Chapter 13
W e keep up appearances for the next few weeks.
Ethan has been sitting with me during English—since we’re still working on our project—he walks me to my classes, we sit together during lunch, and he meets me in front of the school before he goes to practice to give me a hug and kiss my cheek or forehead like he always does when we part.
For the most part, everyone has stopped whispering and staring.
It’s been over a month; we’re old news now.
From the outside looking in, we look like a happy couple. No one but Dawn has given us shit since we started dating. She’s still giving me nasty looks, making snide comments, and trying to push up on Ethan every chance she gets.
Even if we were really dating, I wouldn’t be jealous. I know he wants nothing to do with her and he doesn’t make that a secret. He tells her to back off and that we’re together all the time. She just doesn’t care.
It's annoying, really.
Earlier that day, we got our first draft back with minimal corrections, with Mr. Redding impressed that we went with what we have.
While we’re walking to my next class, I pull out my phone and make a new group chat with me, Ethan, Mitch, and Elle. I let them know we’re ready to get started on practice and ask when they’re free.
Ethan, since he can’t help himself, answers first, saying he’s free whenever. I give him a deadpan look and he laughs, seeming pretty proud of himself for being weird. I shake my head and slide my phone back into my pocket.
I’m more than ready to get started on the play.
Even though I didn’t think I would enjoy writing it or the idea of working on a group project, it’s been a good time.
Probably more so because of Ethan than anything else, but also because I’m able to do something different—work with someone that actually does the work with me.
I can’t remember the last time all the work wasn’t pushed off on me for a group project.
Before we get to my next class, my phone pings with two messages.
One from Mitch, the other from Elle. They’re both free tomorrow evening, so we agree to meet at Ethan’s after the football team’s end of season dinner.
The team lost their last game and won’t be going to State, so he’s finished with football.
Now, it’s on to indoor track and field. I’d much rather he do that.
I won’t have to worry about some big motherfucker knocking him down.
As his best friend, I can be worried about that and it not be weird. Right?
Even though football is over, he still has practice of some sort. Which means I have to go home. I’ve been lucky, being able to sneak in without my mother saying anything to me about whatever shit she cooks up in her head, but I know my luck will soon run out.
I’m right. When I get home that day, I can hear the music playing all the way from Crystal's house. I curse and drag my feet. I know what this means—Mom wants to clean. And my mother cleaning while she’s drunk is basically her moving things from one spot to another, without actually doing anything.
Then she’ll get pissed that things got moved around and make me move everything back.
Fuck. Why can’t I have a normal fucking parent?
Seven more months. I can make it that long. I’ve already done eighteen years. Seven more months won’t kill me.
As soon as I walk in the door, she starts in. “Where the fuck have you been, Jakoby? You act like you don’t know where home is. Out there whoring around, being laid up with whoever will fuck you, huh?” She’s turned the radio down so she can be heard.
Well, hello to you too, Mom.
Sighing, I tell her, “I was hanging out with a friend, Mom.”
“A male friend?”
I know what she’ll say if I confirm I am hanging out with another guy. So I don’t say anything at all. I slide around her and try to walk to my room.
“Get the fuck back here!” she yells, making me jump violently.
I close my eyes for a second before turning around to face her.
“Don’t you walk away from me. You’re under my roof and you’ll show me respect.
” She’s slurring her words so bad that I barely understand what she’s saying.
It’s only three in the afternoon and she’s already three sheets to the wind. God, why is she like this?
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I murmur with my head down. If I’m contrite enough, she'll let me off the hook so I can go to my room and stay out of her way.
“Yeah, you are sorry. A sorry excuse for a fucking son. Now clean up this nasty-ass house. I won’t live in filth.” She pushes past me, almost falling before she goes into her room and slams the door.
Sighing, I go to my room, toss my backpack on my bed and go back to the living room.
She stopped moving the couch when I walked in, so now it’s in the middle of the floor.
The TV stand and TV aren’t together, with the TV on the floor and the stand on its side.
