The Unauthorized Story Part 4
Title: The Unauthorized Story of a Lesbian Undercover
Chapter: 4
Pairing: Pellie sundae with carmel and chocolate and sprinkles on top
Rating: PGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG-13
Oh no, another chapter! Oh wait, that's a good thing...
Once again, warning that there is mention of Ellie’s cutting. And Degrassi doesn’t belong to me, blah blah, you know the rest. Here’s the chapter already.
Morning found Paige and Ellie wrapped up in each other exactly as they had been when they fell asleep, with Paige draping an arm across Ellie’s stomach and Ellie cradling Paige protectively at her side. The sun filtered through the slats in Paige’s blinds, permeating Ellie’s eyelids so that she drifted slowly to consciousness. She blinked a few times before looking down at Paige sleeping on her shoulder. It felt good to have her there; her warmth, her heat. It was comforting.
Something felt strangely different to Ellie. It seemed that something had been reached between them last night, as though they climbed the next rung on the ladder. She wasn’t exactly sure what was at the top of that ladder, or even what the rungs represented, but she felt closer to Paige somehow, and that seemed important. She knew that things were better between them, and that the attempted kiss no longer mattered, but she wanted to let Paige know that she was sorry for it anyway, and she intended to do just that when the blonde finally stirred.
Having Paige’s head on her shoulder all night seemed to be having a negative effect, because Ellie realized that she could no longer feel her arm. She hardly wanted to wake Paige (after last night’s fiasco the girl could use all the peaceful sleep she could get), but Ellie was afraid she might lose her arm if she didn’t get some blood back into it soon. She shifted slightly, making an attempt to move Paige’s head to a less obtrusive position, but the movement caused Paige to rouse. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, and suddenly Ellie was met by light blue orbs, seemingly paler than usual in the morning light. All movement stopped as the two stared at each other, and once again Ellie felt like she wanted nothing more than to kiss Paige in that instant. However, she didn’t want a repeat of a few days ago, and so she refrained.
“Morning,” Paige said softly, her voice clouded with sleep.
“Unfortunately,” Ellie replied. Paige cracked a smile, which quickly turned into a wide yawn, causing Ellie to scrunch up her nose.
“Sorry,” Paige groaned. “My morning breath is atrocious.”
“No it’s not,” Ellie lied quickly, and Paige raised an eyebrow at her. “Okay, yes it is.” Paige grinned and rolled over, finally giving Ellie’s arm the relief it needed. The redhead sighed, shaking the deadened limb out a bit.
“What’s wrong?” Paige asked in concern as both of them sat up. Ellie shook her head.
“Nothing, just my arm fell asleep over the course of the night,” she explained.
“God, I’m sorry. I’m such a selfish sleeper,” Paige apologized quickly. Ellie meant to assure her that it was okay, but ended up wincing as the blood rushed back to her arm and it started to prickle.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said finally. “I’ll live.” Paige nodded absentmindedly.
“Thank you for last night,” she said quietly, looking back up at Ellie. “I was majorly freaking out, but you managed to calm me down. No one’s been able to do that since…”
The silence that followed was filled by the amazingly large elephant in the corner of the room; an elephant that had tan skin, deep brown eyes, long dark hair, and went by the name of Alex. Both girls ignored it until it finally shrank and went away, though Ellie had a feeling that it would be back soon.
“Paige, I wanted to apologize for the other day in my room,” Ellie started, staring down at the comforter.
“Hon, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” Paige instructed, but Ellie shook her head.
“No, I just…” Ellie sighed, beginning to feel frustrated with the fact that she couldn’t find the words she needed to describe to Paige what she was feeling. Her skin was beginning to itch, and she wished she had a rubber band around her wrist at the moment. Unfortunately, having a rubber band with her meant that she still had the urge to cut, and Ellie didn’t want to have that urge. But it was making her nervous, not being able to say what she wanted to say, and she began to scratch at her wrist. Paige looked down at her with worry, laying a hand on top of Ellie’s to still the movement.
“Hey, it’s okay. You can tell me anything, just don’t get upset. Take your time.” She let her thumb rub soothing circles across the back of Ellie’s hand, watching as the redhead calmed down a bit. Ellie sighed, taking time to organize her thoughts so that she could express to Paige what she was feeling.
“I’m not apologizing for trying to kiss you, because I genuinely wanted to do that. But I am sorry for thinking that I could use you to help me with my article. I wasn’t thinking about how that could hurt you. Honestly, I like being friends with you. You make me feel like a person. You look at me, and you know what I’ve done to myself, but you don’t judge me. Thank you for that,” Ellie said sincerely.
