Ellie walked into the school a few steps behind Jimmy, after opening the door for him. She saw Craig a step behind Manny, who was talking to Emma. Ellie ran up to him and threw her arms around him.
"Thank you sooo much. I loved it," she told him.
"Yeah, how much?"
Ellie flipped her hair back over her shoulder and revealed the black pearl necklace that was adorning her thin white neck.
He smiled as he put his arm back around Manny's waist. "The second I saw it, I knew you would. Classy and dark. Very Ellie Nash."
Ellie smiles at Craig and then turned to Jimmy.
"An escort to class, dear lady?" he asked her.
She smiled at him. He always made her smile, and it was a nice feeling. "Of course, kind sir."
He took her to her homeroom, and she stood outside and talked with him until the bell rang. She loved how she could just be herself around him. He had always appreciated her for herself. It was so easy for Ellie to understand why she loved him.
Ellie had never been in love like this before. Sure, she had loved Sean, but with Jimmy everything was so different. She knew that she loved him. And she wasn't just saying it to get Jimmy to stick around, like she had with Sean. She knew that Jimmy would never leave her, like Sean had. She trusted Jimmy, and she loved him with all her heart.
What do I know about love? Ellie thought to herself as she sat down in her homeroom seat. I'm just in high school. I always used to scoff at movies where high school kids were supposedly in love. What does the heart of an 18-year-old girl possibly know?
Ellie shrugged off the thought. She hated thinking too hard about things, or she started to feel depressed. Not a bad depressed, but mostly a sense of hopelessness. So she stopped.
The next few days in the life of Ellie Nash were rather uneventful. She went to class, ate and slept, and talked with her friends and the love of her life.
Her mother had told her to get the mail, so she went and grabbed it up. There was a bill and about eighty advertisements and promotions, as usual. Hating junk mail, Ellie threw the pile carelessly onto the table.
Her mother flipped through everything as Ellie went into the bathroom to brush her teeth. When she came back out, her mother handed her an envelope.
"What is this?" Ellie asked, turning it over and seeing the return address. Her hear skipped a beat.
Sean.