Burned 2 (5 page)

Chapter 6

I did not sleep well. I began to suspect that losing sleep was one of the side effects of having a boyfriend. Or maybe it was just Ethan. I had no sufficient data to tell.

When I opened my eyes, Vicky was already in her look-at-me-I-am-the-hottest-gal-in-a-100-mile-radius outfit. She looked so confident and collected. I couldn’t believe she was the same drunk girl with heartbreaking tears washing down her make-up last night. I wondered if, beyond my expectation, there were more people were like that- had it all together on the outside but damaged and torn from the inside.

“Vicky…” I said, sitting up from my bed.

“Rise and shine!” Vicky raised her voice a bit too loudly. “I am heading out before you can say another word,” a thin veil of embarrassment surfaced on her face. She remembered last night and clearly wanted it gone from her memory.

“Okay. Have fun,” I waved at her as she rushed out the door. I was unsettled to let her walked out without talking about her breakdown. She was not fine and I wanted to help. Maybe her issue was beyond my comprehension. I knew so little about dating and boys. Not much I read from the Classic could help the situation. Sometimes I realized I just couldn’t help everyone even if I wanted to-just like my Dad’s illness. I felt so helpless.

The first thing I did was to check my phone for Ethan’s text.

Nothing.

“Still early,” I looked at the 8:15am on the clock. I was still worried about Ethan’s sudden withdrew last night. If he didn’t act so distant like that, I would be all dreamy and excited about my almost-perfect first kiss right now. Vicky’s drunken warning did not help either.

Trying to calm myself down, I went to the student store to start my shift. Several boxes of new books arrived and I had the duty to put them up on the shelf. Sometimes I wished life was simple like this-just pick up the book and put it in the right shelf then everything would be in order. I enjoyed the serenity of this easy task for about two hours until I checked my cell phone again.

Still nothing.

I sighed and pressed on Ethan’s contact. “How are you? I hope your day is going well.” I sent the message. The sentence felt forced and I didn’t know what else to say.

Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed.

“Hey Dana!
I’m good, thank you. Hope you are having a good day, too. I am going out of town with my Dad to meet his clients. Sorry I will be busy. Talk to you soon.”

What the heck was this? I put my phone in the pocket and shove the book into the shelf.  After all the fighting like a perfect duo and kissing like we were on fire last night, Ethan and I should be close like glue now. Instead, we were greeting each other like polite business professionals.

It could be worse, I comforted myself. He could ignore me or just block me away. Maybe he was busy and maybe he was just being nice. Or maybe everything was fine I was just overthinking it. Oh no, this book was upside down. Darn, I just put five books upside down. I shook my head. I needed to stop thinking or I was going to be malfunctioned like a fried thinking machine.

The rest of the weekend went by uneventfully. Everything was so quite as if Saturday night took place in a movie screen and I had exited the cinema and
gone back to the reality.

Reality sucked.

On Monday I got an “I-am-busy,” text from Ethan again. Tuesday was the same.  I was trying to think positively but it was hard to not think that he was avoiding me.

On Wednesday I got no text. Not that I was surprised.
Not at all. I was both mad and sad. I was so close to ask Vicky to take me for a drink after classes. I checked our mail box before getting in the dorm and I saw a small package.

Ethan’s name was on the sender sticker. I opened it at once, almost breaking my finger nail.  A nicely wrapped jewelry box was inside. I unwrapped and opened it. A set of sapphire earrings revealed itself with shiny starlight. Cleary this came from the
same set of the necklace I wore on Saturday. I found a note card attached.

“Thank you for saving my
arse the other night.”

I chuckled despite my bad mood.
“Arse”? Who the heck used that word?

The worse thing was I didn’t even have my ears pierced. Not that Ethan had noticed that during our past four dates together. Why did Ethan take time to buy matching earrings to mail me a package but didn’t want to talk?  I checked on the sender sticker and saw his address. He lived in one of the graduate student apartments on campus just 20 minutes walking distance from my dorm. Ridicules!

I stuffed the small package in my backpack and started to walk toward Ethan’s apartment. I didn’t know what I was doing. He might not even be there. But I wanted to see him. I wanted an explanation.  Or at least I could return him this piece of jewelry I could not wear.

Walking into the apartment’s area, I began to slow down. I was about to go to Ethan’s place unannounced. That didn’t count as stalking, did it? Oh, screw it. I still held the title of his girlfriend. I had rights. Ha, I should go to law school, too.

