Between the Lines | ✓

Cliche 27: Badboys Don't Wear Feelings Well

A long time after, I found myself trudging back home, clothes soaked through to my skin and pooling on expensive wooden floorboards. I had sat there in the pouring rain for maybe an hour, not really caring that my legs were covered in mud as the rain slipped across the grass in a brown ooze, or that the water definitely would have soaked through my duffel bag and drenched all of my belongings.

I was almost in a daze, mind focused on Elias's broken expression, the pieces of him scattered all over the ground as I unwittingly trampled over all of his feelings. Running through the events over and over in my head was torture, as each time I replayed Elias's shattered voice and his downcast expression, I confirmed time and time again that I was the one that had hurt him. That I was the one responsible for that pained expression on his face, those unshed tears in his eyes, that slight tremor in his chin.

It was only when I got a series of back-to-back phone calls from Amber that I snapped back into reality. Elias had obviously told Aubrey what happened, the protagonist apparently bolting from their shopping trip after calling me a 'freaking idiot', which made my sister immediately call me. I had missed her first few calls, but when I finally picked up, she ordered me to get my ass back to my house where she'd meet me to discuss what the hell had gone down.

What had gone down, though?

Elias, the main-lead, had... confessed. The fact that he did wasn't surprising at all, considering his dramatic reveal of his feelings towards the red-haired protagonist in 'Say No to Bad Boys'. I could understand his words, but my mind just couldn't digest them.

Because Elias said that he loved... me?

In the empty foyer of my home, standing in a puddle of dirt, tears and rainwater, I let out a dry laugh.

"God, Lex, you bloody idiot." I left my bag by the door and dragged my legs up to my room. I peeled off the heavy layers of my damp clothes, crawling into a fresh pair of clothes and curling up in my bed.

It didn't take long for Amber to let herself into my room, having been given a spare set of keys by me the day after we were reunited. I heard the blonde girl huff, climbing into bed with me and wrapping me up in her slender arms, her embrace knocking out the tension in my body as I let out a quiet sob.

"Oh, Lex, Lex, Lex. What happened?" Amber murmured, rubbing my back as I cried into her chest, snotty and wailing and a complete mess.

"I messed up, Ambs. I... I really messed up," I whimpered, knocking my forehead against my sister's chest. 

"It's Elias, isn't it?" Amber murmured softly, patting my head and letting out a small laugh when I looked at her with shocked, watery eyes. "Aubrey kind of let it slip that he was going to tell you his feelings while we were at the shops. When you called me I expected to hear you crying out of happiness that your feelings weren't just one-sided..."

"But you got these not-so-happy tears instead," I sniffled, flopping back down under my blanket and burrowing into its warmth. 

"What went wrong, Lex?" my sister coaxed, smoothing the blankets over me and bundling me up like a burrito, my head sticking out at the end. 

Elias's heartbroken face flashed in my mind. 

"I was so fucking stupid, oh my God," I groaned, shaking my head and thrashing in my self-imposed blanket burrito. "When he told me he was in l-love with m-me, my brain just short-circuited, like, beeeeep, completely blank, nada. And I just couldn't help but think that he had it all wrong, because he's supposed to love Aubrey... supposed to, and I..."

"Dear Lord, you didn't tell him that he was supposed to be in love with Aubrey, did you?" Amber said, snorting with a roll of her eyes, before pausing and staring at me. "Wait... you didn't... did you?"