The Truth About Ellen: A feel-good romantic comedy

by Sarah Louise Smith

  I didn’t reply, I didn’t want to talk about whether I’d enjoy living in Jasper’s house, so I fell silent, and then he did too. For some reason he was getting on my nerves this morning and I didn’t know why, but I suspected it wasn’t his fault.

  The journey home seemed to take a long time. I kept fidgeting. Tom put the radio on, and I glanced at the fields as we passed them by, wondering if the universe was trying to show me a sign with this whole city/country thing. I wondered what Jasper was doing now and quickly dismissed the thought. I’d made my choice.

  “You heard back about any of those jobs?” Tom asked as we started coming into London.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You don’t sound bothered.”

  “I don’t know; I don’t want to commute to Milton Keynes every day but I don’t want to work in London either I guess.”

  “Sounds like you’re unsure on what you want.”

  He didn’t know the half of it. “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Did I push you too early?”

  I sat up a little straighter and glanced across at him. He stared ahead at the road. “What do you mean?”

  “Moving in. Perhaps we weren’t ready.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “You just don’t seem very happy.”

  “I’m bored of the train journeys, that’s all.”

  “But you don’t want to live in London.”

  “I didn’t say that. I love your house.”

  “I just want you to be happy.”

  “I am.”

  Was I? I didn’t know. This had moved so fast, and now I doubted my decision. I just didn’t want to admit it to him.

  We fell silent again for the rest of the journey. Just after we arrived home my phone rang. It was Mum.

  “Hi, Mum,” I answered.

  “Hello! How was Devon?”

  “It was nice. We’ve literally just got in. How’re you?”

  “I’m well. I was wondering if you’re going to bring Tom with you for dinner next Sunday.”

  I guess the time had come. I told her we’d be there and then spent the remainder of the day warning Tom about what to expect. Things picked up a little and we had a laugh, discussing both our mothers’ cooking (seems I wasn’t the only one with maternal bad-cook syndrome).

  Hung-over and dehydrated, Tom spent the rest of the afternoon lying on the sofa while I chatted to Zoe and then Laura up in our bedroom, voice low, explaining everything. They both commended me on my will power and they both said I should keep my options open. But whenever I thought about Jasper, I felt fearful. I had a feeling he’d hurt me. Tom was more trustworthy and dependable. And if Four Apes were reuniting, I wasn’t going to be the girl who got in the way. I kept reminding myself of that.

  The next week at work was hard going. I was tired all the time from getting up earlier and getting home later, and just the general fatigue of three hours’ journeying every day. I had a lot of people to interview for vacancies we were filling, and a number of difficult recruiting managers to deal with in between. I kept my head busy, so I couldn’t think about anything that’d gone on at the weekend.

  Thursday night, I went from the office to a pub for dinner with my brother Matt. He had surprised me when he suggested it, but I was glad to get some time to chat with him alone. I’d not had much time for my friends and family in Milton Keynes since moving in with Tom.

  “So, things are still going well with Tom?” he asked after we’d ordered our food.

  I hesitated, just for a second.

  “Yeah, it’s all good.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Because I know you.”

  So, I told him. About meeting Jasper when I was 21, about the whole debacle I was in, and how I’d made my decision but was just adjusting to it, getting used to it. By the time I’d finished our food was getting cold.

  “Eat.” Matt pointed to my plate. I picked up my fork and took a piece of lasagne.

  “So. Yeah. That’s what’s been going on.”

  “You want my opinion?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “This should be the honeymoon period with Tom. You’ve only known him, what, less than six months? You should still be having an amazing, loved up time. You shouldn’t be having feelings for someone else. Not if you really, truly love him. So something is wrong there.”

  “No!” I said putting down my fork like a petulant child. “I love him.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. I just do.”

  “I think you love that he loves you. He was romantic and swept you away, more than any other guy has ever done. But that doesn’t mean he’s the one for you.”

