Diamond: The Promise

Chapter 54 "Everything got paid for"

~Iria~

17/5/24

Ethan taught me the plurals.

Before him there was just I. I feel alone. I am afraid. I don't know what I hold within me and I can't control it. Then I met him and since the first time he looked me in the eyes and called me crying baby there hasn't been an I anymore, instead it was we. We feel alone but we have each other's company. We are afraid but we distract each other from the fear. We don't know what we hold within us and we can't control it but we have each other to figure it out. He taught me the plurals, whether I like it or not it doesn't no matter how badly I want to scream I'm alone because I do feel alone, I'm not. I may be alone but I'm alone with him, that has always been enough.

Maybe that was the reason why it hurt so much to hear him yesterday. He was right. What are we? What do we have? Friends don't fuck, Molly has repeated that to me to the afterlife since I told her about Ethan and me.

Yesterday, when Ethan walked past me in Pink Spotlight he grabbed my arm without me realizing it and teleported us back to our apartment in Toronto. When I turned around he was gone. That night, for first time in almost a year, I got in my bed and didn't cry for my Wonder Boy but for my best friend.

My cries didn't last an hour, the fact that I would spend the whole night up crying alone hit me so I got out of bed, grabbed the cover of my prom dress and other stuffs I could need and headed to Molly's house. I had just called for an Uber when I was about to close the door of the apartment, a drive made me walk in again, grab a post-it together with a pen and leave a note stuck on Ethan's door.

Molly's.

I was about to leave again when I glanced at the post-it from the front door and run to it to add something to my briefness.

Molly's.
P.S. I still love you, birthday boy.

༄ ❅ ༄

I considered myself lucky to have a friend who would invite me into her house if I knocked on her door at two in the morning the night before prom. Molly was that friend, she gave up her beauty sleep to reassure me. We ended up in a kind of sleepover party in her room with J.D, he was shirtless and the tiresome still dazed him but he contributed with what every girls' sleepover needs, alcohol. Or in absence of it, cigarettes.

"Friends don't fuck." Molly repeated her affirmation.

At this point J.D had already found out about all my 'story' with Ethan, what was something I realized I didn't really want to hide from him. Even so, I reaffirmed that he was drunk with sleep and tomorrow he wouldn't remember have welcomed his ex in some pink boxers.

"Ain't romantic." I repeated mine. "Don't you believe in platonic love?" I pointed out, glancing at J.D I saw how after a severe fight with the long blinks his eyelid gave up and he closed them.

Molly sighed, it wasn't a frustrated sigh, she grabbed my hands and looked me in the eyes with her gaze filled with... Hope? Love? I couldn't tell but she sounded as if she walked over cotton candy.

"I don't believe in platonic love, I believe in you and Ethan. Iria, he has literally fallen on his knees to avoid your own falls. He has fought you and the plate of food you didn't want to eat until you were hungry. He filled with sheets your living room so you would feel safe to open up and dammit, he made up a whole dance with you even though we all saw how badly he wanted to skip prom." She scoffed, staring through me more serious than ever when she spoke the following with a warm smile. "Iria, he kept each and every of the pieces you broke into a year ago to give them back to you now, he's perfect."