Ethan's POV
i've been going to emma's house a lot recently. which has been fucking me up. sure, getting to spend time with her was amazing but my sleep schedule hasn't been the same. i was used to going to bed late and waking up late but it was at reasonable times. the last few couple of days, absolutely no sleep. it's like my eyes didn't want to close.
when i get home, i turn the door handle softly, to not wake up gray. i assumed his dumbass was asleep early.
i check my phone, it was 12:30 am. when i called gray, it was like 8:00 or something like that. emma and i talked, which made me loose track in time.
the whole house was a little dark. no lights seemed to be on. i peek my head into grayson's room, who was dead asleep.
i take a look at the ceiling in bed. my mind made me see dots reappear above me, like glistening stars. i blink a few times and look around the room. fuck.
since i wasn't going to sleep anytime soon, i take my phone off the charger. i decide to just text emma.
fucking help
she quickly responded.
why are you awake lol
it's you're fault ,
you messed up my
sleeping schedule
well sorryyyy count
fucking sheep or some
shit
emma i'm not five
then deal with it😘
oh fuck you
love you too❤️
looking back at our conversation, i smile. and i didn't even mean too. it's like looking at an old picture, a really good memory, remembering everything that had happened, everyone you love being there and just genuinely being happy looking back at it. something i can't put into words well. something only i could process well.
i wanted to have that. pictures, videos and good memories with emma. there was a lot of pressure of having a public relationship, but it was something i dreamed of.
i wanted to tell her. i really did. but i didn't wanna seem cheesy and stupid. i have to tell grayson, that was the first step to it all.
the brightness off my phone was burning my eyes. the phone didn't help me fall asleep.
i sigh.
i continuously toss and turn for hours. my eyes are dead asleep, but nothing else.
the house was so silent and dim. i could hear the slightest sounds that the house would make. i turn on the light around my bed, to maybe help me sleep better.
————
i open my eyes. my eyelids are heavy, and difficult to open. i rub them continuously.
i look back at my phone to check the time, it was close to 3 o'clock.
fuck. i let my upper body fall back onto my pillow. because of my fucked up sleep schedule, i fall into a deep sleep.
i woke up to emma, laying next to me. i panic in my head and look around myself. what the hell? i look into her eyes. it was like her eyes were trying to tell me something, but her mouth wasn't moving.
"i don't wanna hide it ethan..."
i take a moment to process what she had said.
she suddenly raises her voice. she sounded raspy, well she always does but like she was extremely exhausted and was tired of me.
"ethan! just tell him already!"
she slaps me on my arm. i freeze with a confused look. i scrunch my eyebrows. what? i watch her get out of my bed. she was wearing a white crop top with adidas black shorts. her hair wrapped into a bun with a yellow scrunchie on top of her head.
i eventually fall back for a little. i could feel someone getting me to wake up. my body was cold which must've meant the comforter had been pulled off.
"emma stop!" i shout, jerking out of the bed. i look to see grayson on my left.
"bro what the fuck?" he gets a little closer to me to see if i was okay. "why did you say that?"
i look over my shoulder to the right. emma wasn't there. no one had been there. it was a dream.
"sorry..." i mumble. my throat hurt too much to talk. i clear my throat. "it's just nothing."
"whatever dude just fucking wake up already." it may have just been me, but he seemed aggressive in his voice.
because i had just woken up, his tone startled me. i take my phone off the charger and hop into the shower.
i shuffle through a few songs on spotify to play. i turn it on full volume. i must've lost track of time because grayson came knocking on the door.
what the hell did he want now?
"what do you need gray.." i groaned, over the sounds of the shower water and music.
"i need fucking toothpaste e," he started. "you didn't buy any yesterday like i told you!"
i honestly thought he was joking. toothpaste, really?
"grayson it's fucking toothpaste just borrow mine!" i yelled back at him.
"well i don't wanna fucking borrow yours!" he replied.
i don't respond back to him for a minute. i could tell his head was against the door.
"fine i'll borrow yours then." i hear the door crack open a bit. he walks in and goes through my cabinet. he takes a look and looks back at where i was.
"um ethan.." he looks down at the floor and pauses. he looks back and grabs what he needed.
"what it's not the right flavor of toothpaste now?" i joke. apparently he didn't find it funny, because he didn't make a sound.
