https://youtu.be/Wasspv0AOlE

*Note: If you're in the mood for a little Elias/Jersey romance, click the Youtube link above (^) to listen to the Audiobook Version of this chapter voiced by kaelking12 (Kristen M.) while you read! Featuring music by Saint Raymond, Tommy Lee/ Andrew McMahon, and Switchfoot .

Elias

"Indigo, it's not like that I--"

"Shh. No more words. Be silent. Silence allows for contemplation and truth. I'll let you two contemplate alone. See you outside--assuming you both make it that far."

Indigo nods up towards Jersey who's suddenly decided that unbuttoning my shirt is her new favorite hobby. I peel her hand off my chest before she peels me out of my clothes all together.

"Babe, let's get you outside okay? Social Night's gonna be way more fun than playing with my buttons. I promise."

She yanks her hand outta my grip, slides it down my shirt, and starts grabbing at my chest with her squirrel fingers.

"God, where did all these muscles come from? They're so amazing! Just don't tell Dan I said that! He'll get so mad at me."

"No, he won't. Now stop fondling me and start walking or else I'll carry you to Westwood."

Sometimes, when you've got it bad for a girl and you're not smart enough to keep your shit in check, you offer to do shit for her that you probably shouldn't.

This is one of those times.

Instead of trying to handle getting out of the building on her own two feet, Jersey launches herself off the ground and clamps onto my back like a starfish. Her arms hit me in the face, her fingers claw into my shirt, and she slides her bare legs into my hands and kicks me into motion like I'm some kinda man-horse.

If it were any other girl asking me to do this, I'd probably be giving her hell by now. But let's be honest, when it comes to Jersey, I'll give her pretty much anything she wants. Real talk.

"Go fast, Elias! Like supercalifragalistic fast! I wanna feel like we're flying."

"You got it, J! Hang on tight, I don't wanna lose you again."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, just don't let go."

Jersey lets out a wild yee-haw and crashes her heels into my thighs a little harder than I'm ready for. The pain sends me stumbling down the first couple steps until I find my stride again. I push my feet off the ground and jump down five to six stairs at a time just to get a reaction out of Jersey.

She's giggling and bouncing all over the place like an eight year-old, and I can't help but laugh along with her. Everytime she begs me to go faster or jump higher than my body can handle, I do. I'll do whatever she says as long as it keeps her happy.

If someone told me back in rehab that these couple minutes with Jersey were waiting for me at the end of a year's worth of bad days, I never would've popped those pills. I never would've given up on everything. Or her.

I guess some moments are worth surviving for.

And this, is worth every second.

Real talk.

Five minutes in, my legs start burning and my back's about to give out, but I keep going 'cause she keeps laughing.

We reach the lobby, and I bolt past a group of hipster girls who glare at me and Jersey for a couple seconds too long. The blondest of the group locks eyes with me, and I watch her face shift from indifference to excitement within the space of a second.

Shit.

I freeze up when she reaches for her phone with one hand and tries to grab her friend's attention with the other.

I need to move. To turn on my damn heels and get the fuck out of here before she photographs a situation I don't anyone seeing.

But my feet are cemented to the ground.

I look back at her again, hoping to God she'll understand, that she'll be one of the few people in Los Angeles who won't steal a piece of me and post it for the whole fucking world to see.

But she just smiles, lifts her camera up a couple inches, and clicks.

"What do you want the caption to say, Mr. King? UCLA celeb caught with mystery girl? If I'm gonna be insta-famous for this, I'm gonna need a good quote." She says.

I reach up and cover Jersey's face with one hand and point to her phone with the other.

"How 'bout I type it for you instead? I'll even throw in a selfie with you and your friends if you give me your phone," I say.

The gaggle perks up and push their paparazzi friend to hand me her phone. Blondie breaks into a bashful smile and extends her iPhone to me without thinking twice about it.

"Sure. My password's 4, 3, 7, 2--"

Her phone shatters against the wall before she gets anywhere close to finishing. It takes the sound of Jersey gasping for me to fully recognize what I've done, but I'm too pissed off to care. My pulse is pounding in my ears so hard I can't even think straight.

"What the hell?! You ruined my phone!"

