good luck, babe!
ellie williams one-shot
pairing: ellie x reader
synopsis: she didn't want to call it off. but you didn't want to call it love. and now, you do all you can to stop the feeling.
content warnings: modern au, cursing, present-day ellie and reader are in their late 20s/in their 30s, present-day reader is married to a man, cheating, reader is a closeted lesbian with severe compulsory heterosexuality, homophobia (internalized AND externalized) and transphobia (strap-on is belittled in comparison to a penis), use of homophobic slur, dina is really mean to reader (reader deserves it), descriptions of alcohol, SMUT, dom top!ellie, sub!bottom reader, strap-on sex, ellie refers to her strap-on as her "cock", semi-public sex, ass slapping, slight nipple play, praise kink, degradation kink, slight orgasm denial, slight breeding kink, reader has a vagina, minors do not interact
word count: 7k
based on the chappell roan song "good luck, babe!"
we will see a free palestine
keep the lesbian flag creator alive
Absent-mindedly swirling the whiskey in her glass, Ellie’s ocean green eyes stare at the football game playing on the television hanging behind the bar. The guys in yellow and red seemed to be losing to the guys in purple and gold. She’d never been a sports girl, but it was better than causing yet another unnecessary anxiety attack by scrolling through social media on her phone. Her right hand twitches now and again to reach for it inside her jeans, but she resists the temptation.
After one of the teams seems to score a touchdown, Ellie clicks her tongue and downs the rest of her drink. She flags down the bartender and silently requests a refill with a quick gesture. The bartender nods and heads in the opposite direction to fill her glass, her ocean green eyes instinctively following him as he walks away. Before her gaze returns to the boring football game, something across the bar catches her attention: a beautiful woman leaning on the bar top, chatting with a tall man towering over her.
The man speaks animatedly as he flashes the woman his perfect, pearly white teeth. The woman elegantly crosses her bare right leg over her left. To a casual observer, the woman is very obviously listening to her companion with rapt attention. But Ellie was not a casual observer.
Ellie notices the woman’s eyes glossing over and her tight-lipped smile and how her laugh is cleverly forced. Ellie’s slitted eyebrow raises when the woman suddenly takes the man by the collar and plants her mouth on his. Ellie doesn’t notice that the bartender has placed her drink in front of her, her stare focused on the couple shamelessly making out in public.
Eventually, the woman releases the man’s collar and softly pushes him back. The expression on his face appears shocked but pleased with himself. Finally picking up her glass of whiskey, Ellie lets out a dry chuckle before taking a generous sip. The man doesn’t notice the woman’s half-eyed gaze, her cagey grimace, her twitching fingers. But Ellie does.
The man leans in to whisper something in the woman’s ear. Ellie holds in a mirthless laugh upon seeing the woman rolling her eyes slightly in disdain, an act completely imperceptible to her companion.
The man leans back before handing his phone to the woman. She stares at it blankly for a few moments before taking it and quickly typing something. She hands it back to the man, and Ellie mentally notes how she carefully avoids brushing her fingers against his.
The man smirks before muttering some kind of farewell and walking away. The woman nods and waves him goodbye, a wedding band on her ring finger glinting brightly under the bar’s dingy lights.
When the man finally rejoins his friends in a dark, far-away corner of the bar, the woman no longer bothers to mask the look of displeasure on her face. She sighs as she turns back around to the bar top, taking out a compact from her purse. She spends a few moments staring at her reflection in the tiny mirror as she fixes her smudged lipstick.
Ellie continues to watch boldly as the woman closes her compact with a heavy sigh. The despondent, empty look on her face is one Ellie hasn’t seen in years. It almost tugs at Ellie’s heartstrings to watch such a sad image before her. Almost.
The woman sighs once more as she shakes her head softly, shoves the tiny mirror back into her purse, and throws on a false, plastic smile. She raises a couple of fingers to wave the bartender down her way, quickly muttering her drink order. The bartender nods before placing two shot glasses in front of her, filling them both to the brim with tequila.
Giving a silent thanks, the woman takes one between her fingers and promptly downs it. She quietly slams the glass back onto the wooden bar top, her face twisting in mild aversion to the liquid courage. She starts to reach for the second shot when she finally realizes that she’s being watched. Your panicked eyes widen in utter shock when they meet Ellie’s ocean green ones. Your bottom lip quivers as her top lip curves up in a smirk. You try to turn away, but Ellie holds your stare as she gets off her barstool to make her way to you.
You take in her appearance as she saunters over, the image of a woman you once knew so well many years ago. Her auburn hair was shorter in its shaggy mullet cut, her lean arms seemingly more muscular, the air about her more confident than you knew it to be. Her much more intimidating presence only worsens your dread. When she finally finds herself in front of you, you only get a quick glimpse of the smug look on her face before you tear your eyes away to stare at your trembling fingers.
