Page 25 of Make Her Mine
The closer I got to that closed door, the harder my heart beat in my chest. Holding my breath, I knocked on her door. “Ella?” Nothing. Knocking harder. “Ella, are you in there?”
“Brandon?” she asked.
“Yeah, it’s me. Can I come in? We were supposed to go down to the horse barn, remember?” I shifted my weight feeling like a loser standing there on the other side of the door.
Typically, in other situations such as this one, I’d go on into the room of a girl I was interested in. But something about Ella had me feeling nervous.
“No, you can’t come in,” she shouted. “What makes you think you can even come into our quarters? I came in here for privacy. Get out! Now!”
“I was just concerned, Ella. Damn.” She overreacted, and it pissed me off. “You don’t have to be so rude. I won’t give a crap about you, okay? How’s that?”
“I don’t care. Go away.” I heard the lock click, and I knew she locked the door so that I wouldn’t barge in.
As if I’d ever do that. “Fine. I’ll go away. God, you’re such a brat, Ella Finley.”
Leaving the Finley’s quarters, I went right up to my bedroom to pace and berate myself for even trying. “She ain’t worth my time. She’s so adolescent. She’s so mean!”
And I’d never felt so screwed because no matter how mad she made me, I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Chapter Twelve
Ella
After hours of kicking myself for being such a baby, someone was trying to come into my bedroom. “Hey, why’d you lock your door, Ella?” my sister called out from the other side.
Lying on my bed, I thought that I should get up and let her in. I needed to talk to somebody; it might as well be her. Padding across the room in my bare feet, I unlocked, then opened the door. “Come in. I’m ready to talk.”
“It’s about time!” She came in, closing the door behind her. “What happened at the clinic that took so long and put you in such a foul mood?”
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I took a deep breath, then let it out. “First, they wanted me to pee in a cup.”
“Totally normal, Ella.” Darleen sat down on the chair in front of my vanity. “That wasn’t bad at all, huh?”
Shaking my head, “It wasn’t bad, but I couldn’t make myself pee in that cup—not a drop would come out. I was in there for thirty minutes when the nurse came and asked me if I needed something to drink to help me go.”
“Okay, so you got some water, and then you went a short time later?” she gathered.
“No, I did not.” Crossing my legs Indian-style, I went on. “It took an hour. Then I was able to fill that cup and then some. I peed all over my hand, and that made me feel sick.”
“It happens,” Darleen said with a nod. “That’s why there is soap and water in the bathroom, Ella. Then you got to the exam?”
Shaking my head, I explained what happened. “I acted like I hadn’t peed. I stayed in that bathroom for as long as I could until the nurse knocked and made me come out.”
“Dear Lord, Ella.” Her cheeks went a shade of pink. “Girl, I have to go back there and face those people! They know we’re sisters! You should’ve held it together better than that!”
“If it makes you embarrassed to be related to me, then this next bit is going to kill you.” I had definitely humiliated her. “See, I went into the exam room, got naked, put on the paper robe and got up on the table where I waited for a whole five minutes.”
“Ella, don’t tell me…”
I told her anyway, “I got off that table, dressed myself, and then left.”
“I asked you how it went, and you said fine.” The astonishment shone in her eyes. “Ella, how could you lie to me like that?”
“It had gone fine.” That wasn’t a lie. “I hadn’t been poked or prodded. No one saw me naked. And I hadn’t gone through with the exam. It was fine. But then as I walked out of there, the regret set in. That’s why I got quiet and didn’t want to talk.”
“I thought you were just shaken was all. I had no clue you hadn’t gotten the exam and the birth control pills.” With a huff, Darleen got up. “You better stay away from that man if you’re not mature enough to take care of things like this. Until you’re able to do the mature thing, Ella, you shouldn’t be doing what adults do.” And then she left me alone.
Falling backward, I put the pillow over my face and tried not to cry. Did Brandon even like me that way? That was why I didn’t go through with it. Why go through it for no reason at all?