I don’t know where she was going with that.
The floor lamp is beside the couch, and the coffee table and end tables are shuffled into the kitchen.
It'll take me a while to get everything exactly how it was. If I don’t, I’ll just have to do it again.
If I had the money, I wouldn’t come back here. I’m eighteen—technically an adult and legally able to get an apartment. I’m responsible enough to get up for school on time and get my homework done.
But I’m broker than broke, so I have to stay here to keep a roof over my head.
Going to Ethan’s house is the greatest escape.
The main reason? My mother doesn’t know where he lives.
I could never hide at Crystal’s because my mother would walk down the street in nothing but a tattered robe and house slippers looking for me.
This is the first time I’ve been able to escape the hell that I live in.
I can be somewhere that I’m not talked down to and treated like shit.
A place that’s warm, smells good and is welcoming, where the people treat me good, and I have a friend.
A best friend...that I'm hopelessly falling in love with.
I curse to myself, coming to terms with what I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about for weeks.
How could I not be falling? Ethan is the best person I know.
He’s been there for me since we met. He’s listened to me cry, comforted me, and kept me company when I needed it.
He’s trying to do what he can to guarantee I don’t get picked on and called slurs by putting his reputation on the line.
He’s opened up to me, sharing things with me he hasn’t told his other friends.
It’s probably inevitable that I’m falling so hard and so fast. We’ve only been friends for about a month, not nearly enough time to be in love by most people’s standards, but it is what it is.
No one has treated me so well or been so kind to me. Crystal has been my best friend since we were five. She’s been kind to me since the beginning. It’s different with Ethan, our friendship just began. He doesn’t owe me anything, but he’s going out of his way to do things for me anyway.
I’m in big fucking trouble.
After coming to my realization about falling for Ethan, I try my hardest to not make things weird. But it’s hard.
I know I’m fucking it up, but it’s like the floodgates have opened and I can’t help myself.
The next time Ethan touched me, I shivered. When he kissed my forehead before I went into class, I had to hold myself back from standing on my tiptoes to plant my lips on his. I’ve never kissed anyone before, so those thoughts are startling.
At lunch, he keeps giving me strange looks because I’m being quiet again.
I’m trying not to be, but I can’t help it.
Now that I know my feelings have grown, I don’t know how to act.
I liked him before getting to know him, but now it’s amplified.
It’s like my belly is full of butterflies on crack, trying to escape and make me word vomit my feelings.
So I keep quiet. Or I’ll ruin our friendship.
“You okay?” he asks when he’s walking me to class.
“Fine,” I whisper.
He doesn’t push, but I know he wants to. Another thing I appreciate about him. He lets me talk about things in my own time. He is patient with me, never prying anything out of me before I’m ready.
The rest of the day passes by rapidly, like time wants me to see Ethan as quickly as possible.
Despite how I feel, I can’t help the smile that stretches my face when I see him at the end of the day. He just looks so good. The most handsome guy I’ve ever seen.
He wraps me in a hug and I hold him tight, not wanting to let him go. But I do with great reluctance.
“Ready, creep?” he asks after a quick forehead kiss.
I nod and he takes my hand, walking to his car. I spot Elle a few spaces over and wave at her. She’ll probably follow us to Ethan’s house.
Maybe it’s just me, but the tension is thick in the car. Like there’s something building that I can’t help or stop. Something that’s inevitable.
Ethan keeps tapping the steering wheel and fiddling with the radio.
Eventually, I reach over to stop him and when our hands meet, it’s like an electric charge passing through me.
I gasp and look at him, noticing he has the same bewildered expression on his face.
I snatch my hand back and press back into the seat.
Ethan stops tapping and fiddling with the radio.
We’ve touched dozens of times before and that’s never happened.
For the first time since we’ve met, we sit in uncomfortable silence. I want to reassure him that things are okay. That we’re okay. That whatever this is isn’t anything more than our friendship getting stronger. But words stick in my throat and I can’t force them out.
It’s a relief to pull up to his house and get out of the car.