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“No, you just don’t know how to take a compliment.” He lifts my chin with his finger so that our eyes meet. “You need to learn how to take a compliment because you are beautiful, and you should have someone tell you so every day.”
“Shawn,” I mutter, unable to breathe with his hand on my face. I can’t even finish my train of thought.
What was I even planning to say? Who knows?
Words fail me with Shawn this close. H’s fully aware of this fact. Sometimes, I swear he does this on purpose to throw me off my game. Under normal circumstances, I would be composed, more like the Ella I project to the world.
But around Shawn, I am a completely different person. I act like myself, something that doesn’t come easy with strangers, and I sure as hell am not myself at home. One wrong move and my punishments increase, the work getting harder each time I cross either my stepsisters or Clarissa.
“Ella, listen to me,” he says softly. “You are beautiful. Get used to hearing it because I plan to tell you how beautiful you are every day until the end of the school year.”
Then, it hits me. This situation is temporary, with the expiration inevitable. We graduate in sixty days. Even if Finch fell head over heels in love with me in that short amount of time, he has scouts from the NFL looking at him. He has a future that does not include me. After graduation, I will be nothing more than the girl who helped him pass his classes so that he could move on with his life.
“Shawn, you have to stop telling me that.”
“Why? It’s the truth.”
“Because this is not real. You only like me because of how much time we spend together.”
“Time has nothing to do with how I feel about you, Ella. I don’t make a habit of saying things I don’t mean, and I wouldn’t spend four hours on buses every night if I weren't crazy about you.”
“I thought you take the bus to study,” I challenge.
“I do it because of you. From the second we met, I felt this strange attachment to you. I like being around you, I like touching you, I like studying with you, and I want to kiss you almost every second I am with you. Is it that hard to believe that I could like you?”
“Well, yes, I guess it is hard for me to wrap my head around everything. You walk around campus with girls who look like super models. Whether you realize it or not, you have a type, and I do not fit into that box.”
“Don’t you see? The fact you don’t fit into a certain mold is why I like you.”
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to take that, Shawn.”
He sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest, mulling over his next response. “Is this what all smart girls do? Overthink everything. This conversation did not go as I had planned.”
“How you planned?”
He nods, his face somewhat deflated. “I thought of what I would say to you for the last week.” Shawn tugs at his shirt, and a gold chain breaks free from beneath the material.
Startled by the heart charm at the end of its length, I gasp at the sight of my father’s half of the golden heart. Instinctively, I reach for it, my eyes wide and in shock. E
ven though I knew Shawn had the charm, I wasn’t expecting to see it hanging around his neck.
He grabs my hand before I can touch the gold and feel what I have lost between my fingers. “I was right,” he mutters, staring down at our hands.
I shake free from his grip, desperate for an escape. “I…uh…” I stammer and get up from the chair. “I’ll be back.”
He knows. How stupid of me to react in such a way. Timing is everything, and the timing of this situation is not right. I wanted it to be perfect. Now, things are awkward and weird and not what I was expecting.
Shawn pushes out from the table, about to stand, when I set my hand down on his shoulder to keep him in place. He stills, staring up at me with wide eyes and a hopeful smile.
“I have to run upstairs and grab a copy of the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct. I will be right back.”
Without giving him time to respond, I walk away from our table, a nervous wreck. My entire body is on fire and trembling with each step I take out of the room. I know the Bar Association rules by heart and don’t need the book to help him pass this class. But I do need a break, so I can collect my thoughts and consider what I have done.
Shawn knows, and now that he does, where do we go from here?
Shawn
My suspicions about Ella were one hundred percent accurate. Ella is my masked beauty.
