I Wish

Chapter 51

It was nice being able to breathe, and Ivy brought food so the hangry went away pretty fast. Which was good because I was so sick of being tired, hurting, dizzy and empty. I never wanted to feel like that again, and the worst part was that I didn’t know if it was so bad because I was starving, or because I was starving for her presence. Either way was horrific, but it would be nice to know just how far gone I am. I’m going to be real here. I knew what I was doing was stupid. It was stupid, and it could backfire in so many ways, and there is only a small sliver of a chance that this will go well in any way whatsoever. I knew that I did, but… but I wanted to go for it. The way I was living right now, due to the raging cluster f**k the world was right now? What did I drink unicorn blood or something, because I was so utterly done with this half-life, cursed life, bullshit. 

“Breathe. It’s not going anywhere, you’re going to make yourself sick,” Ivy chuckled, as we lay side by side on the grass next to each other. Her hair spread out around her like a dark halo. One of her hands was clasped in mine and she’d already previously admitted that she was ninety percent sure the only reason I could even look at her was because of the mate bond, but she’d take it gladly. I could honestly say she was wrong, but I was at the point that I’d take it too. I'd devoured the strange lime green star shaped fruit to the point that I had juice all over my face. It was just everywhere, and no it wasn’t cute or artful. In no way was it seductive, or the situation salvageable. It was sticky and gross. I shook my head, her audacity amusing rather than offensive. Currently, she turned me into a crazy person on the regular, so there was no telling how long that opinion would last.

“You don’t get to tell me to breathe. There was nothing to eat, for days, and I’m starving,” I growled back at her playfully and nudged her calf with my foot, or what I thought was playful until she flinched and looked away in guilt. I flicked her. “No, you did this to me, in no way do I imagine that it isn’t permanent, and you don’t get to make me feel bad about it,” I scolded her bluntly, “When we go through with actions, that’s us signing the consent form for the consequences of our actions.”

“I’ve never had consequences for my actions,” she blurted out in frustration, throwing a handful of grass at me, “Someone has always come in and fixed them for me.” That… made so much sense. Seriously, I had been wondering how she’d managed to just swan around before me without serious repercussions for her attitude. Of course someone was cleaning up after her, my only question was why did they stop? Did they retire, or were they just hardcore dropping the ball now?

“Well they’re doing a very shitty job with it, so you might want to tell them to step it up a notch,” I told her with my tone conveying just exactly how I felt about that, and she snorted. Cocky much? If I didn’t know any better she was using every ounce of her body in an effort not to break out laughing at me. I couldn’t figure out what I had said that was so funny, and she’d brought me bubble tea in an attempt to try and soften me up, so I let it go. I also shooed her away after about an hour. Did I want her to go? No. Was I deep down okay with waiting until after dark tomorrow to see her? Absolutely not. I’m not sure if that was the line that I lost all self-respect or not, but I was still perfectly capable of pretending that I still had it. 

“Are you going to be less weird now?” Mark asked as I came in. I jumped, again. See now that it felt like a headache was incoming. “I mean, you’re sucking face with her, so it’s sorted yeah?” he continued as if he hadn’t just casually admitted to spying on me, “I get my sister back now?” Well f**k… I had been starting to get irritated with the little brat, and didn’t that just die a swift death then and there.

“I’m doing my best to go back to a pre-covid me,” I answered non-comitial, because there was still a chance that I would freak out down the line and decide to blame someone. The thing I’d been forgetting was that there was no shifting blame to just one person, and I was about as likely to do it to myself as I was to do it to her. There were two of us, and we were both responsible.

“I’m going to take that as not a no. Also, Jeremy might not know what he finds attractive yet, but I don’t know what that girl was doing with you because she is so much prettier than you,” he teased me, a smug little smirk on his face and brown eyes sparkling. Oh, it’s on. Now he’s trying to get at me. I squawked in mock outrage, and noogied him.

“Don’t tell Ivy that. She thinks that I’m all that and change, so don’t screw it up for me, okay?” I said jokingly, and he just grinned a grin that threatened to do so at the earliest opportunity. I was lucky that he was both not getting one of those, and I was fairly certain, loved me enough to only threaten.

“So who is Ivy exactly?” he ribbed, and I stuck my tongue out.

