by Anthology
“I know,” Ella replied with another smile, before she stood up and kissed her husband.
Suddenly the door bell sounded.
“I guess it’s time,” Ella said.
“Come on,” Logan replied as he took her hand and led her down the stairs. Ella walked to the door and took a deep breath before she opened the door.
“Ella?” The lady standing in front of her said with nervous smile.
“Rosie?” Ella replied.
Without another word, both women hugged each other tightly.
“Thank you so much,” Ella said as she released Rosie from her embrace. “Thank you for giving me back my life.”
“It wasn’t me,” Rosie said. “It was Daniel. It’s what he would have wanted, and he would be so happy that he helped such a wonderful lady.”
“I will be forever grateful,” Ella said as tears of joy and sadness trickled down her face.
“No crying,” Rosie said with a smile. “Not today, today is a good day.”
“Okay,” Ella’s smiled. She turned to Logan, who was still standing behind her. “This is my husband, Logan.”
“Good to meet you,” Logan said, as he too hugged the woman standing before them.
“You too,” Rosie said with another smile.
Ella led Rosie into the living room, where Caroline as playing on the floor with her dolls. Rosie was delighted to meet Ella’s little girl too.
The two women spent the afternoon together and before long they were like old friends.
When the time came to say goodbye, Rosie hugged Ella tightly.
“I want you to be happy,” she said as she took Ella’s hand. “Live your life and make it a good one. Daniel was so full of life, and in a small way, knowing you have his heart makes it feel like he is still alive too.”
“I will,” Ella replied. “And you are always welcome here, Rosie. We will be connected forever now.”
“Thank you, Ella,” she smiled before she turned and walked down the pathway to her car.
“Are you okay, sweetheart,” Logan said as he slipped his arms around Ella’s waist as she watched Rosie drive away.
“I have never been better,” she replied as she leaned back into him. “I thought changing hearts, would have changed me and maybe it has. It has taught me, we only get one life, and we should live it as best we can.”
“I like the sound of that,” Logan said as Ella turned to face him. “And I love my beautiful wife, and her brand new heart.”
The End.
ONLINE VALENTINE
SARAH ELIZABETH
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2016 by Sarah Elizabeth
This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or passed, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews.
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Beta read by L. Innes.
PROLOGUE
“What are you looking at?” I heard Rebekah ask, her voice bringing my attention over to her instead of the newly hung poster that was pinned up in the center of the college’s main noticeboard. It was the same one that I’d been staring at for at least ten minutes while I waited for her to finish up her final class of the day. Well, I hadn’t been staring at the entire poster; it was more those three small words printed between the lower two love hearts that had initially caught my attention.
‘GIRLS ask GUYS’.
“You should ask him,” she whispered, playfully nudging my left arm with her elbow. I noticed a small smile beginning to play over her lips as she raked her gaze away from the board just long enough to wriggle her eyebrows at me a few times. I immediately knew what she was hinting at, but she was definitely suggesting the unthinkable. “You know, I heard he and Brooke broke up a couple of weekends ago.” And there it was.
Rebekah wasn’t the only one who had heard about the break-up. I’d heard about it, too. In fact, I think pretty much everybody had. Tyler and Brooke were one of the most well-known couples around campus, so anybody who was an anybody knew practically everything there was to know about them, except for the reason why they decided to call time on their two-year relationship.
I glanced up at the poster one final time, then blew out a low, resigned sigh and shook my head, pulling my satchel firmly over my shoulder as I turned to make my way toward the exit doors.
“Guys like him don’t stay single for long!” she said, and grabbed hold of my arm, spinning me back around to face her.
She was right, and she was also extremely persistent—a trait that I hadn’t quite fully mastered for myself yet. Judging by the twinkle that was mischievously playing around inside her eyes now, I already knew that she wasn’t going to drop this topic of conversation any time soon because, let’s face it, she never did. When my best-friend of seven years became excited over something, nothing would stand in her way until she either got what she wanted, or somebody shot her down. Unfortunately—for the both of us on this one occasion—she wasn’t likely to get her own way on this.
“And guys like him don’t give freshman like me a second glance, either,” I told her, because they didn’t. I may have only been eighteen, but I wasn’t in any way naive enough to think that he would look my way twice. He never had in all the time I’d known him, and I didn’t believe for even a single moment that he ever would.
Did it matter that I had liked him since the first day I’d laid my eyes on him? Or that I had seen him pretty much every day for the past couple of years? No. No, it didn’t. It didn’t matter at all because everything I felt for him was completely unrequited. If I had learned anything in my life then it was that seniors didn’t date freshmen, and they also didn’t date their best-friend’s little sisters. Fact.
