~Chapter Eleven~

I won't let you go
So don't leave go of me
I wanted something more
I wanted this right here

I Won't Let You Go ~ Snow Patrol

There were two days before Alice left and Gilbert had a plan. Albeit, it might be a stupid plan since Antonio and Francis helped him with it, but nevertheless, he still had a plan. He just needed to be able to talk to Alice. Her aunt and uncle refused to let him in. Surprisingly, she had actually told them what went down between her and Gilbert. Of course, her aunt was angry with him as well.

Nonetheless, Gilbert knocked once again on the all too familiar door. Finally, after three days of attempting to be persistent, Alice was the one to open the door. She instantly tried to shut the door in his face once she realised it was Gilbert, but he was able to stick his foot in the door—literally.

"What do you want?" Alice sighed, crossing her arms.

"I want you to come with me," Gilbert replied and quickly thrust a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back in front of them. "Also, these are for you."

"What?"

"I said, these are for you."

"I heard the part about the flowers. Why would I go anywhere with you?"

Gilbert huffed in frustration. "Listen, I'm shit with words. Instead, I would like to take you somewhere awesome as an apology." Alice looked at him as if to say, Are you really that daft? "The flowers are roses, by the way. I remember you saying they were your favourite."

Alice gingerly took the small bouquet from Gilbert's hands and hugged it to her chest. "Why'd you get white?"

"I also remember you saying that red is too cliché."

Alice let a small smile grace her lips and then let out another sigh. "Fine, I will go with you. But don't try any funny business or I will kick your arse."

Alice woke up right before Gilbert pulled into the parking lot. Sadly, she had been asleep the entire drive, thus instantly getting rid of any chances to talk about what happened. Gilbert truly did want to apologize, even if his "awesome" self somehow sucked at apologizes. Words were definitely not his strong suit unless they were used to talk about himself or flirt with someone. Thus, the point of the long drive.

"I'm glad you're finally awake," he teased.

Alice rolled her eyes and yawned. "Where the hell are we?" Alice's eyes quickly moved from Gilbert's to the slightly-falling-apart bright yellow building in front of her. "What the hell is that?"

Gilbert laughed. "We're about an hour and a half out of town, and welcome to The Busy Bean."

"That's a dumb name, not an explanation."

"Okay one, it is a great name and two, it's obviously a café. However, it is not just an awesome café but it's also a snazzy bookstore."

"Did you just say snazzy?"

"Do you want to go in or not, Kirkland?"

"Fine, yes, I want to go in." About thirty minutes later and Alice was situated at a small neon green table with a hot cup of tea and a very used copy of Tuesdays with Morrie. Alice was looking around the café very amused when Gilbert sat down in a matching neon green chair opposite her. He sat in silence as she took in her surroundings with a small smile.

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

"It's…interesting," she replied. The Busy Bean was definitely an interesting place for sure. The walls, which were originally a vibrant Robin's egg blue, were now faded and decorated with signatures written in black permanent marker. The somewhat rusty tables were in various colours of the rainbow and their tops were covered in stickers. Above each table was a small chandelier, all turned off, that would fit much better in an "authentic" Italian restaurant. The only light came from the crookedly strung up white LED Christmas lights that lined the ceiling and reflected in the white and black checked floor. "Their book selection is rather peculiar as well," she added.

"What exactly are you reading?"

"For some reason I was browsing in the death and grievance section and this caught my eye. Apparently the author is a rather brilliant American sports writer."

Gilbert shrugged. "Mitch Albom? I've never heard of him."

Alice looked skeptically at Gilbert before gingerly laying the book down. "So, why did you bring me here?" Gilbert shrugged again. "And don't use that apology crap again. I want the real answer."

"That 'apology crap' is the real answer! I didn't get a chance to explain anything well to you before you ran off the other day. This is my apology for that and for the situation in general."

"It's not a big deal, honestly. I just wish I had heard the truth from you instead."

"It kind of is a big deal, Alice. It's a much bigger story than you think. Will you give me a solid chance to give you my end of the story?"

This time, it was Alice who shrugged. "Yeah, okay."

"It's true; I used to be known around for my summer flings. I wanted to be cool and in order to do that I needed to build up a badass reputation, you know? So, I had girlfriend after girlfriend and thought I was living the dream. However, all this started after the Elizabeta incident."

"What? But, you said-?"

"That was a lie. I'm sorry, I should've told you the truth, but that was a lie. Before I dated Liz, I was never a player. I was raised in a good family and taught to treat girls with respect. Ludwig turned out perfectly fine and everyone is always wondering why I'm different. Well, this is why. As a dude with a reputation, of course, I didn't admit that Liz broke my heart. I needed to be seen as an untamable heartbreaker. Us guys never think that girls actually like guys with feelings. So, I told everyone that I broke up with her for another girl and Liz surprisingly went along with it. It helped her plan to end up with Roderich."

"So what you told me earlier in the summer, about Elizabeta basically using you to make Roderich jealous, all that was true?"

"Yup, that was actually true."

"Then why the hell didn't you just tell me that the other day?!"

"You didn't give me a chance to!"

"You had enough time to lie to me!"

"Only because I'm used to using the same story every time! Relationships are new to me, okay? I'm used to 'feelings' only lasting a week at the most."

Alice sighed and refused to look Gilbert in the eye. "You still could've told me the truth."

Gilbert, too, sighed and crossed his arms. "I know, I know, and I am sorry. This probably seems really dumb to you considering you've been in a strong relationship before. I really am sorry."

Alice took a long drink of her tea before finally giving Gilbert a proper smile. "I'm only forgiving you because this tea actually tastes like tea instead of capitalism."

A/N:

Hi, everyone! How are you all? Please let me know, I am curious and I do care about you all. I would ask if any of you missed me, but the answer is probably no. Nevertheless, I would like to mention that I'm actually really happy to update something. I know, it's been a looooooooooooooooooong time since I last updated anything. I think it's been a somewhere around fourth months since my last update. I, much like Gilbert, am truly very sorry about this. As I say every time, school sucks. It's getting closer to the end of the year which means some classes are getting harder while other classes are actually getting easier (yay!). I don't mean to bore you with my measly excuse of lack of updates. I apologize for not updating all this past week (I was on spring break, whoops), but my main focus this week was on completing my driver's training. Long story short, I am deeply apologetic for not updating in a long time, as always; however, this time, I am not making any promises about my next update because I truly do not know the next time I'll be able to. Anywho, I mainly just wanted to give you all this kind of long (for me anyway) chapter and pop in to say hello.

Also, to the guest who commented about the whole Elizabeta-Gilbert relationship confusion, I hope this chapter cleared it all up. I'm sorry I didn't reply to you, but you were a guest so I sadly am not able to respond.

Anyway, enough of my jabbering. I love every single one of you to bits and pieces!

Ciao, Athineath~

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Q.O.T.C. (Questions of the Chapter)

1) Do any of you actually read my author's notes? Please let me know.

2) Do any of you care to find me on any social media? Let me know about that too.

3) Would you guys like to have Q.O.T.C. be an actual thing? If you do, I would be glad to continue!