𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐍𝐆

;rumour

Emma Chamberlain

I wake up to my alarm ringing and as soon as my eyes flutter open I'm faced with Ethan's chocolate brown eyes glossily staring at you. He blushes and closes his eyes in embarrassment but it makes me giggle.

"Good morning" I whisper and he reopens his eyes and pulls me in for a kiss.

I have a deep down feeling of happiness just laying there with him. He doesn't look like a bad boy in his soft clothes and messy hair, he looks like my soft boyfriend I think.

But he isn't.

He isn't my boyfriend.

"What's the plan of action now? Are we going to school?" Ethan asks and I nod my head. I had already fallen behind in my lessons because of how much time I had been having off.

"I have spare toothbrushes and you can borrow some of Emre's old uniform to go in" I decide.

He nods along watching me climb out the bed with a smirk

"What?" I giggle embarrassed and blushing and he begins to shake his head as if to tell me that it's nothing.

I brush my teeth and once I'm dressed there's a bang at my bedroom door. Ethan is already in the bathroom so with a pounding heart I open the door just a slight to reveal Olivia.

"Are you okay?" She scowls inspecting my face.

"Yeah why?" I ask feeling my heart begin to race so fast that I was sure that she could hear it herself.

"You didn't come down for breakfast and last night Amanda said she heard you go back downstairs. Just checking in that's all" Olivia replies assessing behind me in my bedroom which leads me to think that she's definitely onto Ethan.

When she leaves I take a deep breath in and turn around to look at Ethan wrapped solely in a single towel.

And wow.

My jaw slackens in awe and a little bit of dribble escapes from the corner of my mouth, so to stop myself from becoming hypnotised I cover both eyes with my hands.

When it sounds like the girls have gone downstairs I open the door and tip toe towards Emre's bedroom door.

As I grab the handle and open the door there's another rattle of a door and just as Ethan bounces into my brothers room, Amanda closes her own door behind her.

"Do you wanna walk together? Or should I catch a lift with Olivia and Samuel?" She asks with a wide grin.

I stumble backwards banging my toe and scratching the back of my neck as I whine at the pain.

"Um I'm probably going to be late, id catch a lift" I stutter and she scowls and nods at me. She says she'll see me at break and scurries off.

"You know you're not very chill when it comes to lying" Ethan whispers once I start rummaging for black pants and a white shirt "I'll have to go back for my leather jacket too"

"Um no Dolan. I'm not letting you go back there on your own and I'm not being late" I shrug throwing the clothes at him and he growls but it makes me happy for some reason.

When we both near school we kind of stop each other waiting for the other to speak and Ethan does first,

"Thank you" he repeats and I tell him it's no problem and proceed to carry on walking towards the school gate "I'll find a way to repay you" Ethan sings poking my sides making me giggle.

"You don't have to we're not in debt" I laugh as he's about to break off towards his friends who were now staring at Ethan and I's interaction.

"Shouldn't you tell your slut to buy a longer skirt?" Nate hollers at Ethan, who rolls his eyes towards me and makes me giggle.

"Don't listen to them, you look good and no one has the right to tell you to stop looking good" Ethan blows me a kiss as I shake my head.

As I enter the school I feel different, only slightly, just a little happier maybe. More content with life.

When it comes to break time Amanda and Olivia are very eager to pull me to one side. They take me outside towards the benches where no one really sat.

"Emma?" Amanda starts and I begin to panic.

What news were they going to break to me?

And why was it so important?

Amanda can't get her words out so Olivia comes straight out with it,

"Have you slept with Ethan Dolan" she bluntly says and my mouth hangs open "you know like have you fucked the bad boy" she repeats.

"Wow Olivia thank you because obviously I didn't understand when you said it the first time" I say sarcastically.

It comes out quite venomously because something inside of me had started to burn.

"We'll have you? Because it's gone round the whole school and we're not mad that you didn't tell us we just- you know- want to know from you personally" Amanda says trying to be nice about it.

I stand up exaggeratedly slamming my hands down, if this was Ethan bragging that he'd had sex with me last night I was going to be SO mad.

"No okay I haven't" I reply defensively and the girls throw there hands in the air in surrender.

"I'm sure it was nothing don't worry about it" Amanda tries to reassure and I calm down a little. But then it sparks back up because I KNOW that Ethan doesn't distinguish rumours and if the school thinks we fucked, they're gonna keep thinking that till I leave.

As breaks about to end I remember that my math books are in my locker so I head towards that leaving my best friends at the picnic bench wondering where a rumour like that could've come from.

When I see the big huddle of people round my locker I have a panicked feeling, it was like something from a tvshow or film.

I take a deep breath knowing what I was going to be faced with.

Written upon my locker in thick ink is the words

ITS ALWAYS THE INNOCENT ONES

I don't even need to try to wipe it off I know it's going to stay- along with the name I had now gotten for myself.

I'm just stood looking at it like I'm part of the crowd, pretending like I'm shocked looking into someone else's life in horror. But no. This was my locker, my life and my reputation.

I wanted to be chill and not react or maybe laugh and stick my middle fingers up to people like Summer who probably wanted what they were saying I had done.

But as the bell rings everyone doesn't move, they just stay staring at me waiting for my very late response.

"What's going on" Kian hollers down the corridor expecting a fight. But when the sea of students part the bad boys chill their rowdiness.

I'm sure one of them asks who the locker belongs to but one single tear escapes my eye as I stay fixated on the hate crime in front of me.

I wonder what Ethan is thinking, whether he's even looking or if his earphones are firmly placed in.

I reluctantly move towards the locker and like there's nothing upon it, I open it, take out my books and bustle back through the crowd.