Still Just Friends

04 ♚ Don't Go

Chapter Four, "Don't Go"

Circus Girl – Mindy Gledhill

 

 

Spencer's POV

 

 

It was still dark when I opened my eyes.

I shifted in the bed and kept blinking until the blackness that ate up my room threw up some of the light and the figures were faintly recognizable.

Ethan was staring back at me.

I moved backwards so I could reclaim my limbs that were tangled up in his. He pouted of course.

 "How long have you been watching me sleep?" I asked.

His shoulders almost reached his chin. "For years."

I could tell he had been up for a while. His voice didn't sound like a frog had lodged itself at the back of his throat. "That gets less creepy every time you say it," I commented, sounding like one was stuck in mine. "But it's still pretty psycho, stalker-ish."

He laughed. The alcohol on his breath – that was, well, intoxicating last night had soured. I wrinkled my nose. "I have an unopened toothbrush in the bathroom."

"You like my morning breath," he said with a snort, but he still got up.

As he threw the covers off of him, I noticed that he was just in his striped red and blue underwear with stars on the butt. How patriotic.

I didn't know when he took off more of his clothes, or if he originally did, but the sight of an unclothed Ethan standing before me with just an American Flag pair of underwear on made me want to sing the National Anthem. He stalked over to the bathroom, yawning out what sleep was left in him and traveling inside, leaving the door open.

A few moments, I heard the rustling of him fighting with the curtains and yelping when he most likely turned on the cold water instead of the hot one.

I looked back over at the clock. 3:am. I realized that at some point between our drunken talk last night, Ethan must've set it for 3. Because he was leaving. Right.

That was enough for me to completely deflate. I was sober again.

I may not act like it. It may not seem like it, but I think I wanted Ethan more than he wanted me. I felt it in my bones; they quaked. Under my skin; it burned.

But I don't think I can go through what we went through all those years ago again. There are no words in this language or any other to describe the pain that I felt. It was a volcanic eruption of bad, bad emotions.

And everyone under God's bright sun told me that it would get better and that it only stung so badly because I was young and that I'd learn to deal with this sort of thing as I grew older. As if age was some sort of magical absorbent for pain; like some emotional Bounty paper towel.

I think those people were wrong.

One of the biggest myths that I know of is that teenagers are dramatic and over exaggerate their feelings. That they're all Romeos & Juliets. The ultimate teen love story built on the exaggeration of young love. 

That the love they feel is this plastic thing based on movies and deeply ingrained notions of what romance is supposed to be.

 But that's bullshit. Because nothing has simmered. I still felt the sun in my chest when Ethan laughed. I still saw the Milky Way in his eyes – Neptune rotating in his smile. All hyperbole. All the time. What I felt as a teen was real. As real as it was now.