i think it's love | ethma

three

Things weren't always this way.

In fact, it used to be worse.

It wasn't that Emma and Ethan truly hated each other, no; they just had an understanding. They had mutually and silently agreed to only barely be civil, in order to avoid confronting the complicated predicament in life that they had found themselves in. And for Grayson's sake. Also, to avoid jumping each other's' bones.

That last part was entirely on Emma's wishful thinking back in the day, though. Whatever, she's over it now.

It had all started, naturally, when Emma's mother was running for mayor some three years ago. The election was running hot, and as the day drew nearer, it had become more and more apparent that things could go either way.

That was when the pipeline blew.

The lower west side of the city, already stricken by poverty, had seen the worst of it. Buildings damaged, environmental impacts off the charts, and several people died.

One of those people was Lisa Dolan. Her story was one of the ones in the papers, a heart-wrenching tale of love and sadness and two children she'd left behind. It was a sensation- there had been letters flooding into council, angry ones why didn't you do anything why didn't you see this coming why wasn't the pipeline maintained properly and all of this could have been avoided but now two children are orphaned—

And that was all Sophia Chamberlain needed, wasn't it? One day Emma came home from school and her mother and her stepfather, Dayton, were sitting on the couch and opposite from them sat two boys who looked exactly the same and seemed a little older than her.

"Emma!" Sophia had said brightly, rising, but with the smallest hint of warning in her voice. "Meet your new brothers."

Granted, that really hadn't been the best way to introduce them.

After Emma had come back to the house hours and hours later after running off, her mother and Dayton sat her down in the kitchen alone and quietly explained they'd taken in the Dolans.

"Because you want to win the election," Emma stated flatly.

"That's not it," Dayton defended Sophia immediately. "They're two children in desperate need of a good home."

"A good home?" Emma had snorted, folded her arms, because she'd always known her mother was a politician, even before she was voted to city council. "You two aren't even home most of the time. But whatever you need to tell yourself to sleep at night," she'd hissed, and then she'd gotten up and left to go upstairs.

She'd run straight into Ethan Dolan, bumped right into his chest on the next floor.

She had no idea what to say to him, and it was clear from his disgusted expression he had heard the entire conversation.

He didn't give her an opportunity to speak anyway. "Get out of my way," he snarled.

Well, that immediately riled her up; he didn't have a right to speak to her like that. She put her hands on her hips. "Excuse me?"

His lips curled into a sneer at her indignant tone. "What, you think just because your rich parents took me and my brother in, we should be grateful to you? Is that it?" She didn't speak, and he leaned in closer so she could clearly see his brown eyes framed by thick lashes. "The only reason I'm tolerating this bullshit is for my brother. So get over yourself."

"Well, there's definitely no need to be so unpleasant," she snapped, bristling. "Especially since we have to live with each other from now on."

He watched her balefully. "Don't worry. Three years until I turn eighteen, and I'll be out of your pretty brown hair." It wasn't said as a compliment, but rather mockingly in a way that made her blood boil. And then, when she said nothing, he huffed and brushed by her roughly.

Sophia had caught up to Emma later in her room, where she had been lying on her bed and fuming at the ceiling. "Look, I know Ethan's not exactly the nicest person and I don't expect you to consider each other as siblings," she had said firmly. "But can you at least do that for his brother Grayson? He's really sensitive, Emma," she'd insisted as Emma looked away, lips pressed together. "He needs someone. He needs a sister figure."

Emma had bitten her lip because dammit she hadn't asked for this, she could barely keep up with life as it was, but Sophia knew Emma's weakness (she cared) and did well to exploit it. "Fine," she finally bit out, and slammed her bedroom door in her mother's face. And she didn't speak to her for a long while, not when she knocked on her door right after and not when she won the election in a landslide and not when she pulled her in for a photo that made it to the front page of the very same paper that had blared Lisa Dolan's story only weeks ago.

To say the least, life's been a bit more complicated since then.