I found the building with Ethan’s apartment number. It looked like his suite was on the second floor. I climbed up the steps, feeling my feet getting heavier. I didn’t know what he would say when I knocked on the door. He could think I was bat-shit crazy and slam the door.

I walked toward the door. The window was open with the blind down. I heard people talking in the room.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know it’d become like this.” That was Ethan’s voice. He sounded frustrated. 

“It’s
all my fault…” This voice was a bit more distant. I could only make out it was male.

“I don’t know what I should do now.” Ethan sighed.

The room went silent, like everything just got drawn in a deep swamp. I knocked on the door before I went suffocated.

Chapter
7

I heard footsteps coming toward the door. Someone opened it and I saw his blue button-down shirt. I looked up and up some more until my eyes locked with the pair of sapphire eyes. His face was frowning until he registered my image and his frown was replaced by raised eyebrows and a shy smile
appeared on his face. I just realized that I had a gorgeous guy with lustrous brown hair staring down at me, and he was not Ethan. 

“Hello,” the guy said. Oh
my gosh, that voice! It was so deep and ringed harmonic echoes in my ears.

“Hi,” I nodded at him. He was still smiling and I almost forgot why I was there. I peeked into the room and saw the one who made my heart skipped a beat
- Ethan was sitting on the sofa and looking at me with wide eyes like I was some world wonder. Again.

“Dana,” Ethan stood up slowly like I was some Lady and he was losing his manners. He looked struck with his mouth hanged open and no word came out of it. We stared at each other for a long moment. None of us moved.

“Oh, you are Dana?” The guy holding the door broke the silence. “I heard so much about you. I am Blake. Ethan’s bodyguard,” he extended his hand to me for a handshake.

“Really?”
I took his hand and shook it. Blake had this warmth and openness about him. He made me feel at ease.

“I wish,” Ethan chuckled. “He’s my best friend. We grew up together.” Ethan came closer to warp his arm around my shoulder after Blake and I shook hands for a little bit too long.  “But he was going to resign his spot as the best friend, because my lovely girlfriend here is supposed to be my best friend, too, right?”

I watched Ethan with wide eyes and shook my head at Blake. I had no intention to come between them. I knew a bit about the “bromance” stuff between guys. Mom always complained about it every time my Dad went hunting on family holidays. 

“It would be my honor,” Blake beamed at me. He had two dimples when he smiled. He just looked incredibly cute like this. Gee, one hot guy was not enough and I had to handle two in a room? I needed to put myself together.

Speaking of the room, now I saw how tidy and artistically decorated it was. A huge oil painting of a tiger hung on the wall and the furniture was either brown or black. 

“Do you guys live together?” I asked without thinking.

“Oh no!” them said it together.

“I live downstairs,” Blake explained. “So every time Ethan fell off his chair, I could hear this ‘boom!’ sound.”

I giggled at his expression.

“Are you calling me fat?” Ethan hit Blake lightly with his fist.

“Yeah, you are pretty large,” Blake teased.

Ethan snorted and turned to me. “Don’t listen to him. I am by no mean large, Dana,” he smirked. “Except one part…”

My cheek started burning instantly. What the heck were we doing? I came here ready to kick down the door and now Ethan was making me incoherent again.

“You mean your heart, right?” Blake quickly interrupted Ethan and grabbed his shoulder. “A lady like her would love a gentleman with a giant heart.”  

“Yeah, sure,” for some reason Ethan complied. It was not like his style but he seemed to listen to Blake to some extent.

I nodded at Blake with gratitude for sparing me
the embarrassment. He returned that cute smile that made me feel so assured inside.

“So you guys go to law school together?” I asked. Only currently enrolled graduate students can rent apartments in this area.

“Nope,” Blake said with a proud smile. “Ethan will be the evil lawyer. I am going to be a good doctor. I go to the medical school over there,” he pointed toward the school building just a few blocks away. Medical school in our university ranked top 10 in the nation along with the law school. It was also very difficult to get in.

“Right, you are the one who will actually cut people open,” Ethan snorted and made a funny face at Blake. They fought like little children. These two grown up muscular men could be so cute.

“Well, at least you guys are going to have cool jobs,” I shrugged. “I will probably end up sorting books if I can’t work in a museum.”

“You are a history major right?” Blake studied me with curious eyes.

“Yeah.”

“We need historians. It’s a quite meaningful job,” Blake tone was sincere, like he really respects
history of mankind.

