Chapter 15 - Ethan and MarnieRae

The world was spinning around me, my life was crushing me under it’s tight grasp, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry so hard so that my heart would burst, but I couldn’t do that. I wanted to just stop time so that I wouldn’t be so scared all the time, so that I would stop shaking so much, but I could only imagine. I kept shaking, ever since I got into the taxi cab to go to the airport, all the way back to Fairbanks. Now that I had arrived, I quickly ran outside, my eyes wide with fear. I shook as I looked around, paranoid that my father was around here, waiting for me, watching me, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I ran across the street, nearly getting hit by a bus but I didn’t care. I ran to the long term parking, running faster than I ever have before and fumbled with the keys in my back pocket. I dropped them multiple times and cried because I couldn’t grab them, but then someone gripped my shoulders and pulled me up, and I let out a scream.

“No!” I squeal out with my eyes closed and tears flowing down my cheeks. I struggle in the man’s arms, but the man is holding me close to his chest. “Let me go, please, please…” I trail off and slump against the person. I shouldn’t have given up this quickly, but the grip on me was too tight and I was too exhausted, both mentally and physically. The man strokes my hair and holds me close to him, making me bury my face into his chest.

“Marnie…” a familiar British accent says softly into my ear as he brushes my hair behind my ear. “Calm down, it’s me; it’s me, Marnie. It’s Ethan.”

Slowly, I choke my sobs back and look up at Ethan. He’s looking down at me with a worried expression on his face. Sniffling and glad that he’s here, I start to cry again and bury my face into his chest, my hands pulled up to my face to cover my eyes so that I don’t wet his shirt. I hear murmuring around me that sounds British, and know that the others are here too.

When I finally run out of tears and just stand there whimpering, Ethan pulls me away and looks down at me again. He brushes my hair to the side, away from the tear stains and makes sure that no hair is touching my face. He  then proceeds to cup my cheeks in his hands. “Marnie, what happened?”

I whimper again and bite my lip hard, and even my lips are shaking. I’m shaking all over as if I’m standing outside in the dead of night in the winter here with no jacket. I don’t say anything for a long moment, but then I find my voice and whisper, “H-He killed them.” I whimper and flinch at saying this aloud.

“Marnie, what are you talking about? Who killed them?” Ethan said softly with the shake of his head. I closed my eyes tight and shook my head, tears threatening to spill from my eyes. I couldn’t say it, not aloud. I couldn’t speak, not when I was so scared that he was watching, that he could do anything at this moment to kill me. Even though he had killed my mother and my sister the same way, I wasn’t sure whether he had killed Trey the same way, so I wasn’t confident that he would kill me the same way. I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. All I wanted to do was go home and curl up, to feel safe in my comfortable bed. But now, even that wasn’t feeling safe to me. I had no safe haven. He could find me anywhere.

I shook my head and started to shake again. Bending down, I picked up the keys from the concrete and fumbled with the lock on my car. I had to get out of here before my dad found me, and tried to kill me. Or worse, all of us. I couldn’t let them get killed because they were around me. I couldn’t let anyone get killed because they were simply around me.

“Marnie, calm down, please.” Jessie said softly as she tried to take my arm. I shoved her off, my eyes wide. She looked shocked, and William came up to stand next to her, looking at me with the same expression. He made sure that Jessie was okay before looking back at me.

I shook my head, not even apologizing. I finally unlocked the car door, but Ethan came over and put his hand on the door so that I couldn’t get it open. Did he want me to die? That wasn’t right. No, he couldn’t want me to die. He was Ethan, my boyfriend, my fantastic boyfriend who only cared about if I was okay, who said I was the strongest and beautiful person he had met, who said that he would love me forever, and that he had never met anyone like me before. He was Ethan, the person that I loved and trusted the most, even when compared to Jessie or even Lucian.

“Marnie, calm down.” he says softly. I don’t say anything, but I still shake with fright. He glanced behind me, but I didn’t look back, no matter what. Then I started to think that maybe a stranger was walking by and getting his attention, or maybe it was my father that he had never seen before, so I turned around with wide, wild eyes. I searched the parking lot like a wild animal that was running from a predator, and really, that’s what I was right now. This was some sick game to my dad, and I was the prey. Everyone close to me was the prey to him.