You’ve already deduced that she witnessed the past few minutes, that your unscrupulous actions did not go unseen. And though you were refusing to meet her gaze, you know that Ellie is once again staring right at your silver wedding ring.
She takes a seat on the barstool to the left of you, glass of whiskey still in her hand. She takes a few more sips before finally speaking, her rough and husky voice creating a hole at the bottom of your stomach.
“Hey, babe.”
“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!” you screamed breathlessly.
Your hands clung desperately onto each of the car’s headrests, your breasts spilling out of your shirt and hovering above the console. Ellie’s fingers were gripping your hips, relentlessly fucking you back onto her in determination. Your mouth hung open as moans of bliss spilled shamelessly from your lips. The windows of Ellie’s truck would have, no doubt, been fogged up completely if it weren’t for the open car sunroof.
“Yeah, right there… Just like that, baby… Fuck…” Ellie groaned as she felt your bare ass slap loudly against her thighs.
Her strap was buried deep inside your pussy, completely drenched with your sticky cum. Ellie bit her bottom lip while she concentrated on roughly pumping herself into you and stretching your cunt out even further. The louder and more borderline pornographic your moans got, the sloppier Ellie became as she fucked you dumb.
“You like that, baby?” she breathed cockily.
“F-fuck! Fuck, yes! Yes, I love it!”
“I know you do, fucking slut. Take it, fucking take it.”
The entire truck shook as she increased the pace of her thrusts. It was incredibly fortunate that it was early evening and you were parked in a woodsy area in the middle of nowhere; your screams alone could be heard from miles away.
“You’re being such a good girl for me,” Ellie praised. “Such a good fucking girl.”
“I’m your good girl! I’m your good girl!” you repeated desperately.
“Yeah? Is that right?”
A slap to your ass caused you to whine loudly in pain and pleasure.
“Oh!! F-fuck! Yes, yes, yes!”
Ellie’s grunts became more and more animalistic each time you moaned.
“Shit, you get me so fucking hard, baby,“ she groaned. “My cock feels so fucking good inside your tight little pussy.”
“Oh g-god—” you stammered. “Don’t stop, don’t stop!”
“You’re such a fucking slut, g-god…” Ellie panted, her cunt throbbing with pleasure as the base of the strap rubbed against her clit. “Shit, oh fuck, fuck!”
One hand released your hip to run her fingers down your back, sending a chill down your spine. Ellie watched the sweat on your skin glinting under the setting sun’s rays and relished the way your ass rippled with each of her thrusts.
“God… fucking look at you…” she sighed. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, babe.”
She cascaded her fingers down to sink her nails into the supple skin of your ass. She reveled in the marks she would leave on you, possessiveness and pride coursing through her.
Your brain was entirely blank, and you couldn’t think of anything or anyone else right now but Ellie. Every time you felt her this deep inside of you, your desire for her consumed every aching bone in your body.
“I’m gonna fucking fill you up,” she rasped. “I’m gonna fill your cunt up with my cum.”
The moan that escaped your lips at her words nearly sent Ellie over the edge. She wrapped an arm around your neck and pulled you up to her chest, falling back onto the backseat as you continued to bounce on her strap.
“That’s right, ride my cock.”
“Mmpf! Harder! Harder!”
“Say please, baby girl.”
“P-please! Harder, please!”
“Good girl.”
You suddenly felt Ellie’s hands palm your breasts. She started tracing circles around your nipples, savouring the sound of your pathetic whimpering. Not fully satisfied, her fingers pulled harshly at the tip of your nipple, eliciting a pitiful moan from you. Ellie groaned at the feeling of your cum dripping onto her lap and drenching her strap even further.
Her thrusts got rougher and faster as she fucked up into you. You felt your pussy begin to tense up, getting closer and closer to your climax.
“Oh god, I’m—I’m gonna cum! I’m gonna cum!” You screamed.
“Fuck, yeah, cum for me, baby girl. Cum all over me.” Ellie grunted.
Her left hand found your neck while her right arm slid in between your thighs, pulling your legs apart and positioning her hand on top of your clit. You bit back a moan as her fingers began to circle your sweet spot.
“Uh uh,” Ellie tutted. “No holding back. I wanna hear you.”
Her thumb and pointer finger softly squeezed your clit before returning to playing with you. You nearly screamed.
“Ellie!!!”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Your eyes began to roll to the back of your head as her grip on you got tighter. Her grunts became harsher, your legs got shakier, and your climax approached rapidly. Ellie could feel you reaching your limit and chuckled.
