Emma
Three Years Later
I dropped my bag and my keys onto the kitchen counter, disrupting the silence that lurked throughout the house.
Ethan and I had our own place now, we had bought it only a few months ago.
It wasn't small, nor was it big.
It was just a house. Perfect in size.
It had feather grey siding decorating the outside that was complimented by an off-white, eggshell painted door.
It was a two bedroom, one bathroom house.
One master bedroom that Ethan and I stayed in and one guest bedroom for whenever friends decided to stay the night.
It had a beautiful kitchen and a cozy living room, as well as a modern dining room that had a table with just the right amount of chairs.
Shaggy, tan carpet floored the living room and the two bedrooms, while a dark hardwood floor spread through the hallway and the other rooms.
The bathroom floor was tiled with a marbled white and grey mixture, adding to the ivory walls.
It was two towns over from where our families lived, so not too far away, but just enough to have a little distance.
Distance was good.
"I'm home!" I called out into the seemingly empty house.
Ethan's Mom now had a house to herself, considering all of her kids now had their own places.
But every Friday night she invited everyone over for dinner and games to 'keep' the family together as she would put it.
I didn't mind, I loved being able to get closer to Cameron and get to check in with Grayson more often.
Lisa was happier without Sean around.
And even though it had been three years since their divorce, she hadn't dated around at all or been interested in anyone.
When I asked her about it, she had told me that she wasn't looking for another relationship, that she didn't need one when she had her kids.
She told me she was at peace having the whole house to herself.
And she had begun taking painting classes, as well as becoming a real green thumb when she turned almost her whole backyard into a garden full of different vegetables and flowers.
Even as her hair grew a little grey, she became less and less stressed throughout the years.
She loved it when I would go visit her, always saying that she now considered me her other daughter next to Cameron.
I considered her my Mom in a way.
She would always be there for me whenever I needed motherly advice or just as girl's day out at the spa or wherever.
Her smile never failed to cheer me up whenever I was feeling down.
She would tease me about wanting grandkids soon too, which always made me laugh.
If she only had known all those years ago.
She didn't though, and I wanted it to stay that way.
She didn't deserve to have to add that ripple into her now calm stream of life.
She deserved peace and happiness.
And that's what she had.
"Did you pick it up from the store?" Ethan's roughly yelled from our bedroom and I smiled at the tiredness lacing through his voice, since it was earlier in the morning.
Grayson had broken up with James like he said he would.
And James didn't take it too well at first, screaming at Grayson that he was fucked up to have used James like his own personal experiment.
But Grayson had explained to him that he was just figuring himself out and that it wasn't his fault that James had practically made him fall in love with him.
James was hurt.
It took him awhile to get over it, his pain not leaving room for any makeup or cute clothes for a few months.
But eventually he was back to his bubbly self and he found a new friend group, which was for the best in the end.
It would've been awkward for him to be around Grayson and he never really did click with Ethan.
So for him to just stick around for me, would've been a lot to ask and could've rose some unwanted drama in our friend group.
He'll always hold a special place in my highschool heart, but not in any other years of my life.
Grayson however, will hopefully always be a part of my life, considering he's one of my best friend's and I'm already having thoughts about marrying his twin brother.
Grayson also had figured out his feelings finally, deciding that he was completely straight.
And that decision was sealed our Senior year when a girl named Olivia had moved into town.
Grayson had immediately fallen head over heels for the brunette girl and despite every stupid flirting attempt he made, she decided to give him a chance.
They've been together ever since and are practically inseperable.
In fact, Grayson already proposed to her just a month ago.
She said yes.
Olivia made Grayson's true self shine and it was beautiful to see how deeply they connected.
I loved Grayson, he would always be like the big brother I never had.
"Yeah and I got lucky, they only had one left!" I shouted back to Ethan, bending down to pet Turtle, our cat we had adopted.
Hannah and Ellie had slowly grown distant with me throughout the end of our Sophmore year and the whole Junior year.
I didn't mind too much though.
I knew we were never the best of friends even if we always acted like it.
They were always better friends with each other.
I was like a third wheel to their friendship, only clinging on because I had nobody else at the time and they would let me.
But I knew it would never last.
And it didn't.
Once Grayson had started to gush about Olivia, the new girl in town, I had wanted to meet her.
So at lunch one day I had gone up to her and introduced myself.