“Let Lucian drive you home, all right?” he said softly. I slowly nodded, agreeing reluctantly, and he pulled me into his chest. He took the keys from me, and Lucian jogged over to take them from him. Not letting go of me, and not letting go of him, he pulled me into the back seat of the car with him, and after a while, the car was started and Jessie was getting into the seat next to me. It was just us in the car, which was all that I needed. These three people were the ones that I trusted the most, and the only ones that I really wanted to be around at the moment.

The car ride was agonizing. We didn’t get home until about two hours later, because I made Lucian make multiple turns around town to make sure that no one was following us. I looked around at every car, I made a note of every detail. I wanted to be extra careful, so no one got hurt. Jessie’s phone rang multiple times because of William, and every time it rang I squealed and started to shake and freak out. Ethan had to hold me close so that I would calm down, but every time he held me I freaked out even more. Eventually I would calm down, and eventually Jessie just asked William to text her. I felt bad that they couldn’t talk verbally, but my paranoia was getting to me to the point where I almost didn’t want to go home.

When we got home, William was pacing the front yard of our house. Ed was trying to calm down, but when our car drove down the road, they went to the end of the driveway and walked with the slow moving car to the house. Jessie and Ethan had to coax me out of the car, which took about a minute or two. I was still shaking, and looked around for any suspicious behavior.

“Marnie, Marnie look at me.” Jessie said, grabbing my face gently and making me look at her. She looked into my eyes seriously. “Do you still have your pills?”

I shook, not answering her for a long moment. God, not the pills. I hated the pills. Once upon a time ago, when my mother had been murdered, I had gone into a frenzy, I hid inside my body and ended up the same way as I was acting now. I had paranoia, and was like a wild animal, afraid of being hunted down. Trey, since he took care of me with my sister, took me to the hospital and got me checked out, and I had been dubbed with Paranoia. The doctors gave me pills, and Trey had to force me to take them. They were terrible, they made me drowzy and sent me off to a place that I hated, and I would be out of it for a day before being perfectly fine. I had to take them on a daily basis until I was perfectly fine, and I vowed never to go into a paranoid state ever again, but it wasn’t really preventable, was it? I tried my best to get rid of them, by throwing them away and burning them, doing whatever I could so that I didn’t have to take them if I ever ended up this way again, like now.

“N-No.” I whimpered. “Not the pills.”

Jessie sighed and looked over at Lucian, who looked at me and led me towards the door. “Come on, let’s get you to bed.”

Ethan’s arms were still around me as the three of them led me to the house. I started to protest going into the house, but Ethan calmed me down by whispering soothing things into my ear. I faintly heard Jessie tell the others to give me some time on my own, and they all mumbled agreements. The doors behind me closed, and I started freaking out again because of the darkness. Ethan quickly turned the lights on, but I was afraid to go upstairs, because he could be waiting up there. The monster could be anywhere, watching and waiting. Squealing and whimpering, I sat down on the floor and pulled my legs up to my chest. I closed my eyes and cried some more.

“I’m going to check the house, all right?” Ethan said as he bent down in front of me. Understanding this, I nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Just as he was standing up, I grabbed his arm, making him look back at me. I looked at him, frightened. “Be careful, please.” I whispered. He gave a curt nod and then stood up, disappearing through the house. Soon the house lit up with all the lights turning on, and in a few minutes he was back and picked me up. I clung to his shirt, looking around the house as he walked up the house. The only reason why I was being calm was because Ethan was whispering soothing words into my ear, and the sound of his voice, I realized, was like my safe haven.

Ethan proceeds to take me to my room, and sets me down on my bed. He closes the door and locks it, and checks the room for me, but there really was no place to check. He checked the closet and under the bed, and that was the only places to check. He also looked out the window, checking the back yard. He shook his head, telling me that there was nothing. Then he comes over and sits down with me, and he opens his arms for me to go into. I gladly go into his arms, and curl my body into him. His strong arms wrap around me, holding me close. I close my eyes while he strokes my hair.

Everything is quiet. Too quiet for my taste. I was calm now, very calm, but I was still a bit paranoid. I wasn’t going to be able to come out of that state now, not since I know that my dad is after me, not that I know I’m next, and that I wasn’t safe anymore. No one was safe around me, not as long as either my dad or myself was still alive. He wasn’t going to stop until he got to me, or until something happened to him. This was going to end one way or the other, as sad as it was to admit that.

