pieces | ethma

The Movies

Ethan

I was five when my best friend went missing.

Five. Fucking. Years. Old.

How traumatic is that? My best friend goes missing in fucking Kindergarten, and they still haven't found her and it's my senior fucking year.

I miss her like hell. We were so young, but I already knew I loved her.

I loved her in the way that when she cried it broke my heart every. single. time.

I loved her in the way that I simply thought she was so cool, and I could hang out with her all day if I was allowed to.

I loved her in the way that I'd do anything to make her smile. What kind of five year old feels that way about someone?

I guess the answer to that is me.

They still haven't found her after twelve years, but I refuse to believe she's gone. I just have this feeling that she's out there somewhere. I really do.

Her name was Emma. She lived in the house next door to mine, and we were best friends. She was only four when she went missing.

I'll never forget her eyes. They were beautiful. I can't say that they were the color of the ocean because they were a lighter blue than the ocean, but they were beautiful, and I'd do anything to see them again.

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Emma

I don't really remember what happened, or why they brought me here, but they told me I was beautiful, and that was the only explanation I really got.

And that's how I started my acting career at four years old.

They changed my last name. They said it would be better for me. They said that it would keep me safe.

I wasn't Emma Chamberlain anymore. I was Emma Petersen.

They colored my hair a dark brown instead of my natural honey-blonde hair. They also told me this would keep me safe.

I became a child star. It started with commercials, then tv shows, and now movies. Every director wanted me to play the lead child roles.

As I got older they started to test my talents. If I could sing, or if I could dance. Turns out I could do both, so I started to train.

I was fifteen when my album came out. Well, that was a year ago.  Despite being a child star, I feel like I've grown up pretty normal.

I don't remember much about my life before I was brought here to California. I remember the boy that lived next door. He was a year older than me, but that didn't change the fact that we were best friends. I miss him, but he's in New Jersey, and I don't remember enough details about him to look him up successfully.

I was only four when I left New Jersey. I was so young. It's hard to remember anything from then.

My newest movie The Final Chase is coming out at midnight Thursday night.

It's about a teenage girl who becomes a race car driver and falls in love in the meantime. One of those typical teen romance movies that girls my age can't get enough of.

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Ethan

I don't know how I got convinced to go see The Final Chase, but there I was at the midnight premiere of it.

Technically it was a double date with my friend Josh and his girlfriend Macy, and I was there with this girl I had been talking to named Sammie. She was friends with Macy, so Josh told me I should go too. In reality Sammie wasn't the only girl I was talking to.

Emma Petersen was the star of this movie, and in all honesty I'd been avoiding seeing any of her work. She reminded me too much of my Emma.

Her hair was different than my Emma's. It was darker, and shorter. But she had the same eyes. Or very similar eyes. It was like she was Emma's brunette doppelganger.

Her fucking name was Emma. Her name was Emma! If that's not a coincidence, I don't know what it was. Maybe I just missed her too much. Or maybe I was simply insane.

But sitting there, and watching this movie, damn if I could've looked away. I couldn't. I just felt the whole in my heart filled for the hour and a half that the movie played. It was like she really was my Emma.

Not to mention that watching her fall in love on screen made me wish she was mine in real life.

What the fuck, Ethan. You're seventeen fucking years old, and you can't let go of the girl you loved when you were five.

That was either her, or I was crazy. Those are the only two explanations.

I told Sammie I had to leave because I didn't feel good, so I left and went home.

I looked Emma Petersen up on google. It checked out that she was sixteen. The same age Emma would've been. Or the same age she was. But her birthday was different.

Emma's birthday, well my Emma's birthday, was May 22nd. Emma Petersen's birthday was listed as July 27th.

That was what made me almost lose hope. But when Emma has an interview the next day with Jimmy Fallon, she said she was born in New Jersey. I felt like I got hit by a car. In a good way. That was my sign.

I needed to get to California. I needed my Emma back.

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Emma

I told my guardian that I didn't want to be an actress anymore. I didn't want to sing, and I didn't want to dance.

I had enough money to retire on at the age of sixteen. More than the average person who worked a lifetime would have.

So, I left California, and I convinced my guardian to let me move back to Jersey. I should tell you that her name was Amy, and she was like a mother to me.

My mom died when I was little, and my dad went off the deep end. Maybe that's why I went away to California. Amy showed up at my house one day, and told me that my dad was a very bad man, and that I needed to go with her.

So, I did. Maybe my life was safer because of it. That's really all I remember.

The only thing I remember is the boy I was best friends with. I can't even remember his fucking name, but I remember his eyes. I swore I could jump into a pile of leaves the same color.

I enrolled on the first day of school at the local high school.

And as I walked into my chemistry class on the first Monday morning, those hazel eyes were the very first thing I caught sight of.