The Bet | Ethma

27

"Em?" he called as he went down the stairs. He went into the living room, the kitchen... Where was she?

The door to the patio was open. He went outside and called for her again.

"I'm in here!" she answered, then waved from the tree house.

Of course she was. If he would have been thinking rationally, he would have realized that the first place to look should have been the tree house.

Whenever she'd had a bad day at school she would rush over to their house, drop her backpack onto the kitchen counter, snatch a cookie from the jar, and climb up into the tree house.

Sometimes it was hours before she'd emerge.

But when she did, Emma was always happier, as if the day at school no longer mattered.

He sighed and climbed slowly up the ladder until he pulled himself up into the tree house.

Emma was sitting in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Sorry." She bit down on her lip and sighed. "I just needed to think, so I came out here."

"Yeah well, that makes two of us. I don't suppose you snatched cookies from the kitchen too?"

She reached to her side and pulled out a baggie with three chocolate chip cookies. "Of course."

He took one from the bag and smiled. "Em."

She looked up.

"I had a really good speech for you. I mean, it was fantastic — something that would bring you to tears..."

"No doubt," she agreed, taking a bite of her cookie.

"But sitting here, looking at you, all I really want to do is kiss you and make the sadness go away. I know what happened earlier was awkward, but I hope your feelings weren't hurt. What Grayson said was..."

Emma laughed. "What Grayson said was exactly what I would expect. I know he doesn't want to get married, and we both know I'm not insane enough to want to marry him either."

Ethan exhaled in relief.

"But..." Emma shook her head.

He didn't like the sound of her voice.

"...But, I don't know. It hurts all over again for some reason. Isn't that silly?"

He knew he probably wasn't going to get another opportunity, so he asked, "What happened between you two?"

Her face froze, and her breathing threatened to stop. "He, um..." She nervously pushed away hair from her face and bit her lip. "We... had..." A tear ran down her cheek.

Alarmed, Ethan grasped her wrists and pulled her into his lap, rocking her back and forth. "What? Tell me." He rubbed her arms with his hands.

"We slept together."

His heart stopped. Anger and frustration as well as jealousy jerked through his body with such force he wasn't sure if he wanted to go shoot his brother or blame himself, even though it wasn't his fault. Still he felt responsible for Emma. He always had.

"In college?" He was thankful he was able to ask without screaming.

She nodded in his arms. "It was horrible."

Thank God.

"We were still so young, and it was a stupid mistake, and we both felt so bad and stupid. It was so confusing! The next morning all I wanted to do was call my best friend, but he wasn't my best friend anymore. I didn't know what he was, and then that next day was when your parents called to tell me that Mom and Dad had had an accident. I couldn't tell anyone. I felt so ashamed." She began to softly cry in his arms, as he kissed her hair and rocked her.

****

Emma wasn't sure why she was spilling her deepest secrets to Ethan, but it seemed time to let everything out into the open. She was tired of keeping it inside, tired of trying to be strong when really she felt so scared and weak most of the time.

"I tried calling him, but he wouldn't answer his phone. Finally someone picked up. It was a girl."

Ethan cursed under his breath.

"Nothing was the same. He hugged me and said he was sorry about my parents, and that was it. We never talked about it. We never fixed what we broke, so we just slowly grew apart as if we hadn't caused this giant divide in what had been a lifelong friendship. He was the only tie I had to your family, so when he pushed me away, I felt... I felt like an orphan."

She began to sob harder into his chest. He whispered encouragement into her ear. "I would have died that year without Grandma."

"What do you mean without Grandma?"

Emma smiled despite her tears. "Remember that summer she said she was touring the United States?"

He chuckled. "Oh yes, I received a postcard every other week."

"Well, those postcards were bought at a bookstore, and Grandma spent the entire summer with me."

"What?"

"Yup." Emma wiped more tears away and smiled. "She saved me, said she'd always be there for me and take care of me. That's why it was so weird when she stopped writing last month, and then Grayson came in with this huge story about how she was sick and dying and... well, I had to come even if it meant I was manipulating everyone to do so."

"I understand." Ethan used his thumb to wipe an escaped tear from her cheek. Emma's breath hitched. Her eyes glanced at his lips then back up to his gaze.

"Em..." His lips descended slowly, even though his body was going a hundred miles an hour. "I'm going to kiss you now."

"Okay."