i'm really grateful i grew up with parents who taught me to stop and think instead of immediately jumping to anger. it doesn't excuse cruelty, but it does remind me that everyone is carrying something i probably can't see
life is a lot lighter when you choose understanding over bitterness
that being said: anon i'm sorry but you picked the wrong person to try and annoy 😭 you're getting ignored + blocked
everything you’ve said about psdbas makes me curious as to how ellie could ever possibly be redeemable after just dropping reader like that. seems to me like she doesn’t deserve reader at all 😭.
well what if it wasn't exactly what it looks like 🤨 i think... one mistake you make as a teenager shouldn't define the rest of your life forever, especially when it comes from being hurt and confused
[general, overall tw. angst. just read with caution but this is also really nothing. written in one sitting, not edited and not proofread. 1.6k ]
''and my head is full of poison and my heart is full of doubt''
One day, eventually, you would meet a girl.
She would be everything that you had ever wished for, yet never spoken about out loud. Maybe you hadn’t even been aware that you had such a type–such a specific type–until the very moment that you laid eyes on her. Maybe it was at that very moment, when your gaze had accidentally found her in a crowded room, that your heart had stuttered and for once in your life, you had realized… oh.
What you wanted actually did exist. She was standing there, several feet away. Quietly existing in the bar.
You would steal glances. You wouldn’t be able to help yourself. With each glance, your intrigue would grow. So would your guilt.
And what a feeling it would end up being–to have your entire world stop on a random weekend, just because of a random girl in a random bar. Auburn hair–yes, auburn, because that specific detail was important to your drunken mind–green eyes that you could imagine yourself studying, and the sort of freckles that you could only daydream about.
Yeah, you could glance at her from across the room, but that was it. You could smile at her maybe once–out of politeness only. Two smiles would be too far, as the shame creeping up within your very being would be unbearable.
There she would be, the literal embodiment of anything you could ever dream of and yearn for, and you wouldn’t do a single thing about it. You could not do a single thing about it, due to the man that was several feet away from you–laughing loudly with friends.
Your boyfriend never favored a night out, always claimed that bars made him feel gross and that the atmosphere was annoying–but he would be doing just fine on that particular night. He would handle every single interaction with ease, and talk and laugh with his friends like he never experienced a single worry in the world. For someone that claimed to hate it… yeah, he would carry himself quite nicely–aside from the fact that he got tunnel vision around his friends, meaning that you would be going on nearly fifteen minutes of sitting alone and sipping a drink and trying to scroll on your phone.
So your gaze would drift. And your mind would wander.
You hated those tiny moments, the ones in which it was impossible to pretend or hide because your heart would pound and your mind would be fully aware. Your mind had been fully aware, and no amount of distraction could ever alter that. You knew what you were. Knew what you felt.
But despite the blaring, overwhelming sense of knowing… you would not mutter a word. Not ever. You had parents that would not be able to bear the weight of you being a disappointment. You had a boyfriend that wanted to propose soon–one that promised your parents that he would take care of you. He had a little sister that looked at you as though you had placed the stars in the sky, and how could you ever disappoint her?
Your life was not your own by any means, due primarily to your own cowardice. You had tried, once, to whisper the truth of what you were. The truth that you had quickly laughed about and waved off, because you couldn’t deal with people watching you out of the corner of their eye whenever there was a scantily clad woman on the screen during a movie scene–as if something about you was suddenly something to be wary of.
But the girl in the bar. Ellie, you had heard. Caught her name by accident, had heard it being said with a laugh by one of her friends. Your mind would latch onto it instantly. Ellie, Ellie, Ellie. You would almost want to whisper it, to test the sound of it being said with affection. To see how it would sound if you were the one laughing her name, instead.
She would glance at you more than your boyfriend did. Quick, polite smiles would be exchanged. Multiple, in fact. You would accidentally run into her on your way to get another drink, and you would bite your inner cheek until you tasted blood because you could not speak to her.
You could not compliment her, or attempt to flirt, or even flutter your lashes in her direction–because, of course, you were spoken for. But you would want to, and that was the ugly truth about it all, really. In your mind, you would talk to her. Let it be something–the same sort of something that haunted your dreams in the worst way, because they would never be a reality.
