A slight crack in the window dressings allowed just enough sunlight to stream in and hit Ellie right over the eyes. With a groan, she shuffled slightly, burying her face further into the pillow that she had herself wrapped around. She reached for the corner of the white duvet and pulled it up over her head to cover her face from the light. She could already feel her hangover setting in and wanted to spend as much time as possible in a comfortable and horizontal position before she started to feel worse.

Trying to piece her night together mentally, Ellie started with what she remembered for certain. She had asked Zack to meet her at Johnny’s, and he had abruptly left the bar when their conversation went south. Knowing she had upset Zack enough that he had up and left her at a bar was gut-wrenching, and not just because of the amount of alcohol Ellie remembered consuming the night prior. She sighed heavily, knowing that Zack had been right about one thing: she needed to fix her relationship with her father. Considering it was officially Christmas Eve and the boys would all be busy with their families, Ellie promised herself she would dedicate the next two days to trying to sit her father down and have the conversation they’d been avoiding over the last few years. It needed to happen, for both of their wellbeings. If Ellie could be brave enough to face her father, maybe she’d be brave enough to face Zack finally.

The thought of how angry Zack was the night before replayed in Ellie’s mind on a loop. She couldn’t stop herself from envisioning the look on his face as he stood up, his green eyes seemingly darkened with a hurt Ellie hated herself for causing. Ellie remembered her stomach dropping as he walked out the door of the bar, and the need she felt for a partner in crime to kick off the rest of her night.

Jimmy had honestly been her first call. Her lanky friend was usually never one to turn down a night out, but when the line finally connected, it was Brian who answered with a hushed tone which was a stark contrast to the brazen greeting Ellie had been expecting. Apparently, Ellie was calling her friend to join her party a little too late in the evening. Despite the fact it was barely 9 pm, Jimmy had already outdone himself and was out cold on the couch in Brian’s basement. The guitarist apologized profusely to Ellie and only hung up the phone when Ellie promised to make plans with them before she headed back to the east coast.

From there, Ellie remembered she made her way to the bar, quickly downed two shots of tequila and settled her bill before heading back out into the crisp California air. She remembered feeling drawn towards the beach but pushed the thought aside on account of not wanting to be down by the pier alone after dark. So she slowly made her way back to her neighbourhood, in no real rush to return home and potentially have to face her father. The walk wasn’t a long one, even taking her time she was on the street she grew up on in under half an hour. When she made her way closer to her childhood home, she noticed Matt’s bedroom light was on. Perhaps it was the two shots of tequila finally hitting her system, but she quickly found herself giggling and throwing light stones at her friend’s window, despite the fact she could easily jump up and climb her way through the window that was left open a crack, as she had requested.

---

“Ellie?” Matt questioned, his eyes peering into through the creeping dusk out his now open window. Ellie gave her friend a sheepish grin and wiggled her fingers as a wave before asking if she could join him. Matt rolled his eyes and backed away from the window, which prompted Ellie to take two quick steps towards the window and jump up, using her arms to further propel herself over the window sill through the opening. Her entrance wasn’t as graceful as she had planned, perhaps due to lack of practice, or the tequila, but she awkwardly slid directly over the window sill and onto Matt’s floor, face first.

“What the hell happened to the ottoman that used to be here?” Ellie asked as she rolled over onto her back, accepting defeat. Matt doubled over onto his bed with laughter; he managed to point weakly to the furniture’s new place in his room, at the foot of his bed, before curling back up in hysterics.

“Very funny Matt,” Ellie groaned as she kicked off her shoes and made herself comfortable on the bed beside her friend. Matt stifled his laughter, and the pair lay silent for a few moments, neither sure what to say first.

“I should go,” Ellie started as she sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “I just saw your light on. I’ve bothered you enough today; you should get some sleep.”

“I don’t think so, missy,” Matt teased as he grabbed Ellie’s arm, preventing her from getting off the bed. “Get back here and fill me in and don’t think I can’t smell that tequila on your breath.”

“I haven’t talked to my dad yet,” Ellie whispered, still sitting on the edge of the bed so that she didn’t have to face her friend. “My room isn’t the same, which sounds super petty, but he erased any of my identity that used to be in that house. He fell asleep while I was unpacking, so I went to Johnny’s.”

“You went to Johnny’s by yourself?” Matt asked, though his tone hinted that he knew better. Ellie let an exasperated groan out as she flopped backward onto the bed, her head resting on Matt’s stomach.

“He walked out on me,” Ellie felt Matt’s body tense underneath her, but he stayed silent, prompting her to continue. “I tried opening up to him, and I just couldn’t do it. I have so many issues I need to fix, and I’m just so overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start.”

