It had been about a little over a month since they started talking. It was the end of August now, and Ella had to start thinking about getting ready for school. She was going to be a senior, turning 18 in December. She and Ben had grown close over a shared love of video games. Ella spent more time with him than anyone else. He was the first thing she saw in the morning and the last thing she saw at night. They were best friends, despite the fact that they had never met in person. Ella was very happy with him. As a child, Ella didn't have many friends. She was tomboyish and as she grew up, her guy friends started to replace her with other guys. She was left with no friends but a few childhood ones. She never really complained, of course. Ella wasn't a complainer.
"Oh, man. It must suck being trapped in there all day. I mean, yeah, the internet is really cool. But don't you ever want to come out?" she asked, lying on her bed. Ben was on her laptop, looking at her.
"I have everything I need here." he said.
"You don't have food and water." she replied.
"I don't need food and water."
"Oh, that's right."
They sat there in silence for five or so minutes. Ella was staring up at her ceiling, which still had those glow-in-the-dark stars for kids pasted on. She closed her eyes for a moment, listening to the hum of the air conditioner and the bugs outside. Before she knew it, she fell asleep. Ben stayed on her laptop, watching her sleep. He listened to her breathing slow and envied her. Ben didn't really sleep, he didn't need to. He was a ghost. After about ten minutes, he got bored of it. He woke her up by shouting her name. She opened her blue eyes to see him grinning wildly.
"What are you so excited about?" she asked, yawning.
"I have something really cool to show you." said Ben. He'd obviously been waiting a long time for this moment and just decided now for some reason to show it to her. It was probably because everything was so peaceful that he found it to be a good time.
"Something cool? But I've already seen all the cool things you can do." said Ella, sitting up. She stretched all the tiredness out of her body and looked at him.
"No, trust me. You haven't seen this." he said and disappeared. The screen turned off and Ella looked around. Nothing was happening.
"I've seen this before, you just disappeared. You do this every day." she said. A smile pulled at her lips as she saw him reappear on her TV. "What was the point of that?"
"Look." said Ben. Ella watched in shock as he stretched his hand out through the screen and grabbed the side of the TV. It was horrifying, actually. Watching him climb out of her TV to sit on her bedroom floor was mildly traumatizing. She stared at him in disbelief. The boy that had just in her screen was now sitting, legs crossed, on the floor of her bedroom looking up at her with those same red eyes. Ella didn't really know what to say.
"Oh, look." he said and closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them, they were a normal blue. She studied him for a moment.
"Wow, you really do look like Link. But a human version." she said.
"Thanks." he replied. They sat there in silence again. Ella wasn't afraid, just surprised. Out of all the things that happened, her playing a haunted game and making friends with a literal ghost, this could be expected. She was both confused and excited. Now she could hang out with her best friend in person! But first, he needed to get out of those clothes.
"This is great!" she smiled. "But first things first, I need to get you out of those clothes." she said. Ben's face flushed, obviously thinking of something else. She rolled her eyes. "Nothing weird, it's just that you can't go out like that."
"Why not?"
"Because honestly, you look like a cosplayer. Cosplaying is cool, but only sometimes. So we need to get you normal clothes." she said. Ben wasn't really sure what cosplaying was and Ella took his silence as a yes. "Okay, cool. I have some money saved up so we can go get you some clothes. My mom's at work right now, so we can go. Come on." she said and grabbed his hand, lifting him up. She grabbed her bag and led him outside.
It was comfortably warm outside. The sky was blue with puffy white clouds. Ben watched as Ella grabbed her bike and looked back at him. Her brown hair seemed to shine in the sun and her eyes looked like the sky above them. He was awestruck.
"Oh. I don't have a spare bike. I guess we'll have to get you one too. I guess we can walk for now. It's like twenty minutes to half an hour. Is that okay?" she asked.
"Yeah, don't worry about it." he smiled. The two of them walked in the August afternoon sun to the downtown area, which had an array of clothing stores. There were fewer tourists now, but they were replaced by school kids rushing for back to school deals. Ben looked like a little kid in a candy store, his blue eyes soaking up the environment around him. It had been years since he'd been outside. He couldn't even remember the last time he went shopping or saw this many people. It was a bit overwhelming, but he didn't want to show that to Ella.
They stopped outside the Hollister and Ella told him to wait.
"Here, I'll go in and buy a few things. Stay right here and don't move." she ordered him and ran into the store.
The Hollister was filled with people and she had to fight her way through. She avoided the people from her school as best as she could and bought Ben a few shirts, a few pairs of jeans and some sneakers. She also bought him a black hat with the triforce on it that someone had obviously dropped because she found to be funny and ironic. She was relieved to see Ben outside waiting for her.
"Here. Let's go into the Starbucks over here and you can change in the bathroom, okay?" she said. Before he could complain, she rushed him through the downtown and into the Starbucks bathroom. She didn't want anyone from her school to see them. She'd have too many questions to answer. While she was waiting, she bought a small sized cold brew. She wasn't really a coffee drinker, but she could enjoy one from time to time. She almost dropped her drink on the ground when she saw Ben.
