Dormies |E.C|

|13 - All Falls Down|

|Harper|

Ethan had been gone for some hours but I knew his shift would be over soon. All I had been able to think about was what Jason could've said to him. I probably would never know what it was because of Ethan's stubbornness. If I pried more, he wasn't gonna tell me, and then I'd get mad. I wanted to avoid an argument, so I just dropped the curiosity. Mostly.

My laptop was sitting on my lap and I was in bed. I'd started the paper for the book I'd finished, simply because it was a distraction. I heard the front door open and close and the curiosity from earlier came back. Ethan walked straight into the bedroom and set his keys on the dresser.

"Hey, baby," he greeted me and started taking his clothes and stuff off, "Still have a headache?"

"Hey, how was work? And no, I feel better now," Hell, I'd already forgotten that I told him I had a headache. He'd reminded me. Ugh, I was lying to him entirely too much...

"Good," he nodded, "And we got some new decks that are pretty cool, but otherwise it was pretty boring. I'm gonna shower really quick."

I nodded, "Oh, okay." He grabbed some pajamas out of the dresser and left the room. I sighed and tried to put something on the Word document in front of me, but it wasn't working. My brain was too foggy to focus. By the time I'd written merely three sentences, Ethan was out of the shower.

"What you working on?" he asked as he laid down next to me.

I rubbed my temples out of frustration, "This stupid paper for Rogers. I've been on the same paragraph for ages."

"How about..." he dragged and moved my computer to the nightstand, "You take a break." He cocked a brow and moved to kiss my neck. Flashbacks of Jason invaded my head yet again and I started to panic. I pushed Ethan away and brought my knees to my chest. "What's wrong, Harper?"

"I-I'm on my period, Ethan," I managed to get out.

He sighed and shook his head, "No, you're not."

I sat up, getting a bit nervous, "How are you gonna tell me that I'm not?"

"Not one of the pads or tampons in the bathroom have been touched, so what's going on? Do you just not want to have sex with me?"

Shit, shit. I was too caught up in my own head to think about making it actually seem like I was on my period. "It's not like that."

"Then what's the issue?" He was staring directly into my eyes. I didn't know what to say and didn't want to tell him the truth. I couldn't bring myself to. "I've been hearing some things about you and Jason..."

What the hell? He couldn't have known what'd happened to me— Jason would never own up to that. Plus, Ethan wouldn't have even been that calm if he knew what Jason had done... right? Of course not; he beat the guy at that party's ass over way less. Ethan would've gone ballistic if he knew about Jason (another reason why I wasn't telling him about that night...). So if it wasn't about that, what had he heard?

"Me and Jason barely even fucking talk," I said with knitted brows.

He scoffed and looked away briefly, "Yeah, sure."