“Come here you,” Matt cooed as he watched tears fall across Ellie’s cheek. He pulled her up into a hug, and she instinctively curled inwards against his torso.

---

“Wake up sleepy,” Matt’s voice was soft as he shook Ellie’s shoulder gently.

“I’m up,” Ellie grumbled, “I feel like death, but I’m up.” Matt chuckled as his friend released her death grip on his pillow and rolled over to face him.

“I tried to tell you that those last few drinks were a bad idea,” Matt chuckled as his friend released her death grip on his pillow and rolled over to face him. The puzzled look on Ellie’s face was sobering.

“Don’t tell me you blacked out last night; you told me you could handle it,” Matt teased.

“I guess I lied,” Ellie laughed, reaching up to cover her eyes with the inside of her elbow to lessen the strain on her eyes. “What did we get up to?”

Matt was silent for a moment before filling Ellie in on the events of their evening.

---

“Do you want another drink, Ellie?” Matt asked once his friend had stopped her tears, though he was very conscious of the tear-stained spot on T-shirt. He stood up once he felt Ellie nod against him, and made his way downstairs. He found himself in his kitchen reaching for a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cupboard above the fridge and grabbed two glasses from the cupboard above the sink. He stacked the glasses and placed them in one hand and tucked the bottle under his arm, before opening the fridge and rummaging around for a large bottle of coke to use as a mix. He was so preoccupied that he jumped slightly when he closed the fridge and turned to the hallway, where his father stood with a sheepish grin on his face.

“Ellie?” his father asked, taking in the two glasses and the alcohol in his son’s hands.

“Rough first night back,” Matt nodded as his father stepped aside so he could make his way back upstairs. Matt was thankful that his family was so accepting of his friend, though over the years he had to brush off a multitude of jokes about how the pair were destined to be together one day. There might have been a time Matt had entertained that idea, but once Zack and Ellie became involved, he accepted their relationship, whatever it was, and fell contentedly back into the duties of the best friend.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind,” Ellie shrugged, motioning to the fact that she had changed out of her jeans and into a pair of Matt’s basketball shorts.

“If you can fall back into such a comfortable routine with me, why is it so hard for you and Zack?” Matt asked as he poured a drink for each of them. He’d be lying if there wasn’t a small part of him that hoped that the pair were over for good, no matter how selfish it was.

“I haven’t been lying to you for years Matt,” Ellie sighed after she took a sip of her drink, which earned a raised eyebrow from Matt.

“I’m sure Zack let the real reason I went to Miami for school slip, didn’t he?” Matt didn’t have to say anything to confirm her suspicion; his face gave it away. Ellie wasn’t surprised, Zack was the type that needed to talk things out in order to make sense of them, which is why Ellie’s need to bottle things up was causing such a rift between them.

“There’s more to that story Matt. My dad was ready to let me face the charges; he thought I deserved the lesson. He posted my bail and dragged my ass home but told me he wasn’t going to defend me. He told me I could find another lawyer, one not affiliated with his firm, and fight them that way if I chose to.”

“So what changed his mind? Zack mentioned he had the charges dropped,” Matt was cautious in choosing his words, he could see that it was a touchy subject for his friend, who finished her drink before passing her glass to Matt for a refill.

“I thought it was the stress of everything that was going on. I was feeling the guilt at exploding at Jessica the way I had and was anxiously following her progress back to full health thanks to Jimmy,”

“Wait, Jimmy knew about all of this?” Matt asked, surprised at the fact their friend had kept quiet all these years. It did explain why he had changed his demeanour towards the girl on the rare occasions that they had run into her around town. Jimmy was usually one to accept anyone as a friend, eager to keep everyone happy and having a good time. The last time they had run into Jessica, it had been at the beach, and Jimmy hadn’t said a word to her.

“Is there ever anything you can keep from Jimmy? I think that’s why he always lets his hair get so big, its full of secrets!” Ellie began to giggle at herself, a surefire sign she was starting to loosen up due to her alcohol consumption. Matt poured her drink a little weaker than he had the last and passed the glass back to his friend.

“Anyways, I thought it was the stress that caused my period to be late, but when I started getting a very persistent bought of nausea…” Ellie trailed off as she reached the end of the sentence that she didn’t need to finish.

“Oh my god,” Matt whispered as he got up to sit beside Ellie on the edge of the bed and pull her into a side hug.

“That was too big of a scandal for Dad to want to deal with, so he quickly took over my defense, had the charges against me dropped, and shipped me off to Miami so that I was out of sight and unable to continue to tarnish the family name.”

“I wish you would have told me, you know I would have done anything I could to help you,” Matt whispered, his lips against Ellie’s temple as he was still holding her in a tight embrace.

