The day was here. Ivy day. Arguably the biggest day of all applicants' lives. Ella had marked it on the calendar, circling it with a huge red marker like it was doomsday. So far she'd had to sit through Nat getting five out of five offers for her London universities in the space of just a month after applying - Ella almost wished she'd applied in England so the waiting would already have been over with. Steve had received not one, not two, but three acceptances over the last two weeks, and so far Ella and Bucky only had one each, but still no rejections. There was still time for that to change though.
There was an air of nerves in school, everyone knew the handful of seniors who were waiting to hear, and the small group of them stood out like sore thumbs. Ella had a constant sheen of sweat on her forehead, despite the cool weather, and Bucky's knee had been bouncing uncontrollably throughout every lesson. The pair of them had spent their lunch walking around school, too full of nervous energy to sit in the cafeteria and listen to everyone try and reassure them.
When it got to the end of the day, Bucky walked Ella to her car. He had been an eternal optimist in front of Ella, at least vocally, his shaking leg was giving away his facade somewhat, so when he kissed Ella goodbye, he simply said, "I'll see you later," with as much of a smile as he could muster. Now was not the time for sentiments such as we'll be okay whatever happens because anything less than one Brown acceptance each was not on the cards, not in their minds.
Ella's car ride back from school was quiet, she had nearly bitten Steve's head off one too many times when he'd tried talking to her while she was so stressed. Instead, he put the radio on low and kept to himself. When they got home, Ella disappeared upstairs and sat on the end of the bed. She needed to pass the better part of 3 hours, and she had no idea how she was going to make it through without throwing up. She hunched over, resting her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands, and waited. And waited. And waited. She checked the clock. 10 minutes had passed. She groaned and threw herself backward, sprawling out on her bed. She couldn't pass three hours like that.
Instead, she did the only other thing she could think to do. She pulled on shorts and a sweatshirt, grabbed some headphones, and headed out on a run. That would kill an hour, and the shower afterward would knock off another 20 minutes.
An hour and a half later she was sitting at the end of her bed again. The rest of her family was downstairs eating dinner, she'd smelled the fajitas when she got in from her run, but she didn't think she'd be able to keep food down so hadn't joined them.
Eventually, she decided to head downstairs. She shot Bucky a quick text to say I love you and he replied instantly. I love you too.
Her parents talked her into putting an episode of Friends on, they both knew it was her comfort show and the four of them sat together in the living room. Ella could feel Steve's smirk without having to see it. He was finding the whole ordeal very amusing. He'd never said it out loud, but he was more confident than anyone that she was going to get in, and he found her nerves to be very entertaining because in his mind they were entirely pointless.
When the clock hit quarter to 7, Ella went to find her laptop. She set it up on the coffee table and she sat on the floor beside it. Friends was still playing quietly in the background, the laugh track was the only thing Ella could hear though. Her thoughts were drowning out everything else. She didn't notice when, at 7 on the dot, her mom hit pause because she was desperately refreshing her browser tab. It was ten minutes past the hour when the page finally loaded. Her eyes scanned the lines of text.
Her hand flew up over her mouth and she started crying, her sobs shaking her body.
Her parents looked at each other frantically, they couldn't read her reaction. Steve jumped up to read Ella's letter, peering over her shoulder.
"She got in!" He shouted, he turned to Ella and pulled her into a hug, "you got into Brown!"
For the next few seconds no one could tell what anyone else was saying, they'd all jumped on top of Ella in a giant family hug, they were all so excited. However, Ella couldn't say anything, she was still sobbing into her hand.
"She's in shock," Sarah laughed gently as she pulled away. "Just give her a minute"
Ella finally managed to hold in a sob long enough to splutter out "I can't believe it!"
Joe and Sarah shook their heads in unison, "we can."
"Yeah, me too," Steve begrudgingly admitted, giving his sister a gentle elbow to the ribs. "I guess I'm kind of proud of you."
Ella laughed and rolled her eyes, "wow, what a lovely sentiment."
Steve grinned, "Hey, it's not easy having not one but two genius sisters."
Ella opened her mouth to tease him for admitting that he thought she was a genius, but before she could he very firmly said "if you take the piss I will take that back and you'll never hear another compliment from me again."
Ella shook her head at her brother before collapsing on the sofa next to her mom. She breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn't gotten into Dartmouth, but that didn't matter. She just wanted Brown. She tried to picture the scenes in the Barnes household, she could imagine Winnie being the one who was sobbing. Ella kept her fingers crossed that it had gone as well for Bucky.
Only a few minutes had gone by when she heard the familiar sound of a car pulling up outside. She jumped up from the couch and sprinted to the front door, flinging it open. Bucky was climbing out of his car, she couldn't see his face from where she was standing. He all but ran around the hood of his car to the bottom of the garden path.