“You think?” I had to admit, choosing my major in college was a big decision I made for myself. It was my dream to explore the past and bury myself in archives; even it would not be the field everyone could understand. History was where my passion led, no matter what other people think.  

“Of course,” Blake nodded, his gaze locked on mine. “I think as long as you find joy doing what you do, you can find meanings in everything.”

“Yeah,” I smiled. He just said what I always tried to figure out for life. “I really needed to be reminded of that. Thank you.”

Ethan cleared his throat, squeezed my shoulder a little. His face was leaning closer and closer to my face. Before our first kiss, he was only doing that to tease me. Now we had kissed, my knees just went weak on reflex whenever something triggered that incredible memory. Ethan smelled of fresh mint and chocolate. Maybe he had a sweet tooth. It was mesmerizing all the same. “What brought you here, Dana,” his voice was gentle. He didn’t sound like he did not want me here. But I couldn’t be sure.

“You address was on the package…”I
needed to explain a reason other than something along the line of
I wanted to see if it still felt so good to kiss you the second time.
I didn’t know why I came here, really. I guess it was mainly because Ethan had been acting weird and distant. But seeing both of them here, it looked like everything was fine.

“Ah, you came in the right time. Ethan was just telling me how much he missed you,” Blake said before I could think of a proper answer for Ethan.

Ethan sent Blake a “shut-up” glare and Blake gave Ethan an “I am telling the truth” shrug. Was he telling the truth? I didn’t think they were talking about me before I knocked on the door.

“Well, since you
are here, Dana,” Blake turned to me. “Why don’t we order some take out and just hang out a bit?”

I didn’t except to come here to hang out with two gorgeous graduate students. But Ethan seemed to be excited about the idea. So I set down my backpack and sat down on the couch with them.

Ethan and Blake began to tell me their childhood stories. They argued whose version was more accurate and I couldn’t help but laugh at how funny they acted. As we had our take outs, Blake told us the crazy stories when he and Ethan took a road trip to the beach.

“Beautiful place, though,” Ethan mused, finishing his last piece of orange chicken.
“Wouldn’t mind going there again.”

“Really?
My parents live near the beach, I was thinking about visiting them soon,” I said. If Ethan liked the beach, he could come with me. I already met his parents, he could certainly meet mine. I bet Dad would be really happy to see him.

“Oh?” Ethan’s eyes grew a bit wider, like he just realized that he could be meeting my parents too.

“You can join me, Ethan,” I nuzzled him. “We can go this weekend,” I was excited about the idea already, imagining Dad smiling with approval when I took my handsome boyfriend home.

“This weekend, err…” Ethan folded his arms across his chest. Clearly he was not comfortable about the idea. The atmosphere in the room suddenly dropped. I was disappointed. Dad would be disappointed. Sadness overwhelmed my chest. I had trouble breathing as I waited for whatever reason Ethan was trying to come up with to avoid the trip.

“He’s free, Dana,” Blake finished Ethan’s sentence. Ethan immediately gave him the glare of death. Blake just chuckled. “Whatever stuff you have, it can’t be more important than going to the beach with your girlfriend, right?” Blake gave me a nod, signal me to keep pushing.

“Yeah, it would be fun,” I nuzzled Ethan again. I was more desperate than I thought. I didn’t really care about the beach. But I really wanted my Dad to see Ethan. I didn’t want to miss the chance as time was running out. I knew it might not be fair to Ethan if he was not ready. But I was so conflicted. I just hoped Ethen didn’t see the anxiousness in my eyes.

“Okay,” Ethan gave me a weak smile. “It would be fun.”

“Yay,” I cheered and kissed him. My reaction came so natural
ly that I didn’t even realized what I was doing until our lips touched and electric waves sent all over my body. Ethan kissed me back as his hand came up to my back to hold me closer. Not wanting to embarrass myself in front of Ethan’s friend, I pulled back and Ethan followed as we drifted as one until I leaned back to the couch. If Blake wasn’t around, we might be tearing each other’s clothes off.

Blake looked away politely with an amused smile. “No worries Dana. I will make sure Ethan behaves like a perfect gentlema
n before he enters your parents’ house this weekend.”

“Thanks,” I said, still panting from the kiss. I couldn’t thank Blake enough. He really helped me big time today. 
There was a small question mark that rose in the back of my head about why Blake was so nice to me. But soon that question was pushed away by my excitement of Ethan meeting my parents soon.