i think it's love | ethma

six

That's life with Ethan. Angry, awkward, confusing for reasons even she doesn't understand. Whatever. She doesn't care for him. And Ethan doesn't care for anyone outside of himself and his brother.

That's what she tells herself, anyway.

She's lying face down in her room, crying into the pillow when she hears creaking on the staircase.

She knows it must be Ethan (Sophia and Dayton are at work and Grayson is still at practice), but today she can't even bother herself to care if he sees her like this.

Sure enough, he throws open her door without ceremony. "Is your cell off? Loverboy keeps fucking calling the house phone every five minutes, either go screw him or tell him to do the job himself, I don't really care which because he's driving me up the fucking wall—" he stops when she doesn't respond; at this point she usually tells him to turn around and try again by knocking because he has a serious problem. But she remains face down in her pillow.

His voice is curious now. "What's up, Em?"

To her mortification, the word 'Em' sets her off immediately. She bursts into a fresh set of tears.

There's a pause and then she hears him drawing closer, voice with an edge of... concern? "Emma?" And then he's touching her shoulder.

"Go away," she manages to say between hiccoughs, trying to push the sobs back into her chest because she really doesn't want to give him fuel to mock her with later.

"What happened? Should I call your mom?" His hand is solid on the small of her back now, and it soothes her in its own way. She feels the mattress sink as he sits down on the bed.

She shakes her head mutely.

"Dayton?"

"Fuck no," she mutters into the pillow.

He barks out a laugh. Emma almost- almost smiles into the fabric. It seems Ethan's callous language has crept up on her steadily over the years, and she finds suddenly she doesn't mind.

"I'm fine," she continues, voice still muffled.

"Really." He sounds amused now.

"Mmhmm."

"Then look at me."

She squeezes her eyes shut tightly.

"Emma." His voice turns gentle, something she didn't expect. In fact, she almost doesn't believe it's him speaking, so gentle as he sounds. So she lifts and turns her head slightly to see for herself.

His eyes are soft for once, and without his expression twisted into a sneer she can really fully appreciate his lips and high cheekbones— wow, is she really doing this right now? She is so not doing this right now.

He quietly observes her puffy eyes and red-stained cheeks. "You're not okay," he summarizes.

She snorts then. The air that escapes her nose blowing a strand of her hair forward into her vision; noticing but not really registering the way his eyes follow its path. "Thanks for the tip."

"What happened?" he asks again, sounding almost nonchalant.

She chews her lip, feeling tears gather in her eyes again, but suddenly she really wants to talk to someone. Not her mother, not Will, not any of her friends.

No, she wanted to speak to someone who probably couldn't care less. Someone who won't judge her.

"Mark," she says finally, voice sounding raspy even to herself.

He waits.

She goes on, swallowing. "He moved here half a year ago and we've been together for most of that time... but remember that party you drove me home from, a while ago?"

"The one he ditched you at?" A muscle in his jaw twitches. "Yeah."

"Well, that was Amanda from New York flying in to surprise him," she can't keep the edge of bitterness from her voice, "with the news that she's here to stay. And then she showed up at school, and kissed him on the mouth right in front of me."

He continues to sound casual, but the hand still resting on the small of her back tenses. "If this happened at school why didn't I hear about it?"

She rolls her eyes. "Maybe because you skipped today with Nate?"

"Right," he says as if just remembering. She rolled her eyes. "Carry on."

She picks at the loose thread on her pillow. "When Mark left New York, he and Amanda were apparently going to do a long distance relationship," she murmurs. "But they didn't talk much. That's what he told me, anyway. But they didn't cut it off, either." She looks up from the pillow to look at him and is surprised to find he's watching her very intently, apparently hanging on to every word. "You should have seen the way she was looking at me, Ethan. Like I was the bitch that stole her man. And the worst part is she's right." Her vision blurs with tears again.

"Or maybe Mark's the bitch that two-timed the both of you," Ethan suggests.

She shrugs half-heartedly. "It doesn't matter. It happened, and I feel...dirty. He made me feel dirty," she whispers, admitting the real problem to herself.

He's silent for a while, and she's grateful for that. She doesn't want to hear about how she isn't the one to blame. She doesn't want reassurances that won't make her feel any better anyway. She just wants to be able to speak and have someone hear.

"I don't really care," he finally says, and it's almost like he's trying to convince himself more than her.

She glances at him, takes in the indiscernible look in his eyes, and decides she didn't care either way; he's served his purpose as a sounding board. "Fine."

There's a silence between them. Emma notes that his hand hasn't left its position resting on her lower back, and the realization makes her feel very warm for no reason at all.

The phone rings distantly again downstairs before the situation can get too awkward. Ethan raises his eyebrows at her. "Are you going to tell him to fuck off, or what?"

She rolls her eyes, feeling a little bit better despite everything. "I'm not going to tell him anything. He's not worth my time."

He nods, almost approvingly, and starts to stand up. She misses the weight of his hand on her back "Then I am, because I've been dying to for ages," he announces.

"Don't say that," Emma says with a weak giggle.

"No," he replies with a serious expression. "Of course I won't."

She lies back into her pillows as he leaves the room. And when she hears him pick up the phone downstairs and simply say, "Fuck off, Mark," she has to slap a hand over her mouth to stop the snort from escaping. He slams down the receiver and his low chuckle can be heard from where Emma Chamberlain lies silently shaking of laughter on her bed hours after having her heart broken.

can ethma rise please im so bored