there's no way | ethma

Prologue

Emma's POV

My friends don't like Luke. Well, I don't know if that's true, but sometimes I can tell when Luke pisses them off.

Let me describe my group of friends to you. First, is Olivia. She grew up in the same hometown as me, and we've been best friends since the 7th grade.

Next is Grayson. I met Grayson freshman year during our philosophy class. Turns out, he was friends with mine and Olivia's other friend Ian.

Ian was also from our hometown, so it was nice for Olivia and I to have a couple friends at UCLA.

There was also Katie, who we met freshman year, and she was dating Scooter.

Scooter's real name was Spencer, but he was somehow amazing at riding a scooter. You know, one of those razor scooters you probably had as a kid? Spencer could do tricks on one of those like a mad man. Hence the nickname Scooter.

My older brother Joey—he wasn't in college anymore, but once in a while he would come to visit, and my friends love him.

One thing about Joey is that he is one of the only people left in my family. Our parents died when we were younger, and Joey helped our grandma raise me. He's five years older than me.

And finally? There's Luke. We've been dating for three years. He hates the fact that my friend group is mostly male, but he got used to it.

Luke wasn't controlling of me until after high school was over. All of the sudden he started obsessing over where I was, what I was doing, and who I was hanging out with.

And if he found out I was hanging with any of my guy friends without Olivia, Katie, or Joey being there, he flipped his shit.

It sucks. I know. I don't have any freedom. Joey has tried to talk to me about the situation, but he just ends up feeling bad about it and doesn't say everything that I know he's holding back.

Grayson always told our friend group about his older brother Ethan. He failed to mention that Ethan was older than him by twenty minutes.

Ethan transferred for UCLA at the beginning of our sophomore year, so that he could live with Grayson.

I didn't think it to be a big deal at first, but that's because I didn't realize how much shit was about to go down.

I didn't realize that I was finally going to stand up to Luke, and find what I actually deserved somewhere else.

I didn't think there was a way.

But in reality, there's no way I was going to sit any longer and let Luke walk all over me. I was sick of it, and so were my brother and my best friends.

-
Ethan's POV

I always thought that movies were so cheesy. There's always some damsel in distress that the male hero has to save.

Unrealistic, right?

Wrong.

When I moved to California, I didn't realize that my life was going to turn into one of those movies.

But the second I met Emma, I knew she was the damsel in distress.

And I needed to save her.