"And you're ruining my night. Next time you wanna picture, try asking first. Quote me."

I turn my back and bolt for the door before I lose it completely. The air outside is too warm and heavy to breathe, but I force it into my lungs and keep running anyway. Me and Jersey pass a few people smoking in the courtyard, but nobody pays either of us much attention.

Thank God.

I can't afford another fuck up like that.

I shouldn't have fucked up in the first place, but I just--

--snapped.

At a girl.

At a girl?

Of all the messed up shit I've done going off on a woman is something I--

--I promised Mom I'd never do because that's what Dad--

No.

Fuck him.

I'm better than him.

I know I'm better than him as long as I apologize.

I gotta go back. I'll figure out what to say when I get there.

Shit, I'll even get her a new phone if she wants me to.

That's the right thing to do.

So why the hell didn't I do it earlier?

I could've just kept my hands to myself and talked my way out of her taking my photo and that would've fixed the whole situation, but I didn't.

I didn't even try.

I lost control.

And I don't know what that means.

I don't wanna know what that means.

But I want her to know that I'm sorry.

That I'm not above apologizing, but I just couldn't say it when I needed to.

And now no one's saying anything.

Shame burns in my chest as I walk in silence.

Jersey's dead quiet too. Her sound stopped somewhere back in that hallway.

I don't know what she's thinking, or if she's thinking clearly enough to understand what I did.

I just need her to say something.

Anything.

But all she does is breathe, slow and steady, while the world blurs by.

It's just me and the crunch of my feet against the pavement for a while. I can see the group up ahead, Roxy leading the way on her mile long heels and snapping at everybody to keep up. I hang back where no one can see us. Where no one can see me caving in on myself.

"What happened back there, Elias? That wasn't cool."

Jersey's voice pulls me out of my head and back into the moment. Guilt kicks around in my stomach, but I force myself to figure out the right way to answer her even though I'm scared to say anything at all.

"I know. I'm sorry--I'm I did that and I'm sorry you had to see it. Honestly, I don't know what happened but I just--"

"I'm not talking about what you did. I talking about what she did. Taking your picture. Flashing a camera in your face. It was fucked up."

I smile at how cute the word fuck sounds coming out of her drunken mouth, but she doesn't catch it. Good. I shouldn't be smiling right now anyway.

"Yeah, but I freaked out at her. I could've just asked her to delete it instead of losing it like that, Jersey."

"Sure, you could've, but it's not like little Miss Paparazzi would've listened to you if you had. Two wrongs don't make a right but, some people just suck, Elias."

Like my dad.

Like me.

"I know, but that doesn't mean I can just go around breaking their shit whenever I feel like it."

The morning after mom left, Dad tore apart the house. The whole first floor was ruined. Broken pictures everywhere. Broken dishes. I remember coming downstairs and thinking how beautiful it looked. All those little glass pieces shining on the floor. All those pieces of proof of our family's brokenness.

I smiled at all that chaos because for the first time, our house felt real.

All of my parents problems spilled out of those perfectly painted walls and seeped onto the floor.

Dad ruined the best thing that ever could've happened to him, and he couldn't make excuses anymore.

He couldn't run away to work and lie to his co-workers about his relationship with his "wonderful wife and children".

He couldn't keep pretending to be king.

'Cause the day she walked out, he was nothing else but a lonely bastard sitting on ruins.

A house that was as ugly and shattered as he was.

As we all were.

That morning, I saw the truth.

And then Dad called the cleaning people to pack it away, vacuum it up, and bury it behind perfection again.

I promised myself I'd never do that.

That I'd never cover up or make excuses for my mistakes the way my father did.

And I'm not gonna do that.

"Don't feel so bad. I would've broken her phone and her nose. So, you're a lot better of a person than me." Jersey says.

She punches at the air, and I swallow the urge to laugh.

"I still feel like a shitty person, Jersey, but thank you."

Jersey clicks her heels against my thighs, and I stop walking. She slides off my back and turns me around to face her. I swallow my nerves and follow her lead even though part of me can't bring myself to look her in the eyes right now.

"Look, moron. I'm not saying that what you did was like, right or anything, I'm just saying what she did wasn't right either, so at the end of the day, all that really matters is that your sorry in here--"

She leans down, presses her ear against my chest and my heart beats louder than a marching band.