“Emily, you have the upper hand here, don’t you see? If you think about it, you have more of a chance with him than any other girl in college.” She couldn’t possibly be serious and, if she was, then she was clearly delusional. If anything, I had less of a chance because of who I was and the reason how we both knew each other. “Don’t look at me like you think I’ve lost my damn mind! I’m being serious. You should definitely ask him. I mean, think about it. What’s the worst that could possibly happen?” Her smile didn’t once falter, and her blue eyes were now bulging wide with anticipation. That was Rebekah. Ever the optimist.
I realized that it was time to admit to her what I’d already admitted to myself long ago. Offering Rebekah a small smile, I shrugged my shoulders, “You’re asking me what’s the worst that could possibly happen? I’ll tell you. He could say no,” I told her. “That’s the worst that could possibly happen.”
She chewed on her bottom lip, seemingly deep in thought.
“Okay, fine. He could. You’re right, he could say no,” she admitted with a small shrug of the shoulders. “But then, he might say yes.”
CHAPTER 1.
Deep breaths.
You can do this.
On three.
One.
Two.
Three.
“I wondered if … if you would maybe … I was wondering if maybe …” My voice trailed off into a complete silence and I immediately closed my eyes. I was mumbling. I needed to not mumble. It made me sound and appear weak, maybe even desperate. Tyler didn’t do desperate.
I began to inwardly curse myself for allowing Rebekah to talk me into ask
ing Tyler to the dance. I let her raise my hopes and I shouldn’t have. If I could have bailed out of asking him then I would have, but I knew that there was no way I could back out now. For one, Rebekah wouldn’t let me get away with not asking him. And two? Deep down, I wanted to. It was the perfect scenario, just like she’d said it was. This was my one and only chance; however small it may have been. And it was small. Extremely small. I had one shot to get this right, and there was no way in hell that I wanted to mess it up. I had to do it, and I had to do it now.
Raising my chin higher, I reopened my eyes, observing the deep brown ones that were staring back at me, with want and need … expectancy, even. They looked desperate, but I guessed that they were. In fact, I knew they were. I could sense it. No. Scrap that. I could feel it.
You can do it, Emily. Just do it. Just ask him.
I repeated that same mantra over and over in my mind as I inhaled another deep breath, trying to steady my nerves before going in for the kill.
Here goes …
“I was wondering if you would like to go with me to the Valentine’s danc—?”
“Emily?” Startled at the sound of a voice behind me, I whipped my head around, looking over my shoulder toward my bedroom door. “Who are you talking to?” My mom scanned the entire room before she focused her gaze back over on me, a quizzical look now displaying inside her eyes when she saw that I was alone.
I instantly felt the heat rising over my cheeks with my embarrassment and turned away from her, brushing my fingers through my hair while at the same time hoping she wouldn’t question me any further. She usually didn’t. She was generally more preoccupied with what was going on in her life than ever worrying about what was happening in mine. To be honest, I preferred it that way—now more than ever.
I guess that it could have been worse. It could have easily been my brother who had walked inside my room and caught me asking his best-friend out on a date. I shuddered at the thought because Matt would never have let me live it down. Ever.
“Um … nobody. I wasn’t talking to anybody,” I eventually answered, looking back at her through the reflection in the mirror. “Did you need something or …?”
“Yes,” she smiled at me as she walked further inside my room, laying the freshly laundered clothes at the end of my bed. “Rebekah’s waiting for you downstairs.”
***
Rebekah took a left turn into the parking lot of Burger Palace, which made me immediately twist in my seat to face her. We never came to this place. Our usual hangout on a Thursday night was always Delicious Deli, which was located only a couple of blocks away from here.
“Did you get lost or something?” I questioned, feeling somewhat confused when she parked up in one of the empty spaces and casually leaned forward to cut the engine.
“Lost? No. I didn’t get lost,” she winked at me, amusement filling her eyes as she reached down and unclipped her seatbelt. She proceeded to switch on the overhead light between us and pulled her compact mirror from out of her purse before applying some lipstick, fully concentrating on making her pale pink lips a deep shade of red. “There … much better.” She said, rubbing her lips together when she was done. As she snapped the mirror back closed again, she glanced over to me, her smile widening. “You ready to go and grab something to eat?”
I briefly looked out through the windshield, observing the bright red lights that were illuminating the front of the building just up ahead of us. This place was usually packed full of jocks and their groupies, which was one of the main reasons why we always chose to stay away.
“You want us to grab something to eat in there?” I turned back to her as I asked, but it was no use because she didn’t hear me. She didn’t hear me because she had already made her way out of the driver’s side door and was heading toward the entrance before I even had a chance to climb out of the passenger seat.
Rebekah was tapping her left heel repeatedly on the ground, her leg jiggling impatiently as she waited for me to catch up to her. As I slowly made my way closer, the glint of mischief embedded inside her eyes was becoming increasingly more visible by the second. When I finally reached the top step, I grabbed hold of her wrist, stopping her from going any further until she at least explained to me what we were doing here.