How gross you would be, wanting to talk to this girl despite having your boyfriend just a few feet away. How horrible you would be, for wishing you were slightly more of a bad person… so that you could flirt anyway, despite everything else. That’s how desperate you were. Desperate to feel something that would be right for once in your life. Desperate to experience what you had quite literally been longing and yearning for as long as you could remember. Skin was skin, sure. And yet, you couldn’t help but feel as though the difference would be so great. Comforting. Right, for the first time in your life.
If only you were slightly more of a worse person. Less fearful, more stupid.
You would not be able to stop noticing her. She would notice you, too.
You would notice how subtly her fingers twitched at her sides–always moving in some capacity, but still careful.
You would carry the image of it home with you. Energized from a night with his friends, your boyfriend would surely be feeling good about being able to go home and have a girlfriend to fuck. His other friends weren’t so lucky, apparently–with new babies and wives that were too tired, or controlling girlfriends that were deemed to be a drag. He would pull you to intimacy–never mind if you were tired, or already asleep, or feeling ill from your drinks. He would touch you like routine, and by that, he would barely touch you at all. He already had you, no need to impress. There would be no hand holding, no whispered praise in the dark.
And you–maybe you were completely and utterly sick and twisted–because you would think about her. Ellie. And those careful, fidgeting hands.
You would be brought to tears at the idea of someone, a girl–her, Ellie–touching you like you mattered. A slow drag of fingers, like you were something to worship, to memorize, to savor. You would never experience that feeling in your life, so you would instead squeeze your eyes shut and try to convince yourself that your imagination was essentially close to the real thing, anyway.
The misery that you carried within your soul was no one’s fault but your own. There was no one to place blame onto… aside from yourself. Your cowardice, your fear, your inability to be yourself and to live and to be free. It was as though your skin was burning at every waking moment of your life, but you were unable to bring yourself to do anything about it. You were spoiled, made of mold and everything disgusting and bad. You were rotten. Rotten body, rotten mind, rotten soul. You were nothing that you wanted to be, nothing that anyone wanted you to be, and nothing that anyone needed you to be.
Ellie’s eyes would linger in your mind. Tortuously so. You had never seen a pair of eyes like it, and never would again. It hurt how much you wanted her–like a child would scream and cry over a toy in a store.
You would never get to know that you had missed your soulmate that night. That if you had been braver, hadn’t tied yourself down to a relationship that wasn’t right but felt like your fate anyway… you would’ve gotten her. You would’ve had a life of easy laughter, loving touches, and gentle acceptance. You wouldn’t have had to imagine what a specific touch might’ve felt like, because you would’ve had it every single day. You would’ve had a best friend in the form of a lover, in the form of Ellie. You would’ve spent your evenings holding still for her paintings, and your mornings would’ve been spent dancing in the kitchen with her to her favorite records. Ellie would’ve been gentle. Would’ve loved you right, despite the way in which your parents never would’ve approved. They would’ve called her trouble purely due to her hoodies and flannels, missing out on her soft smiles and quiet jokes. You would’ve had a life that you wanted to live, and a body that you didn’t feel the need to escape from. You would’ve had it. Everything you had ever wanted, really. Each dream, each thing that you longed for.
But you had never been good at being honest with yourself–had never been good at making waves. You always cowered, always subjected yourself to the worst of things and seemingly dragged everyone along with you.
You would doom yourself to the narrative–readied yourself to ache due to your own fears. Your truth was too terrifying, as was the unknown.
Like a bird in a pet store cage… the habitat wasn’t ideal, but at least they remained safe. Right? At least they weren’t dead, right?
You had consistency, at least. You knew what to expect out of your life, even if it was slowly killing you. Even if you were falling apart, everything else remained steady. After all, a cathedral under collapse was still technically deemed to be a sanctuary. You would not be comfortable, but you would live under the guise of self preservation.
You would die in the closet–whether it be slowly and naturally or at your own hand–and it would be without ever knowing what you could’ve been, or what you could’ve had.
---
[most definitely going to delete this and will instead probably recycle some lines for better than this]
