Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Ella goes to breakfast and RUBY!!!1 runs over, excited to see her. My precious baby. I hope the narrative treats you kindly and that you grow up to realize this situation is TOTALLY messed up.
Penn comes over too and asks if she's okay.
Elise appears and asks to speak to Ella alone. She's somewhat cold and irritated. Probably because she wanted Ella to be gone forever. Ella asks about the microchip, and Elise explains what it is and asks if Ella remembers having it implanted. Turns out, she does, she just doesn't realize what had happened. Apparently it's planted behind her ear.
So the whole family is going out to brunch and leaving Ella alone. Again. Man, they really don't teach this girls anything.
I had no idea how to go about using the stove to heat up food, but I nodded anyway.
Yeesh. At least tell her how a microwave works.
Ella decides to go to the secret garden after everyone leaves instead of having sex with the piano. She puts on her bathing suit because reasons?! I have no idea why.
The tiny little patch of fabric had frightened me before, but now it seemed so much more natural than my other clothes. Those dresses with their yards and yards of fabric that twisted and bunched around my legs whenver I tried to sit, were an impediment. I could actually move in this.
Try using a portapotty in a full skirt and corset at a Renaissance Faire, then talk to me honey bunch. I do Archery in full garb.
Reminds me of this scene in She's the Man
Apparently Penn DIDN'T go to the brunch, because he appears in the garden too. He didn't feel like going. Penn feels guilty that he left her alone to be kidnapped. She tells him it wasn't his fault.
Penn invites her to his room for banana splits and guitar playing. Wow, okay, that's random. She has no idea what a banana split is. Apparently it takes him 15 minutes to make. He literally explains each step. It's boring.
"Next, three scoops of ice cream. One vanilla, one chocolate, and one strawberry, for color, of course."
Yes, that's the only reason to have three different flavored ice cream scoops in a banana split. This is so nonsensical.
Ella hasn't eaten chocolate.
"That's unacceptable," he said, dipping his finger down into the brown sticky syrup and bringing it to my lips. Hesitantly, I licked off a tiny bit, almost dizzy with the warm, sweet rush that filled my mouth.
What.
Ever heard of a spoon, Pensacola? WTF. (Btw, I have a huge aversion to the "feeding each other is romantic" trope. It really, really grosses me out, especially when it involves licking fingers).
They take the ice cream up to Penn's room and Ella is a bit intimidated by the huge bowl of ice cream.
"Always start with the cherry," Penn said, aciting out how I should pick it off the top and plop it in my mouth.I thought you always save the cherry for last....
Penn stared, watching my face as I chewed the overly sweet cherry.
Is the cherry a metaphor.... because I don't like where this is going
Also, Ella is going to throw up so much if she eats even a part of that. She's never had sugar or chocolate or any of this. Yikes.
This scene is really weird. Penn grabs the bowl and shovels a huge bite into his mouth, to demonstrate the proper way of eating a banana split.
A bit of chocolate drizzled out the side of his lip onto his chin. For just a second I imagined myself reaching out to wipe the chocolate off his face with my finger, then slowly bringing it to my own lips.
Did I accidentally start reading an adult Erotica novel by mistake?
He hopped off the bed and stood over me with the heaping spoon. A bit of melted ice cream dripped down onto my bare leg, but he didn't seem to notice. "Open Wide."
I shook my head, trying to shrink away from him. "No. That's too big."
Penn tackled me, then shoved the giant bite into my mouth. Only half of it made it in as we fell to the floor. I could feel the sticky mess running down my neck, but I didn't care about how I must look or that it wasn't proper etiquette to speak with food in your mouth.
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT
They kind of fight over the ice cream and make a mess on the carpet. Penn starts to wipe ice cream off Ella's chin and collarbone. Ella's hormones go crazy. Penn tells her he wants to kiss her. Ella wants him to, but tells him she can't and moves away from him.
Ella feels sick from the ice cream, and tries to leave. Penn insists she stay so he can play her music. Apparenly, Penn chose the name Ella Fitzgerald, and Congressman DoucheChill hates music, especially jazz, because there's too much improvisation and he has to be in control of everything.
That's... kind of a stupid reason to hate improvisation. Considering DoucheChill isn't a musician, but whatever. Penn sings to her and she swoons. I'm not snarking that, it's actually kind of a sweet gesture on Penn's part, and he listened to her when she said not to kiss her.
I could almost see myself reflected in his face, the joy and the pain that moved through the center of me when I played, like a knife cutting me open--not to injure, only to expand, to make more room inside for the music.
And we're back with the weird ass music metaphors. Couldn't go too long without that.
Ella kisses him on the corner of his mouth and leaves before he can react.
Chapter Seventeen
Ruby sneaks Ella butterscotch candies over the next couple of days. One night she goes outside and contemplates things.
Maybe we were so much luckier than all those people that had to slave away, working so hard to buy themselves homes, and cars, and food. They certainly hadn't looked happy, out there in the real world. Any one of them would have been grateful to get to enjoy all this beauty piled before me.
You met like two people (not counting the cops) when you ran away.
Unsurprisingly, Penn is walking around too. I guess there's a limited number of ways these two can bump into each other when Ella only left the house that one time, but man, this book's repetition is grating at me.
Penn leads her to the secret garden because he has a surprise for her.
His teen glowed white in the moonlight as a wide grin spread across his face.
The... hell?
I'm guessing it's supposed to say "teeth" and no one caught the mistake before the books were printed, but that's still such an odd thing to notice.
Ella is speechless. I mean, this bitch nearly drowned so I don't know why this touches her so much. She dips her feet in the water. Yanno, this is still going to get full of algae and crap. We had a pond growing up. Unless Penn dumped a bunch of chlorine and installed a filter, this thing is going to regrow algae in no time. That's kind of what ponds do.
They talk about how Penn doesn't want to study Political Science and that makes his dad mad.
"Do you think it's more important to make yourself happy, or to make other people happy?" I asked. I'd never imagined that the two didn't go hand in hand, but maybe I was wrong.
???????????????? She spent her whole life being told that it was the utmost importance to make her masters happy, and even acknowledges this in her narration right after she asks this. Where did this come from all of a sudden? I mean, don't get me wrong, I guess it's good that she's questioning this whole thing but it feels really astute for her to ask this when up til now she's been totally braindead stupid.
So Penn asks her to go swimming and says he'll answer if she joins him. He takes off his shirt and Ella is twitterpated.
He takes forever to answer her question, explaining about how his dad is selfish (in many more words than that) and that he's Jaded, and doesn't believe in altruism. I mean, I guess I get that considering he grew up with Congressman DoucheChill as a dad.
He comes to the conclusion that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. I'm super bored.
Ella doesn't really want to get into the water, but Penn is like "you could swim in your underwear for all I care!"
Fnar-Fnar. Lol. He gives this jaded answer about life shit and then he turns into a stereotypical teenage boy.
Apparently the underwear comment doesn't phase Ella, because she takes off her nightgown, which makes Penn freak out a bit because he'd only been joking.
Apparently Ella wears a camisole under her nightgown. I guess the author has to get around partial nudity somehow. She hesitates because she doesn't know how to swim, but Penn reassures her. After forever, Penn finally grabs her around the waste and helps her in. I guess it's supposed to be sexy.
You know ducks poop in there, right?
Penn teaches her how to swim, ogles her wet body, and runs his hand down her back. Sorry, I can't help but think of duck poop. That's my own fault.
They kiss, and Ella panics. The end.
That chapter really wasn't that bad, just teenagers being teenagers, I guess.
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