“I could never ask you for anything like that Matt, it’s not your burden to handle,” Ellie sighed, “I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Zack, he has no idea, and now that he’s back in my life, it is killing me to continue to lie to him. That’s why dropping out of your lives was so appealing, Zack never had to know, he never had to get hurt.”

“You hurt him anyway Ellie; he was crushed when you stopped returning phone calls. He practically lived at my house that first Christmas because he was so hopefully that you’d come back for the holidays and he’d get the chance to see you. You have to tell him to ease your conscience. Besides, he deserves to know he has a child out there somewhere,” Matt’s voice was stern as he spoke. He needed Ellie to take what he was saying seriously, but he was cautious not to upset her any more than she already was.

Ellie pulled herself away from Matt and walked across the room. She downed her drink quickly and poured another, bordering on a 50/50 whiskey to Coke mix.

“He doesn’t,” Ellie said flatly as she leaned back against Matt’s bedroom wall and brought her drink to her lips. Matt studied her intently. Ellie didn’t let her gaze leave the inside of her glass, which she subtly moved so that the liquid inside was swirling in circles as a makeshift way of trying to mix the alcohol and soda. Her shoulders slumped forward; her poor posture was a surefire sign that she was trying to close herself off. Which she was: Ellie was no longer in the mood for this conversation. It was emotionally draining to admit this to Matt; she had no idea how she was going to tell Zack.

“You’re an incredibly brave woman; you know that Ellie?” Matt asked, after debating what he could say to her at that moment to put her a little more at ease. This caused Ellie to finally look up at him, his hazel eyes full of adoration and sympathy. She walked over to the opposite side of his bed and placed her drink down before pulling back the sheets and fluffing his pillows so she could sit upright comfortably under the blankets.

“Why couldn’t I have fallen in love with you instead?” Ellie asked once she was comfortably settled with her drink back in her hand.

“It’s not too late you know,” Matt teased, his stomach dropping at the fact that he was only slightly kidding. Ellie scoffed at his comment and rolled her eyes before requesting that he put on a movie for them to watch. Matt got up and popped a random action film into the old VHS player his parents had granted him permission to use in his room when they upgraded to a DVD player for the living room. Once the film was playing, he ran to the bathroom quickly, but Ellie had passed out cold by the time he had returned.

---

“So we didn’t hook up,” Ellie clarified, taking into account the fact that she had noticed she was sleeping in her bra while Matt was filling in the blanks of their evening.

“Didn’t we promise that was a one-time thing when we were fifteen?” Matt teased, which made Ellie’s cheeks flush before reaffirming that they had not been intimate the night before.

“Must have ditched it because you give off so much heat,” Ellie laughed as she reached over the edge of the mattress to retrieve the black tank top she had discarded in her sleep.

“Is that your way of telling me I’m hot?” Ellie’s glare was comparable to shooting daggers, which were ineffectively serious as she pulled her shirt over her eyes as she glared.

“You’re pushing your luck, Sanders,” though Ellie’s seriousness faded in an instant. She chuckled and playfully punched her friend’s closest shoulder before throwing back the blankets and hopping off the bed. She was grateful that her relationship with Matt hadn’t changed over the course of her time in Miami. She quickly changed back into her jeans and hugged Matt goodbye before thanking him, again, for everything he had done for her and promising to leave through the front door.

Berkeley was at her feet within seconds of stepping out onto the Sanders' front porch. She bent down to greet her puppy before guiding him back to her father’s front yard. The man himself stood on his own porch, leaning with his arms crossed over his chest against the post that held up the porch roof. His eyebrows furrowed with disdain at seeing her leaving his neighbours' house.

“You couldn’t have made it one more house over last night?”

“Figured I’d stay somewhere that I was accepted and welcomed,” Ellie shot back, aggravated by his accusatory tone and by remembering why she had left the house last night at all. Her father opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it shut just as quickly.

“I’ll be inside making coffee,” Ellie said flatly. “Bring the dog back in when he is done and meet me in the kitchen, this bullshit ends today.”

Her father’s eyes widened at her request, but Ellie turned and headed into the house before he had any chance at a reply. She surprised herself at her courageous outburst. She just hoped that confidence would stick around for the explosion that was about to ensue.

Notes

To make up for my two months of radio silence, here is another update!

Lots of secrets spilled in this one. Matt's finally admitting some things to himself, Ellie's finally admitting some things out loud. Perhaps we're making some progress here!

Next chapter is the blow-up between Ellie and her dad. Hope you all are ready!

Thanks for sticking by this one, I'm sending some love to all of you on this first September hump day!
xo