Stay /// Ethan Dolan /// EDITING

Chapter 11 - eye contact

BEEP-BEEP my alarm goes off as I lie in bed. I slap my hand on the clock and roll over on the other side of the bed, falling asleep again.

I wake up 10 minutes later to the sound of my mum. "Bela wake up! You're going to be late for school!" She shouts.

I jolt upwards. "SCHOOL?" I totally forgot that it was the end of the holidays. No wonder why my brother was sad yesterday.

I swing my legs over the side of my bed, checking the time. I have exactly 15 minutes to get ready and get out.

I jump in the shower, whilst brushing my teeth at the same time. As I step out, I almost slip and fall, as usual.

I get dressed into my grey nike sweatpants and an adidas sweatshirt. I pull open my curtains and see a very foggy and grey sky, it's pouring with rain.

"Egh" what a perfect first day back at school. I pull on pink socks, quickly slipping on my vans.

To be honest today, I don't give two shits what people think of my effort for the first day back at school, so I don't go with make up and just go as myself. Who needs to impress people at school anyway.

I run out of my bedroom, grabbing my bag full of holiday homework, that I... partly did.

I run down the stairs grabbing an apple and running to the door. I think I beat my fastest time to get ready for school, by 5 minutes.

"Bye mum!" I shout closing the door behind me.

I pull my hoodie over my head, running out in the rain. I can't walk to school, so I'll have to catch the bus.

I walk past Ethan's house, not stopping cause he's probably left the house by now, in his truck.

The bus stop doesn't have a shelter so I stand out in the rain, freezing cold. A few other teenagers from my school stand as well.

The bus finally comes and everyone piles into the bus. Of course I'm the last in because I don't have a cold heart to push in.

As I step onto the bus, the bus driver stops me. "Sorry, its full" he says.

"What, can't you let one more on?" I ask in shock. There's so much space.

He shakes his head, gesturing me off the bus. Before closing the doors.

I watch as the bus moves. I look through the windows and see a girl open the window slightly. "Aww, don't worry, at least you got a shower. You look nasty" it's Madison.

She laughs with her friends. I look down at my soaking shoes.

They all cackle like witches as the bus drives off, splashing me with the water that forms on the road, making them laugh even more.

Well lucky I'm not wearing makeup, I would look ten times worst with mascara and foundation running down my face.

I pull the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my ice cold fingers. Madison can tease me all she likes, but she'll never break me, not this time.

I look down at my shoes again, making the water that drips through my hair, flow to my nose. I watch as a droplet hangs onto the tip of my nose.

I see a shadow approach me, stopping behind me. I jump, making the droplet fall the the ground.

I turn to the person and there stands a smiling Ethan, with an umbrella.

"Ethan?" I say confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Why can't I catch the bus to school?" He chuckles.

"You have a truck you do realise?" I say, raising my eyebrows at him.

He shrugs, "can you hold this for a sec?" He says handing the umbrella to me, kneeling down to tie his shoe. "I wanted to come with you" he says softly.

I blink. "Wha?"

He laughs. "Sometimes, I have to admit, it's boring without you, especially mornings" he says.

He's basically saying he... misses me? "Oh" I giggle. I've never realised, but it's very boring without him too. "I was kind of hoping you would come out of nowhere anyway" I say. "Hey thanks for the umbrella"

"No problem shorty"

School

As Ethan and I walk into school, after catching the next bus, we walk to our lockers.

We start to talk about the photo we took on our road trip.

"I posted this one" I say pointing to one, the one we are laughing at each other, face to face, with the pretty pink sunset in the back as we float on Ethan's surfboard.

"Omg goals" Ethan's says in a girly voice.

"Josh liked it" I say. "Oi comment an emoji or whatever"

Ethan takes out his phone and comments "mine 💍💕"

"Omg yes." I laugh. "You post something so Madison sees it, come to think of it, she doesn't even know" there's a long pause. I turn and look at him. He has turned the other way and is now walking the way we came from.

"Ethan?" I stop. "Ethan what are you doing? Our lockers are that way" I say catching up to him.

"We were about to walk into Madison" he whispers. I look behind us and see Madison strutting with her heels on, she loves herself way too much.

"Well she's still gonna see us, plus why are you so scared?" I ask, walking backwards so I face him.

"I don't want her to know about us" he says trying to walk past me.

"What? Isn't that the whole point!" I say. "If we don't bring it up to Madison, this whole thing won't work." I say, not letting him pass me.

He doesn't answer.

"I don't understand, if you want her back, why are you even doing this?" I ask, shoving him slightly.

Suddenly, Ethan pulls me against the lockers, with his hand pressing on a locker door, blocking my face from Madison.

"Can you shut up!" He whisper shouts

"No!" I snap back.

We both hear heels coming our way.

"Ethan I'm not using you to get Josh back, and the only way for that NOT to happen is for you to go with the plan!" I say.

"I don't-" "hiiiya" I don't hear the rest of his sentence, because I karate choke his inner elbow, making it fall down.

I gab his left wrist and interlock my left hand into his hand, pulling his arm around my neck as I hold it.

I continue walking the way to our lockers. I see Madison look at us, me then at Ethan.

Ethan's pov

Great. As we walk past Madison, we both make eye contact.

She looks confused. I just stare at her as she slows down.

I turn back to Madison that has fully stopped walking and is now watching as me and Bela walks off down the hall...

A/N this was kinda boring sorry

What do you think Madison's feel rn? 😏

-Serena