This chapter is short and fast followed by the previous one but I had some time, plus, I wanted to include this in the previous chapter. Enjoy! :)
It's Saturday, so they sleep in. Her kisses wake him up from a light sleep, and he wraps his arms around her, making her a prisoner in his embrace. For a moment she forgets her own disappointment and failure and she never wants him to let her go because he's her own private safe haven. In his arms everything is better and safer.
When she wiggles herself out of his arms because she has to get home, everything falls apart. The inside of her chest still feels heavy, and her skin like it's made from paper, even air can hurt it.
She doesn't want Jeremy to worry and she knows he will since she left the house without leaving a message.
Her and Stefan cuddle for few more minutes, his fingertips on her skin, and her lips colliding with hers time after time after time.
She gets dressed and parts from Stefan with a heavy heart. He offers to drive her home, but she refuses, saying a walk could do her good.
When she gets out of his house she checks her phone and notices six unanswered calls from Jeremy. She decides not to call him back since she will be home in few minutes and then she can excuse herself face to face. There's a twenty minutes walk from Stefan's house to hers.
She wants to think about Harvard, about her current failure and the disappointment she inflicted on herself, and the disappointment her dad will feel when it comes to her. But she can't force herself to think about it. Even though she still feels the weight of everything, the only thing she can think about is Stefan. How there's a bigger possibility they will go to college together, continue their lives together. If she gets into Princeton they won't have to have a long distance relationship, they have a chance to build a future together.
The more she thinks about it, the wider the smile on her face becomes. From a faint one, to a full blown smile radiating with happiness.
When she enters the house, Jeremy is sitting on the hallway stairs, facing the door.
She wants to explain him everything but before she gets a chance he jumps to his feet and asks angrily, "Why haven't you answered your phone?" his brows furrow.
"I haven't heard - " she wants to excuse herself, but he interrupts her before she gets a chance to do so.
He puts his hands on her shoulders and shakes her lightly. "Dad is home."
The smile from her face disappears, and her lips pull into a wide, thin line.
"Where were you?" she hears a deep, masculine voice coming from behind Jeremy.
She looks over her brothers shoulder and notices their dad standing by the kitchen entrance. He's still wearing his army uniform, telling her he came home only recently, and there's a hard expression on his face. He's not worried, not like Jeremy has been, he's angry, almost like he always his.
She has a choice. She can say she's been at Bonnie's or Caroline's, or at Jenna's even, because she knows Jenna would cover for her. Or she can tell him the truth.
"At Stefan's," she says sternly.
She chooses the truth.
Her dad's face hardens more after her words.
"I'm not taking care of you so you could drag yourself around with boys," he says disgusted.
It hurts. How her dad didn't even react to her words, that she's been at some boys place for the whole night. How he accepted it. How he thinks that's something she usually does. Both options hurt, she just doesn't know which one hurts more.
More importantly, it makes her angry.
"That's the thing, you're not," she shakes Jeremy's hands off her shoulders, "I'm taking care of myself."
Jeremy tenses to his sisters words. She never speaks to their dad like that. He's the one who usually rebels and she's the one fixing it.
"Stefan is her boyfriend," he feels like he has to say something to make the situation better, but neither of them seem to notice him.
"Boyfriend?" their dad hisses. Even though he did not give any signs of notice of his son, he had heard him. "Is he the reason why this happened?" he throws the white envelope in the floor.
Elena bends down and picks the envelope from the floor. Her acceptance letter from Harvard.
She frowns as she raises her look up from the floor to her dad. "I don't read your mail," her voice tenses, "I would appreciate if you didn't read mine as well."
He looks at her in disbelief, like he can't recognize the person standing in front of him.
"This was your only job, Elena!" he yells at her, "To get good grades and to get into Harvard!" his eyes are as full of anger as his voice is, "I give you all this freedom and you take it for granted!"
"Is that how you see it?" she yells right back, "That leaving me," the corners of her eyes fly in Jeremy's direction, "That leaving both of us alone is giving us freedom?" her voice is full of anger, and she can see so much of himself in her, which only makes her wish she's more like her mother. She wishes she inherited her graceful way of speaking and handling herself instead of her eyes and her talent for writing. What does she need her eyes for, anyway, when her fathers anger flashes through them every time she finds herself in an argument? "Do you think having you home for few days a year is enough? Even then you don't even bother to look at us properly, or talk to us about anything other than school," her throat tightens as guilt washes over her fathers face.
"Do you know Jeremy has a girlfriend?" she asks, and his eyes fly over to Jeremy. "For a year now. Your son is in a relationship for the whole year and you didn't even know it!" the lines of his face are not tense anymore, far from that. They could be described as sad.
"Did you know I fell in love?" she asks with a husky voice, feeling like she's shattering from the inside, but she can't help a smile appearing on her face. "Of course you didn't," she shakes her head, "Because you never bothered asking."
"What are you going to do now?" he asks stubbornly, like all of those words never came out of her mouth.
"There are other colleges, dad," she says tiredly, like she can't be bothered by him anymore.
"But Harvard was your first option!"
"No, it was your first option!" a loud scream escapes her throat, "It was your dream, one you enforced on me, one I accepted because I didn't want to disappoint you!"
"What's your plan?" he continues where he left of, like she never said anything, "Marry this boy, have kids, work as a waitress for the rest of your life?"
She gives up, so she shrugs, "Sounds like a plan since I'm already pregnant," she says frustrated.
Horror washes over his face as he makes few steps towards her, raises his hand and slaps her across the face.
She whimpers before the palm of her hand covers the spot on her face where he had hit her.
Jeremy steps in between them and pushes their father away before his hands fly to Elena. "You!" he screams pointing to his father, "Don't ever touch her again!"
"We lost her too, you know?" Elena whimpers from behind her brother, "And instead of being there for us you left us as well."
"Don't bring your mother into this," he says, strangely calm, "If she could see you right now, she would be so disappointed in you."
His words sting her like a two blade sword.
"I guess that makes two of us," she says before storming into the bathroom.
After few minutes Jeremy joins Elena in the bathroom. He catches her sitting on the edge of the bathtub, pressing a wet cloth to her cheek.
"He said he will leave," Jeremy crosses his arms on his chest as he leans onto the door.
Elena raises her frown to him. "Leave where?"
"Back to the field," he shrugs it off, "He's packing his bags as we speak."
"So he's running off again?" Elena huffs, "Typical."
Jeremy doesn't say anything because there really isn't anything to say. It's the truth.
He walks over to her and takes the cloth in his hands, soaking it under the stream of water. He squeezes it dry before leaning it against her red cheek again.
"He shouldn't have hit you."
"He shouldn't have done a lot of things."
"Elena?" he says her name shyly.
"Yeah?"
"Are you really pregnant?"
"No," she says instantly, "I was late, though," she admits, "I was scared I might be, but I think it was just from the stress," she says relieved, "I only told him that to make him angry."
"Well, you succeeded," he points to her cheek with his look.
She bites her lower lip.
"I have never heard you talk like that to him. Or to anyone."
"I know. He just made me feel like such a failure. And I really tried."
"I know you did. Are you still sad for not getting in?"
"I don't think I was ever sad for not getting in. I was afraid of disappointing him."
Jeremy nods in understanding.