Ethan
I stared at the ceiling of the living room, my body doused in blankets on top of the couch.
The couch.
not my bed
I'd relapsed, if that's what you cared to call it. After a whole fucking week of sleeping in my bed, the nightmares had come back.
and i still hadn't heard from her
Marci had gone home alongside her brother with the promise of an explanation and a chocolate chip cookie to make up for it.
I hadn't gotten either.
Marci hadn't shown up at school once this week and I was drowning in anxiety over her.
The night that Marci left, I lay awake in my bed for hours worrying, my hands shaking violently as I waited for the good night text that I knew wouldn't come.
For the first time in years, I had allowed myself to get attached to someone, and it had blown up in my face in such epic fucking proportions that I wasn't sure I could detach if I wanted to.
I'd spent hours thinking about Marci, and when I'd finally fallen asleep, I was haunted with horrific images, and now I was banished to the living room again.
Fuck
fuck fuck fuck fuck
where was she??
I was yanked from my self pity when I heard a gentle rattling from behind me, and shot up on the couch in surprise.
I half expected a burglar, but what I didn't expect to see was a tired looking Claire Biggs fumbling with our back door.
the fuck?
I rolled off of the couch and crawled to my feet, stumbling over to the door tiredly.
Claire was cursing to herself when the handle got stuck again and fell out of the door. She placed it back in for the hundredth time and tried to twist it again.
It made a horrible squeaking noise at this and remained shut as Claire groaned in frustration.
Claire threw her head back in resignation, but quickly gasped in fear as she noticed my sudden presence.
When her fear finally passed and her face filled with recognition, her cheeks flushed in embarrassment as she mumbled muffled apologies and backed away from the door and turned back in the direction of her house.
I signaled for her to stay as I ran to the junk drawer in the kitchen and fumbled around it hurriedly.
I tossed around random light bulbs, coins, and an alarming amount of condoms before I finally found what I was looking for.
When I finally found what I wanted, I slammed the drawer shut, flinching at the noise, and sped back to where Claire was. I stuck the extra knob that I had grabbed from the drawer into the slot of the door, and jiggled it from side to side.
The door clicked open.
Claire sped through the now open door and engulfed me in a grateful hug. "Ah thank you Ethan!" She whispered screamed excitedly, careful not to wake my mother. She instinctively padded over to the staircase and began to speed up the stairs to her destination as I headed back to my spot on the couch to return to my thoughts.
Claire was already halfway up the staircase when she turned back to look at me, sympathy suddenly invading her gaze as she noticed my spot on the couch.
"You know Ethan, Hughie should still be up if you need somewhere to stay" she whispered empathetically before walking the rest of the way up the stairs to get to my brother, who had undoubtedly been the one to invite her over.
Guess I'm going to the Bigg's.
Because no way am i staying and listening to whatever the fuck Claire and Gibbs are doing.
ew.
I headed toward the front door and hurriedly slid on some random shoes, then clicked open the lock.
I was about to head into the street to walk across to Hughie's when I saw a small silver car pull in front of the Bigg's house, its headlights turned off, making it almost invisible in the dark of night.
the fuck?
I closed the front door again and began to watch curiously through the window instead.
Before I could fully process what happened, a blonde stepped out of the car and I felt my heart spike in excitement at the sight, but when the girl stood to her full height, my heart sank again.
It's just Lizzie.
Wait a damn minute.
Lizzie?
As in Claire's best friend?
Lizzie walked slowly to the front door of the house, stopping halfway to use her phone, and look around cautiously before making the rest of her way to the front door.
Before she even got a chance to reach the door, it was flung open by a horrified looking Hughie.
He looked fresh out of bed, considering he wasn't wearing a shirt and his hair was flung every which way, but he didn't seem to care.
He just stood and looked at her for a moment before Lizzie moseyed her way up to him and fell into his chest, crying.
Hughie wrapped his arms around the frail girl, kissing her forehead gently as she sobbed in his arms.
Holy Shit.
Hughie and Lizzie.
Claire's brother and best friend.
What about Katie? She was dating Hughie for fucks sake
This was so wrong.
Yet it looked so right. Despite her devastation, I had never seen Lizzie let someone touch her the way she let Hughie, which was unusual, considering I was fully aware of the fact that they used to date.
Hughie and Lizzie dated for a long time before it eventually fell apart along with Lizzie's life. Shit had gone really bad for Lizzie a while back and she'd never really been that same person she was before.
Lizzie blamed our family fully for all of the problems that had sprouted in her life all of those years ago, and even though that idea was fucked, I still felt guilt knowing that we played a part in the destruction of the poor girl.
Lizzie was no longer the girl I had grown up alongside, she no longer gleamed the way she had before the tragic death of her sister, Caoimhe.
Caoimhe Young's death had shattered Lizzie in ways I didn't know possible, yet Hughie had stood beside her for all of it, or as much of it as he could I guess. At some point, shit must have gone wrong, because Lizzie and Hughie broke up, and that was the final straw for her.
I didn't think that Lizzie and Hugh were friends anymore, but then again, it was clear as day that there was something happening there, and friends wasn't the word I would use to describe it.
Hughie just held onto Lizzie while she cried for a long while before grabbing onto her hand and closing the door behind them as they disappeared into the house.
There was definitely something going on between the two.
But did Claire know?
Claire definitely didn't know.
If Claire knew then Marci would know, and if Marci knew then so would I.
That meant nobody knew.
So how long had this been going on?
Even after the house fell to silence again, and the light of Hughie's bedroom window flicked off, I lay on the couch in the living room and counted the cracks in the ceiling, my mind deep in thought.
Holy shit.
★・・・・・・★
Authors Note
I lowk don't know what to do. i'm kind of lost on this story and i think it's because i'm partially lost as a person. I really miss him today. Hope i feel better soon ig. if i don't post for a while i'm sorry, i'm really struggling.
Ily all so much
-Kat
WC- 1299