"no that's fine." he says. he takes awhile to answer my question. it looked like he had something to say, but just didn't know how to put it into words.
"what then?" i ask, confused.
he proceeds to talk. "oh nothing." he then walks out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Grayson's POV
why? i thought they both had said they weren't dating. i walked into ethan's bathroom to grab fucking toothpaste and i see emma had texted him.
first of all, there were hearts and shit on her contact name. second of all, she put babe at the end of the text. and finally, ethan had been very attached to his phone recently.
at least it wasn't a secret anymore. i really wanted to tell james, or bryant, or fuck talk to emma. it took me a minute to process, but i still didn't understand.
why? why would they lie about it? we were all close and trusted each other, then they just go and... and eventually fall in love with each other. as if i didn't feel lonely enough. my brother was dating one of my best friends.
girlfriend..emma? i was confused...still. i didn't want to text her, she doesn't know i saw the text, ethan doesn't either. i had to go out to go grocery shopping.
i decide to text her to meet me at our closest grocery store. she quickly agreed. i finished getting ready without bumping into ethan. i looked at him a whole different way. he lied to me, right to my face. i wanted to punch him, yell at him, i was filled with anger. ethan's usually the one calming me down in these types of situations, not triggering them.
"imma take your car to the store, okay e?" i ask. he would get pissed if i took his car without asking. he normally doesn't like me driving it.
"fuck no i'm going with you." he denied. "you suck at driving grayson.." i roll my eyes at him. i toss him the keys and walk to the car outside. ethan follows.
ethan connects his phone to the aux cord. he puts on travis scott and bops his head to the music. i laugh a little and take my phone out to record him. his eyes were on the road, so it took him awhile to notice.
he turns and looks at me, then at my phone and tries to take it away. i start laughing hard and post the video on snapchat. "fuck your gray!" he yells.
sure i was pissed, but he's too much of a dumbass not to laugh at. i hear a ding coming from my phone. it was emma texting me.
"why is emma texting you?" ethan asks. he leans over to see the conversation.
"she's going with us to the store ethan." i assure him. he started to act a little strange.
"yea but why did you bring her, did you ask her first?" he asks. his eyes were still on the road.
i ignore him and continue typing. she asked where i was. i answer back "we're coming".
"grayson!" his voice raises by a ton.
"dude she's your friend, there shouldn't be a problem with me talking to her she's my friend too weirdo..." he was making it way too obvious now. he's very protective of her.
ethan pulls into a parking spot right into the front. emma's subaru was right next to my side of the car. she sees us and puts up a peace sign.
"hey bitches!" she shouts.
"damn you're really fucking five aren't ya?" i respond back. ethan shakes his hand and goes over to her.
his hand goes near hers, then he pulls back. looked like he was about to grab her hand.
when we got into the store, emma grabbed a cart for herself and rode onto it throughout the store. ethan did the same. it was like taking care of two kids.
they both stopped at the produce section. "what the hell do we need her anyways?" ethan asked.
well, i wanted to talk to you're girlfriend about keeping a secret from me, but we 'needed food', i wanted to say.
"oh yea because we need a new phone... why do you think we went to a fucking grocery store e?" i ask him, sarcastically. he looks at me strange and realized i was joking. emma laughs at him.
i tried to push ethan away for the slightest second to talk to emma, which was surprisingly challenging. he was by her at all times.
i ask ethan to grab some almondmilk, and he complained for a minute and finally went over.
"you're boyfriend's crazy..isn't he?" i ask emma. her eyes grew huge.
"what are you talking about?" she asks. i noticed she started avoiding eye contact with me.
"i know you're dating ethan, emma..." i tell her. she looks up at me. "why would you hide it from me?"
at this point i started to loose it. it had really hit me that they hid a relationship from me for a couple of months now.
"i didn- i can explain it all... i swear grayson." she looked upset now. i could see ethan coming from the corner of my eye, so i didn't say much more.
she walked behind ethan, and far from me. i felt some sort of guilt. maybe this is why they hid it from me? because i would act out, or get mad.
