Asylum | E.D

37

"I told you, I like you Jaylee."

Jaylee

"Are you feeling okay now?" I ask Ethan, pointing towards his wounded arm.

He shoots me a smile and stretches his arms. "Nothing can make me weak, except you." He winked at my direction and I felt heat creep on my cheeks.

"You guys," Grayson says from behind. "I've contacted Jane. She said she'd help." He tells the two of us.

"That's good news." Ethan said, cleaning the rest of the plates from the counter.

I turned to face Grayson, now holding his phone and typing in it, "How would she help?"

"Getting information." He answers, giving me a small smile. "Maybe, even proving that Dr Johnson really did torture you two." He says.

"Jay." Ethan places his hand on top of my shoulders. "We'll figure this out, okay?"

I look at his eyes staring back at me. I want to believe him, and I do, but somehow, I still feel weary because everytime we thought we figured something out, things just go messing everything it up again only to slap us in our faces with the truth that we almost figured something out but actually didn't.

I swear my head is aching with all this thinking.

-

"Does it hurt?" I ask, sitting beside Ethan on the couch. The television was on, and Grayson is in his room, making calls to Jane.

Ethan looks at me, furrowing his eyebrows at first. "What, the wound?"

I nod.

He shrugs. "Well yeah, at first it did. But now, I'm starting to get used to it and it's not that painful anymore." I nod again, looking at his muscular arms, then towards the television.
"How about you?" Ethan asks, and the television screen turned black, he turned it off. "Does it hurt?"

I furrow my eyebrows as I try to gauge his question, "I'm not hurt anywhere."

"No," he says, then he lifts his hands then point into my chest. "Here."

I blink. "Here?" I question, referring to my chest.

"Your heart," He continues. "Does it hurt?"

I tried to blink back the tears that immediately started to fight their way out of my eyes. The whole room is completely quiet. Four eyes staring into each other, ears waiting for the next line of answers to appear. Lips opening, then closing again, unsure of whatever to say.

"You don't have to ans—"

"It does." I finally answer, cutting him off, "Every single day, and I just want everything to stop and fall back into their places."

Ethan's eyes soften, then he reaches for me and enveloped me into a tight embrace, which caused for my tears to spring out of my eyes without warning.

We stayed like that for a long moment before he finally broke the hug, placing his hands both on the sides of my shoulders, his hazel eyes staring deeply into my brown ones.

"I'm not sure how long all of this is gonna last." He starts. "But what I can promise you is that, this will all be over and everything is going to be okay. We'll make sure that the asylum would pay for whatever pain it had caused us, okay?"

I nod, still fighting back the tears. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands and Ethan pulls me into a hug again for a few seconds. I hope everything will get better soon. And by soon, I mean immediately. I don't think I can deal with anymore surprises in my life right now.

"Jay?" Ethan says, staring deep into my eyes again. He has this unreadable expression painted on his face. I looked back at him, and just like the first time I saw him back in the asylum, sitting there with his arms crossed over his chest.

Mysterious, but quite endearing.

There's no hiding the circles underneath his eyes, and obviously the three of us all have that. He looks at me seriously, and I waited for him to say something. I was about to say something but was taken aback when Ethan suddenly leaned in, pressing his lips against mine.

His lips met mine, taking me by surprise for a mere second before my arms decided to snake around his neck, pulling him closer towards me, my tongue brushing past his as he dropped his arms around my waist.

I have never felt a high quite like the one I did while with her, one that would never be reached, one that couldn't be compared to anything because it exceeded every other feeling to ever take place in my life.

My heart started to pound so fast, but it wasn't in a bad way. It's more of in a good way and my stomach started flipping, giving me a feeling that I wasn't accustomed to but I find it likable anyway. My eyes fluttered close.

His hands held the back of my head, pressing his lips deeper into mine and after a few seconds of surprise, I finally give in to his kiss and kissed him back. My hands finding its way into his hair, and our bodies pressed closer together.

And then through the kiss, I remembered everything we've been through.

"What? Did your little friends tell you to stay away from me?"

"The other night I saw you getting dragged down the hall a-and I heard you were sent to hospital two days ago. I wasn't expecting to see you, I was hoping they didn't do anything bad to you."

"Well I'm fine nothing I'm not used to."

"I'm—"

"Ethan Dolan, I've heard some things about you"

"And do you believe them?"

"No, I've had experience with rumours myself."

"I'm Jaylee."

"Come on, don't you want to escape?"

"You look so cute when you're getting annoyed."

"I'm going to be pretty blunt with you."

"I like you Jaylee."

After a few more moments, we both pulled out of the kiss. It was a sweet one, a comfortable one. I still had my eyes closed, my mind running through the kiss, remembering every flashback that had occured.

My heart is still pounding, and then I realised what Ethan really is referring to that night. He did like me. A more-than-friends-kind-of-like. And I almost laughed at myself for how ridiculous I took that confession back in his car a few weeks ago.

When I opened my eyes, I found a pair of hazel eyes already staring back at me. Ethan is grinning at me, his smile spreading up until his ears. "I told you." He said. "I like you Jaylee."
I don't know what to say, but just grinned back at him. My heart is still acting crazy inside my chest I think it's gonna go even more wild any second now if Ethan won't stop looking at me.

"And based on the kiss," He continued, his thumb tracing my lower lip, "I think you like me too. But don't worry, I'll wait for you to admit it to me."

I blushed at this, and I swear I'm all red now. I avoided his gaze and looked straight ahead, onto the turned off television instead.

"You can make your confession now," he teased, nudging me on my sides.

This made me laugh. "Oh don't be cocky, Ethan." I said, "I'm... I'm still trying to process everything, okay?"

"Okay," Je said, but then he made me face him, and so did I, and then he lifted my chin and looked me straight in the eye. "But maybe we could kiss again while you're trying to process things."

I punched him playfully on the chest.
"Oh stop being cheeky. Never gonna happen."

He rolls his eyes, smashing his lips against mine.