  “Oh, and so Jasper is?”

  “I don’t know. But you’ll never find out if you insist on staying with Tom.”

  “I do insist. It’s for the best.”

  “You shouldn’t stay with someone for the best, Ellen. You stay with someone because you love them, because you can’t imagine a life without them.”

  I didn’t want to hear this. I took out my purse, put some money on the table and got up to go. “I’ll see you Sunday.”

  “Come on, don’t be silly. I’m just telling you what I think. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe having doubts about whether you love someone is perfectly normal when you’ve only been together a short while.”

  I walked out of the pub, unwilling to hear any more. I was only a ten minute walk from Zoe’s house so I marched around there and told her what Matt had said.

  “He talks sense. Sorry Ellen. But he does. How can you be madly in love with Tom, and have such strong feelings for Jasper? He’s right, this should be the honeymoon phase.”

  I sulked on her sofa for a while, thinking about what they both said while she made me a cup of tea. I got my phone out and texted Matt to apologise. He was only trying to help.

  “Here you go,” Zoe said, handing me my tea.

  “I know this is hard, and I know you thought you’d found your Prince in Tom, but regardless of Jasper, you shouldn’t be with him unless you’re one hundred percent sure. It’s too soon in the relationship to be having doubts. Maybe you moved too fast.”

  “I’m more confused than ever now,” I admitted. I sipped my tea.

  An hour later, Zoe dropped me at the train station. I got a reply from Matt telling me not to worry about it and that he’d see me on Sunday. The plan was to visit Gran first. She was packing up her things to move to Bath and I admired her courage and determination. Dad still wasn’t on board, but I was hoping he’d come round to the idea.

  When I got home, Tom had gone to bed. He’d left me a note saying he had a tummy bug and didn’t feel great. I snuck up to our bedroom and watched him sleeping peacefully. He was such a wonderful, wonderful man. I was so sure I loved him when he asked me to move in, and if Jasper hadn’t turned up again, would I have been blissfully going along, thinking he was the one for me, or would I still have this niggling doubt in my head? What was missing here? I had no idea.

  I got ready for bed and wrapped my arms around him. He turned over and snuggled in close to me.

  “You feeling okay?” I asked.

  “Better thanks. How was your evening?”

  “Fine.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  At least, I think so.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  On Friday at work, Darby and Tammy started their usual morning conversation about their previous evenings. And then Darby said:

  “My cousin says Felicity and Jasper are over! And Felicity knows for sure that Jasper met up with the other guys from Four Apes. She’s selling her story to the press. Should be interesting!”

  “No! What a cow!” I said, piping up.

  Darby looked up at me, shocked at my outburst.

  “Something wrong Ellen?”

  “I just think that Jasper obviously trusted her with this information and
she shouldn’t go running to the press.”

  “I’m sure he treated her badly, he probably deserves it.”

  “That weekend was supposed to be a secret.”

  “How did you know it was a whole weekend?”

  I’d really got their attention now. Tammy sat there, mouth agape while Darby moved to sit on her desk, to get a better look at me over the partition.

  “Tom, my Tom, is Tom Green,” I told them. “From Four Apes.”

  “Oh my god!” screamed Tammy.

  “That’s amazing!” Darby moved around to my desk.

  “Tell us everything.”

  “Oh, there’s not much to tell,” I said, wondering why I’d let it out so easily. “He’s a normal guy really. And this past weekend was just a meal with the guys, no reunion talks.”

  “So you’ve met Jasper Ryan?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh my god, he’s so hot!”

  “According to my cousin, Felicity says he was boring though.”

  “Oh really?” piped in Tammy.

  “Yeah. Wants to spend his days off in his country house in Surrey. Doesn’t drink. And he was always aloof. She felt he was thinking about someone else the whole time, especially towards the end.”

  I decided to delete this information from my brain to save going over it again and again until I went crazy.