“No cumming until I say so, babe,” she teased softly, slowing down her movements ever so slightly.
“N-no, please!” you pleaded.
“Need to cum, angel?”
“Y-yes!”
Ellie chuckled once more.
“Then beg for it. Beg me to cum.”
“P-please, Ellie. Please l-let me cum—” you stuttered.
“Oh, come on,” she crooned. “You can do better than that. I know you can.”
You whined as she squeezed her fingers around your neck.
“El, please! Can I cum? Please, I need it. I need it so fucking badly! Please!”
“Mm,” Ellie hummed, peppering your shoulder with kisses. “Such a good girl. Go ahead, babe. Cum for me.”
“C-cum with me, Els. Cum inside me! Please! I want to feel your cum!”
“O-oh, fuck!”
Ellie moaned shamelessly at your plea and felt herself approaching her orgasm as you rode out yours. Your strangled cries harmonized throughout the woods, echoing off of flowing leaves and sturdy tree barks. Your climax lasted longer than it usually did, and Ellie held you until she felt your body slowly crumple on top of her.
She kissed your shoulders softly as you shakily caught your breath, her fingers grazing your chest. When her lips started moving up towards your ear, Ellie inadvertently hit a ticklish part near your chin, and you burst into sudden laughter. Chuckling, Ellie repositioned you onto the leather seat and laid down on top of you to continue attacking you with kisses.
The only thing anyone would have heard over the humming of crickets and the occasional blowing of wind was the giggles shared between you and the auburn-haired girl. Neither you nor Ellie had dressed yourselves just yet, both still partially naked in some form. But neither you nor she had cared, far too engrossed in each other’s presence for something as trivial and irrelevant as clothing to matter.
Your cheeks hurt from how much you smiled, and your dry lips prickled and stung from how much you’d been kissing her all day. You knew that you likely looked unattractively unkept and probably needed a nice, long everything shower. But the look of pure, unwavering adoration in Ellie’s eyes had you suspended in the present; choosing to leave such a perfect moment seemed the most unnatural decision to make.
Laid down in the backseat of the truck with her whispering sweet nothings into your ear, you couldn’t recall a time when you’d been happier. Everything from the smell of sweat and Ellie’s musky cologne to the awkward entanglement of your limbs was the unadulterated definition of heaven.
“Do you know…” she whispered in between soft kisses to your lips. “... you have the most kissable face I’ve ever seen?”
“Shut up!” you giggled.
“Never,” she objected. “How is it my fault that you’re just so kissable?”
“Oh my god,” you laughed, pulling her closer to you. “You’re so annoying.”
“What? Do you want me to stop kissing you?”
“No…” you grumbled, eyes rolling.
“Then you shut up,” she concluded before she peppered your neck with more kisses, eliciting bursts of giggles from you.
You weren’t sure exactly how long you and Ellie stayed interlaced with each other. It could have been an hour or five since you parked. Time didn’t exist in the backseat of that truck; it was only you and Ellie.
An uncontrollable hankering for food was what ultimately wrenched you both out of your euphoric stupor. A sudden loud rumble from Ellie’s stomach caused you to burst out into tearful laughter. With her strap-on tucked back inside of her boxers and your pants hastily pulled back on, you were both back to cruising down the highway back into town. She’d handed the reins of the radio to you, so you were singing your heart out to a playlist you’d created just for blissful car rides like this.
As you were belting out the bridge to some indie folk song with an enormous amount of zeal, Ellie spent a minute on autopilot to recklessly stare at you. You were watching the street lamps zooming past the passenger seat window with both arms out through the car sunroof, and she thought that there was nothing in the world that would ever be able to tear her away from you in this moment.
She slowed her driving down when you eventually found yourselves back in the city. You were quietly humming along to the radio at a lengthy red light when a sudden and loud gasp from you made her nearly jump out of her skin. Ellie glanced at you in concern to find you shrinking quickly down your seat.
“Babe? What’s wrong?” she asked anxiously.
“Shh!” was all you uttered in reply.
You were avoiding her eyes, your stare focused on something towards your side of the truck. She followed your gaze, and the sight she was met with made her stomach drop.
A large group composed mostly of young women was gathered at an outdoor seating area next to a lively restaurant, all laughing and drinking together. Ellie recognized them instantly: they were your co-workers at a weekly post-work dinner together, a gathering you’d happily ditched that day to hang out with Ellie. The auburn-haired girl quickly glanced back at you, her eyebrows furrowing and lips pursing upon seeing the petrified look on your face.
“Seriously?” she breathed.
“Shh, shh!” you repeated, your fingers reaching for the volume knob of the radio and turning the music all the way down.
“They didn’t see you,” she uttered bitterly.
“Just drive, Ellie!” you begged.