Ella looked up at him nervously, his face was giving nothing away. However, a split second later a smile spread across his face and told her everything she needed to know. She reciprocated his smile, and Bucky wrapped her up in his arms and spun her around as she squealed into the crook of his neck.
"We did, Buck!" she laughed, tears of happiness streaming down her face again.
"We did it," he repeated, leaning down to give Ella a deep kiss. "I love you, I'm so proud of you."
"I love you too," Ella said, giving him a peck on the nose. "Oh god I'm crying again," she laughed between sobs as she dropped her head onto his shoulder, suddenly overcome with emotion.
"I'm so unbelievably happy right now," he said as he held her.
Ella breathed in, her nose filling with the scent of Bucky's sweater, "me too. I wish the world would stop spinning, just for a second, don't want this moment to end."
They stayed stood on the garden path for what felt like hours, but in reality, it was just minutes.
Bucky held her tight to his chest, "I only got Brown," he said, his lips brushing her hair. "Not that it matters, it's the only one I really wanted after all."
Ella nodded, "me too."
She heard Bucky hum, she felt the vibration through his chest.
"What?" she asked, looking up at him.
He shook his head, "I don't know, it sounds silly, but doesn't this kind of feel like it was meant to be?"
Ella nodded as the undeniable feeling that everything had worked out just the way it was supposed to washed over her.
"I hate to say it, but I should go, mom wants to celebrate," he said. "Would you like to come over?" he offered.
"I'd love to, but I think my parents will want me to stay home tonight, we'll celebrate just us tomorrow though," she replied.
"Sounds perfect," he said with a smile before showering Ella with kisses across her nose and cheeks.
The next day, news of people's Ivy acceptances spread around the school like wildfire. Ella had people she hadn't spoken to in months congratulating her, as far as she'd heard she and Bucky were the only people in the year off to Brown, but several people had acceptances from other colleges. At lunchtime, she was standing by Wanda's locker chatting away when Christian appeared in her peripheral vision. For the first few months after their break-up, he'd avoided her entirely, but after a while, they started to acknowledge each other again. Even if just to say hello when they passed each other at school or bumped into each other at a party.
"I hear congratulations are in order," he smiled.
"Yeah, thanks. I still can't believe it," she replied.
He rolled his eyes, "I can."
Ella looked down at her feet, even after a day of hearing similar compliments she still felt uncomfortable hearing them.
"Did you apply?" she asked, she hadn't heard any news of him being accepted so she assumed he hadn't. He quickly confirmed this.
"No, I actually ended up going for Stanford and UCLA, among others."
Ella raised her eyebrows, she was somewhat surprised. She'd never expected him to go so far but he'd always hated the cold so maybe in hindsight, it made a little more sense.
"Well, good luck. Let me know how it goes," she smiled.
"Yeah, will do," he nodded. "Also, not to sound too weird, but thanks for breaking up with me. I would never have applied over there if we'd stayed together." He sounded sincere.
Ella laughed through her nose, unsure how to respond. "You're welcome," she finally replied, although it came out as more of a question.
"Oh, tell Bucky congratulations for me, would you?" he asked. It appeared his niceness was still his greatest virtue.
"Yeah, of course," she said with a smile as he gave her a small wave and headed off in the direction of the cafeteria.
At the end of the school day, Bucky waited for Ella by his car, when she came out with a huge smile on her face, he smothered her with kisses.
"Where are we going?" she asked as he started driving.
"We are going to get pie," he said, looking at her out the corner of his eye.
"The place we went on our first date?" Ella asked, hope lacing her voice.
"Obviously," Bucky replied, "I am a romantic, remember?"
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. The reality of their college acceptances hadn't quite sunk in for either of them. Both of them still had their heads in the clouds, the lingering shock making it impossible for them to picture the next stage of their lives together just yet.
But when they sat down in the café, the picture started to form more clearly in Ella's mind. This is what the next stage of their lives would look like. Seeing each other after class or at lunch, not just on the occasional weekend. Getting to go on dates whenever they wanted, not just on pre-scheduled, pre-planned days.
Bucky sat down next to Ella, their thighs pressed together under the table, same as always. She played with her fork, flipping it over between her fingers.
"First thing we need to do when we get to Providence is find the city's best pie," she announced.
Bucky rolled his eyes, "what do you think was the first thing I researched was when we got home from that visit?" he laughed. "I couldn't let my girl go to a city without checking out their pies first."
Ella looked over at Bucky, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips, as the butterflies she'd felt on their first date resurfaced, and even though she didn't think it was possible, she fell a little more in love with him. It had been a long time since they were last in that café, but here they were over a year later sitting at the very same table, and somehow, both nothing and everything had changed.
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