"I am sorry, Jersey."

"Shhh. I'm trying to hear it from inside, and I can't focus if you're talking."

I take her face it my hands and lift her up till we're eye to eye.

"Hey! I wasn't done yet! Being a human stethoscope isn't easy you know!" She says.

She furrows her eyebrows to the point where a million little wrinkles break out between her eyes. I smooth them out with my finger.

"I know. But, I wanted to ask you something, and I can't do that if you're listening to my chest."

"Sure you can! It'll just be muffled and stuff. You'll sound like the muffled man. Do you know the muffled man, the muffled man, the--"

I lift my finger to her lips and shush her quiet. She smiles against my skin, and I bite my bottom lip just to keep from kissing her.

"Remember last year how you told me that you could tell if someone was sorry if you felt it from the heart?"

Jersey's eyes glaze over like she's looking through her memories.

"Nope! Sorry! No wait, Yes. I do! You were being a jerk and thought I was just using my apology story as an excuse to touch you? Which I totally was by the way. I thought you were super hot back then and I still do now but you like men, and I like Kai so what can I do?"

So, I'm gonna run with the she still thinks I'm hot part and just forget about the whole Kai and liking dudes section. Win.

"If I wanted to like, read you something right now, and let you do that weird listening thing you did earlier, do you think you could tell if it's from the heart or whatever?"

Jersey's mouth spreads into a mile long smile and the night lights up because of it.

"Of course I can! I think the moonshimmer is giving me extra super listening powers right now, so I'm all ears! What are we reading?" She asks.

"Follow me and I'll tell you."

I take her by the hand and lead her over to a bench on the edge of Canyon Point's low-lit courtyard. I glance over at Roxy and the rest of our Quad getting smaller in the distance. I should be trying to catch up. Trying to fit in and socialize like everybody else, but fuck everybody else. I've got everything I need right here.

Besides, it's not like I plan on bailing on social night or whatever, I just need to stall for a little while. I gotta do this while Jersey's willing to listen, 'cause I'm pretty sure once the alcohol disappears, she will too.

"Come here. Story time," I say.

I sit down, pat the place next to me, and wait for Jersey to follow. She snuggles up against my arm and lowers her head until her ear is pressed against the place where I got her tattoo.

"Yay! Story time is the best! What are we reading?"

I reach into my pocket, pull out my phone, and wait for the words to load on my screen.

"A love story. It's about this guy who falls for this amazing girl. But right when he's about to tell her how he feels, some really bad shit happens, and he never gets to talk to her--"

"Oh. I don't like this story. It's sad."

The smile on her face fades and for a second or two I think about backing out. But I can't. Not again.

"--Hold on. It gets better. So even though they get separated, he doesn't stop thinking about her. He thinks about her so much that he starts writing to her. Like almost everyday--"

"That's so romantic."

"--I know right? But that's the thing, she doesn't know he still thinks about her, so she gives up and finds another guy."

Jersey sits up so fast she nearly clocks me in the chin.

"Well that's stupid! She's stupid! What kind of dumb girl would give up on him like that? He's obviously head over heels for her!"

"Exactly. So now he's trying to win her back with these letters, and he doesn't know how it's gonna go 'cause she doesn't trust him anymore. But he's trying to get her to read at least one everyday so she knows that he never meant to leave her. And didn't meant to hurt her. And that he still--"

"Loves her?"

She settles back down in my lap, and rests her head against my chest again. I brush a strand of hair out of her eyes and stare down at her, trying my best not to give into what gravity's pushing me to do.

"Yeah, he does. So--is it cool if I read you one of my--one of his letters right now?"

She nods her head, closes her eyes, and her whole body relaxes. I breathe out the tension in my chest, and open my mouth to speak.

And she listens.

She listens.

I just hope that despite how much I've had to lie to her , that she'll hear the truth in our story.

An honest chapter at a time.

(Thank you guys for reading/listening! How was the audiobook? Next update will be on Tuesday! Hope you're looking forward to another entry from Letters to Jersey! Me and kaelking12 will be collaborating on writing the next one! Hope you're excited!)