"You are the only cactus in the garden of my life."

"C'mon man, at least try and look like you're having a good time." Brennan huffed, swirling the straw around the glass of his milkshake.

The clinking of the metal against the glass annoyed me, I wanted to tear the straw out of his hand and crush it until it became a tiny unusable square, yet I refrained.

The girl next to him chatted away on the phone, and, out of the two infuriating sounds, that for some reason felt more tolerable than the sound of the straw and the glass.

I glowered at Brennan in return, wishing for the night to end as quickly as possible so that I could return to being invaded by silence.

The girl beside him hung up on whatever call she was making, turning to the both of us and saying something that I did not at all take in.

"Hear that? Lana's friend is joining us, so be on your best behaviour."

I don't have a best behaviour, I thought. Whoever the fuck it was surely wouldn't even notice my presence so what's the point?

"What's her name?" Brennan asks the blonde girl, my level of interest suddenly rising ever so slightly.

"Ella."

Ella.

I like that name.

I got lost in my thoughts as my gaze faltered beneath the table, the sound of the two opposite me becoming a complete blur as the ink on my hands suddenly became more interesting.

The chime of the bell caught my attention, the sound ringing in the back of my mind and slowly vibrating until it consumed me.

My entire body froze at who stood in the doorway.

The most unexplainable beauty stood there, her short frame just about reaching under the 'OPEN' sign hanging behind the glass of the door.

Every single inch of her was beautiful, from the vibrant colour of her hair down to her luscious silhouette.

And her face, fuck, her face.

I could spend an eternity studying her face.

I desperately wanted to stand up and walk over to her so that I could see her face more clearly, I wanted to introduce myself in a way that I know normal people do, yet I remained firmly glued to my seat.

She did not seem real. It was as if I was hallucinating, I was waiting to be awoken and told that I was in fact experiencing an out-of-body event.

Every other sound in the room became fuzzy, the only constant sound in my ears being that of my erratic heartbeat thumping against my ribcage.

I could not hear a single thing, it was as if someone had wrapped a pillow around my head, restricting my ability to hear.

No single thing mattered in the world as my eyes traveled back up to hers only to find that her soft brown eyes were already on me.

I felt my heart clench and my skin burn, two human experiences that I had never once been capable of feeling.

The clenching of my heart was a refreshing reminder that I even had one. It was as though the presence of my heart and soul had only just began to do what it was destined to do.

She is mine. I did not care for her circumstances that could restrict such, she is mine.

The beating of my heart thumped in my ears, the sight of her walking over to our table quickening said beats to a point of no return.

Ella.

That was her name. Her name that had already nestled it's way into my lost heart and was beginning to decorate as we speak.

I could not move, I was immobile and in a trance as her tiny self walked over to the table. She sat beside her friend and her eyes instantly caught back onto mine.

I did not think she could get any more beautiful, yet I was proved shamefully wrong when her face came into moderate proximity with mine.

The restriction of the table made me want to flip the furniture on its axis, yet I did not want to do anything to scare her in any singular way.

She had a layer of delicate freckles cascading across the rosy skin of her cheeks, the pattern of speckles meeting over the bridge of her beautiful button nose and colliding into one long line.

Her plump lips were slightly parted and I had to whip my eyes away from them before I did something that would not be deemed appropriate for a first meeting.

She is perfection. There is no word on the planet that would even begin to describe her. I could write an entire essay long enough to stretch around the entire world twice and that still would not be enough to describe her beauty.

Her beautiful brown does eyes were highlighted by her wispy long lashes, and my heart sank in a way it never had before when she tore her gaze from mine and brought it to whoever the fuck was beside her.

Her smile, fuck, her smile.

It was heavenly, so ethereally beautiful that I was waiting to be awoken from whatever torturous dream I was having.

Her face beamed with whatever was keeping her amused as I continued to study her face, the crevices of her dimples on her round cheeks and the crinkles that painted the sides of her eyes were like looking at the most flawless painting known to mankind.

She was the most flawless painting know to mankind. But she was real. Or at least I hope that she is real.

Ella.

Fuck, her voice. I wanted to record her voice and have it replaying every second for the rest of my life, I wanted it to be the one and only voice that I would hear for the rest of eternity.

