Three months later :
The morning of my twenty-first birthday, I woke with a start. I certainly didn't feel any older, or any more legal. My vision was still perfect, my hair was still a bright shade of blonde, and my teeth were pearly white. But something in me just felt different. More mature.
Perhaps my newfound maturity was due to the two different fashion shows I was doing today to launch Avery XX EVOL. The line had come together beautifully, and was already in demand in most every Target around the world. Sight unseen.
My parents glowed with pride, and my friends had flown internationally to bunk in my small Malibu home. I could hear Chantel's thick French accent chastising Fi for something, while Rox and Collins laughed loudly. It oddly felt like my wedding day - having all my favorite people in one place. Well almost all of them. I stared at myself in the mirror and the black holes behind my eyes. Professionally, I'd never been more praised. Personally, I'd never been so unfulfilled.
As if on cue, my google alert pinged on the counter top. It had its own special sound, like the twinkling of bells, so I knew exactly what it was. I should've disabled it. Blocked any Eli related content like I'd blocked him from all my social media platforms, but I was weak and the little paparazzi morsels of him were getting me by.
Elijah West spotted getting a street burrito in Mexico City
Elijah West spotted at LAX
Elijah West spotted grabbing sushi with girlfriend Sky Seigler
That last one was particularly painful. Elijah West and his girlfriend. A title I could never quite hold.
My phone pinged again, impatient by my own failure to read the next headline. I stared at my reflection for a moment longer, my green eyes blurring together. I was no longer a twenty year old. I could stop this never ending torture as a new, more mature, twenty-one year old. Or not. I snatched my phone from the counter and opened the alert.
Elijah West : Spotted getting cozy with co-star. Is an engagement in the near future?!
My breath sucked far into my chest, but the blow wasn't deep enough. I had to watch the video posted below the headline. The boarder around the frame looked like it was stolen from TheRealSkySeigler Instagram story. As many times as I had stalked her page, I still refused to cross the line and join her over five million followers. I preferred to do my stalking from a distance.
I glanced back at my closed door and my friends beyond it, feeling like I was doing something wrong. It wasn't an invasion of privacy was it?! I mean it was a public posting...right? I sighed, debating before eventually hitting 'play'.
The video opened up with Sky's large doe green eyes staring at the camera, and a coy smile playing on her smooth pink lips. Her makeup was flawless, and her usually wild curly black hair was pin straight, the way her character wore it.
Her insane beauty wasn't what made me feel like I might vomit. No, it wasn't that at all. Hell, it wasn't even the way she swayed in a familiar pair of tan arms. The same arms that had once been around my waist with the peculiar bow shaped birthmark by one elbow. It was the fucking song playing.
'It's been days and weeks and months
Feels like forever since I saw you
I'm forgetting how you felt now
I've never had this much time on my hands
YOU ARE READING
The Sweetest Summer
Romance**COMPLETE** Elijah West was everything, and I was just...Avery Adams. The tomboy, the girl next door, the friend zone occupant. The girl who somehow grew up while he was gone filming his television show. But this summer he's back, and the sparks a...