“My girlfriend. She’s wild, and the appropriate way to respond to most things she does goes something along the lines of: Yes, Queen!” I bragged before muttering the other option hurriedly under my breath, “That or sit on the ground absolutely dumbfounded ask: The f**k? Why?” 

“She make that mess on your face?” Mark asked boldly, referring to the minimal remnants of fruit juice I hadn’t been able to get off. My jaw dropped in surprise, and just a little pride, and I laughed.

“No, she brought food. I had a snacksident,” I replied solemnly, and he lost it. Laughing hard enough that his whole body shook, and we only had a minimal amount of time before mum came to investigate that noise. Sure enough, our respective doors had only just closed when she came out. I wasn’t even sure why we were hiding, but I was suddenly glad that I had make-up wipes to clean my face off. It wasn’t that I was scared of getting busted by my mum, it was more the fact that I was scared to have her potentially ask questions. Once that while I was still riding the high of conviction without confrontation I would probably answer way more honestly than I would have otherwise.

Now I don’t know about you guys but this moment right here was when something occurred to me, something that didn't occur to me before. Theoretically, I could have Ivy meet my parents. She was stuck here until time caught up with itself, and I’ve got no end of ways to convince her to do it. From emotional blackmail to bribe, although maybe I’ll just ask first. No need to decide between toxic asshole and w***e before I absolutely have to. Baby steps, because right now the only reason they matter to Ivy was because they mattered to me. If I could get them to meet, for short and supervised amounts of time, maybe they could matter to her because she feels they matter. I stared blankly at the navy blue wall behind my bed and picked at my fingers, trying very hard not to think of all the ways that this could go very extremely wrong. 

The only question now was how long was I going to wait before introducing her to my family. She occasionally did really dumb stuff, my mother was supremely overprotective, and the less said about my dad’s opinions on literally everyone I’ve ever dated them better. I could just give it a few days, and then try. Try and gauge exactly how this is going to go on both ends, and because I’m a coward it would be far longer than a couple of days. If I pulled it off at all before it came out anyway, I would call it a win. Once again, I’d like to point out I know what I was doing was stupid, unfortuanatley that stupidity came with shinning and optimism. It was hope for better, and after a certain amount of unhappiness people will do dumb-dumb things for the hope of better. God knows I was going to.

It was nice being able to breathe, and Ivy brought food so the hangry went away pretty fast. Which was good because I was so sick of being tired, hurting, dizzy and empty. I never wanted to feel like that again, and the worst part was that I didn’t know if it was so bad because I was starving, or because I was starving for her presence. Either way was horrific, but it would be nice to know just how far gone I am. I’m going to be real here. I knew what I was doing was stupid. It was stupid, and it could backfire in so many ways, and there is only a small sliver of a chance that this will go well in any way whatsoever. I knew that I did, but… but I wanted to go for it. The way I was living right now, due to the raging cluster f**k the world was right now? What did I drink unicorn blood or something, because I was so utterly done with this half-life, cursed life, bullshit. 

“Breathe. It’s not going anywhere, you’re going to make yourself sick,” Ivy chuckled, as we lay side by side on the grass next to each other. Her hair spread out around her like a dark halo. One of her hands was clasped in mine and she’d already previously admitted that she was ninety percent sure the only reason I could even look at her was because of the mate bond, but she’d take it gladly. I could honestly say she was wrong, but I was at the point that I’d take it too. I'd devoured the strange lime green star shaped fruit to the point that I had juice all over my face. It was just everywhere, and no it wasn’t cute or artful. In no way was it seductive, or the situation salvageable. It was sticky and gross. I shook my head, her audacity amusing rather than offensive. Currently, she turned me into a crazy person on the regular, so there was no telling how long that opinion would last.

“You don’t get to tell me to breathe. There was nothing to eat, for days, and I’m starving,” I growled back at her playfully and nudged her calf with my foot, or what I thought was playful until she flinched and looked away in guilt. I flicked her. “No, you did this to me, in no way do I imagine that it isn’t permanent, and you don’t get to make me feel bad about it,” I scolded her bluntly, “When we go through with actions, that’s us signing the consent form for the consequences of our actions.”

“I’ve never had consequences for my actions,” she blurted out in frustration, throwing a handful of grass at me, “Someone has always come in and fixed them for me.” That… made so much sense. Seriously, I had been wondering how she’d managed to just swan around before me without serious repercussions for her attitude. Of course someone was cleaning up after her, my only question was why did they stop? Did they retire, or were they just hardcore dropping the ball now?