“I can’t. The light’s red.”
You both sat in silence for another minute or so, you nervously wringing the bottom of your shirt between your fingers and Ellie white-knuckling the steering wheel, before finally driving off again. She had to resist snapping at you when you hissed for her to go after a millisecond of the stoplight turning green.
Ellie knew you were still rigidly in the closet, even before you’d begun this love affair. She was almost sure that she’d merely started out as an experiment for you. But she had thought that maybe, after all this time, whatever you felt for her would overpower your inner self-loathing.
You weren’t the first “straight” girl she’d stubbornly and stupidly developed feelings for. But you were the first for whom she held out genuine hope, hope that being with her would be more than enough for you.
But as she watched you readjust yourself in the passenger seat once your co-workers were out of sight and obliviously continue on as if nothing had just occurred, it clicked painfully for Ellie: she was merely a fool in love, and she couldn’t and wouldn’t be the one to make you accept your fate.
“What are you doing here?” You whisper accusingly, still refusing to look up at the auburn-haired woman.
“You’re the one who’s married with a husband. What are you doing here?” Ellie chuckles humourlessly.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Yeah, I guess not.”
You both sit in painstakingly loud silence, you tightly gripping your purse in your lap and Ellie finishing off the rest of her whiskey. Once her glass is empty, she waves the bartender down for another refill. Ignoring the worker’s curious eyes at the palpable tension between you, you begin compulsively picking at the cuticles of your perfectly manicured nails.
“Still do that, huh? You’re gonna ruin the pretty nail job that I’m sure Chad spent a lot of money on,” Ellie points out after a sip of her drink. “Wouldn’t want that, would we?”
“That is not his name,” you grumble.
“Might as well be,” Ellie shrugs. “The dude is so boring and dull, a boring and dull name suits him. Can barely even remember what he looks like.”
This was a lie on Ellie’s part; she knows what your husband’s name is, and she knows exactly what he looks like.
“Are you just here to chew me out?” you ask bitterly.
“I’m here to get a little drunk and watch some football. You just coincidentally happen to be at the same bar.” Ellie shrugs.
“Bullshit,” you say. “You don’t care about sports. You never have.”
“Oh, please, you don’t know me,” Ellie retorts. “Not anymore.”
Your mouth falls open slightly before you gulp guiltily.
“Y-yeah. I guess not.”
A few more awkward moments pass before you speak again.
“E-Ellie,” you begin. “About the last time we saw each other—”
“It’s fine,” she shrugs once more.
“No, but—”
“It’s cool.”
You finally look up to stare at her. You can’t read her at first, her expression steely. But when her ocean green eyes finally meet yours, Ellie can tell that you know the truth.
You used your copy of Ellie’s apartment key to let yourself in through the front door. You noticed her in the kitchen preparing dinner on a chopping board. You dropped your purse next to the door and walked up behind her to wrap your arms around her waist, sighing contentedly. You didn’t catch the way her body immediately froze up at your touch.
“Hey,” you hummed, peeking past the top of Ellie’s shoulders to glance at the food. “What’re you making for us?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked stiffly, ignoring your question.
You frowned, finally noticing her cold demeanour. Pulling your hands away, you backed up to get a better look at her. She kept her back turned to you, resuming her chopping. You tug on the end of her shirt in an attempt to get her attention.
“Ellie. What’s wrong?” you asked tensely.
“Nothing,” she muttered in reply, almost indistinctly.
“It’s obviously something,” you insisted. “What’s going on?”
Ellie finally turned around but kept her eyes on the ground and her arms crossed.
“Just not in the mood to be around anyone right now.”
“Okay, well, why didn’t you text me then? I could have just come over tomorrow instead. Or I would have planned to—”
“I completely forgot you were coming over,” Ellie shrugged. “Sorry.”
You looked completely perplexed, at a loss for words at her iciness. She didn’t look the least bit sorry, and it was obvious that she wasn’t trying to hide it.
Ellie wasn’t always the most amiable person towards others. But she had always been warm and kind when it came to you, more than anyone had ever been. This side of her, so closed off and callous, was a side you never expected to experience for yourself.
“D-did I d-do something?” you stuttered, twiddling your fingers anxiously.
“No. Just had a bad day.”
“Are you sure? I feel like I’m bothering you.”
Ellie shrugged again.
“Do you… do you want me to l-leave?”
“Do what you want.”
Your eyes welled up with hot tears, and you put every effort into trying not to let them spill.
“What’s going on? Why are you acting like this?”
Your hands began to reach towards her again, but she suddenly brushed them away before walking out of the kitchen.
“Ellie! Wh—”
You followed her into her bedroom and watched as she started packing up miscellaneous belongings into a backpack.
