Doodle Heart | ✓

chapter twenty: lewis

a/n: agh sorry for the long af hiatus :( I'll stop with the excuses and jump straight into the chapter:

T W E N T Y : LEWIS

“MAE, DEAR, could you please pass the salt and pepper?” Mrs. Orion asked Mae politely from across the table. Mae located the salt and pepper shaker sitting before her and passed it to Lewis who handed them to his mother. Christmas Eve arrived faster than Mae had anticipated. Only once the Orions arrived on their doorstep did the reality of how fast time’s past occurred to her. In all honesty, she was getting along great with her mother. Her father… was a whole other story.

Both Mr. Orion and Mr. Chen were holding an exclusive meeting in the privacy of Mr. Chen’s office upstairs. They had even taken their dinner with them..

Mae sat at the round table with Lewis on her right and her mother on her left. The banquet had been strewn before them, made by Mae and her mother and the help of about a dozen cook books and thousands of online searches.

Despite the holiday atmosphere, there was an uncanny tension and silence at the table. Though Mae's mother and Lewis's mother chatted on fine, Lewis and Mae sat silently beside them. The tension could be sliced with a knife.

When Mae decided she was full, she gently placed her cutlery onto the table, along with her napkin, and excused herself from the table. It was enough that she had to deal with company, but her ex boyfriend, nonetheless?

It wasn't as if she had a problem with Lewis. Lewis had been a great boyfriend, except for that one time—.

“Wait, Mae!” Mae froze in the middle of the hallway, having slipped away from the dining area. She turned her head to find Lewis jogging towards her. He was wearing a casual button down and jeans, his hair fluffed up in a cutesy way.

Mae winced to herself as he fell into step with her. “What's up?” They were headed for the parlor.

Lewis ran a hand through his luscious locks and exhaled sharply through his nose. “I think we need to talk… about what happened to us.”

Mae nodded slowly, rearing into the small loft area and sat down on one of the couches. Lewis sat across from her, lacing his fingers together and twiddling his thumbs.

“What about it?” She asked. If she could be avoided this conversation, she would've, but closure was always the better path to take.

Lewis handed her a steady, sorrowful gaze. “I'm sorry that I did that to you. I was a total asshat, a jerk, a son-of-a. You can call me any of those, and I'd wholeheartedly agreed.

“And… I'm being honest when I'm telling you that I really did love you. You are such an incredible girl, and I was stupid for not being there when you said you needed me,” he admitted.

Mae tried to swallow, but struggled a bit. Truth be told, she thought she loved him, too. Only when they broke up and she didn't linger too long, did she realize that what she had for him wasn't love. Maybe it something close to it, but it was probably her Freshman heart wanting him to be “the one”.

“It's fine, Lew. Really, it is. I get that maybe your head wasn't really in the game or that your Freshman self just really wanted to fit in. I get that you probably didn't want a full commitment then like you may want now,” she went on. “But when I look back, I'm realizing now that you shouldn't pin all of the blame on yourself.”

“But I thought that maybe your mom would've hurt you or something, because we never really got to talk about it after—”

“No, my mother would have never physically hurt me when she was drunk. Sure, a bit of verbal abuse, but what's a family like mine without that?” She laughed, bitterness lingering on her tongue. “But still, it doesn't give me the right to say that it was all your fault. You were a good boyfriend. You were a loyal boyfriend. But I don't think that was enough for me then.”

Mae recalled the incident that had struck her years ago. It was the last time she would ever go home until now. Mae's mother had reached a new ultimate in drinking. Though Lewis never knew about Mae's tolerance for alcohol, he did know about Mae's mother and her affinity for getting drunk off her ass.

It happened to be a Friday night, a night when Lewis had planned to take Mae out while they were back home and away from school. As mentioned before, Mae's mother had reached a new level of drunk and had stormed into Mae's room. She bashed a leg of Mae's easel, tilting it onto its side; she ripped Mae's sheets apart; and rattled the desk, the bits and pieces of stationary all falling to the floor. Mae's father had himself locked inside his office in the middle of a business call. Lewis had forgotten all about taking Mae out to escape from the house for awhile because he received a callback about his film idea. And Mae cried on the floor of her room, alone, cradling the scraps of paper that her mother had shred.

When Mae's mother was drunk, she held two different personalities: a stumbling, tired idiot, and the raging monster who didn't approve of anything Mae did. Her sober mother was fine with the course Mae had chosen for herself, but the monster inside her mother did not.

Lewis may have promised profusely for not being there, for not even telling Mae that he wouldn't be there, but Mae had ignored it all. She had called him five times last night, leaving him messages to ask if he could go to his place for the night until her mother sobered. But, they were all to no avail. Mae went to bed with a heavy heart.

Lewis shook himself from his daze, having thought on the subject of their breakup, too. “I never really knew what it meant to let the one you love go, but now I think I do.”

Curious and confused, Mae lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Didn't we already breakup?”

“No, that's not what I mean,” he chuckled while shaking his head. “Breaking up was not letting each other go—well, not for me, at least. To me, that was kind of just our fallout. However, with Parker and Dustin in the picture, I wouldn't have a chance anyway.”

“Wait, Lew—”

“Mae, listen to me, Dustin and Parker are both great guys. Sure, it's harder to see that side of Parker, but it'll come out from time to time. I can see that they're both pining after you. I don't have a chance because, frankly, I have my eye on someone else.”

Mae let out a small squeal and she grinned in surprise. “Oh my gosh! Wow! That's great, Lewis!”

Red crawled up his neck and onto his cheeks. Lewis scratched the back of his neck, feeling a tad flustered. “Uh, thanks, Mae.”

“She's a great girl, I hope?”

Lewis nodded. “Of course, I just hope I don't screw this up like whatever happened to our relationship.”

Mae frowned, and leaned over to take his hands into her own. “Hey, our relationship just wasn't… meant to be. We were to young and naïve and breakable. You've matured, Lewis, and I hope this girl can see you through.”

Lewis squeezed her hands gently with a smile of admiration on his face. “I'm glad that you've taken that so well. Thank you.”

Mae returned the smile. “Of course. So… who is she?”

a/n: a short and sweet chapter :) Lewis was always okay to begin with, but... do I wish he was back in the game? He sure made back into Mae's good graces though...

what do you guys think? are you happy for Lewis? who do you think Lewis ships more?

also, if you guys have any ideas for a bonus chapter, please comment them here! I want to know what you all want specifically!