Call Me Ella (ft. Niall Horan)

Chapter 4 - Eighteen

Chapter 4 - Eighteen

“You have to go,” Charlie insists and I roll my eyes as I take another bite of my sandwich.

After telling him about my encounter with the boybanders and how I broke Jenny’s heart —he laughed for three hours, I’m not lying—, we changed the topic.

I’m still seventeen, reason why Rhonda still can manage my life and shit. I can’t exactly take my money for Uni until I’m eighteen despite I finished high school already. However, I’m turning eighteen in a few days. Hooray! I’ve never been more excited for a birthday in my life.

I remember when I was a kid my birthdays were great. Mum and Dad would wake me up to my favourite breakfast and then we would go out to the park and have a picnic instead of lunch. We’d play and laugh and just enjoy the day. That’s one of the things I loved the most about having my birthday during summer.

After Mum died, Dad and I would spend the day together as well, but we would also visit her gravestone. It was our way to include her in the celebration and we would always take sunflowers, her favourites. And my favourites, too. And since Dad started the business, it was a tradition to have a ball the night of my birthday. We would invite people from other places, relatives, friends, everyone! Just to have fun. It was the day I could go to bed the latest in the year.

That tradition is still preserved until today but in other… circumstances. Yes, it’s the night of my birthday but it’s not because of my birthday anymore. I don’t think Rhonda remembers it’s my birthday, anyways. I stay up all night… cleaning after the mess the celebrities leave behind. I’m not even allowed to the ballroom where all the celebrities are having fun.

I don’t really mind, it’s not like I wanna celebrate my birthday with the very people Rhonda adores. To be honest, I just wanna be the farthest I can get from them. However, my dear friend Charles St. James thinks differently. He’s got stuck in his mind that this year I have to attend the party.

“No,” I reply for the twenty-eighth time. “I’ll be busy moping floors and avoiding celebrities.”

“C’mon, Ella! It’s your eighteenth birthday. You deserve to have fun,” he insists and I’m about to push him off.

We’re sitting on the fence that leads to the barns where all the horses are. We have many horses in the retreat centre, so celebrities can ride or play polo. It’s not high, but pushing Charlie off would give me satisfaction.

“Rhonda would kill me,” I tell him, who’s oblivious to this fact.

“If you don’t kill her first with the surprise of being there,” Olivia adds and I sigh.

Olivia has worked here since the beginning. She is a masseuse, probably the best in the whole complex. And she is also one of my dearest friends, someone who makes this place bearable. She has always looked after me, like an older sister. She is the closest I have to a sibling. Her and Charlie are my family. But she also is constantly telling me to flip Rhonda off, to leave and forget everything. She would leave with me if I’d take the chance. But I really wanna study medicine and for that I need the money. I can’t just send Rhonda to hell and forget that.

Olivia is twenty-seven only and she is what I look up to in a woman. She is gorgeous, she has a great body, although she does a lot of exercise for that; she has a fair complexion with brown hair and eyes. Her nose is just lovely, I wish I had a nose like hers. But Olivia is not only beautiful, she is amazing. So strong and witty and funny. She doesn’t have much luck in love, though. She’s had a few boyfriends, but they never ended up well and I’ve seen her crying so many times. But she is strong, she stands up, carries on and gets over them, coming out stronger out of it.