Ignorance
Poet on the Run

Dedicated to angellwings, because she needed this. A lot.

The most frustrating thing about Nate, Ella thought to herself, was that he was so focused. It made him a great musician and a good listener and a very driven person, but it also made it impossible to talk to him.

She'd been waiting for him to finish scribbling on that damn music sheet for over a half-hour now and her patience was being worn extremely thin. He'd looked up once when she sat down across from him at the work table, said hello, and then immediately gone back to work.

Now, she'd had enough. She poked his arm. Hard. "Nate."

"What?" he said, pen still moving. She fought an intense urge to grab it out of his hand and force him to pay attention. It struck her that it probably wouldn't even work—he had two of the most annoyingly persistent band mates in the world.

"I…" she began, trailing off when he didn't even cock his head in her direction. "Never mind."

She got up and walked away. A few minutes later, Nate looked up with a grin on his face that immediately disappeared when he saw that she was gone.

"Oh my god, drop that swatch right now!" Ella exclaimed. She hurried over to the table quickly to make sure no further damage had been done. "You cannot pair these two colors—they clash with the skin tone of your model so badly. Look, I left an approved palette for you right there."

The girl nodded and picked a different color that matched the scheme that had been mapped out for her, pinning it to her dummy. Ella walked up and down the rows, making sure none of the others had made a similar mistake. She had just reached the back of the room when the door opened. She turned and her perpetual smile was wiped off her face. Well, for a moment, anyway. She put it back on almost immediately afterward and turned to work on her own project.

Nate stepped into the room a little warily, not liking the near-silence that met him. The girls were normally chattering away as they sewed or sketched. He walked between the two long rows of tables and finally approached Ella's table at the back. He tapped her on the shoulder.

"Need something, Nate?" she asked pleasantly, refusing to look at him. He noticed that her hands were shaking as she measured and drew marks on the fabric in front of her with chalk. He reached to take one of her hands in his, but she slid it casually out of his way as she leaned across to look at the pattern she'd drawn, almost as though she hadn't realized it. He cleared his throat and she continued to ignore him, going about her work.

Finally, he gripped her shoulders and forced her to face him, watching the scowl grow on her mouth. He said, "Can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

She glared at him, but turned to her students. "I'll be back in five minutes. Don't deviate from the color schemes I laid out for you and don't start cutting anything until I approve it, okay?"

Murmurs of agreement rose from the campers and she crossed the cabin willfully, with Nate trailing behind at a slower pace. When they got outside, she rounded on him and gave him the fiercest glare she could muster.

"What do you want, Nate?" she asked, crossing her arms. "I'm teaching a class in there."

"I-I know," he said, running his fingers through his hair. "I wanted to apologize for earlier. I didn't mean to ignore you."

"…Oh," she said, shifting on her feet. She looked at the ground for a moment and uncrossed her arms. "I…" She steeled herself. "I know that you're sorry, but this isn't the first time it's happened, Nate. I'm starting to wonder if you even consider me a friend. I like you and I like hanging out with you, but I'm not going to force myself on someone if they don't want to talk to me."

"What?" Nate said. He stepped closer. "What are you talking about? Of course we're friends."

Ella's eyes dropped to the ground again. "You don't act like it. You barely ever talk to me, even when we're sitting next to one another at the lunch table. You act like touching me would be a criminal offense and you ignore me when I'm right in front of you. None of my other friends treat me like that."

Nate's eyes widened when he realized what she was talking about. He took another step closer and reached for her hand again. This time she didn't pull away and he laced his fingers through hers.

"Well, I doubt any of your other friends are struggling to find something to say to you because they don't want to embarrass themselves," he told her. "And they're probably not afraid that if they start touching you, they won't be able to stop." As if to prove his point, he lifted his other hand to trace his fingers over her cheek. He smiled down at her and she couldn't help but smile a little back. "And I'm pretty sure your other friends don't get so absorbed in writing songs about you and for you that they just have to finish, even if you're right there, waiting to talk to them."

The smile was wiped from her face. "You were writing a song about me?" she asked. "That's why you were ignoring me yesterday?"

Nate nodded and before he had a chance to speak, she had thrown herself at him in a fierce hug. He blushed and wrapped his arms around her before she had the chance to pull away.

"I can't believe that you would write a song about me," she said into his chest. "No one's ever done that for me before."

"I just couldn't stop thinking about you," Nate said, pulling her closer. "I had to do something or else I was going to go crazy." After a moment of just blissfully holding Ella close, he remembered something and pulled away enough to look into her face. "What were you going to talk to me about?"

Ella blushed. "It was nothing, really."

"Come on…" he wheedled. One of his hands strayed dangerously close to a spot he knew from observation was very ticklish. She squirmed.

"I wanted to ask you," she said slowly, looking at his collar bone instead of his eyes, "if you wanted to spend our afternoons off together." She cleared her throat. "On, like, a date."

Nate blinked. Then he smiled. "You are amazing, you know that?"

"Is that a yes or a no?" she asked, wrinkling her nose at him. He laughed.

"It's a yes," he said.

a/n: I really don't know what to say. Logan (angellwings) is very, very dedicated to Natella, her OTP. I wanted to write this for her because she was having a crap night. :) I hope you enjoy, too!

Love,
Beth.