I Am Unstoppable (Book 2)

Chapter Ten: J is for Judgemental

Ethan and I soon became closer, which is weird to think about since just yesterday I was threatening to kill him, and he was telling me that he wished I would kill myself. I never thought we would have a relationship like this, due to the fact that we've only been total dicks to each other for the past nine years.

After our little conversation, Ethan and I both walked down the stairs together to talk to the family about how we're getting along again.

When we broke the news to everyone, Mom instantly made a weird face. "How the-but you two were just-I don't even know." She put her head into the palms of her hands, trying to process what I told her.

Dad, however, nodded in approval with a bright smile on his face. "That's a very nice move made by the both of you."

That honestly made me feel better. I guess that now I won't get into trouble at home, since Ethan and I are finally getting along.

I sat down on the couch to the right of Tyler and rested my head on his shoulder. "Sorry about earlier."

He still seemed pissed off at me. For some odd reason, this makes me wonder why Ethan was jealous of the fact that Tyler and I get along so well (most of the time). Tyler is honestly a douchebag; he just acts nice to me and to the other four or five people he cares about. I've seen him talk to some of his friends before-sometimes, it isn't pretty. Once I saw him cussing out this kid for correcting him.

Tyler just has some anger issues, that's all.

Tyler chose to ignore me, which is fine by me. Every time I tried to spark a conversation, he would roll his eyes and pretend as if I was nonexistent. I guess he didn't like the fact that I didn't deal with the Ethan Situation the same way he would've dealt with it.

For the rest of that day, Tyler continued to ignore me, Dad figured out ways to punish Ethan for being a jerk to me, Mom corrected her student's tests and other work, and Ethan and I sat in my room to kind of talk to each other and heal our bond even more.

It turns out that Ethan is also being bullied, which I never knew about. I always thought he had a lot of friends and had a lot going for him, but it turns out, he doesn't. People in his class make fun of him for being a wimp, apparently. Whenever he tried to tell people otherwise, they wouldn't believe him, even though what he said was true.

He would tell everyone that he slapped his fifteen year old brother in the face, that he made his fifteen year old brother cry, and that he even screamed at his fifteen year old brother to the point where he wanted to kill himself.

That didn't make anything better, though. It just made things worse. Now, everyone makes fun of him for being such an asshole to his poor, emotionally unstable fifteen year old brother.

I told Ethan that in order to stop the bullying, he needs to show the bullies that what they're saying isn't affecting him. I said that he shouldn't change himself or try to make him seem like a meaner person, since that won't help fix things-it will only make things worse.

He nodded in agreement, trying to hold back tears. I was really shocked by his stories about how people would chase him around at recess throwing rocks at him, and how some people even threatened to beat him up. He looked like he wanted to cry really badly, but he didn't want to look like the wimp everyone said he was.

"Ethan, it's okay to cry." I hugged him tightly. "I do it all the time."

The minute I finished saying that, he buried his head into my chest and began to cry more than I have ever cried in my entire life.

I rubbed his back, trying to comfort him. "People are jerks. Trust me, I know that. I get made fun of all the time for the dumbest reasons. I've been teased for being bisexual, for being smart, for being nice, and even for being Tyler's brother."

Ethan glanced up at me, his teary honey brown eyes looking directly into my bright green eyes. "What does 'bisexual' mean?"

Shit, I forgot he's only nine.

I told him anyway. "It means I like guys and girls."

"So, you have a boyfriend and a girlfriend?" he asked, sniffling a little.

I instantly thought of Brandon. He's not officially my boyfriend, but Becca is my girlfriend. Brandon and I like each other, and we've kissed twice, so does that make us friends with benefits?

I don't even know. I just answered simply, "No. I have a girlfriend, and that's it."

He nodded, sniffling loudly. "Oh." He continued to cry.

"Ethan, be yourself. Someone will always try to drag you down, but if you be yourself, then you'll always know that you like you for who you are, which is good enough. I'm not going to change myself to satisfy a group of five people who hate me, when there are a bunch of people who love me for who I am."

Ethan smiled, wiping the tears running down his face with his sleeve. "Richard, you give really good advice."

Right when he said that, I realized how all this time I struggled so much to find good advice from others to deal with my situation, when all along, the best advice was hidden deep down inside of me. All I had to do was find it.