~Eleanor~

He looks gorgeous. Olive had warned me about the shirt he bought, but I had no idea he would look this good. I had managed to stop finding him handsome in everything he wore, but I don't think I'll be able to help it tonight. The sleeves tighten around his muscles as he places Ophelia in her car seat, showing the efforts he puts in the gym. I can't help but look at him during the entire ride to the restaurant. If he notices, he doesn't say anything, so I keep gazing.

During the time we were apart, I forced myself to look at other men in a way I never would have allowed myself if Ben was around. I wanted to find them as or even more attractive than him, but I never found one who beat his attractiveness. I hated myself and I hated him for ruining every chance I had at being happy with someone else because, no matter what I did or who I was with, I kept comparing them to Ben, and nothing was ever good enough. When their reaction would have resembled Ben's, I thought it would be absurd to change something for the exact same, and when they did something Ben would never have, I found myself wishing they were more like him. I talk as if I had been with many other men since Ben left, but really, I have been with none. I just compared any guy I saw on the street or men I worked with to him. I think that's when I started to hate him. Or hate what he did because I don't think I could ever hate him. I loved him too much to end up hating him. I hated the fact that he was gone, and that I had no idea if he was ever coming back. He had left me with memories that no one could match no matter how hard they tried. Ben was all I had known since I was sixteen. I am twenty-one now. I should be going out every week-end, meet people I'll never see again, but I never had to because I had Ben. I had Ben to come home to almost every night and I never wanted anything else. Even after he had left, all I wanted was for him to come back. I know it sounds pitiful, but that was how I felt. It was how I felt until I met Hannah. The first thing she told me when she learned I wasn't with Ben anymore was: "That man is a fool. If I ever see him, I'll break his femurs that way, he won't be able to play hockey anymore. That'll teach him." I found her a little intense, but what she said got me thinking. She was right. Thinking that leaving was the best way to solve our problems was foolish. After this day, I started telling myself that he was the one who lost the most in this break-up. He not only lost me, but Ophelia too.

It was my father who convinced me to invite him to her birthday party. "He's her dad and he's back in town," he said, his voice full of hope. "You can't keep him away forever, sweetie." That's what I wanted though. I never wanted to see him again because I knew that, if I did, I would go back to the place where everything I wanted was for us to go back to the way we were. So, even when he was around, I kept the biggest amount of distance between us as I could, kept the conversations to a minimum, and avoided looking into his eyes. And it worked, I convinced myself that I was over him, that he could go fuck himself for all I cared. It's the photo Hannah posted that proved me wrong. I was so mad when I saw it that I could have slapped him. I almost did when he came to my room to talk, but something in what he said stopped me. When he quoted Pride and Prejudice, something switched in me. All this time, where I thought that he didn't care about what I liked, where I complained to my friends about how he didn't find it important enough. It wasn't true. He had read one of my favorite books well enough to be able to quote it to me. That sentence: "There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well," it opened a crack in my heart that I thought would be closed forever. Ever since, he has been making that crack wider and wider, until, one day, he'll maybe be able to crawl back in.

I went from not wanting to have anything to do with him to never wanting to be apart in only a few days. It pleased everybody but Hannah who keeps saying that he is an asshole who doesn't deserve me. "I'll prove it to you, you'll see," she promised after I told her that he was moving in with Ophelia and me in New York. I brushed it off, thinking that she would never actually do anything, and I was right. She never mentioned Ben again.

I am pulled away from my thoughts when I feel the car stop moving. We're here. The reception is held at a restaurant Will and I know well. Every year, for our birthday, my parents booked a table here. Twice a year, we had the chance to eat at the fanciest and most expensive restaurant in all of Victoria, The Trattoria Del Rocca. Everything inside was white, from the tablecloths to the waiters' uniform. When I was younger, I used to love coming here. It meant that my mother's attention was fully on my brother and me for the entire evening. It was that way until Will's fourteenth birthday. That day, my mother did the unforgivable, the unthinkable. She answered her phone in the middle of the meal, directing everyone's attention on us. It became normal after that. She didn't turn off her phone anymore, only putting it on vibrate so she could notice and answer it without disturbing everyone. I started dreading those dinners even declaring that I didn't mind if we skipped a year or two. My father insisted on going, saying it was tradition. I told him that the tradition had died when my mother started inviting all her colleagues, but it didn't work. The last time I was here was for my seventeenth birthday during my last year of high school. I had asked my parents if Ben could take Will's spot since he was away for college, but they denied saying it was a family thing. So, I spent two dreadful hours making small talk with my dad and listening to my mother apologize, saying that she really had to take that one call.

It hasn't changed much in the past four years. The walls are still white, the same black and white pictures hang on the walls, the waiters still wear white even if they added a black apron, and the menu hasn't changed one bit. That makes one decision easy. I've always had the same thing here, the Ravioli Con Aragosta  as a main dish and the Tiramisu for dessert. Just thinking about their lobster filled ravioli makes my head spin. I am suddenly excited for this dinner. Ben and I sit at the end of the main table since it's where they put the high chair. As a maid of honor, I am supposed to sit close to the bride, but the distance doesn't bother me. I won't have to listen to Josephine's sisters brag about their perfect husband and their perfect lives. There are eight other tables dispatched around the main one. Louis, my brother's best and only real friend, sits in front of us.

"Hey, why aren't you with the other best men?" I ask him. Louis and I have never been really close, but I thought that the best man would sit closer to the groom since he doesn't have a baby to look after. Louis went to the same university as Will, only he chose biology instead of medicine. I believe he now works in a big fancy lab and studies new species of bugs and other small things that disgust me.