“It’s too quiet.” I said while opening my eyes.

Ethan kissed the top of my head, sending a small tingle down my spine that made me shiver slightly. “Do you want to talk about something?” he asks softly.

I shrug and then look up into his blue eyes. I was about to say something, but then I notice that his eyes are no longer the dull bull that I had grown to love, no matter how odd they were. They were now a sparkling brown, like melted chocolate. My mouth hung open at the transformation, and I wondered what had happened. Slowly, I pull away from him, and stare into his eyes with confusion. He looks at me worried, his brow furrowed. No longer wearing his hat, his black hair was ruffled and his eyes were brown. It made him look more like Zayn Malik, the singer from One Direction. It was odd, very odd.

“What’s wrong, Marnie?” he asks softly.

I shake my head, not taking my eyes off of him. “Nothing, nothing.” I then pause. “Your eyes, they’re brown.”

Ethan’s eyes were wide when I said that. I didn’t say anything else, just waited for him to answer me, or to say something else. I wanted to know why his eyes were brown, and not the dull blue that I was used to. Then I realized that the blue were contacts, and that the brown was his natural eye color. He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would wear colored contacts, however. I never would have guessed until now that the blue was contacts.

“They’re contacts.” I answered for him. He slowly nodded, and I continued to stare into his eyes that reminded me of chocolate. “How come you never told me?”

He shrugs, and rubs the back of his neck nervously. I don’t know why he’s nervous, is he hiding something else? He couldn’t be, we tell each other everything. Or, we were supposed to. We were dating, so why wouldn’t we tell each other everything? I told him everything, even about my past, and that was only the second day that we had met that I told him.

“It never came up,” he said softly.

I run a hand through my hair. I was feeling paranoid, and now I just found out that he was hiding something from me. Well, not exactly hiding, but we’ve been dating for a couple months now. I’m pretty sure that something such as a different eye color or appearance would come up. He should have told me. I’ve told him everything, and he was still keeping things from me.

“Are you hiding anything else from me?” I snapped, sitting a few feet away from him. The thoughts of my father watching me were gone now, though I was still paranoid, and because of that reason, I was being a bitch to my closest friends, even my boyfriend. I shouldn’t have said that, and I knew that it was wrong, so immediately I flinched and closed my eyes, looking away. “I’m sorry. I just…” I didn’t know what to say to him. I was scared that he was going to leave me now because of the paranoia problem. I didn’t want him to leave me, I didn’t want my safe haven to leave, because then I’ll crumble.

“Hey,” Ethan said softly, pulling me closer to him. I looked up at him with wide eyes, scared that he was going to leave me still. Then his thumbs brushed across my cheeks gently, and I knew that he didn’t intend on leaving me, no matter what I did. He leaned closer to me until our foreheads were touching. “You’re stressed, I get that. I don’t blame you for yelling at me, or snapping at me. I just want you to feel better. Alright?” he asked me softly.

I let a tear slip. “I don’t know how to feel better. Everything is going wrong, Ethan. I’m so scared that he’s going to show up here and hurt everyone that I know and love. He killed my mom and sister and Trey, and he’s after me next. I know it. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.” I closed my eyes. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Ethan.”

His hands were still on my cheeks. He pulled away slightly, making me open my eyes. I didn’t want to lose contact with him, I wanted to feel his touch, always. I wanted to be with him, and right now I needed him because he was the only thing that was keeping me from doing anything stupid.

“I promise you that you will never cause me to get hurt, and that I’ll always be there for you, whenever you need me. I will do anything for you. All you have to do is say the word, and I will do it.” he kissed my forehead, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. He lingered at my lips. “Just say the word.” he whispered.

Instead of saying a word, I acted on impulse and wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close and kissing him with my eyes closed tight. He immediately put his arms around me, and the impact of his body pushed me back onto the bed. I didn’t care though. Our legs tangled together, and soon we were making out passionately. His hands roamed my body, up and down my sides his hands went. My hands went to his hair and tangled there, ruffling it even more so than it already was. He moved his lips down to my neck, where he pushed my hair away with his hand and then put his hand back on my lower waist. He kissed my neck, up and down, making my breath hitch and forcing me to bite my lip. I closed my eyes and let myself go, letting him do whatever he wanted. I wanted this, wherever this was leading. I had a general idea, but I didn’t care. I was old enough to make adult decisions, and I was sure that this wasn’t going to be one that I was going to regret later in life.