It then only took two days of talking before we were spending the night at each other's houses almost every night and hanging out every second we were able.
We got super close.
And it felt nice to finally have an honest, funny, loyal girl bestfriend for once.
Then Amanda showed up.
She had switched over to our school in the middle of the year and stuck to Olivia and I like glue ever since we first invited her to go to the roller rink with us.
She joined our friendship and instead of third wheeling it like I had with Hannah and Ellie, she became the third bestfriend in the group.
So it gradually turned into the three of us always hanging out.
We would pull all nighters together, go grocery shopping together, build stupid forts together, fall on our asses and laugh as we tried to ice-skate together, etc.
We went through hard times together too.
And nobody ever got left out or forgotten about.
We became genuine bestfriends.
And I knew it would last.
And it has.
"Hurry up and take it! I wanna know!" Ethan yelled back and I rolled my eyes, laughing as I stood up and walked towards the hallway.
Ethan was healed.
Fully.
There wasn't a single bruise left on his body from his father, only a few scars that I made sure to press gentle kisses to every time I saw them.
They weren't ugly scars and Ethan understood that now, they showed how brave he was to push through that hard spot in his life.
His hands would no longer shake with nerves at the mention of Sean.
He no longer felt insecure about wearing his glasses or admitting that he liked his hair to be played with.
His brotherly bond with Grayson was fixed fully.
They were always hanging out now.
They became each other's other halves again.
Ethan had found a better friend group as well, getting a grip on how toxic Jake and his old friends were.
His new friend group consisted of guys he never even noticed until senior year, mostly because he was always hanging out with Grayson and I.
The group was; Bryant, Juanpa, Austin, Vince, Noah and Billy.
And they were Ethan's best friends.
I padded softly through the hallway, the cold wood of the floor soothing my nerves.
Sean was gone.
Completely gone.
After serving his deserved amount of time in prison and paying a fine, he had gotten off the hook.
Although he wasn't pleased to find out the Lisa had filed both a divorce and a restraining order against him, he hadn't tried to do anything about it.
He just collected his things that Lisa had left behind in the rubble of their old house and then booked it to another state.
Or country for all we know.
He left without speaking a word of where he was going.
Not that anyone cared.
Well, Cameron did a little.
She was always more of a daddy's girl, so it had effected her the most when she came to visit and heard the news.
For the whole week that she had visited it had been rough, nobody daring to even speak Sean's name in fear of upsetting Cameron.
At first she refused to believe that her own Dad had done such a thing, telling everyone to 'fuck off with that bullshit'.
At one point Ethan got fed up with her stage of denial and yanked his shirt off right in the middle of the dining room, displaying all of his scars and fading bruises for her like he was showing off an artifact at a museum.
Cameron had held her hand over mouth as tears welled up in her eyes, a silent apology spilling from her lips as she let out a sob.
Lisa had defended her daughter, telling her that it was okay, she was only going through denial.
By the last day of Cameron's visit she had been fine, acting as if nothing bad had ever happened.
Which was good.
But it also worried us all, knowing how much she had loved Sean.
In fact, Lisa said that after that week she thinks Cameron found out where Sean slipped away to and goes to visit him normally.
When we asked Cameron about it though she had freaked out and denied it.
We all just brushed it off after that.
She was a grown woman, she could do whatever she wanted to.
If she wanted to still have a connection to her Dad then so be it.
Whatever's good for her.
My fingers wrapped around the door handle that belonged to the door of the bathroom and I pulled it open, not bothering to close it as I lifted the toilet lid up shakily.
My Dad quit drinking.
I hadn't been home much because I thought he still was at the time. I was just staying at Ethan's place mostly.
But then one day I came home to do my laundry and he had ran into the laundry room with wide eyes, causing me to be confused.
But I'll never forget the way his face lit up as he proudly told me that on that very day he was officially one year sober.
I had hugged him.
For a long time.
Just me and my Dad, arms tightly wrapped around each other as we basked in both happiness and sadness.
Happy that his drunken gloom was over.
Sad that the bad memories of him being blinded by the alcohol and beating up on me had resurfaced.
But it was all over. Finally.
I had stayed home more often after that day and slowly but surely, my Dad and I became a happy family again.
Of two.
I actually started pushing him to go out and start dating now that I have a house of my own and he's living alone.
