Chapter 5
ETHAN
“ I know, Mom, I promise you’ll see me in December. I just can’t promise it will be on Christmas,” I say as I hold my phone to my ear with one hand and tap a pencil on my desk with the other.
My mother sighs on the other end. I can picture her disappointment without even seeing her face. “I don’t understand why, Ethan,” she insists. “Your father and I already agreed we’ll pay for your plane tickets and you can stay in the guest room.”
I switch the phone to my left ear because the right is getting sore.
“The cost isn’t the issue, I swear. I looked up all possible flights, and the only way I won’t have a seven-hour layover is if I leave two days after winter break starts and stay there the entire time,” I remind her.
I’ve already told her this twice . I’m not sure if she genuinely doesn’t remember or if she doesn’t want to.
“Why is that a problem? I know you don’t want to spend every waking moment with us, but you could visit some old friends, too,” she tells me.
I sigh now. “I want to spend some time with Lena before I come back home,” I tell her. “Lena doesn’t have a good relationship with her family, so she’s staying on campus for the first week of break and then spending Christmas with her best friend.”
“Poor thing. I’ve wanted to meet that girl for months. Why don’t you bring her with you?” she asks me. “It would be the first time you’ve brought home a girl since high school. I know you’re focused on your studies, but I was starting to get worried for a few years.”
I pause, pencil in my fingers, my body suddenly tense.
“What do you mean?” I choke out, and then try to recover by clearing my throat.
“You know, worried about you being all alone so far from home. I know Nathan is there, but nothing can replace having a sweetheart. You’re so much more responsible and grown than your father and I were in college, but you know we met each other there,” she reminds me.
That leads into a twenty-minute ramble about how her and my father met, a story I get to hear at least once a year.
I don’t mind. I’m relieved that I don’t have to talk about my own love life anymore. Plus, by the end of our conversation she seems to have forgotten about being upset that I might not be there until after Christmas.
After the call, I try to focus on studying again, but I feel like I’m dragging my brain through mud. It’s been difficult to focus on work over the last few days, between the incident with Lena and wondering when I’ll run into Dante again.
Lena and I haven’t spoken about the whole possible asexuality thing since that night. We’ve gone to breakfast and studied together a couple times, but it seems like she’s waiting for me to be comfortable enough to bring it up. She hasn’t tried to make out again, and her touches are all chaste.
She’s being remarkably patient.
She’s the perfect woman.
My mother would love her. My father would, too, even if he wouldn’t admit it for a while.
I can very well invite Lena back home with me. She might say yes, even though she already has plans.
So why don’t I want to?
I try to shake the feeling of guilt, but it sticks around like a bad taste in my mouth, bitter and nauseating.
Just when I feel like I might spiral into my thoughts, there’s a knock at my apartment door. I’m in my bedroom, where my desk is, so I have to go down the hallway, through the living room, and past the kitchen to answer it.
I’m not expecting anyone, but it’s only the early evening, so it wouldn’t surprise me if Ethan decided to come over unannounced.
When I open the door, it’s Lena standing there. Her face is a bit dark and pink from the ever-lowering temperatures, and she has an uncertain look in her eyes.
“Lena, I thought you were going to a movie tonight with some friends?” I say as I step to the side and let her in.
She takes her shoes and coat off near the door, but keeps ahold of her purse until we get to the couch. She’s wrapped up in a lavender cardigan that perfectly complements her features.
“I was, but almost everyone canceled and I decided I’d rather be with you,” she tells me.
I frown and scoot a little bit closer to her. “That sucks, I’m sorry. I’m studying, but I needed to take a break.” That feels like I lie, because I was barely studying to begin with.
“Have you eaten dinner yet?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, I was about to ask you the same thing. I’ll whip us up something.”
“You don’t need to do that. Why don’t we order in?” she offers instead.
In this moment I realize how tired I am. My shoulders slump a bit.
“Actually, yeah, that sounds much better,” I agree. Knowing that she’s fine with ordering food instead takes the pressure off me. I like cooking, but I’m not sure what I’d cook if I even had the energy.
We order some Chinese takeout, and at first things seem normal, but Lena is much more quiet than usual, especially when we put one of her favorite movies on.