"Why aren't you with the other bridesmaids?" he asks, raising his eyebrows in defiance, but the smile on his face indicates that he's joking. I point Ophelia who seems to be enjoying the cracker Ben just put on her plate. "We'll I don't like Will's doctor friends," he answers, whispering. To be frank, I have never met Will's doctor friends except the woman who was with him when I visited him at the hospital more than over a year ago. I can only assume they are like him when he goes into doctor mode, posh and unpleasant. They look at you as if your life sucked because you are not a doctor and they talk to you as if you were stupid for not knowing what the staphylococcus aureus is and why it's so dangerous. I'm pretty sure Louis would know this bacterium and many other medical related things, but I don't argue with him. "Plus, I like children more than adults, so I don't mind sitting next to missy over here. I heard many guests wondering why someone brought a baby here, so I sacrificed myself and sat next to the crying thing," he adds, whispering again. I can't help but laugh at the way he cringed when he said the word "crying."

"To be honest, I think Samantha is more likely to cry than Ophelia," Ben intervenes. Samantha is Josephine's younger sister. She is a year older than me but acts as if she was still eleven. We all laugh but are forced to stop when we hear someone knocking on his glass with his fork to try and get the attention of about a hundred people. I was surprised when Will told me there would be close to a hundred people at the wedding. I never thought he and Jo knew that many people since all they do is work. Every head turns in my father's direction as he gets up from his chair.

"As tradition wants it, I, the father of the groom, want to thank all of you for coming to this event. Seeing your children happy is the only thing that truly matters when you become a parent, and Stephanie and I have been extremely lucky in that way. Tomorrow's celebration is not the conclusion of Will and Jo's story, it's the very beginning. Josephine, you have not only changed our son when you entered our family, you changed all of us. Thank you for giving me the honor to call you my daughter-in-law. I hope you'll all join me in this toast. To Will and Jo." We all repeat the toast, raising our glasses in unison. What my father said is true, Josephine changed our entire family. She made Will distant with his all of us, my mother think that now that her son wasn't home much it was ok for her to work even more, my father believe he could take one more class at university since Will was gone, and left me angry about it all. Yeah, Jo, thank you so much.

She wipes a tear on her cheek and thanks my father for his kind words. Right after that, our entrées arrive. The rest of dinner goes smoothly. In between every course, a few people get up to give a toast to the future bride and groom. Will and Josephine only speak up after dessert, thanking everyone for their kind words. As maid of honor, I know I am supposed to give a toast as well, but nothing nice enough comes to mind, so I stay quiet. I already have to talk at the wedding tomorrow, and, for me, that's plenty.

After dinner is over, the waiters push the tables, giving us space to get up and walk around. I watch Will and Josephine from afar as they smoothly go from party to party, trying to talk to everyone. A few family members come talk to me, asking about Ophelia. Fortunately, no one asks about Ben since no one knows we broke up, and I'm not close enough to any of them to share this fact. I excuse myself from my mother's cousin, Sharon, pretending to need to change Ophelia's diaper. The bathroom is the only quiet place tonight, so I plan on coming here often to get a little silence. I spot the bathroom stall reserved for people with a disability. There's a small couch in the corner. Maybe I'll come here to put Ophelia to sleep later. I brought the playard so she could sleep if she ever gets tired before we want to leave. I change a perfectly clean diaper, just to be doing something in case someone walks in.

"Dada," Ophelia says as I button her dress back up.

"Yeah, baby, we'll go see dada," I answer, lifting her up from the changing table. I make my way through the crowd, careful to not attract anyone's attention. Of course, Ben is no longer in the same spot I left him, so I have to look for him. I find him in the far-left corner of the restaurant talking to Louis and my cousin, Josh. I stay behind so they can't see me when I hear my name.

"Are you and Ella ever going to get married?" Josh asks. I can't see them anymore and the only thing I hear is silence which stresses me out. "It would be weird if you did since you two have done everything backwards ever since you started dating," he adds, probably to fill the silence.

"What do you mean we did everything backwards?" Ben asks. The fact that Ben doesn't answer the question stresses me out. I would have liked to hear is opinion on the subject.

"Well, I mean, it's supposed to be dating, wedding after getting your degree, get a job, buy a house, then babies. And you two did: dating, no degree, no career, shitty apartment in a weird town and baby. You skipped a few steps, man," Josh answers, chuckling. I can't see Ben's face, but I know him well enough to know that he's angry. I never liked Josh. He's always been obsessed with himself, and spits on everyone who doesn't say or think like him.

"I don't think there's a way to do things," Ben says, calmly. "We did what we thought was right at the time, and I wouldn't change anything. Having plans is nice, but then life happens, and it messes your plan up. When I think about Eleanor and me, I don't think we did it backwards. I look back and I'm proud of what we did together. We may have lived in a shitty apartment in a weird town, but we were happy, and we loved each other, and that's what any relationship should be. No plans and no order, but love and happy memories," he finishes. My heart beats so fast, it might burst out of my chest. I wish I hadn't heard this; it would have made it easier to stay away from him. How am I supposed to only co-parent with him after hearing this? I shake my head to get rid of the fuzzy feeling in my chest.

"Dada!" I hear loudly. I had put Ophelia down in front of me when she started shuffling, but I can't see her anymore.

"Hey baby! Are you alone, where is your mother?" Ben asks. I come out of my hiding place only to come face to face with him. He's holding Ophelia close to his chest as she rubs her eyes with her fists. I might have to use that couch in the bathroom earlier than I expected.

"Hey," I shyly say.

"Did you hear that?" he asks. His face goes bright red when I nod. 

First chapter in Eleanor's POV!! Weirdly, I had missed writing in her point of view ahah. Hope you enjoyed this longer than usual chapter xx