging.

“You know,” Alex said pulling his eyebrows together, “I don’t get why you don’t like your name. Arielle B. Emanuel, has a nice ring to it.”

Ellie spun around to find Alex holding her mail and frowning at it, “What does the B stand for anyway?” he asked looking up to find her staring at him.

Why hadn’t she thought to put that away?

“I didn’t upset you did I?” he asked sitting the mail down and making his way to her. “I didn’t mean to,” he promised.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Alex didn’t know why she had kept her name a secret so this wouldn’t be a big deal. He just thought she didn’t like her name and that was that. She turned back to her mirror to apply the minimal makeup that she wore.

“Blair,” she said looking down at the pallet of neutral colored eye shadow. “That’s what the B stands for,” she told him when he gave her a quizzical look in the mirror.

“That’s a mouthful,” Alex joked, “Arielle Blair Emanuel.”

The way her name fell from his mouth with uncertainty made her smile. “My Grandmother from my dad’s side, her first name was Blair.” She decided she’d keep sharing when she saw the way it made Alex’s eyes light up. “Arielle is a French name, my dad is fluent and so was his mom.”

“Are you?” he asked wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his chin on her shoulder watching her think.

“Am I what?” she asked applying the light coppery eye shadow.

“Fluent in French,” he clarified smiling because he was glad that she wasn’t pushing him away for once.

“Yeah my sisters are too,” she explained.

Alex mulled this new information over. Her real name was Arielle Blair Emanuel. She was fluent in French as were a good bit of the members of her family. She had a younger sister named Mallory and just dropped that she has another sister as well.

He pressed his lips to her shoulder not really kissing it, just resting them there. “So music?” he mumbled into her shirt deciding he’d ask about the other sister later.

Ellie frowned closing the makeup and putting it back into her makeup bag. “Like I said things don’t always work out,” she told him shortly. She moved out of his grasp suddenly feeling uncomfortable in his arms.

Alex frowned but did his best to hide it. “Tour shirt?” he asked reaching out and touching the sleeve of her shirt.

Ellie bit her lip and nodded, “Mallory and I went to loads of shows,” she told him, “We had to sneak out to go and were usually just arriving when the headliners would come on stage but it was definitely worth it.” She couldn’t help but smile at the memories of withdrawing money from her account randomly so she could put it in a friend’s bank account to order their tickets. And all the times she’d had to monkey her way down the side of the house from the second story just to get out. “We bought a shirt for every show.”

Alex’s eyes widened, “As an estimate how many shows do you think you went to?” he asked glad that she was willing to talk about this.

Ellie gave him a smirk and walked over to a desk that was sitting on the far side of the room. She pulled one of the drawers open and took out what looked like an old photo box. “Why estimate when I can show you?” she asked opening the box that was filled with what looked like at least a hundred tickets.

“You have got to let me look through these sometime,” he said reaching in and pulling one off the top. Ellie smiled, that ticket was from her first time ever seeing Yellow Card. He smiled and nodded approvingly at the ticket putting it back in the box. “But for now you need to get some shoes on so we can go,” he said as she placed the lid back on the box and put it back in its place in the drawer.

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

“How old are you?” Alex asked as they looked through trinkets in an old antique shop. The furniture was on the next floor and Ellie had gotten very distracted by the old perfume bottles.

“Isn’t it impolite to ask a woman her age?” She retorted giving him a sideways look.

Alex rolled his eyes at her, “There is no way that you are old enough for that to be impolite,” he told her. She couldn’t be older than 25, but he was hoping she was younger than he was just for the simple fact that he didn’t want to be younger than her.

“twenty-two,” she told him looking over an Victorian styled perfume bottle, “What about you?” she asked directing the conversation back to him.

He frowned at her, “I don’t ask you questions just so you can throw them back at me,” he complained.

“I won’t answer questions that you won’t answer,” she told him giving him a warning look.

He huffed, “fine, I’m twenty-five,” he told her, “but just so you know I often act like a teenager and I wouldn’t say that my terrible twos are entirely behind me.” Alex was grinning devilishly at Ellie and she couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said nodding, “favorite TV show growing up?” she asked moving to the next part of the store that was entirely made up of antique kitchenware.

“Power Rangers,” he answered immediately, “You?”

Ellie chuckled at how excited he looked about his answer, “I was the pink Power Ranger for two Halloweens in a row but I think my favorite show was Scooby-Doo,” She told him honestly.

“Acceptable,” he told her nodding, "Cats or dogs?" he fired back.

Ellie sent him a look before answering, "Dogs, cats are judgy." Alex laughed loudly at that. "Iron Man or Spider-man?" she asked trying to keep the conversation light.

