HEATED // EGD

T W E L V E

T I O

I stayed in the kitchen as Ethan, just as expected, disappeared into his room. I sighed as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

As much as I wanted to something to happen between Ethan and I, I couldn't help but resist due to the fear that Dallas was right. Parker was the start of my downfall and I couldn't let somebody to do that to my happiness again. But perhaps I was missing out on something great by pushing Ethan away.

I dialed Amira's number; I wanted her opinion.

She already knew all about Parker but she knew nothing about Ethan. Perhaps if I spilled my honest thoughts to her, she'd know what the right thing for me to do would be.

"Hello?" Amira answer after a couple rings.

"Hi, are you busy right now?"

"Not really."

"Could we maybe meet up at Fabiano's?" I invited her to go to the pizzeria in which we met at. "I need some advice."

"Sure. Do you want to meet up there right now?"

"Yeah, if that's okay with you."

"It is. See you soon."

I quickly grabbed a set of spare keys Dallas previously gave me before heading out the door.

"Going to go grab something to eat," I called out to Ethan in case he was to notice that I left.

I had already become aware of the area surrounding the boys' apartment so finding the pizzeria wasn't hard. I went in and grabbed a table before texting Amira to tell her I already did so. Moments later she comes walking into the small little pizza shop, her short, pin straight, black hair swaying with each of her steps.

"Hi, what's up," she smiled as she sat down across from me at the table.

"A lot actually," I laughed lightly.

The waiter arrived with waters before asking if he could get us anything else to drink to which we told him we were fine.

"Okay, then would you like to place your order now or do you need a little more time,"

"I'm ready now, how about you?" Amira asked me.

"I'm ready." I nodded.

We ordered personal pizzas and the waiter trotted off to continue working.

"So, what's been going on?" she asked as she leaned over the table a little bit, eager to hear some tea.

"So, there's this guy," I began.

"Oh God, this can't be good," she groaned.

"He's my cousin's roommate slash best friend... Oh God, this is going to sound horrible."

"No, no, you're fine. Keep going, so far it doesn't seem bad."

"Well we became close friends after I came up here and we really bonded quickly because he experienced something similar as to what I experienced with Wes but with his brother who's in a coma

Well after we started becoming friends, I started to find it easier to cope with my grief until now where I can finally say I think I'm going to be okay... But he's a different story. He's still as deep in his grief as he was when I first arrived if not even deeper."

"Awe,"

"Yeah, well long story short he had a meltdown last night because he got a call from the hospital saying that they'll have to take his brother off of life support in six weeks if he doesn't wake up by then. So, he came to me and I sat there with him and I comforted him and told him I was there for him..."