It was soft yet laced with amusement, it was as smooth as velvet yet it rasped like a beautiful old vinyl.

I could not really make out what she was saying, since the beating of my heart still remained the only things invading my hearing.

Slowly my hearing zoned in on her voice, more specifically the words she spoke and who she spoke them to.

"Are you not going to introduce me?" I heard her mutter, and I instantly wanted to curse her friend for making her feel out of place.

Her friend said something that sounded like she was introducing Brennan to her, but no other voice mattered to me apart from Ella's and I would not entertain any other.

I glanced back up at the beautiful goddess opposite me when I heard my name being introduced to her.

Her face shone with amusement at my last name, and I desperately wanted to know what she was thinking and what had brought amusement upon her features.

Her beauty was too much for me, it was making me think and feel things that I did not think I was ever capable of feeling. With that being said, my eyes angrily zeroed-in on the floor to restrain my influx of thoughts.

I glanced back up at her when I thought that perhaps she would not be looking at me, but my heart missed several beats when I found that her soft brown eyes were still on mine.

My jaw ached at the tenseness in which I held it, I was pretty sure it would crumble at any given moment but I did not care, nothing else mattered to me anymore.

"Hi." Her soft voice spoke up. "I'm Ella."

Ella.

Her tiny hand waved in a somewhat quick and curt motion, and it suddenly brought a pang to my heart at the possibility that perhaps I was making her uncomfortable.

Fuck, I don't want to make her uncomfortable.

Brennan spoke something to her and it made me physically enraged that I could not form words the way he so easily does, I could not breathe properly, let alone speak.

I wanted her eyes back on me.

As if I had summoned her, her beautiful brown eyes focused back on mine, my entire body instantly not knowing what to do with itself.

I froze as hard as the meaning of my last name, my eyes soaring into hers and wishing that I could speak to her.

Then, she smiled.

I felt my jaw click as I clenched it so tight, the bones of my face stiffening up at the sight of her smiling my way.

Although it was brief and simply an act of courtesy, it still ran wild thoughts through my mind, thoughts that I certainly was not capable of bringing to light.

I turned my attention to something outside, hoping that that would distinguish the way she is so easily making me feel. It didn't work, though, in fact it made me want to look at her again and again until she was all that I saw in my mind.

I listened to every word she said, from her denial on her shedding tears over The Notebook to her revelation of her friend's hidden love for Barbie films.

I listened to it all and memorised every single syllable.

I desperately wanted to correct her for her use of the pop song lyrics, I wanted to tell her that she would not be 'getting' with anyone else but me, yet instead I found myself mesmerised by the redness that coated her cheeks from my gaze.

"Do you by any chance like Barbie films?" She blurted out in question.

She was taking to me.

Me.

My heart skipped a beat at the feeling of her gaze and words directed at me and me only, the feeling consuming me to the point where I almost did not grasp the words of her question.

I grunted in response, the only noise to escape me since her presence had turned me immobile. I cursed myself for not speaking, I cursed myself for making it seem like I was not interested in her when in fact it was the entire opposite.

"I will take that as a no then, Lurch."

I could see the way my lack or response had affected her, I could see the way she shifted with uneasiness, yet the one thing that I could not understand was the latter of her response.

Who the fuck is Lurch?

"What did you just call me?" I grumbled, instantly cursing myself for the harshness in my tone and my erroneous choice of words to be the first ever for me to utter to her.

But I could not help it, I desperately wanted to learn her reasoning behind the nickname she had given me.

I listened to her every word as she explained who he was, I noted that he was in fact a fictional character and that I did not have to kill whomever I had previously thought it could have been.

I was beaming on the inside as her eyes lit up in amusement, the exterior of my face being the entire opposite to what was occurring inside of me.

"Wait! I think he has a catchphrase." She spoke, clearing her throat before deepening it to a more manly tone, her hand moulding into the shape of a phone as she brought it up to the side of her face. "You rang?"

The side of my mouth twitched up in a smile for a spilt second, a feeling that I had not experienced in such a long time. So long in fact that I almost forgot what it felt like to be amused.

She had caught onto the brief display of emotion, and I was glad that she had, since I did not want her to think that I was some emotionless robot.

My heart skipped a beat once again as she spoke again, the feeling of her attention on me heating my skin to a point of no-return.