Paige looked genuinely shocked at Ellie’s confession, but the redhead felt better for telling her. Ellie found herself staring down at her hand, which was now held in Paige’s as the blonde continued to rub her hand lightly. It was soothing, to be sure, and lulled her into a trance of sorts until she finally heard Paige speaking to her again.
“No Ellie, thank you.” Ellie lifted her eyes to find Paige staring at her, a look of intense seriousness on her face. “Since Alex left I’ve been… well, I’ve been worthless. But you took the time to talk to me, to be my friend. You make me feel like me again. Regardless of you motives, I can’t thank you enough.” She stopped, and Ellie felt like she could almost see the Alex elephant pop right back into place as Paige considered what she wanted to say. “I loved Alex. I never got the chance to tell her that, but I did, with all my heart. She made me who I am today, or at least who I was before she left. Now that she’s gone, I feel like I’m broken. I don’t know how to be that person that I was without her.”
Paige’s confession was laced with sadness, one that found its way into Ellie’s heart as she realized that she could never be for Paige what Alex had been. But if she thought about it, she was the exact same way. Ellie herself had been a different person when she was with Sean, and when he left she was no longer that person. The same held true with Craig. And each time one of them left, she was a little lost until she found someone else. Perhaps she couldn’t be what Alex was for Paige. But she could be herself for Paige, and maybe that was enough.
“Maybe you don’t have to be that person anymore,” Ellie said quietly. Paige frowned a little, and Ellie was slightly distracted by how cute it was before she remembered that she had to continue. “Alex is gone, and she took that part of you with her. You’ll never get it back, not unless you get her back. But maybe you don’t need that part of you. Maybe you can build a new part to fill that space, with someone else. Not necessarily a lover, but maybe just a good friend.” Ellie stopped before deciding to add one last thing. “I could be that friend for you.”
This speech left Paige not only at a loss for words, but also so touched that she didn’t think that she could speak even if she did know what to say. Ellie was right. She would never be “Alex’s Paige” again. Truth be told, she didn’t really want to be anyone’s Paige. She just wanted to be Paige, without need of any support to keep her personality alive. She had a feeling that she wasn’t quite strong enough for that, but if she had to be someone’s Paige, she wanted to be Ellie’s, because this girl had invested more time and care into her in two weeks than almost anyone that Paige had ever known, and that was including any previous boyfriends she’d had.
And so Paige swallowed down the huge lump in her throat and smiled through the unshed tears and said, “I want you to be that friend, Ellie. I really do.”
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Two more weeks had passed since Ellie and Paige had resolved to pull each other out of the hole that they’d been in, and inseparable did not quite describe the way that the two of them were. The only time that the two weren’t together was when Ellie had a class or a meeting at the paper (or when one of them was in the bathroom, because that kind of closeness was just unnecessary). Often times they would even sleep in the same bed, because they’d been up so late talking or just being in each other’s presence that they ended up falling asleep wherever they were.
Of course all of this closeness was not for nothing, because it was having an obvious effect on them both. Paige had been doing some serious thinking on what she wanted to do with herself. She’d finally gotten a job at The Dot because she wanted to get some cash in her pocket and help carry her own weight around the house. She was back to dressing in more than just sweats everyday, she sang in the shower at the top of her lungs (originally because she was truly happy, but now it was just to spite Marco who had taken to complaining about it), and she’d even taken to making them all a real dinner on occasion rather than living on take out as they had been. She laughed loud, and smiled a lot, and was just an all around fun person again. And everyone loved it. More importantly, so did she.
As for Ellie, she too had been a little happier these days. She wasn’t going so far as to sing in the shower or cook, but she’d invested herself in her school work and written a few very good articles for the paper. When Jesse had asked her about her original assignment, she told him that she was still researching, and that she wanted to get every side of the story. She’d resolved that Paige would no longer be a part of that, because Paige had become something much more important than a research tool for a newspaper article.
Ellie had expected this resolution to leave Paige out of the article to fix things for her altogether. It hadn’t, however. There were times when they would be sitting on Paige’s bed, talking about whatever the topic was for the night, or even when they would just be sitting in silence, thinking to themselves, and Ellie would suddenly find herself with a very strong urge to kiss Paige. Or when she would be sitting at the kitchen table writing something for school and the blonde would be preparing dinner with Marco and Dylan, laughing and dancing to the songs on the radio. Those were the times that Ellie never got any work done at all because somehow Paige would manage to pull her up out of her seat and get her to dance as well, and occasionally even help with the food preparations.