——————
next day
i knew ethan would be gone for most of the day, so i started to make plans in my head. he had to get his car tires replaced and some other shit. which is good because i'm always the one doing chores while he's playing fortnite, or now that i know, talking to emma.
emma was my top priority today, i needed to talk to her about yesterday. i think i came off as rude. i couldn't sleep thinking about it. every time i closed my eyes, i thought...and thought about it. what i said and how she reacted. i wish i could go back in time and make sure this never happened.
i asked her if she could come over to talk, surprisingly she agreed. i thought she would decline because ethan wasn't going to be there.
when she came through the door she appeared to look odd. she wasn't all energetic and smiling. the smile was nonexistent.
"hey." she mumbled. it was hard to really hear her. i wanted to crack a joke like usual, but she didn't seem in the mood. i said hey back.
"listen i'm sorry about yesterday," i start. "it's just i don't want you to be labeled like that to me."
"what?" she asked quietly. she sits on the couch, staring at the rug.
"ethan's girlfriend." i say. she looks up. "see?"
"what's you're problem?" she barks. "that shouldn't even matter gray." she tilts her head back, looking at the ceiling above.
"it does matter." she looked like she wasn't even listening to what i was trying to say. it was like a mom talking to a teenager, doesn't give a fuck to what anybody has to say.
"why?" she asks.
"what if i loose you as a friend? you never talk to us again, just leave us." i say.
"that was in the past, other people have left you so you just assume i will do that same." she stops for a few seconds. "i won't gray."
we talked for a long time. i felt like a little kid, it was weird opening up to her about everything on my chest recently. she listened, and understood. she didn't judge me, which is what i would've thought. we are always sarcastic that i just thought we would always be like that. turns out it's not.
and then, we talked about ethan. what i was curious about.
"he was supposed to tell you, by the way," she said. "he promised he would." she scratches the back of her neck, kinda confused.
emma gets up and gets her phone off of the counter. "damn i've been here for awhile." we both laugh a little. then, she looks me into my eyes a way she hasn't before. and honestly, i felt a little uncomfortable. it was a soothing type of stare, but intimidating.
i wanted to say something but, i couldn't. i had to remind myself her label: ethan's.
i felt like now there were boundaries. i couldn't say certain things i wanted to. or joke about certain things.
"i should probably go..if ethan knows i'm here.." she gets up again. "with you, alone... it'll be weird." i nod my head and get up as well.
before she opens the door, she turns around and gives me the same look. i try not to turn red because of how uncomfortable it made me. i don't think she knew what she was doing. she smiles and throws her arms around me. i stand normally and hug her back. we stayed like this for about a minute. i could hear her breathing on my chest.
now here's where it all went wrong. i hear a click on the door and there wasn't enough time to let go. and guess who? ethan grant dolan: emma's boyfriend. he's also my brother, obviously, but saying boyfriend made the situation more dramatic.
"what the fuck.." he says. emma literally jumps and lets her arm off of me. now to ethan, it looked like i called emma over to hang out for a few hours and we hug instead of just saying goodbye. it looked bad on both of our sides. she drove over to me and the hug looked more than friendly, which it didn't mean to be.
i couldn't describe his reaction, he was pissed, confused and nervous. emma looked scared. ethan wasn't a person to mess with when he got heated. i wanted to protect her, but then that'll look even more strange. she stood a little behind me.
she walks over to him, giving him the same hug. she goes onto her toes to kiss him. i admit, i did kinda cringe then.
somehow emma calmed him down and she left right afterwards. which means i was left with him, well obviously.
"where do i start grayson?" he says. he folds his arms and continues, "first of all...why were you guys hugging?"
it hit me: he didn't know what i knew. to him, he thinks that i think emma and ethan are just friends.
"why would it matter...we're all friends." i mock him and fold my arms as well. "and friends are allowed to hang out...last time i checked."
by the look on his face...he knew.
"you can stop lying to me now." i say. now the roles were switched. instead of him being innocent, it was me. he unfolds his arms and finds a comfortable position on the couch. it was the same spot emma had sat in.
"grayson...." ethan starts. he really felt bad now.
both of them didn't know how to respond. i mean i wouldn't either, but i would never lie to my brother about a girl.
he couldn't say the right words. he kept stuttering. i honestly didn't give a fuck now, the damage had already been done. and i told him that. i went through my phone while he struggled to make a grammatically correct sentence.
he probably thinks i'm just jealous, when in reality, i just don't want to ruin our friendship with emma.