i think it's love | ethma

twelve

It's a while later when the nurse comes out and speaks to Will's father quietly. Emma jumps up. "Is he out of surgery? Is he going to okay?" she asks. The nurse glances at him and he nods at her quietly. His own eyes are full of tears.

"He's going to live, Emma," he says, voice trembling. "He's just resting now. He'll live."

Emma claps her hands over her own mouth, feeling tears resurging to her eyes. She feels Ethan coming up behind her, and he places one hand on her back. It's soothing in a way she doesn't normally associate with him. But she appreciates it.

They get to see Will; he certainly looks peaceful, even though he's hooked up to machines and with tubes everywhere. She can hardly see her best friend through all the stuff they've wrapped him in.

She holds his hand— he's hot to the touch. She cries a little bit and chants his name over and over, and through it all she feels Ethan's hand on her back, now rubbing slow circles into her skin over her sweater, and it feels like the only reason she doesn't fall over completely in her overwhelmed state.

She's sitting in the chair beside Will later, and her head is drooping a little bit when Sophia says, "I think it's time you go home for the night, Emma."

Her head immediately shoots up and she's alert. "No. I'm staying with him."

Her mother huffs at the certainty in her voice and walks out of the room, where she knows that Ethan is standing outside drinking coffee.

"Ethan, take her home," she hears Sophia say.

There's a pause before he speaks. "What about you?"

"I'm going to stay while his father talks to the police. He needs someone right now. Take Emma home."

"I don't think she wants to go home," Ethan says slowly.

"She doesn't have a choice. There's nothing more she can do here."

"She wants to stay with Will," Ethan retorts, and Emma is kind of amazed that he's sticking up for her. "That's her best friend in that bed. Maybe there's nothing she can do for him, but staying with Will can do something for Emma."

There's a silence. Sophia appears to be mulling it over. Then:

"Take her home, Ethan."

"Sophia— "

She cuts him off, voice frosty. "Take her home or I will. Your choice."

Emma definitely does not want to go home with her mother. Maybe Ethan knows that, because seconds later he's appearing around the corner with an inscrutable expression on his face. "I'm taking you home," he says shortly, and his tone is flat as usual, as if he doesn't care at all. Gone is the argumentative tone that she overheard a minute earlier.

She thinks about denying him, but then she realizes how tired she is. So then she's pushing herself out of the chair and following him out to his car after one last glance at Will through the door.

"Need a ride, Em?" Ethan asks when they clamber into his truck, tone light.

She half laughs even though she can't feel anything but empty right now. He never calls her Em anymore, and it hits her suddenly that it must be because of Mark. "Just don't take me home." She doesn't want to be there right now, where it's cold and lonely and she'll be sitting on the couch all night wondering about Will.

He accepts that. "Where to, then?" She doesn't respond for a good minute, just thinking. He presses further. "Want food? I think there's a twenty four hour McDonald's just up the road. Or— "

"Your place," she responds softly. He's surprised; she can tell by the way he grips the wheel tighter. There's an insinuation in those two words she's uttered that he's trying to shake.

"Not so sure if that's a good idea." His voice is terse.

She turns her head to look at his clenched jaw and confirms any suspicions he has. "Do you believe me right now when I say I'm in my right mind?"

"You're grieving," he replies.

"Will isn't dead," she snaps. "In fact, they say he's stable. I just want a distraction."

"A distraction," he echoes dully. "And you want me to be the distraction." It's not a question; it's something that's never really quite been in question. It's a statement.

"And you want me," Emma takes a gamble on saying. It's not framed as a question, either. He answers it anyway with the way his eyes dart towards her and then back to the road. "Besides, I thought you didn't care?"

His jaw works at the words spat back into his face. He takes the next left. Emma knows it leads to his place. She's glad.

She's tired of fighting against her feelings for him. She doesn't want them, but she's ready for a solution. To place those feelings into a box that she can actually identify.

She settles back in the seat.

When they get there, he's barely closed the door behind him when Emma tries to kiss him. He lets her, but his own lips are listless, uninvolved. In frustration, she seizes a fistful of his hair and tugs his head down at a better angle. He lets her, but he's still not reciprocating, and her eyes blur with angry tears.

"Kiss me back," she demands after parting for a moment.

He regards her with sad-looking eyes that he really has no right to turn on her. "No," he says softly.

"Kiss me," she repeats, and it sounds like begging. Something occurs to her. "Do you not...want to?" she asks uncertainly.

He shuts his eyes tightly for a moment at that. "I do."

"Then what are you waiting for?"

He replies with another question. "You realize that you're crying right now, right?"

She swipes at the tears running down her face absentmindedly with the back of her hand. "It's nothing. Why do you care? I told you, this doesn't mean anything to me," she lies. "I just want a distraction."

"I don't want to be a distraction," he replies.

She presses herself closer to him, and feels a part of him react to her close proximity. The rest of him doesn't, save for the hands at his sides balling into fists. She leans in and bites his earlobe. "I thought you said you didn't care," she whispers into his ear, and she feels him shudder. "Are you saying that you do care about how I feel?" She leans back to cock an eyebrow up at him.

"Maybe." She watches, mesmerized, as his Adam's apple bobs when he swallows. "Or maybe it's about me caring how I feel."

She stares at him, trying to understand what that's supposed to mean, when he gently puts his hands on her shoulders and pushes her away from him. She goes with him. And he leads her to the bed (neatly made, as always with Ethan) and quietly tells her to get some rest. She doesn't lie down. She just stands there, looking down at his bed; and when the bedroom door clicks shut behind him, she lets her head fall into her hands and she cries.

And when she falls into bed and buries her nose into his pillow (it smells like him), it's with the ever-growing respect for Ethan Dolan, and the silent vow that one day, when she's not drunk or driven mad with grief, she'll tell him how she feels.