  Half an hour later I told Oscar I had a headache and left early. It wasn’t a total lie, Darby and Tammy’s excited questions about Tom had pretty much made my head feel like exploding.

  I got home early and found Tom in his music room. He’d spent the day writing potential Four Apes songs. He asked me to listen to a few of them, and they were incredible. He was excited about sharing them with the other three.

  I told him about Darby and what she’d said about Felicity.

  “Oh well, it was going to get out there soon enough. We might get a few followers, trying to take photos, so be on the look-out.”

  I nodded my head and watched him return to his guitar, headphones on, totally focused.

  Saturday, the story came out and it wasn’t a big deal. It was mostly about Felicity and Jasper’s relationship, or lack of, as she said she’d hardly spent any time with him as he ‘didn’t want to party’ plus a lot of speculation about Four Apes spending a weekend together and how long it’d be before an official reunion was announced. The Facebook group grew, a bunch of hard-core fans talked about it on Twitter, but it all died down again pretty quickly. Tom didn’t seem to care, and kept working on the music.

  Sunday. The day Tom was to meet my family.

  First, Gran’s house. She asked me to come before dinner instead of after as she had someone visiting who was interested in buying the house later on. It felt weird seeing the ‘for sale’ sign outside as Tom’s Porsche pulled up on the driveway. Gran made us sugary tea and chatted about Gordon, how lovely Shane was, how excited she was about the future. I was genuinely happy for her and Tom encouraged her with lots of questions too, reminding me what a lovely man he was. Who wouldn’t want him?

  As we pulled up outside my parent’s house, I felt a sense of dread. I had no idea what to expect, but I feared the worst.

  Mum was dressed in her favourite outfit; a knitted lilac cardigan and black skirt, no doubt for Tom’s benefit. She’d cooked a roast turkey and I was relieved to see she’d bought cranberry sauce; we’d need the whole jar to get over the dryness of the turkey, if our Christmas dinners were anything to go by.

  She greeted Tom with a big smile and a quick hug, then encouraged him to join my dad in the lounge to watch football, even though I’d told her that Tom didn’t have any interest in it.

  We chatted in the kitchen for a while and she kept saying how handsome he was, how polite and how lucky I was. She was right; I was lucky.

  Matt and Kev arrived. Matt gave me a squeeze on the arm to let me know everything was okay between us and Kev started chatting to Tom about his job, and just when I thought everything was going well, Mum called us to the table.

  “So what do you do, Tom?” Kev asked.

  “I’m a musician. I write music.”

  “Oh yeah, Ellen said.”

  “He was in Four Apes,” Matt offered.

  Hmm, why hadn’t I prepped them before? I shot warning looks to each of them but no one seemed to notice. And then I watched it all fall apart.

  “Four Apes! Really? Are you kidding?” Mum began.

  Tom frowned. “No, he’s right.”

  “Oh wow, no wonder she fancied you Tom,” Dad said, laughing.

  Tom looked at me and frowned some more.

  “All over her bedroom wall, you fellas were,” Mum continued my humiliation.

  “She was obsessed,” Kev told him. “Especially with Jasper.”

  I looked to Matt for help but all he could do was give me a sympathetic smile.

  “How many times did you see them live, Ellen?” Dad asked.

  “A few,” I admitted, glancing at Tom. He was just looking at everyone else with a blank expression. I couldn’t read him.

  “Oh, at least ten I reckon! I used to drive you to Wembley Arena, remember? And I’ve taken you to see Jasper Ryan solo a fair few times too.”

  I thought I might be sick. I put my hand under the table and squeezed Tom’s thigh. He put his hand on mine and removed it back to my own leg. Oh dear. This wasn’t going well.

  “So she was a huge fan, huh?” Tom said, obviously wanting to know more.

  “Oh yes. Knew all the lyrics. Recorded you all on TV whenever you were on. She had a t-shirt and everything,” Mum continued. “I bet she was over the moon when she met you.”