“Well they’re doing a very shitty job with it, so you might want to tell them to step it up a notch,” I told her with my tone conveying just exactly how I felt about that, and she snorted. Cocky much? If I didn’t know any better she was using every ounce of her body in an effort not to break out laughing at me. I couldn’t figure out what I had said that was so funny, and she’d brought me bubble tea in an attempt to try and soften me up, so I let it go. I also shooed her away after about an hour. Did I want her to go? No. Was I deep down okay with waiting until after dark tomorrow to see her? Absolutely not. I’m not sure if that was the line that I lost all self-respect or not, but I was still perfectly capable of pretending that I still had it. 

“Are you going to be less weird now?” Mark asked as I came in. I jumped, again. See now that it felt like a headache was incoming. “I mean, you’re sucking face with her, so it’s sorted yeah?” he continued as if he hadn’t just casually admitted to spying on me, “I get my sister back now?” Well f**k… I had been starting to get irritated with the little brat, and didn’t that just die a swift death then and there.

“I’m doing my best to go back to a pre-covid me,” I answered non-comitial, because there was still a chance that I would freak out down the line and decide to blame someone. The thing I’d been forgetting was that there was no shifting blame to just one person, and I was about as likely to do it to myself as I was to do it to her. There were two of us, and we were both responsible.

“I’m going to take that as not a no. Also, Jeremy might not know what he finds attractive yet, but I don’t know what that girl was doing with you because she is so much prettier than you,” he teased me, a smug little smirk on his face and brown eyes sparkling. Oh, it’s on. Now he’s trying to get at me. I squawked in mock outrage, and noogied him.

“Don’t tell Ivy that. She thinks that I’m all that and change, so don’t screw it up for me, okay?” I said jokingly, and he just grinned a grin that threatened to do so at the earliest opportunity. I was lucky that he was both not getting one of those, and I was fairly certain, loved me enough to only threaten.

“So who is Ivy exactly?” he ribbed, and I stuck my tongue out.

“My girlfriend. She’s wild, and the appropriate way to respond to most things she does goes something along the lines of: Yes, Queen!” I bragged before muttering the other option hurriedly under my breath, “That or sit on the ground absolutely dumbfounded ask: The f**k? Why?” 

“She make that mess on your face?” Mark asked boldly, referring to the minimal remnants of fruit juice I hadn’t been able to get off. My jaw dropped in surprise, and just a little pride, and I laughed.

“No, she brought food. I had a snacksident,” I replied solemnly, and he lost it. Laughing hard enough that his whole body shook, and we only had a minimal amount of time before mum came to investigate that noise. Sure enough, our respective doors had only just closed when she came out. I wasn’t even sure why we were hiding, but I was suddenly glad that I had make-up wipes to clean my face off. It wasn’t that I was scared of getting busted by my mum, it was more the fact that I was scared to have her potentially ask questions. Once that while I was still riding the high of conviction without confrontation I would probably answer way more honestly than I would have otherwise.

Now I don’t know about you guys but this moment right here was when something occurred to me, something that didn't occur to me before. Theoretically, I could have Ivy meet my parents. She was stuck here until time caught up with itself, and I’ve got no end of ways to convince her to do it. From emotional blackmail to bribe, although maybe I’ll just ask first. No need to decide between toxic asshole and w***e before I absolutely have to. Baby steps, because right now the only reason they matter to Ivy was because they mattered to me. If I could get them to meet, for short and supervised amounts of time, maybe they could matter to her because she feels they matter. I stared blankly at the navy blue wall behind my bed and picked at my fingers, trying very hard not to think of all the ways that this could go very extremely wrong. 

The only question now was how long was I going to wait before introducing her to my family. She occasionally did really dumb stuff, my mother was supremely overprotective, and the less said about my dad’s opinions on literally everyone I’ve ever dated them better. I could just give it a few days, and then try. Try and gauge exactly how this is going to go on both ends, and because I’m a coward it would be far longer than a couple of days. If I pulled it off at all before it came out anyway, I would call it a win. Once again, I’d like to point out I know what I was doing was stupid, unfortuanatley that stupidity came with shinning and optimism. It was hope for better, and after a certain amount of unhappiness people will do dumb-dumb things for the hope of better. God knows I was going to.