“Wh…what are you doing? Where are you going?”
“Think I’ll spend the night at Jesse’s.”
“At Jesse’s? This is your apartment. And you just said you weren’t in the mood to be around anyone right now.”
“Well, Jesse’s not just anyone.”
“But I am?”
Ellie turned around and finally looked you in the eye. You expected to see fury woven into her ocean green irises; instead, you were taken aback by the misery and disappointment etched on her face.
“E-Ellie…?”
“I think you should go.”
“B-but why? What happened? What did I do?”
“I… I…”
Ellie took a deep breath before speaking again.
“I think we should call this off.”
You looked at her, bewildered and rattled.
“C-call it off?”
“Yeah.”
You began to pick at your nailbeds nervously.
“What do you mean? C-call… call what off, exactly?” you whispered.
“Seriously?” Ellie scoffed in amazement. “Yeah, I… I need you to leave. Now.”
“What?”
Ellie scoffed again before turning back around to continue packing.
“You’re unbelievable,” she laughed bitterly. “After everything we’ve done with each other, after everything we’ve been through… You still refuse to admit we’re together. You refuse to call what we have a relationship. You don’t even wanna call what we have ‘love’.”
“E-Ellie… we’re just—”
“Don’t you dare say that we’re ‘just friends.’ Friends don’t do what we do. Friends don’t kiss and cuddle and make out with each other. Friends don’t fuck each other every night. Friends don’t call each other ‘baby.’ Not the way we do.”
She threw a shirt onto her bed before facing you again.
“I get it. I know you’re not out. I get that you still have so much shit you need to figure out about yourself. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t be your experiment. I can’t be your secret.”
“You’re not! You’re not my secret. Y-you’re—”
“I really don’t want to hear what I am to you anymore,” Ellie interrupted. “None of your friends know about us, not a single fucking one. They just know me as that one girl you hang out with a lot. They think we’re ‘besties’ or whatever the fuck you wanna call it. It’s obvious that I’m less important to you than you are to me.”
“No! No! Ellie, it’s not like that. I-I—” you stuttered. “I care about y-you. I really do. Y-you do make me feel things that my other friends just don’t. B-but… I-I’m not… I’m not—”
“You’re trying to say that you’re not a dyke.”
“Ellie!”
“It’s fine. I know that’s what you were thinking.”
“It’s not! I’m just… I’m just… not… like that.”
“Like me.”
“Th-that’s not what I’m saying.”
“I don’t… I just don’t fucking care anymore. I can’t keep doing this to myself.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose, frowning, before continuing.
“I-I… I love you. But I need space. I need a little air from… from all of this bullshit.”
“E-Ellie—” you struggled to find words, anything to comfort or satiate her.
“I don’t want to hear you make another fucking excuse or stupid reason for why you can’t want me the way I want you to. I can’t force you to do anything or give you the courage to be honest with yourself. But I just can’t be part of your lies anymore.”
“Ellie, will you stop?” you demanded. “I didn’t come here to have you insult me to my face, to have you call me a liar and a user and—”
“I didn’t say any of those things.”
“You basically did! I came over because I thought we’d have a nice night and enjoy ourselves like we usually do, so I really don’t know what’s gotten into you!”
“Have you seriously not been listening to anything I’ve said?”
“I have! I just don’t get what I’ve done for you to start shit like this suddenly! We’ve been doing just fine and having fun, so what the hell is all this?”
Ellie ran her hands down her face in frustration, while you balled up your fists in anger.
“Tell me you love me.” Ellie suddenly said.
“What?”
“Tell me that you love me. It’s that simple. Tell me that you love me, and we can figure this all out.” Ellie declared. “But I want to hear you say it.”
You blinked at her.
“I… I…”
Ellie smirked ruefully before speaking.
“Yeah. Thought so.”
She slung the backpack onto her shoulder and walked out into her living room. You paused for a moment before sprinting after her and catching her by the arm.
“W-wait, Ellie. I…I do love—”
“Don’t.”
“Baby, please—”
Ellie shook your arm off to turn towards you.
“Stop. Just go. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
“I wish I could be what you want. I wish I wasn’t straight, I—”
“Ha!” Ellie laughed. “I’ve been knee deep inside you, and you’re straight? That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“I know we don’t have the most conventional friendship, but—”
“But what? I’m supposed to be okay with you using me for attention and sex, only to get thrown away and forgotten about in the end?”
“Huh,” you scoffed. “Is that what you really think of me? Do you really think I’m that shallow of a person?”
Ellie took a calculated beat before responding.
“Yeah. I fucking do.”
Your eyes welled up with tears once again, crushed and livid.
“Well, thank you for that. This has been very enlightening. Thank you for being so fucking honest with me.”