"Maybe you are Wednesday Addams instead." She said, and my jaw clenched further when her eyes broke contact with mine and focused on her friend. "It is like that scene where she tries to smile and it looks like it causes her actual pain to do so."

I was already looking at her as her gaze turned back to me, relief washing over me when she unknowingly distinguished my rising worry that I had scared her off.

I watched in awe as she appeared to be in a trace-like state, similar to the one I had previously been in and was only just beginning to recover from.

Every single atom in me became enraged when her stupid-ass friend said something to her that rang in mg ears like a threat.

"How was your date?"

He is dead, whoever he is he is dead.

"It was fine." Ella shrugged, fuelling my anger. "The whole twenty minutes of it."

The way she spoke so nonchalantly about the so-called date made me mentally and physically ill with insanity.

What made me more enraged though, was the fact that the topic was distinguished at a speed that I could not fathom.

I wanted to know the fuckers name and his entire home address so that I could show him a piece of my mind.

Their conversation flowed, the topic of her 'date' being a distant blur in their minds but something that was flashing in neon lighting in mine.

Then, ten minutes later, the topic arose again. It was as though her friend genuinely wanted me to see me loose my mind, it was becoming painfully hard not to hunt the fucker down and throw him over the railing of Santa Monica pier.

"How did your date go?"

I wanted her attention back on me, so I bashed my knee against the table, causing the entire contents to shake violently at the intrusion.

I smirked on the inside when I succeeded, her eyes flickering to mine as she tried to place the cause of the sudden eruption of noise.

"It was fine." She mumbled. "I guess."

Brennan said something that I did not entirely grasp, but I silently thanked whatever he had chosen to say, since it made her speak up again.

"The main issue was that he never got my Great Gatsby reference." She said, sounding deflated as she spoke, the sound shattering my heart.

She went on to explain what had happened, and I desperately wanted to interrupt her the moment she said 'green light in the distance', mainly because I wanted her to stop talking about her date with another poor excuse of a man, but also because I wanted to impress her with my knowledge on the topic.

I would have gotten your Great Gatsby reference.

Whatever violence I had before had now been coated with a layer of amusement as I watched her reference the movements of 'Kung Fu Panda'.

She told the others that the boy that had taken her for her date had left with the panda she had won, the urge to go out and buy the full stock of stuffed pandas becoming more and more reasonable in my mind the more she spoke.

Then, I heard the faint voice of Brennan complimenting her.

He's one dead motherfucker.

A sound escaped me uncontrollably and I knew that she had heard it, I knew that Brennan had heard it too, yet he continued talking like a dumb little fucker.

He questioned the colour of her hair, a colour that had become my favourite colour from the second she appeared in the doorway.

The colour was a vibrant green, it complimented her entire body in a way that I did not know was possible from the striking colour.

I wanted to compliment the colour, I wanted to tell her how I wanted it imbedded in my skin and shining from my walls.

I could have told her that, but instead I said something that escaped me as though it was not me speaking.

"Puke coloured?"

Her eyes instantly whipped to mine, the erratic beating of my heart quickening as I wanted to desperately beg for her forgiveness.

"Listen here, Lurch. You obviously have bad taste in colour." She narrowed her big doe eyes at me, attempting to seem intimidating but only coming across as painfully adorable. "It is fairytale green."

Fairytale green.

I could have complimented the colour, I could have politely asked for more information. Yet it was me we were talking about, and I was so fucking numb that my words escaped me faster than the speed of my thoughts.

"What the fuck is fairytale green?"

I watched her every move as she leaned back in her chair, blowing out a puff of hair to move the long strand of green hair from her face.

"It is the green of the trees at an outdoor wedding. It is the green of the grass where you sit with your partner when you're old, shaking your fists at the neighbours kid who trespass on skateboards." She told me firmly, her every word enveloping me into some life-long trance that I did not ever want to escape. "It is the green of my hair. It is fairytale green!"

Fairytale Green.

The best and only colour in the entire world.

"And that, little pebble, is the story of how I met your mother." I murmur into the soft skin of my wife's swollen belly.

———a/n

awww I loved writing this chapter! I missed you guys! I've had a bit of a writers block for the past couple of weeks and have been busy away on a trip, but I'm so glad to be back! <33