Ella stopped abruptly, tugging on Azi's arm to make him stop as well. She turned to face him, her face hard. "Look, I'm not trying to make excuses for myself or make you feel sorry for me, but there is a reason I am the way I am." She broke her gaze on him and started pacing in front of him, nervously wringing her hands. "I should have realized it from the beginning, but I didn't. I was in love and stupid. Daniel and Sarah were always just shy of supportive. Sarah got my songs and she would say they were okay, but I could see in her eyes that it wasn't okay. I would ask her what was wrong and she'd have an almost endless list. Daniel was the same way - except with him, it was constant, I could never get away from it. Not that I knew or understood at the time what was going on enough to know I should get away from it."
She took a deep breath and stopped, looking into his pretty grey eyes. "I learned real quickly that any comment made usually had a negative connotation and I started to take the negative out of anything someone said. Even my parents were this way to a degree - always discouraging music, telling me I wasn't good enough. If you're around that long enough, you believe it. Well, I did at least."
"After I found out about Daniel and Sarah, I went into therapy. It was there that I realized what had been happening pretty much my entire life. I am working on it. Consider me a work in progress." After spilling her guts out to Azi, she felt strangely vulnerable. She looked over his shoulder at the water and hugged her arms around herself.