“Yeah, well. One of us has to fucking be.”
You glared at her while she stared at the floor, arms crossed against her chest. There was a stinging sensation burning at the tip of your tongue, threatening to spill spitefully from your lips. Something deep within you knew instinctively it would be cruel, but your temper and rage got the best of you.
“Oh, you want to talk about honest, Ellie?” you spat. “Let’s talk about you being so fucking honest then.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You want to complain about me being straight, but don’t tell me that it didn’t give you a huge ego boost the first time you got me to sleep with you.”
“Excuse you?”
“I bet you were just so fucking excited to stick your strap in me so you could brag to fucking Jesse and fucking Dina that you got to ‘convert’ a straight girl for the night. How long did you wait to tell them the news?”
“Stop it.”
But you didn’t.
“Can you not see how much of a cliché you are? I’m sorry if you feel I’ve led you on or whatever, shouldn’t you know not to fall for a straight girl? Did you think we were going to ride off into the sunset on a white horse if you strapped me enough times? You fuck good, Ellie, but not that good. Your dick is fucking plastic. You can wish and pretend all you want, but it’ll never be the real thing.”
Ellie’s face completely drained of all colour, her many freckles extra prominent over her pale skin.
“This was fun while it lasted, but I was never going to be the one for you. It’s time you stopped deluding yourself. You really gonna spend the rest of your life pathetically chasing after girls who will never want you?”
You chuckled mirthlessly and walked towards the front door. Picking up your purse from the floor and turning the knob, you turned back to where Ellie stood frozen in place.
“Well, good luck,” you proclaimed before shutting the door behind you.
“I know it’s been years,” You begin, almost in a whisper. “But it was… really fucked up, what I said to you. You didn’t deserve that. We were so, so close, and I’m sure that really hurt you. I wouldn’t blame you if you totally hated me. I was going through something at the time, and I lashed out at you unfairly and—”
“That’s great and all,” Ellie interrupts. “But I don’t really hear an actual apology in any of that bullshit.”
You fidget in embarrassment before speaking once more.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sure,” Ellie shrugged before taking a huge swig from her whiskey.
“H-how…” you attempt. “How have you b-been?”
Ellie has to stop herself from cackling and settles for a snort.
“Oh, come on. You don’t actually give a fuck.”
“N-no, I do—”
“You don’t have to pretend. I know you’re just asking to be polite.”
Ellie takes her eyes off you to avert her gaze once more to the football game on the TV.
“I’ve been great, actually. Really great.” Ellie assures.
You stare at her, attempting to decode her expression. Her voice sounded confident and assured, but her ocean green eyes tell a different story.
“You want me to do what?”
Your face scrunched up in total bewilderment as your eyes bore into the girl sitting in front of you.
Dina. One of Ellie’s best and closest friends.
“Just what I said,” Dina replied, eyebrows raising. “I’m being completely fucking serious.”
“Wow,” you scoffed. “This is why you wanted to meet up so badly? You couldn’t have just said this in your message?”
“I wanted to see you do it. With my own eyes.”
“Do you not see how fucked up and invasive this is?”
“I don’t really give a fuck. Do it.”
“No.”
Dina’s deep brown eyes stared you down intensely, and you glared back.
“I never liked you, you know,” you muttered. “Not really.”
“I seriously don’t give a fuck.”
“Great.”
“Great.”
“You’re a fucking weirdo.”
“I still don’t give a fuck.”
“Why does it even matter that much to you? You’re not her new girlfriend or anything. You know, you’re not even her type. Why does it matter to you if I block her number or not?”
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done, the damage you did to her? Do you know how distraught she is, how badly she’s hurting right now?”
You fought hard to hide your burning interest in Ellie’s current state.
“You broke something in her,” Dina continued. “She won’t even tell anyone exactly how things went down between you two, but it was obviously really fucking bad.”
“You ever consider that she hasn’t told you anything because it’s not your fucking business?”
“Maybe so, but I can’t watch her go through this anymore. She looks through all your old pictures together and lurks all over your pages. I can tell she fights not to call you all the time. Part of her still believes that you’re going to come back and make amends, but you and I both know the truth.”
Dina crossed her arms and leaned back into her chair before resuming.
“The only way she can start healing from this is if she has zero access to you. Any part of you. But that’s only possible if you do something about it.”
You stared at her in disbelief.
“I’m sorry that Ellie’s having a hard time right now,” you said slowly. “I really am—”
“Then prove it. Prove it right fucking now. Do the one thing that will allow her to accept this and move on with her life.”
“I’m sorry she’s having a hard time,” you repeated. “But she’s a fully grown adult, and I’m not responsible for her mental well-being or what she does with her fucking life. It has absolutely nothing to do with me. If she’s so incapable of moving past what happened between us, that’s on her.”
