I love you. I love you. I. Love. You. I fucking love you, really, Ivy? Jesus. Did she really just tell her boyfriend that she loved him? And for a dick joke, of all things? Ugh. Nice going, Rogers.
Ivy stared at her phone in horror as her excellent wifi signal confirmed that her text had, in fact, sent. Fuck. Shit. Crap. As the reality of what she had just done sunk in, she dropped her phone to the floor, releasing it as though it were burning her skin, letting it topple a few inches away from her. Then, for extra measure, she gave it a swift kick until it was well and truly out of her reach.
Raking her hand through her hair, she brought the back of her free hand to her mouth, staring around her, her eyes wide and embarrassed. She wasn’t quite sure who or what she was looking for, considering she was the only person around at this hour, but her eyes were unseeing, the image of her text sending playing on a loop in her head. She had just told her very first real boyfriend that she loved him. Not just that, but she had told him over text.
Hands shaking, she nervously rose from where she was perched on the edge of her desk, and edged towards her phone, shutting her eyes as she picked the damn thing up. Wincing, she opened her eyes slowly before looking at her last text conversation with Dierks. Maybe it was a dream, a hallucination? Maybe she hadn’t been so unbelievably stupid and had imagined the entire thing? But nope. There it was, clear as day. Her I love you, without even so much as a reply. Not an ‘I think we should break up’, or an 'are you okay?’, and certainly not an 'I love you too’.
Frustrated with herself, she spun on the spot, slamming the phone down on her desk, and started pacing across the room. She could fix this, couldn’t she? You can unlove someone, right? Or, at least, tell them as much? As she fretted over her own idiocy, she heard her phone buzz on the table beside her and snapped her head to the side to get a view of it. Ugh, nope. Just Wardo. Probably a another video of Ulysses trying to take a bite out of him.
Letting out a soft groan she threw herself on the ground dramatically, laying her face on the cold hardwood ground of Drew’s centre. Ugh, she really was an idiot. Now she’d have to quit her job, leave the country, and probably take a new name. She wondered if Wardo would go with her, or if he was gonna be a pissbaby instead and stay with Louis. Face down and feeling like the most miserable person in the world, she actively ignored the countless buzzes that sounded through her phone a few feet away from her. Not even Wardo could cheer her up right now. She sucked, and Dierks probably thought she was a freak, and wanted nothing to do with her.
After minutes, maybe even hours passed, she rolled onto her back and pushed herself back into standing position, glancing at the clock lazily. 15 minutes had passed since her horrendous act of humiliation. Only 15 minutes had passed, while simultaneously feeling like a lifetime. There was no way she could survive much longer. Before she had time to even deliberate what to do next, she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. With a jolt, she whipped around to see where the noise was coming from. Ever since her run in with Grant, and his attacks on Wardo, and Louis’ little sister, Levi, she’d found herself on edge every time she found herself alone at night. She hated that the little twirp was able to get inside her head like that, she’d dealt with far worse than him in the past, and yet there he was messing with her even when he was nowhere to be seen.
When her eyes finally landed on the source of noise, she let out a sigh of relief. Dierks. It was just Dierks. Wait– Dierks. It was Dierks. Dierks who she had just texted I love you to. Shit. He’d said he was coming to pick her up and now she was standing there with a dumb look on her face and he was probably coming to break up with her. There goes all plans to avoid him for the rest of her life.
“Dierks, I’m sorry, okay?” She frowned, her face scrunching in embarrassment. Bringing her left hand to her face, she chewed nervously on her thumbnail as she waited for him to say something. Anything. But he didn’t. He didn’t speak, didn’t say a word. He just stood there for a moment.
Taking a few uneasy steps forward, she tried to read his face, but she couldn’t. He was still too far away. As though reading her mind, he started walking towards her, closing the distance between the two of them. As he walked towards her, Ivy’s eyes widened in confusion as she tried to gauge his reaction. His entire stance – his face, his walk, the set of his shoulders – was coated with a fierce intensity that she hadn’t ever seen on him. She had no idea what was about to happen. Was he upset? Mad? He looked like he could either kiss her, yell at her, or go full Hannibal Lecter, and given the circumstances she was more inclined to believe that he’d do the latter, rather than the former.
“Dierks, just listen–” she started, letting out ragged gasp as Dierks reached her, unable to finish her sentence. Standing there, with him so close to her, she knew that what she had said was true. She did love him. She really, truly did. She’d never really loved somebody with such an intensity, her love for Wardo being the only thing that could possibly rival it, and even that was different. Because Wardo, to Ivy, was a brother, a soulmate, even. But Dierks… She was in love with Dierks, and that terrified her to no end.
“I just…” she tried again, her sentence cutting short once again as she pouted up at him. He was still moving, his head angled towards her, and she had no clue what might happen next.