“Okay, enough already. What’s going on?” I asked, my question earning me nothing other than a sweeter than sweet smile in return. As she continued to smile and not speak a word, I narrowed my eyes on her some more. She was up to something, I had no doubt in my mind about that, and not knowing was beginning to put me on edge. “Rebekah? Why are we here? I mean, do you even like burgers?”
“I wanted a change of scenery, that’s all,” she answered with a small shrug of the shoulders, pushing open the painted red door and ushering me inside. “And of course I like burgers. Who doesn’t like burgers, right?” She had a point.
The smell of greasy food was thick in the air as we stepped through the entrance doors, and rock music was blaring out from the retro jukebox to the left of us. I glanced all around us, first to my right and then over to my left, taking in the atmosphere as Rebekah pulled me along by the hand toward the counter. It was definitely a whole lot livelier than the Deli we were used to, and I recognized most of the people around the place from college.
“Hi ladies,” a blonde woman wearing a red baseball cap and matching shirt greeted us as we approached her, apparently too busy retrieving her notebook and pencil from her apron pocket to make any eye contact or fully acknowledge us. “What can I get for y’all tonight?”
“We’ll take two double cheese burgers with extra fries and a couple of chocolate milkshakes, extra chocolate sprinkles on both, please,” Rebekah placed our order, then frowned as she turned to me. “Sorry. Is that what you wanted or did you want to order something else?” I nodded that it was fine, watching as the blonde threw the both of us a vacant smile before she gestured a nod toward the only empty table left in the place, just to the side of the counter.
Making my way over, I slid across the booth, still watching Rebekah as she slowly took a seat beside me. She began fiddling with her cell phone, only lifting her gaze away from the screen whenever the front doors opened and closed. It was obvious that she had a reason for coming here, and what was even more obvious was the fact that she kept trying to avoid telling me what that reason was. I tapped her hand, my attempt at trying to take her attention away from the screen and back to me.
“All right, spill,” I demanded. “What or who are you waiting for?” I asked, snatching her phone from her and holding it up high so she didn’t have any other option but to answer me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mumbled, and I cocked my head to the side while narrowing my eyes on her again, letting her know that she needed to cut the crap already.
“Rebekah Jayne Harrison, spill!”
She winced as soon as I called her by her full name, but she really hadn’t left me with any other choice. I had heard her mom do it to her a couple of times when she was in trouble about something and it usually worked for her. After a couple of moments, Rebekah nodded and took a deep breath.
“Okay, all right. Listen, I need you to promise me that you won’t get mad with me over this, but …” I could already tell that I was going to get mad. If Rebekah had to ask me to not get mad then the likelihood that I was going to get mad was an inevitability. I knew it, and so did she. “Right, okay, so here’s the thing … I may or may not have heard him arranging to meet a few of his friends here after football training tonight, so I thought that it would be a perfect place for you and he—”
“Who?” I asked, but the expression over her face explained a whole lot more than she realized. I didn’t need her to answer my question to know who she was talking about because I already knew who the who was. “What? Are you stalking him now or something?”
“What? No! Don’t be ridiculous,” she lifted her hand, waving off my accusation while snatching her cel
l phone back from me. “I just thought that if I could get you both in the same place at the same time then it might help you in your mission.”
My what?
“My mission?” I hissed. “You’re making him my mission now?”
Her eyes notably widened and a playful smile began tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Look out, here he comes,” she mumbled, intentionally digging me in the ribs as she straightened in her seat and looked back down to her cell phone. “Okay. Just act normal.”
“Normal?” I shook my head. “You want me to act normal? I don’t think that it’s me you have to worry about here, do you?” I rolled my eyes, not needing to look around to know that he was in the vicinity. I always knew when he was close. Call it a sixth sense or something.
“Hi Tyler!” And there was that, too.
“Rebekah!” I scolded her and rested back in the booth, wishing I had a hat or something to hide behind. Not only did she manage to gain Tyler’s attention, but she caused everyone seated in the restaurant to look right over at us. Most of the guys were smirking, while the girls around the place threw the both of us daggered glares and scowls. Of course they did. Burger Palace? This place should have been called Bimbo Place.
“Hey!” she called out again, flicking her red hair behind her shoulders while fluttering her eyelashes right at him. She was unbelievable.
“Hey, how’s it going?” his tone was smooth and casual, and he smiled over in our direction, but it wasn’t just any smile. It was that same smile that exposed his perfectly aligned dimples and his bright white teeth. It was the very one that always made his green eyes shine. And I was staring right at him.
“Good … things are good,” Rebekah answered him, and I instantly felt relieved. She could have said a lot worse, but she didn’t. Thank heavens for small mercies. “I’m sorry to hear about you and Brooke, by the way. Sucks, huh?” Shoot me. Shoot me now.