To Write Love On Her Arms (COMPLETE!:)

Chapter 17

Casen

As we got further into second semester classes, Ethan and I made another arrangement similar to the one we’d had first semester. He helped me in physics while I helped him out with photography. Though he helped me more in physics than I did him in photography, other than modeling for him whenever he could find a way to squeeze me into the theme of the photo.

School wore on, slowing down the closer we got to graduation. Winter faded slowly into spring and on the warmer days when Ethan and I were outside, I’d started going without my hoodie.

But the closer graduation got, the darker the clouds looming over my head became. We hadn’t talked about it, but I knew Ethan had several colleges offering him full ride athletic scholarships if he decided to play for them. I, on the other hand, wasn’t planning on going to college. I’d never made plans for my future because I’d never thought I’d live to graduate.

I still might not make it.

Now, however, I wondered what would happen when Ethan chose what school he’d be going to. What would happen to us, especially if he chose a school out of state?

It was a particularly warm weekend in early April when I rolled over to look at him. “Ethan?”

He turned his head to me, a lazy expression on his face. “Hmm?”

“What are we going to do when we graduate?”

Ethan was silent for a while before he answered. “Honestly, I don’t know,” he admitted with a frown.

“Have you figured out which school you’re going to?” I asked.

Surprise flickered in the olive green depths of Ethan’s eyes. “How’d you know?” he asked.

“It may not look like it, but I do pay attention to what’s talked about around me. A lot of the teachers and students are talking about it, Ethan,” I told him with a sigh. “You could have told me, you know.”

“I know, I just didn’t know how,” he murmured with a frown.

I nodded, excepting his explanation. “Have you decided?”

“Not really. I’ve narrowed it down some, but…I don’t know,” he admitted.

“You’re getting a full ride athletic scholarship, Ethan. You should go wherever you want to; it’d be stupid not to.”

“I don’t want to leave you here, Case. Not with your dad. It’s already hard enough as it is.”

I gave a half-hearted smile. “I’ll survive. I have so far.”

There was a large part of me that didn’t want him to leave. Ethan had become my lifeline even when I felt myself slipping in this life. But he’d also helped me in ways that would allow me to live a life that I hadn’t originally planned being able to live. Besides, Ethan had a future and it wasn’t fair for me to keep him from it.

Just because I didn’t have one, didn’t make it right for me to hold him here.

His words helped ease some of my fears of him leaving. I’d been worrying that if he chose a school out of state or even in a different part of the state, that he would meet another girl, one who had more to offer him than I did, and I would become nothing more than a distant high school memory. Now, however, I worried a little less.

The conversation died and we fell silent.

Through the trees, I could feel the warm sunshine on my skin, heating it while I lay there thinking. It was almost surreal, lying with Ethan in the tree house, the sounds of the woods creating a lulling rhythm that on any other day could have drawn me to sleep.