  Tom laughed nervously. I picked up a mouthful of turkey and forced it in.

  “Come on,” Matt said, “I’m sure Tom doesn’t need to hear all this, and you’re probably embarrassing Ellen.”

  I had never loved my brother more.

  Dad started talking about the football again and I watched Tom play with his food, without eating much.

  “I’ve got a sudden headache!” I said, using the same excuse yet again. “I think we ought to go home, Tom. Sorry everyone.”

  Tom stood up, obviously grateful for an escape too. Mum forced me to take a bottle of water and some aspirin in the car and we set off, pulling away from the house in silence.

  “So…” I began.

  “So. Sounds like you’ve not been entirely honest.”

  “I’m sorry. It didn’t seem important.”

  “Just tell me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “Did you ever really see the real me?”

  “Of course! Of course I did. I recognised you, of course, but I wanted to play it cool. And then I didn’t expect it to last longer than that first weekend, but it did, and it seemed too late to mention it then.”

  “So you lied.”

  “No, not technically. You didn’t ask if I was a huge Four Apes fan.”

  “Oh come on Ellen, you lied about how many times you saw us live. And Jasper.”

  “Well, yes. I’m sorry about that.”

  He was silent for a while. I let him take it all in.

  “Answer this truthfully, please.”

  “Okay…”

  “Did you know I was going to be at that hotel?”

  “What?! Of course not!”

  “Did you ever intend on getting to know me, in order to meet Jasper?”

  “No!”

  “You must have been psyched when we met him in France.”

  “Come on, Tom. I was only 13 when you guys made it big. I’m not a huge Jasper fan anymore.”

  “Do you have a crush on him?”

  I laughed. Oh god, another lie.

  “No.”

  “This is just weird, Ellen. Really weird.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should’ve said.”

  “I know.”

  The rest of the journey was silent. I felt a weird mixture of relief that he knew and
worry about what would happen next. Was he going to forgive me? Would we move on from this?

  Did I even want to?

  Why couldn’t I get my head straight?

  We arrived back in Kensington just as it started raining. Without speaking, Tom parked and walked up to the house. He usually opened my door for me, but not today. He opened the front door, went in and left it open for me to follow. I went in and closed the door, unsure how to handle this.

  “I am sorry Tom. I know it all seems really deceitful.”

  He was in the kitchen, facing away from me but he spun around. His face was angry, and it wasn’t the Tom I knew, not the laid-back, happy guy I moved in with. He was hurt.

  “What else don’t I know about you, Ellen?”

  “Nothing else!”

  “How can I know that for sure?”

  For a millisecond I thought about telling him the whole truth, about Jasper, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to risk losing him.

  “You know me.”

  “Maybe we moved too fast. Maybe we were deluding ourselves. We haven’t been getting along so well lately.”

  “Oh come on, don’t blow this out of proportion! Is it really a big deal?”

  “I’m not sure.” He ran his hand through his hair. I went to hug him but he moved away.

  “I’m going out for a bit, I’ll see you later.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Not sure. I just need some space.”

  He swiftly moved to the front door and slammed it closed behind him. I found my phone and called Laura.

  “Well, I did say it wasn’t a big deal all along, I mean Four Apes were seriously cool. He should be flattered.”

  “He might have been in the beginning. I’m such an idiot.”

  “And what about Jasper?”

  “What about him?”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “No, and I didn’t expect to.”

  “You will.”

  “I will what?”

  “You’ll hear from him. I bet.”

  “That’s the least of my problems right now. I don’t know where Tom has gone.”

  “Men need to cool off sometimes. He’ll come back with his head straight and you can both forget about this whole silly thing and carry on as before.”

  Carrying on as before didn’t seem that appealing, but I kept telling myself it was the travelling I didn’t like. Not living with Tom. How could anyone not enjoy living with kind, lovely Tom?