These things worried Ellie because she wasn’t sure why she was still feeling them. Before she thought it was due to her need to write a good story, but now that Paige was out of that equation things no longer added up. It was when she would catch herself looking at Paige- staring at her body, her smile, her eyes, wanting her- that Ellie became very worried indeed, and it was these instances that brought her up to her bedroom and placed her at the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged as she thought to herself on such matters.
Such a thing was happening at this very moment. Ellie had spent a very long day with Paige at the mall. Paige had agreed to go into some of Ellie’s favorite clothing stores, and so it was only fair that Ellie go with Paige into her favorite stores as well. It was when the blonde began trying things on that Ellie ran into a problem, because she found herself enjoying the opportunity to let to her eyes roam all over Paige’s body without suspicion a little too much. When they’d finally gotten home, Ellie excused herself to go upstairs under the excuse of homework, of which she had none.
She’d been sitting in silence for a good half an hour before her thoughts directed her to her scars, and she rolled up her sleeve, staring down at them as she let the memories fill her. Ellie figured that it was only because she did this that she was able to go without wanting to cut herself again, and if she’d tried to suppress the memories during these times she’d probably slip up again. So she thought about her cuts, and how they’d started out as a release from all of the drama at home and gone on until they no longer had any meaning, until she did it just because it was normal to her and because she liked the routine. There were places that she’d gone over twice, even three times because she’d run out of space on her arm. Some cuts were only done once because for some strange reason she couldn’t bring herself to cut over them. Her first cut, for example, was never drawn over. Nor was the one, she suddenly realized, that she’d done that day in the bathroom when Paige had walked in on her. Strange attachments kept her from going over those particular scars, as though they were place markers in time that she didn’t want to erase.
The redhead was so wrapped up in these thoughts that she didn’t even hear when someone entered her room and crossed the floor to get to her. It was only when the person sat down across from her that she noticed they were there, and by then it was too late. Ellie didn’t have enough time to roll her sleeve down, or even really think about it before Paige had grasped her wrist gently, much like she had that day in the hallway when she’d turned Ellie in to Sauve. Ellie looked at her in slight apprehension, afraid that she would be accused of cutting again. The fact that Paige could hardly accuse her when there were no fresh cuts didn’t cross her mind.
Paige said nothing, however. She merely took her other hand and reached out slowly to Ellie’s forearm, giving the girl plenty of time to pull away. Ellie didn’t pull away, and Paige gently touched her arm, tracing her fingers across the tiny white lines that dotted the skin there. Ellie felt a chill go up her spine as Paige continued. Only two people had ever been brave enough to touch her scars before, Paige being one of them. It somehow felt more personal this time, as though she could almost heal the skin back to its natural state with her touch and that soft, caring gaze. Finally, after what seemed like hours later but was really only a few minutes, Paige tore her eyes away from the scars and looked into Ellie’s. Ellie was scared of what she would find there; judgment, disgust, disappointment, hatred. But she found none of these things. Instead, there was care and understanding, and even a little sadness, and Ellie felt relieved that Paige seemed to know that she was okay.
And then she was consumed by that feeling again that she wanted to be so much closer to Paige. Only this time it didn’t scare her, because somehow she knew that Paige was feeling it too. Still, Ellie made no move and it was Paige who closed the short space between them, her hand leaving Ellie’s wrist to rest on the girl’s cheek. Their lips met softly, and it was completely unlike that first kiss in the kitchen, except for the fact that it was exactly the same. Every sensation of being so close to Paige filled Ellie’s brain and time itself seemed to leave the room, closing the door behind it so that they could have their moment in peace. And just as Paige had initiated the contact she was also the one to stop it, though she softened the loss by placing another small kiss just on the corner of Ellie’s mouth. She smiled a little, and Ellie smiled too, but was soon confused as Paige suddenly stood up. It must have shown on her face, because the blonde gave her a knowing grin and extended her hand. Ellie took it and helped herself up and Paige put an arm around her and led her downstairs.
Mmm, Pellie is scrumptious. Please let me know if that chapter was entirely too cheesy or whatever. But I had to have them kiss because I was killing myself with the anticipation of it. And the no dialogue thing was killing me as well. Two whole pages with no dialogue whatsoever. -dies- And it is unfortunate, but there probably won’t be another chapter of this until Sunday. I’ll see if I can get another chapter up before the end of the day, but I might not be able to get it done. No worries though, I’ll be sure to have one for you first thing Sunday afternoon.
Lots of love and care makes the TexasWatermelon patch grow wild.
Chapter 5