Underage

[14] Officially His

Underage

[14] Officially His

I am suddenly very aware of the lack of clothes covering my body. My silk pajama shorts that barely cover my butt and my tank top that shows too much of my chest for my liking. I still haven't changed out of my pajamas for the day and I can't seem to sleep in anything more than this. My heart starts beating faster and my stomach bursts with nerves. Even after all this time, I still get nervous standing in front of Ethan like this, or in anything less. I'm aware of every stretch mark and every spot of cellulite along my thighs that stick together. The shorts ride up on me every time I take a step and my tank top likes to rise when I move my arms and reveal the love handles I've acquired over the years.

Grace tells me that they would go away if I did more than five sit ups in one go. She says my thighs would slim down if I ran a few times a week. But I hate running and I love food. My best friend will just roll her eyes and mouth the words as I speak them, as if anticipating them.

My hands run through my hair. I try, and fail, to flatten out the bed head. Just as I fix my hair as well as I can, three knocks sound on my front door. Instead of letting him in right away, I hurry to my room. I grab my burgundy silk robe that always hangs on the edge of my mirror. It stops mid-thigh, ties at my belly button, and has two pockets that I use to keep my phone and cherry Jolly Ranchers in. Dammit, he'll like this more than what's beneath. I slip my cold feet into a matching pair of slippers and make my way to the front door.

My robe was a birthday gift last year. My grandmother had given me a card full of cash for my seventeenth and I wanted nothing more than to spend it right away. Ethan took me to the mall and followed me through each of the stores. He'd complained a lot, but he carried each of my bags and bought me lunch. We were on our way out of the mall when I spotted this robe, in black, in the window of Victoria's Secret. I had stopped to look, and by the time I was back in this world, Ethan had already paid for it. It even came in his favorite color. I told him I liked it better in black but he didn't care.

I shouldn't be surprised that when I make it back to the living room the front door is ajar and Ethan is leaning against the wooden frame. I shake my head. This boy is a walking cliché. His leather-covered arms are crossed over his chest. His hair is standing up in every way, his favorite look. His jaw is clenched and he makes no move to come inside. His eyes zero in on the robe, lingering on my legs before making their way back to my face.

I turn on my heel and grab a blanket that was hanging on the back of a chair. I wrap it around myself and feel a little more comfortable. I stop sucking in my stomach and tuck my knees beneath me. I wait a few seconds for Ethan to take the step into my apartment. He closes the door behind himself and makes no move to sit down. Instead, he paces in front of me.

I've always been able to tell when Ethan is mad at me, and it's not like it takes a genius to figure out why he might be mad at me now. Whenever he's upset or angry it shows right through his face. His jaw's always tense and he clenches and unclenches his fist as if he has a stress ball in his hand.

There's another game we play. Whenever someone's mad, we don't speak. I don't know when this started, maybe around the summer in-between freshman and sophomore year. He was pretending that he was angry with me when I had pushed him into the lake, and he didn't speak to me the rest of the day. I had tried to get him to talk the first few minutes, but when I figured out that he was giving me the silent treatment, I gave it right back to him. Then, it became a battle of who could stay quiet the longest. When he's really mad, I find I always lose. But, when I initiate the silence, I always win.

I'm not going to lose this time. I lost the last round.

Ethan wears down my carpet as he walks back in forth in front of me. The television is off and my phone is in my bedroom, so I have no way of taking my attention away from the silence in the room. It gets thick, the tension wrapping around my neck and making me want to say something. He doesn't look particularly angry—more upset than anything else. I'm itching to get up and turn on the television, or go and get my phone but I stay cocooned inside my blanket and don't make a move to leave it.