Then his lips brushed over the soft, sensitive part at the base of my neck, and I gasped. Without thinking, I moaned out and he let out a breathy sigh against my neck that sent goosebumps down my arms and chills down my spine. I closed my eyes as he kissed the spot over and over again, then nibbled on it lightly. I knew that I was going to have a hickey there later, and that he was going to mark me as his to show everyone that I was only his. I didn’t stop him, because I was his, and I wanted everyone to know that.

I didn’t realize that Ethan had my shirt grasped tightly in his fists until he pulled it up over my head and started to kiss my bare shoulders. I was still in my bra and sweats, and I wasn’t ashamed of my body, so I wasn’t going to cringe away from him and try to cover up because of it. It was just a body, and I wasn’t afraid of him seeing it. He was my boyfriend, and he was going to see it sometime anyway. I let him continue while I grinned and bit my lip. I was so distracted that I couldn’t even remember what I had been so upset over earlier. I tried to think about what it was, but then Ethan’s kisses sent a sensation through me that I didn’t know I could feel, letting me release a moan without my permission. I giggled at the way that I was acting, and soon he trailed his kisses back up my neck until we were kissing again.

Without thinking, and in the heat of the moment. I gripped the bottom of his shirt gently, and then all at once I lifted it over his head and threw the shirt onto the floor. I opened my eyes when he stopped kissing me, and I became confused as to why he had stopped. I furrowed my brow as I stared up at his horrified expression, and grabbed his face in my hands. He wasn’t the one that was self-conscious about his body image, was he? Looking over his body, I could see that hard six pack that I could imagine him having, and the tanned skin that was smooth and glistened in the strip of sunlight shining into the room.

Then I got a good look at his tattoo’s, and I knew what he had been horrified and worried about.

Immediately I push him away and get up, not bothering to grab my shirt to put it back on. I stared at him with my wide eyes, and he stared at me back with the same expression, except he didn’t look as if he were breathing. He was staring at me, as if he were a deer caught in the sight of a car's headlights. I scanned his body, looking at every single tattoo, from the ZAP! tattoo to the gun on his left hip, partially hidden by his pants. I looked back into his eyes, and I knew, I knew that this whole thing had been a lie.

“Marnie,” he said softly, carefully as he put a hand up as if to reach for me. He stood up, staring down at me. “I can explain-”

I took a step away from him and grabbed my shirt. “Get out.” I said through gritted teeth. “Get out, right now.”

He dropped his hands, and looked at me with sadness in his eyes. He shook his head, and took another step towards me while I put my shirt on. I took a few more steps back. “Marnie please, listen to me.”

“I SAID GET OUT!” I screamed, making him flinch. “Get out, get out, get out!” my voice became higher pitched the more that I yelled at him. Without thinking, I grabbed a vase that was holding of dead roses on my dresser in his direction, and he ducked, causing it to shatter on the wall behind him. He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on then looked at me with a tear straying from his eyes and falling down his cheek.

“Just let me explain!” he said, his voice raising a bit in desperation. “Please, Marnie, I need you to listen to me!”

I screamed and stomped my foot, which made Ethan jump. “GET OUT!”

Finally, without saying another word, Ethan ran out, and I closed the door behind him, locking it so that he couldn’t get back in if he changed his mind about coming inside. I slid down the door and started to cry then, all the lies catching up to me. It wasn’t the fact that he had been a famous singer, the guy that I had been crushing on for some time now, but the fact that he lied to me since the day that we met, letting me fall in love with some fictional person, and never telling me until we were about to have sex of who he really was hurt me. It hurt me bad. I felt like my heart was breaking into a million pieces, and that it was being put back together, only to be broken again. I felt this over and over again, and the tears wouldn’t stop coming this time. This type of betrayal, this type of pain wasn’t like the one that I felt during my mother’s murder, or when I found out about my father killing my sister and Trey. It was worse than that; much worse. Just the fact that he had let me fall in love with him without telling me for months who he was, and he let me fall in love without saying a word, made me realize what a fool I realize was, what a fool he had made out of me. That they all made out of me. I couldn’t believe it, and I was broken beyond repair. Ethan and I were over. The funny thing was that Ethan didn’t even exist. Ethan had been a figment of my imagination, a character created to steal my heart away from me, only to disappear and never bring it back. Ethan had been the love of my life, and it felt like he had died, and my heart died with him. Everyone around me was dying, and I was slowly dying myself. I only felt peace with the fact that I wasn’t the only one who suffered from this, but Lucian and Jessie were right there with me. They had played us, and I knew that neither three of us were going to accept that.

