Let Yourself Fall // sequel to My Ethan Karpathy

Chapter 20.

PAISLEYS POV:

I'm really trying to forget, trying to move on. I know it seems absolutely crazy that I'm trying to go from hating my life so much that I want to end it, to Im trying to love it, but I made the decision to. Life is all our decision, we can either decide to focus on the bad things, and have a bad life, or focus on the good things and have a good life. I choose only good from now on. I'm so happy that Holly isn't making me go see a councillor. I really am not comfortable talking to some stranger in detail about my life.

I jump up and bend over to hug holly, I can tell Ethan was staring at my ass because he was blushing and had a smirk on his face when I turned around. I just hugged him and pretended not to notice. We race up the stairs, and surprisingly, I was winning. Ethan decided he couldn't have that, so he wrapped me up in his arms from behind and started to tickle me. We both fall to the floor laughing. It's all funny until the cuts on my thigh are scraped along the tiles and are opened up.

"Ethan, stop I need to go to the bathroom." I rush. I don't want Ethan seeing.

"Are you okay?" He asks, looking straight in my eyes. I am literally in a trance. I stare into his eyes for a little while until I feel the blood starting to trickle past my knee.

"Yes."

I let myself get lost in his eyes for a few more seconds before I run off to the bathroom.

ETHANS POV:

I was about to kiss her when she talks. She looked so cute the way she was giggling.

"Ethan, stop I need to go to the bathroom." she rushes out urgently. I feel her hand brush past my leg in the hurry to cover her own. I take a quick glance and see that her cuts have opened up. Does she really believe that she has to hide them from me? She has nothing to be ashamed of, it's not like I've had no experience with this...

"Are you okay?" I ask, playing dumb. She doesn't want me to know.
She just stares as hard as I am right back into my eyes.

"Yes."

I'm about to kiss her again but she runs off to the bathroom. I know the pain she's about to go through, she will need to clean off the blood and that stings like hell. Then, knowing her, she will want to sanitise the cuts so they don't get infected. I hesitate for a few minutes then decide I should follow her. If it's anything like me, she would secretly appreciate me there. I walk slowly down the hallway past my room where Jai and Chris are talking on the bed. They see me and give me questioning glances. I just hold up one finger telling them to stay there and don't follow. I stand outside the bathroom door and just listen. Almost straight away I hear sniffles and a small, muffled cry of pain. I just follow my instincts and open the door. This door doesn't have a lock on it. Paisley is sitting on the floor of the shower against the wall with a once-white hand towel pressed against her thigh. She is biting her hand to direct the pain away. She has her eyes all scrunched up but the tears are still flowing their way out, as tears do best. I shut the door and grab the other hand towel from the rack. I take it over to the sink and run the water until it's warm. Paisley has now realised I'm here and is looking up at me with sad eyes. I don't say anything, just bring the towel over to her and grab the old one. She doesn't let go, but I take her hand that's gripping the towel in mine and she slowly lets me take it. I lay the new towel over her thigh and take the old one back to the sink.

I rinse it the best I can right now and leave it in the sink for later. I walk back and sit next to her.

"Don't think you need to hide this from me. I can help, I've been there, remember?" I tell her.

Paisley doesn't say anything because she's biting down on her hand. I wait for her jaw to unclench then take her hand in mine. I look at the bite marks. Damn, that must've been really painful. They are deep and almost bleeding.

"Just squeeze." I tell her. And she sure does. Hard. Really hard. We sit there for a while until the blood stops. I get a bandage from the first aid kit and wrap it around her thigh as tight as I can without cutting off her circulation.

"That should stop it now."

"Ethan, can I please borrow your track pants? I don't have any that fit and I'm not going back in like this." Paisley asks.

"Yeah, sure. Just wait here."

I run back to my room, grab my grey track pants, ignore the weird confused glances from the boys and run back into the bathroom. I turn around as Paisley gets changed and then we walk back to my room together.

"Hey, boys." Paisley says cheerfully, plastering on a smile only I can see is not all real. But they don't seem to realise which is good, I guess. I can see she's really really trying, I can tell she doesn't want to be reminded of her recent choices, and there's no way I'm going to let her get any idea of that option in her head ever again.