"Trick question," Alex countered, "Batman."

Ellie shook her head, "No, both Iron Man and Spider-man are without a doubt better than batman."

Alex chuckled, "Let's agree to disagree," he offered. Ellie didn't reply she simply clicked her tongue and continued looking around. “What does your tattoo say?” he asked without looking at her.

“Which one?” she asked looking over to him finding him frowning at a chip in a tea cup.

“How many do you have?” he asked, “I was talking about the one on your ribs.” Alex made a motion towards her side. “I’ve seen the one on your foot.”

“problèmes viendra, mais ils vont passer,” she said, “it means problems will come but they will pass. I have three.”

“What does the anchor on your foot have under it?” he asked taking what she said in.

“The French word for sister,” she answered him, “The third one is an ampersands on my wrist it's white ink. How did you possibly remember that I had a tattoo on my ribs?” she asked him.

He looked up to grin at her, “Not something I’ll forget anytime soon,” he told her taking the few steps towards her closing the space between them and slowly kissing her neck. The marks he’d left there had healed days ago.

“So what made you want to get them?” he asked taking a step away from her as she pushed on his chest and decided that it was time to look at the furniture.

“I got the one on my ribs first,” Ellie told him as they climbed the stairs to the next floor, “I went against what my parents wanted and transferred to a college that was five hours away from home, and I went through a bit of a hard time.”

She thought back on how angry her mom had been when she told her what she had done. If it weren’t for her dad she was pretty sure she would have ended up having to put herself through college. “It was something my Grams used to say to me, and it made me feel better.”

Ellie didn’t want to talk about her Grams. She could feel the lump forming in her throat and knew that she couldn’t cry in front of Alex; she wouldn’t let herself. So instead of submitting to the growing urge to cry she laughed to herself.

“What’s so funny?” Alex asked joining her at the top of the stairs.

“My mom,” she said shaking her head, “When I came home that summer she found out about it and nearly had a heart attack.”

“Your mom’s not a fan of tattoos?” he asked following Ellie towards the different sets of furniture that were on display in different ways.

“Definitely not, but that just kind of made me love it that much more,” she told him looking over an old queen size cast-iron bedframe.

“So you don’t exactly get along with your mom then?” Alex guessed.

“We’re not talking about that yet,” Ellie decided that she wasn’t quite ready to tell Alex about her on going distaste for her own mom. “Mallory got the one on my foot with me, and now I am the worst daughter to ever live and I corrupt youth,” she told him smiling at the thought. The tattoo had been Mallory’s idea.

"Doubtful I've met some not so good girls in my time," he joked. "So what about the ampersands?"

Ellie rolled her eyes. She had never meant to get that particular tattoo and she was glad that she had been sober enough to get it in white ink so it wasn't as visible. "I went to an Of Mice & Men concert with one of my best friends, Brady, it was the first time we'd seen them and we'd both been obsessed with them so after the show in a completely diluted state we decided to get matching tattoos on our wrists," she finished of the story holding out her wrist for Alex to see.

He reached out letting his finger ghost over the inked skin. He couldn't deny that it made him a little jealous that she had a matching tattoo with some guy he'd never met but he was obviously a close friend of hers from before he'd even known she existed so he had to shake the feeling off.

Alex let out a low chuckle as he wrapped an arm around her waist and led her to a couple of beds that were both full size and they matched each other perfectly. “What do you think about these?” he asked.

Ellie completely forgot what she had previously been talking about. These bedframes were exactly what she had been looking for. Neither of them had any visible dings and they still had their original finish, making the makeover process much easier. They had subtle designs in the head boards that Ellie was already coming up with ideas for and she couldn’t contain her excitement.

“Where’s the price tag?” she asked animatedly looking over to a smiling Alex.

“It’s four hundred for the set,” a lady who looked to be in her early thirties told Ellie coming up beside the two, “That includes the delivery fee.”

Ellie’s eyes widened in excitement, when she had looked at bedframes online some had been as much as six hundred a piece and she had found two beautiful matching ones for four hundred. “How soon can they be delivered?” she asked enthusiastically.

Alex hadn’t seen Ellie like this before. She seemed so much more alive than she had been this past week. He could see a glimmer of something that he just couldn’t get enough of. She was this ball of energy, and he couldn’t seem to remember a time over the past week that he’d gotten her to talk this much. He had to rein her in long enough to let him measure the bedframe and compare it to the size of the two rooms finding the room down stairs to be the best bet.

Ellie paid for her furniture with no regrets. If there was one thing that She loved more than music it was the chance for a craft project, especially when it involved furniture. The frames would be delivered on Tuesday and Alex had agreed to be there to oversee things for her. Maybe she’d recruit him to help her in the makeover process.