Smoke of His Breath // Ethan Torchio

lesson 44: teens playing hide and seek is a dangerous game

I've no idea how it's 16.02 already lmao. I don't know how I spent my morning :/ I can only write a new chapter.

Now that Be My Slave is done (self promo lol go read it if you haven't already) my whole energy is now for this story because I have a writer's block for Life in Her Eyes.

Also I realized even though this story is shorter chapter-wise it's almost in the same length as BMS because the chapters are longer in this one.

I talked too much lol, enjoy.

*

My body feels young but my mind is very old
So what do you say?
You can't give me the dreams that are mine anyway
You're half the world away
Half the world away
Half the world away
I've been lost, I've been found
But I don't feel down

(Half The World Away- Aurora)

*

"Prom is two months away." Miruna said as we were walking to the cafeteria. She was saying this to both me and Victoria. She was walking in between us.

"I can't believe I'm finally getting rid of this shit hole." I said. Our high school was honestly bad.

"I already applied to schools in the United States," Miruna said excitedly. "To Harvard and shit. Can't wait to leave Rome," she looked at us. "What about you? Did you think about what happens after high school."

"Yeah," Victoria nodded enthusiastically. "We applied to some competitions in Italy as a band. I don't see any future for me that doesn't involve music. It's been our dream since we first met."

This was something they all usually talked about. Whenever future plans were on the table, each of them talked about their band and how they wanted to pursue music as a career. Lately, Damiano was distracted about it and Ethan was having doubts because his father would literally disown him. Not that he would care but he needed money to support himself.

"What about you?" Victoria asked me. We had started to break the ice between us. I wasn't as close to her as Miruna but since she was always around, we had started to get along.

"I think I  want to take a spare year to work and make money. But after that, I would want to study art history maybe. Or maybe cinematography. Haven't made up mind yet."

Victoria giggled. "Maybe if you study cinematography and we became famous you can be a our creative director."

Why did that seem like a good idea?

But it was an idea that wasn't going to come true because I knew our relationships with each other wouldn't be the same after all the secrets are revealed.

"Who knows?" I simply said. Miruna sighed as we were sitting to the table. We had grabbed ourselves something to eat already.

"I haven't seen Ethan in days now. He better be planning how to ask me for prom or else I will kill him. I can't let him take away my chance to be a prom queen."

Shit. I started to play with my fingers nervously. I looked at Victoria for her to say something.

"I'm sure he will," she said but she didn't look really enthusiastic about it.

Miruna looked at me, "Has Thomas asked you anything yet?"

I moved in my seat with discomfort. Both halloween and chirtmas was a disaster date-wise. Prom would probably the worst of all. Thomas hadn't asked anything and I was glad he hadn't.

"No. I'm not sure he will though. I haven't properly seen him since Christmas. He must be still angry at me for ditching him."

Miruna rolled her eyes. "You were literally burning with fever. He cannot be mad at you for that." she said. She looked like she was thinking about something for a couple of seconds.She talked when she made up her mind. "I'll talk to Ethan to talk to him. He was good at arranging this double date thing."

I choked on my drink. I coughed for a couple of seconds. "Yeah," I said with a weird expression. "You do that."

"Once I get to talk to him," she said, still mad about the situation.

"You don't have to wait for too long," Victoria said and pointed out somewhere. When I looked at there I saw Damiano, Thomas and Ethan coming to our way. They arrived in seconds and settled to our table.

"Speaking of the Devil," Miruna said, directly looking at Ethan.

"Hey! Don't call me a devil i have a ch-"  I looked at Damiano and kicked his leg under the table. How was he so bad at keeping things as a secret?  He looked at me worriedly.

"I have a chapel." he said.

What.

He shrugged under everyone's confused looking eyes. "What? My dad named a chapel after me? I'm a blessed person."

Victoria shook her head. "You are extra stupid lately David."

He shrugged again. He probably would rather being called weird to be exposed as a teen dad.

Thomas looked at me. "Hey Carmen," he said. He had excitement in his voice which was odd. "It's been a long time since we caught up."

"Yeah, didn't want to bother you," I said. I sounded offended in a way and he got that.

"Sorry for not getting in contact. I was kind of made it a pride thing, that you cancelled all our dates. But no reason to not try again right?"

He was being so unstable and it was hard to keep up. It was hard to understand what he thought, what he felt. I looked at Ethan for a glance, nervously. He had a serious look in his face.

"Yeah," I said looking back at Thomas. "Why not right?"

*

After the next period, I was walking in the hallway, my head is filled with too many thoughts, when I got pulled in to an empty classroom. Ethan jammed my body between his' and the wall. He got his face closer to mine.

"I don' like this," he whispered to my ear. I tried to ignore the motherfucking butterflies but there were too many of them.

"You don't like what?" I asked.

"Him being able to close to you and me not being able to do the same."

I looked at his eyes desperately. I didn't like this either. I hated this. But we didn't really had an option.

"We would lose all of them if they found out. I know it sucks but we can't tell them. You need your band to be tıgether for your future."

"I know," he whispered before starting to suck on my neck. I giggled.

"Later, Ethan." I said, trying to push him away from me. Once I finally managed to do so, he asked: "Will I see you again today?"

"Of course you will," I said.

We left the empty class room one after another.

*

*

Hide and seek is in deed a dangerous game