It was Dina’s turn to stare at you in disbelief, and you returned it with a look of cold inflexibility. She scoffed and shook her head as she gathered her things.
“You know, I told her not to get involved with you. I had this nasty gut feeling about you since the very start, and I told her that it would end badly. But it’s Ellie, so of course, she didn’t listen to me. She didn’t want to listen, no matter how many times I told her that I didn’t like you or trust you.”
Dina quickly downed the rest of her drink and slung her purse over her shoulder.
“And despite all of that,” she went on. “I never thought you’d be this much of a callous, cold-hearted bitch. I thought that maybe, just maybe, you still cared enough about Ellie to do this for her. I thought that she had meant enough to you that you would just let her go.”
She sneered, stood up from her chair, and sharply uttered the words that would involuntarily echo in your mind for years to come.
“Just know this. In ten years, you’re gonna be married to the dullest, most boring man alive. You’ll have the boring white wedding, and you’ll live in the boring, three-story suburban house, and you’ll work an unfulfilling, boring job. You’ll have the most unsatisfactory sex, maybe pop out a kid or two for that same boring man.
And one day, you’ll wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, turn to your husband lying next to you, and you’re going to think of Ellie. You’re going to think of everything she did for you, all of the patience and trust and love. You’re going to remember exactly the way she made you feel and what you felt for her. And you’re going to look down at this man that you married, and you’re going to realize that you have been reduced to nothing more than his dull, boring wife. Everything you once were has been stripped away completely so you can be the final accessory to this man’s white picket fence dream.
And you’re going to break down and sob harder than you ever have in your life, and he’s not going to move a single muscle to comfort you. And you’re not even going to care because in that moment, you’re going to realize that Ellie had left you behind all of those years ago. She’s happy and successful and content. You will not have crossed her mind in years, but she will haunt yours for the rest of your life. And there will be nothing you can do to ever stop that feeling.”
With that, Dina stormed off.
An hour later, you were lying on your bed, still fully clothed. You’d been staring intensely at Ellie’s phone number. There was this prickling impulse to call her, an impulse that your mind chided you for.
You thought about what Dina had told you, that Ellie had been going through a hard time. “Part of her still believes that you’re going to come back and make amends,” she’d said. Ellie was still thinking about you, even after everything.
You exhaled deeply as you rolled onto your side and found yourself staring at the wall of pictures next to your bed. Over a dozen frames hung against the white drywall, each holding a faded picture of you with friends or family. The photos were placed quite meticulously, all uniform and aligned. All but one.
In a corner stood out a small polaroid picture flimsily stuck onto the wall with blue painter's tape. It was of you and Ellie, taken several months ago in your living room. She’d snapped the photo candidly, her head lying on your shoulder while making a silly face as you laughed boisterously at some stupid joke she’d just made.
You’d berated her for taking it, embarrassed that she’d caught you in a moment of vulnerability. Your shame amplified when she’d insisted that you put it up on your wall of photos. She’d whined that you had no pictures of her anywhere in your place, and you refuted with the argument that it was a shittily taken photo. She won out in the end, sloppily placing it onto the wall with tape as you watched begrudgingly.
Still lying in bed on your side, you stared at how unbefitting it looked amongst all your other photographs. It paled in comparison to the rest that were situated neatly in their wooden frames. It looked lopsided, unpleasant. Wrong.
Your eyes turn back to your screen. With shaking hands, you blocked Ellie’s number before going through the rest of your phone and completely removing her existence from your life.
You continue to stare at Ellie as she takes her eyes off the game to down the rest of her whiskey. You wait for her to elaborate further, but she doesn’t.
“That’s… that’s good to hear,” you mutter. “I’m glad to hear you’ve been doing well.”
“You’re so full of shit,” Ellie chuckles almost imperceptibly. You pretend not to hear her, but you both know that you did.
“Are you still friends with Jesse and Dina?” you ask timidly, unsure as to why you’re attempting small talk. “How are they doing?”
“Yeah, of course I’m still fucking friends with them. They’re my family,” she replies bluntly. “I don’t know why you’re asking, you never seemed to really like either of them.”
You purse your lips. You never did like either of them much, both having cleverly kept their guard up against you during the time you’d known Ellie. Despite your efforts, they never fully warmed up to you. It angered you, over the years, to know that you proved them right, Dina specifically.
“I was just wondering,” you respond defensively. “They were both really important to you, especially Dina.”
The last two words slip from your lips with little thought, and Ellie’s face contorts into a look of incredulity and indignation.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
You shrug, toying with the second shot glass of tequila you’ve yet to drink.