“Is everything okay?” I ask after swallowing a bite of orange chicken.
Lena shrugs and doesn’t look at me, keeping her eyes on the TV.
I raise a brow. “What is it?”
There’s more tension in the air the longer she’s silent, but finally she responds.
“It’s probably nothing,” she insists.
I set my food down on the coffee table. “It’s never nothing. You always tell me when you have a bad day or something annoying happens,” I remind her. “You even told me about that time you ran out of pads and had to?—”
“Okay, don’t remind me of that.” She waves a hand with a slight chuckle, but then sighs.
“I didn’t want to mention it because I can handle myself. I don’t want you doing anything in my honor or something,” she explains.
I blink. “Since when have I ever done that? I know you can handle your problems. This is clearly bothering you, though.”
She purses her lips. “Alright. So…Dante Romano came up to me at the diner the other day while you were in the bathroom,” she says, setting her own food down and pausing the movie.
“What? Dante?” My brow furrows deeply. “What did he want?”
My stomach takes the brunt of the tension in the room, and I’m not interested in my food at all anymore.
“Well, that’s the weird part. I don’t really know…but I think he threatened me,” she admits.
My hands curl into fists and my heart slams against my ribcage. I’m not usually a violent person by any means, but the idea of someone like Dante threatening my girlfriend awakens a protective part of me.
“How? What did he say?” I ask. “Specifically, if you can remember.” I move closer to her and slowly put my hand over hers, trying to be comforting.
“He said that if I keep seeing you ‘more than just my feelings will get hurt.’ Something about it being obvious,” she explains. Her face is crinkled in confusion, but also annoyance. “I didn’t understand half of what he was saying. I’m pretty sure he was just messing with me.”
My heart jumps into my throat.
What does he mean?
What does he know?
What do I know?
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I tell her. “He’s probably just playing with you…because of me. I ran into him, spilled coffee on him, and he threatened me, then flirted with me. The guy is mental.” I’m rambling and my face is hot.
Lena shakes her head. “You turning him down probably messed with his ego. Why didn’t you tell me that happened?”
I shrug, trying to ignore the desire to find Dante and ask him what his problem is.
“I told Nathan, and then I forgot about it. With all the homework, there are more important things to worry about,” I insist, even though I’m not sure why I didn’t tell her sooner.
Maybe for the same reason I initially lied to Nathan.
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“I’m going to talk to Dante. Normally I’d leave it alone, but he can’t threaten you like that,” I tell her.
She moves closer to me and puts a hand on my thigh. I tense.
“No, Ethan, don’t worry about it. He’s dangerous, and the last thing either of us needs to be thinking about right now.
Exams are in a month and a half, and then we have to prepare for winter break.
” Lena seems to sense my tension and moves her hand back to mine, thankfully removing it from my thigh.
I take a deep breath. “Right. Speaking of winter break…my mom really wants me to be there on Christmas. I told her about your situation and she suggested you come home with me. They want to meet you,” I tell her.
Weirdly, I feel no anxiety as I bring this up to her.
The idea of her meeting my parents is one that causes me no stress, no concern.
I expected to feel more nervous asking her about it. The way everyone else talks about bringing their partners home to meet their parents makes it seem like this should be more nerve-wracking.
But I feel the same way I do about Nathan being around my parents.
I push that feeling into the back of my mind.
“Really?” she asks, hesitating. “I suppose I could stay the first week with you and then take my flight to Angie’s from there. I haven’t booked anything yet. But…do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Flying from Hartland? Yeah, it’ll probably be cheaper.
You’ll end up with a layover, like I would if I flew out there later on, but since you’re flying in the opposite direction the layover would be early in the day instead of near the end.
” I grab my phone from the coffee table to check possible flights.
“No, not that…Ethan.” She takes my phone from my hand and sets it on the couch. “Do you think it’s a good idea for me to meet your parents when we’re still figuring things out? We haven’t really talked about the whole…asexuality thing again.”
And the nervous pit in my stomach is back.
I rub at the back of my neck. “Ah, right. I didn’t think it was…” I pause. “Um.”
“Have you done any more research into it?” she asks.
I open my mouth, but can’t seem to get anything out.
“Do you want me to help you?”
It feels hard to breathe.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “It’s all so confusing.”