And after going through three dating apps, a variety of profile pictures, and an assortment of perfect matches that turned out to be bots all along; we finally found the one.
It was a simpler, smaller dating app that not many people used, but it was working for my Dad.
So far he has already gone on not one, but two dates with a bubbly woman named Christina.
Her bubbly personality can get a little much at times but it's for the best, considering her chipper mood is what brings up my Dad's boring decisions.
And she's super nice to me as well.
So that's a bonus.
My Dad also still makes crude jokes about Ethan and I's sex life whenever he sees us so that's embarrassing.
But I'm glad he's back to his good old, normal self.
And that he truly feels like my Dad again.
I peeled open the box and pulled out the device, shuffling my pants down my legs before sitting down on the toilet with a nervous inhale of air.
I was healed.
I no longer felt Cameron's calloused hands invading my body.
I felt Ethan's soft ones tracing soft circles into my skin.
I no longer heard Cameron's rough voice.
Only Ethan's, his smooth and deep voice making me feel calm and making me laugh.
Cameron was a distant memory, tucked in the way back of my mind, never to be brought out again.
And the death of my baby that was caused by him, was a long forgotten memory as well.
As the scarring from the horrific experience faded, so did my willingness to remember it.
Of course a tiny piece of my heart would always belong to the unborn child, being that half of that child's dna belonged to the love of my life.
Ethan had decided to forget about it too, or at least that's what he would tell me.
But every once in awhile I knew he was thinking about it by his subtle actions.
How when we would lay on the couch together or in bed and his fingertips would sometimes make their way to my stomach, just tracing a random pattern around.
Or how sometimes when we made love, he would pause and lean down to press a gentle kiss to my lower abdomen, no matter how rough we were going at it.
And it warmed my heart, filling it to the brim with love for him.
Most of the scars from when Ethan had used me as a personal punching bag in both Freshmen and Sophomore year were gone too.
The only one that stayed was a small "L" shaped silvery scar from when he had slammed my locker door shut on my shin a few days into Freshmen year.
It made me smile every time I looked at it now though.
Because against Ethan's protests of it being a "bad reminder of our past", I had gotten the letters; o, v, and e tattooed right next to the scar.
So now it said "Love".
And it meant something much more than just a brutal reminder of how we came to be.
It meant what it now said.
Love.
And I am truly and utterly in love with Ethan.
"What'd it say?!" Ethan's voice appeared in the doorway, his hair a mess from just waking up. My eyes glanced at the device that was processing the results in my hand, then up to Ethan's warm brown eyes, then back down again.
Ethan and I were two of the closest people you would ever meet.
After five years of knowing each other, in good ways and bad ways, we knew almost everything about one another.
Ethan knew how I loved to wear his extremely large hoodies and preferred them over any other top.
I knew how Ethan was now dairy free yet I was the only one to know that he still sometimes ate pancake flavored ice cream.
Ethan knew how much I had grown a liking to plums and continued to buy me a new bag of them every week.
I knew that whenever Ethan was in a bad mood it was either because he thought I was mad at him or he had been made fun of by Grayson for looking like a turtle (very sensitive topic for him).
Ethan knew that whenever we were laying together I loved how he would start to kiss my neck if he got bored of the show we were watching.
I knew how even though Ethan loved being the big spoon, he occasionally wanted to just be held and be the little spoon for a night.
Ethan knew how much I enjoyed going to the beach with him.
Etc.
I knew just how much Ethan loved me.
And Ethan knew just how much I loved him.
Everyone could clearly tell we were in love.
Grayson would always make a disgusted face at us whenever we would share a quick kiss and then proceed to tell us we were "too love sick".
It would always make me laugh and Ethan would just roll his eyes, wrapping his arms around me as if he was protecting me from the world.
But he couldn't protect me from the world.
I didn't want to be protected from the world.
Because Ethan was my world.
And I knew I couldn't live without him after the moment I had tasted only one drop of what it felt like to be around the real Ethan.
And even after all the heaping Alps of trouble, heartbreak, and sadness we had gone through...
I knew we would be all right in the end.
Because we loved each other.
"I-it's positive. It's positive!" I screamed and Ethan's lips spread into the widest grin I had ever seen across his face as I jumped into his arms, feeling tears of happiness begin to soak the shoulder of my shirt.
We loved each other.