“Let me get this straight,” Ellie huffs. “You’re the one with a ring on your finger and a husband who is nowhere to be seen right now, hooking up with random fucking men two seconds after meeting them.”
“I never—”
“But I’m being questioned on whether I’ve fucked someone I’ve known since childhood, when I’m the one completely unmarried and free.”
“I didn’t hook up with that guy—”
“Your tongue was halfway down his throat, and you want to get pedantic about it?” Ellie laughs humourlessly.
“What the fuck do you want, Ellie?” you almost cry.
“You really should be asking yourself that question, angel,” Ellie retaliates.
Ellie flags the bartender down one last time to close out her tab as you sit next to her silently, completely stunned and dumbfounded. You knew you shouldn’t have let your curiosity and envy get the best of you. You knew you should have ignored Ellie the moment you saw her. You knew it was a mistake to be here at all.
“Jesse and Dina just celebrated their wedding anniversary last month,” Ellie suddenly says as she watches the bartender walk away with the card she just handed him. “They’ve even got a cute kid. JJ, my godson. They’ve been happily married for years.”
You look up to glance at her, and you notice she’s staring at your ring finger.
“I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you?” she asks sarcastically.
“I, I’m—” you mutter, still at a loss for words. You involuntarily place a hand over your wedding band.
“Look,” Ellie continues, turning away from you slightly to sign the check the bartender just placed in front of her. “I don’t know you anymore. I haven’t for a really long time.”
She pushes the pen and paper away, and her eyes meet yours.
“But even after all these years, I guess I’m still the one person you can’t fool with your bullshit. You can lie to your friends, you can lie to your shitty husband, you can lie to all the guys you meet at these bars. But I don’t even have to say, ‘I told you so’ when your life has clearly done that for me already.”
She leans in close enough that you could see a slight tinge of blue in her irises. Your breathing hitches as your heart and other parts of you throb wildly. For half a second, you involuntarily gape at her lips before your bashful eyes dart back up to meet her ocean green ones. You can hear the smugness dripping in her voice as she chuckles.
“Hope you figure it out one day, babe,” she nearly whispers.
Mesmerized, you’re about to lean in even closer when Ellie suddenly pulls back and sits up. Disoriented, you watch as she takes your second shot of tequila and shoots it. She slams it down onto the bar and swipes a thumb across her bottom lip to wipe off the dripping excess of liquor. You attempt a response, but your tongue continues to fail you. Ellie gets off her barstool before turning towards you once more.
“Good luck,” she croons. She gives you a wink and walks away.
You gape after her, your body rigid with shock. After a moment, you slowly swivel in your seat to face the bar again. You find yourself face-to-face with the bemused bartender.
“So, uh,” he asks slowly. “Did you… want another shot?”
author's notes:
yes i am alive 🫶
hi beautiful people, can't believe i'm finally uploading something again after what, a year and seven months? 😭
i honestly didn't mean to take a break from writing, life kind of just happened. met the love of my life kali who i've been with for almost two years now, and moved VERY very far away (the furthest i've ever moved as an adult) to be with said love of my life. we have two cats and we very recently moved into our second apartment. still a preschool teacher but my new school is 50x better than my last place, and my bosses & students genuinely appreciate me. life isn't the most perfect bc being a teacher still means being broke foreverrrrr, but i'm in a far better place now than where i used to be back when i was more active
i know this isn't what everyone's been asking for (yes i still read people's comments on here and AO3 despite not really being active lol, i know y'all want more ncty and the last chapter of the heartbreak trilogy). but honestly i just needed to get my proverbial writing sea legs again, so i decided to work on a fic that i've been working on for nearly two years lol
proof btw:
a special thank you to kali my boyfriend my wife the absolute loml for helping me with this (yes i refer to him as my boyfriend but also my wife often times, my partner is a transmasc butch lesbian who uses he/him pronouns and we are a very classic butchfemme lesbian couple; please let me know ASAP if that is an issue so i may block you 🫶)!! he proofread this many times and came up with SO many vital suggestions, and he is honestly one of the biggest reasons why i was able to go back to writing again. thank you for being my biggest supporter always, i love you! (everyone say thank you to belle's wife kali for literally encouraging me to go back to writing fics again, y'all have him to thank for this)
(also to kali only: you need to finish what you were doing when you were helping me come up with inspiration for the sex scene, thankssss)
my wife at the end of us editing this: "bartender's name should be owen by the way cause i think it's funny"
anyway, i will eventually continue my WIPs! i will do it at my own pace because i am a full-time employed adult, but i hope to remain as active as possible if i can. i'm already working on other fics as you read this :)
feel free to send me questions in my inbox if you'd like!
missed y'all sm, and love y'all lots 🩷
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