Heather had rented a really nice apartment nearby and she wanted to move there. We told her that she could stay here longer but she was adamant and always had wanted a place of her own.
Patricia had officially disowned her and thrown away Heather’s things that were in her house. But what she lost was a much greater loss compared to Heather’s things. She lost a good daughter and her husband.
Justin had talked to his lawyers and they were soon getting divorced. Patricia had thought he wasn’t serious when he said that he was going to divorce her and had taken it lightly but when she got the divorce papers she freaked out and the media covered a lot of what happened. A lot of prominent people came out in support of Heather and Patricia was rebuked for her actions.
Everything was going back to normal and Heather was focusing more on her work and travelling to keep her busy.
I had more time on my hands and I was going to utilize it to get closer to Ethan. Now that there wasn’t Heather around breathing down my neck about every move I make, I could relax and do what I wanted to. And I wanted to get Ethan to trust me again and then I’d tell him about my secret, tell him that I couldn’t tell him because there was a possibility he would’ve reveal it to everyone and so it was important that I gained his trust before that. I also knew that when the time came to let him in on the truth, I would possibly be breaking his trust again but that could wait. I would make sure that he understood why I did that.
I was going to worry about this all when the time came. For now, I was taking Ethan out on a date. Well, he didn’t know that it was date because I wanted to surprise him.
“Where are we going?” He asked again when we were five minutes away from the aquarium. I knew he enjoyed going to places where there were a lot of people because it was exciting and he normally wouldn’t go out to such places.
“You’ll know when you’ll get there.” I said.
“It better be worth my time because I took half the day off for you.”
“Thank you for your time. I’m honored to know you did that for me, your Highness.” I bowed mockingly.
“You should be, you peasant.” He said and I slapped his shoulder.
“How dare you, you little peasant!” He said and slapped my shoulder right back.
My mouth dropped and I began raining slaps on his shoulder and he began defending and at some point he started tickling me.
The driver cleared his throat and our heads snapped at the rearview mirror at the same time to see the driver staring at us, trying to hide a laugh. He looked away as soon as we looked at him and we straightened up, adjusting our clothes and looking out the window, embarrassed.
A few minutes later, the car came to a stop and we both looked up from Ethan’s side of the window to see the local aquarium.
“You brought me to an aquarium?”
I nodded. “Do you think it’s worth your time?”
“I’ve been here a lot of times when I was a kid.”
“Oh, really?” I didn’t think of the possibility of him having visited it when he was younger and suddenly my idea of a date didn’t seem all that brilliant to me anymore. I thought it would be amazing because I’d only been to an aquarium a few times. I couldn’t help show my disappointment.
“But it’s my first time here with you. It’s definitely worth my time. Let’s go.” He grabbed my hand and we both exited out the car.
Once we were inside I was having fun and I knew he was too. We took our time going through the aquarium and getting amazed at the variety of sea life. Ethan told me stories of when he went to the aquarium with his parents for the first time and was scared because he thought that the glass was going to break any second and he couldn’t stop crying. He also told me how his dad pretended that water was dripping down on him and telling him that the glass was probably going to break and how they ran away and left him there alone before returning back a minute later, laughing at him while he cried incessantly. He didn’t talk to his dad for the rest of the day after that.
We clicked a lot of pictures. We asked other people in the aquarium to take some pictures of us with his hand on my waist, or him kissing me on the cheek which surprised me but then we got comfortable and ended up with a dozen cozy pictures of the both of us which I was going to treasure forever.
We came at the right time because there was a mermaid show and it was really good. We enjoyed the day and our date. Afterwards we went to a local burger joint because we were so hungry.
When we returned back home, it was dinner time but we were both full and decided we couldn’t eat anymore so we weren’t going to join the others for dinner.
We faced each other once we reached in front of our doors.
“I had fun today. Thanks for taking me out to the aquarium.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. There’s many more to come. I’ll make sure to surprise you more with every date.”
“Date? I never agreed to go on a date with you.” He said, raising an eyebrow at me.
“It was a date to me.”
“Hey, that’s not polite. You should first ask me if I’d like to go out on a date with you.”
“You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you? You’re going to play hard to get.”
He shrugged. “I’m enjoying it.”
I smirked. “Don’t worry. I’m going to ask you out in a way that you won’t be able to say no.”
Without giving him a chance to reply, I stepped towards him and wrapped my arms around him and rested my head against his chest. Now that I could have him to myself, I wasn’t going to hesitate to hug him for as long as I wanted. He lightly rested his hand on my lower back and sighed with his chin on top of my head.
After a few minutes he pulled back and I reached on my tiptoes and gave him a big kiss on his forehead before running into my room and closing the door after throwing a quick “good night” at him.
The reason I ran into my room right after I kissed him was because I didn’t want him to see me with red cheeks and a wide grin on my lips that could potentially make me appear psychotic to him. Somehow a forehead kiss felt more intimate than one on the lips.
It was the first time in my life that I had experienced some romance and I didn’t know how I was supposed to act or win him back. All I could think of doing was showing him the effort I put into our dates, to show him that I truly cared. I wanted to show him that his feelings were important to me, that he was important to me.
And I couldn’t do that without a little help so I called Amelia, hoping she had some dating experience and could share some tips with me.
“Hey,” she said once she picked up.
“Hi, Amelia. I wanted to ask you something.”
“Sure, what is is it?”
“I want some ideas. How to make a date special? Like how to impress the guy?”
“Is Ethan taking you out on a date?”
“No, its more like? I? am taking him out on a date.”
“Okay? What exactly are you asking?”
“Give me some tips. How do I make a date perfect? I’ve never had a boyfriend before so I don’t really know how these things work and I want to ask Ethan to be my boyfriend in the most romantic way.”
She was silent for a few seconds.
“Amelia, you there?”
“Uh… yeah. But I don’t think I can help you in this.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve never planned a date. All the guys I dated before did all the work. I never did anything for them. Now that I think about it… I kind of sound like an asshole. Is that why none of my previous relationships lasted?” She asked.
I went to deny but she answered herself. “Of course. That’s why they didn’t last. I remember some of the guys complaining that I seemed like I didn’t love them back and I didn’t understand what they meant… until now. A relationship works only when effort is put from both sides. What the heck. I was so stupid. Thanks, Julie. I think you saved me from a lonely, loveless life. I think without you I would’ve probably ended up being an old lady with only cats to keep me company, not that that’s bad because come on, they are? cats? but it would be nice to have a lover.”
“Okay. Congratulations on your realization. But-”
“Yeah, thank you so much. Bye. Love ya.”
And then she cut the call. I called her to ask her to help me and instead she was the one who got helped and I was still left clueless and unsure.
I wasn’t going to ask Heather because she still had a lot going on in her life and it would seem inappropriate because just a few days ago her parents had filed for a divorce and were currently separated, she was disowned by her mother and she had just come out to the world. She needed time to adjust and get back to her routine and until the media stopped talking about her family matters and keeping her in the limelight, she was going to be stressed and I didn’t want to add on to it.
I couldn’t ask Olivia because we were both giving each other the cold shoulder. We barely talk. We don’t make eye contact and pretend we aren’t aware of each other’s existence at dinner which was the only time we saw each other, but then again we didn’t actually? see? each other. Even when we sometimes bump into each other in the hallways or in the kitchen, we ignore and go about our business. I didn’t know what had crawled up her ass but I wasn’t going to keep asking her if she was okay because even if she wasn’t, she didn’t want any help and I couldn’t do anything about that.
Now my only focus was to be happy and make Ethan happy. He had done his part of the effort required to get us together, now it was my turn and I wasn’t going to disappoint him.