He looked handsome, really handsome. He was wearing a dark green and white striped t shirt paired with light jeans and white converse. She mentally complimented herself for her good taste, but she couldn't take all the credit. She had the perfect model. It was only now that she really got a good look at him. She almost couldn't recognize the boy in the screen. He had the same messy blonde hair like Link and he was overdue for a haircut but he still looked amazing. He wasn't super tall, only looking to be about 5'7 or so, but he pulled it off well. Besides, he looked taller in comparison to Ella who was only about 5'2". She wasn't very tall at all so she couldn't comment on height.
"Hey." he said. He handed her bag back to her, which was filled with his old clothes. He held the shopping bag that contained his new clothes.
"Hey. You look good." she smiled.
"So do you." he smiled back.
They spent the rest of the day going from store to store and using up her entire budget with food, arcade games and clothes for her. Ella looked at the orange sky and was reminded of her favorite store.
"That's right! Ben, I have to show you where I first bought your game." she turned to him suddenly. She was excited to show Sam her new friend until she remembered that there was no store and there was no Sam. "Oh." she said dejectedly. Ben was confused by the sudden change in her behavior.
"What happened?" he asked, looking around. Did she see something?
"Nothing. The store that I found your game at is closed now. I used to go there with my dad all the time." she looked at the sky nostalgically. She could almost see the memories in the pink and orange sky. She could see the violet peeking behind the clouds. Ben looked up, wondering what she was so captured by. It just looked like a normal sunset.
"Your dad?" he asked hopefully, trying to further the conversation.
"Don't worry about it. We should probably get back anyway. It's going to be night soon and my mom's probably wondering where I am." she said, trying to regain her happy exterior.
"Okay." he nodded.
"I can show you another time, let's go." she gave him a happy smile. It looked strained, but he didn't notice. Or he did. Ben was very observant. If he did notice, he said nothing and just walked with her. They walked in the twilight back towards the stores that they came from.
"Look, aren't the lights pretty?" Ella pointed to the decorative lights that ran cross the street lamps and connected the buildings.
"Yeah." Ben said. He was about to say something more, maybe awkwardly compliment her but he was cut off by someone saying her name rather loudly.
"Oh my god, is that ELLA WILSON?" said a rather annoying voice. Ben watched as Ella's blue eyes widened and her body cringed at the sound. She recognized that voice. She spun around slowly, a fake smile plastered on her face.
"Kaitlyn. Hey."
"Oh my god! It is you!" she chattered excitedly, tugging on the arm of a dark-skinned boy. "Aiden, look! It's her!"
The boy looked extremely uncomfortable and nodded at his girlfriend.
"Hi Aiden." Ella nodded, also uncomfortable. Ella, Kaitlyn and Aiden used to be close friends back in the day. They did everything together. Then Ella's dad died and they started dating. Ella was pushed out of the friend group with nowhere to go. All of her guy friends had already replaced her with other guys or girlfriends. The only things that didn't replace her were video games.
"I haven't seen you in such a long time! How are you? What have you been up to? Who's this? He's cute, is this your boyfriend?" Kaitlyn shot questions at her, stepping closer and dragging Aiden with her. Kaitlyn was too close for Ella's liking. She could basically smell the cheap perfume from her red hair and freckled skin. Each question Kaitlyn asked only infuriated Ella but she kept her cool.
"This is my friend, Ben." she introduced him.
"Hi." he smiled.
"Oh, I didn't know you had friends." Kaitlyn said blandly. "Oh! That was a joke, haha!" she laughed. Kaitlyn's laugh sounded like nails on a chalkboard to Ella and her laugh was obviously forced. Aiden noticed.
"Come on, Katie. Let's leave them alone." Aiden mumbled to her, his brown eyes apologetic. He didn't like the way things ended between them and always meant to fix it, but he was too non-confrontational for that.
"No! I want to talk to my friend!" Kaitlyn said angrily. Aiden backed off.
"Actually, we have to go. Right, Ella?" Ben nudged her with his arm. Ella smiled at him gratefully, trying to contain her joy at having a way out of this conversation.
"Yeah!" she said a little too happily. "Yeah." she coughed. "Sorry Kaitlyn. We've got to go." Ella said in a sadder tone. They parted ways.
On the way home, Ella thanked Ben for helping her out.
"Don't worry about it. That girl Kaitlyn sounds like a real bitch." Ben said quietly. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Ella went into the entire story. Kaitlyn knew that Ella had a huge crush on Aiden and that's partly why she broke up the friend group after they got together. It was middle school and like other middle school girls, Kaitlyn was very mean. She bullied Ella for the rest of middle school and when they reached high school, she called it "water under the bridge". It wasn't. As Ella was telling the story, Ben was watching her out of the corner of his eye. To some people, the expression on his face might have looked insane or even murderous. Ella didn't see.