The worst part is that I had known from the beginning who he was, yet Jessie had contradicted me and convinced me that I had been wrong, yet all along there had been hints that I was right. I had been right the entire time.

Downstairs, I heard the door slam close, and then someone running up the stairs. I hoped that it wasn’t Ethan, or Zayn, or whatever the hell his name was, but then the doorknob rattled and then someone knocked on the door.

“Marnie? Marnie it’s Jessie. Please, open the door.” her soft yet frantic voice said behind the door.

I didn’t move from my spot against the door. I sniffled and wiped my eyes, but that didn’t do any good because the tears kept flowing. “Do you know what happened, Jessie? Do you know what that fucking bastard did to me?” I ask her, spitting out the fowl cuss words.

Jessie didn’t say anything for a long moment, which confused me. I furrowed my brow and looked at the door, wondering if she had already left. I thought about it for a moment, and realized that she wouldn’t have left already. I would have heard her leave. She was still there, though she wasn’t answering me. Why wasn’t she answering me? Did she not hear me? If she didn’t hear me though, she would have asked me again if I was okay. Why was she silent? It’s not like she knew what he did already. There was no way.

Unless she had always known.

But that made no sense. Jessie had been the one to tell me from the beginning that Zayn wasn’t Zayn, that he was Ethan. She had been the one to tell me that the boys were just boys, and no one special, no one famous. She had been the one to convince me that my suspicions were wrong, and that I was over reacting. But I actually wasn’t over reacting. I had been right.

“Jessie, did you know about them?” I find myself asking without thinking.

Again, I didn’t get a response. I started to get angry, so I dig my nails into my exposed calves, almost drawing blood, but I didn’t care. It got rid of the anger that usually swelled up inside of me. It was better than trashing my room and hurting myself worse than just a scratch.

“Answer me, Jessie.” I growled out through my tears.

“Marnie I’m so sorry.” she said softly, and I knew that she was on the verge of tears herself. I didn’t care though. For once, I didn’t care that she was about to cry. This was big, she had kept secrets from me; my own best friend whom I live with kept secrets from me. This was a pretty big secret too. This wasn’t something I don’t think that I could get over. I don’t think that I could ever recover from this. “I wanted to tell you-”

“Does Lucian know too?” I start to breathe heavily, my anger getting to me. This time, I do draw blood, but I don’t even wince as the blood falls down my hand and drips tiny drops onto the hardwood flooring beneath me. “Does Lucian know?!” I yell.

“We wanted to tell you,” she says quietly through a gasp, and I knew that she was crying now. “I was going to tell you after I found out, but Louis and Zayn… They convinced me not to and to just let Zayn do it himself.”

“I don’t care!” I yell through the door. The tears wouldn’t stop. “You should have told me! You both should have told me!”

“Marnie please, listen to me!” Jessie yells, screaming the same thing that he tried to calm me down with.

“Go away!” I yell to her, pushing her away like I did with him. “Just go away! I don’t want to talk to you, or anybody else on this god forsaken planet right now!”

I heard her crying, and then the reluctant shuffling of her feet as she walked away from my door. I was left in my room, alone, as the soft yet silent dripping of my blood falling onto the floor and the choked sobs escaping my throat filled up the silent room that was once filled with the moans of both him and I together. I was alone, with no one to trust. My safe haven was gone, dead to me, and my best friends, my family, were dead to me too. My whole summer was a lie, the love of my life just a person that didn’t even exist. I didn’t know what to think anymore, except that I couldn’t trust anyone, and that I was alone in the world. I couldn’t share my pain with anyone, because I didn’t trust anyone, and everyone had left me. I was alone, just like I had been that night that my mother had died, the night that my life had begun to leave me behind.