When Worlds Collide

Chapter 9

"Hey," Ethan grinned as I swung into his car, placing my backpack at my feet. He had some music softly playing as he usually did every morning.

"Next," I said, trying to stifle a smile. Ethan gasped dramatically, feigning hurt.

"You don't like Grateful Dead?" He switched to the next song, a small smile playing on his lips. "Good call, I don't either really."

I laughed, "then why'd you play it?"

Ethan huffed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Because Ivy, if I were to only expose you to my superior taste in music, you would be heavily biased and that's bad science."

Ever since our first meeting over the summer, Ethan has been determined to figure out what kind of music I liked. Whenever we would spend time together, he made sure to play some music for me to judge. I even started to listen to music on my own time, and it was surprisingly effective at drowning out the voices I would constantly hear on an especially bad day.

As I pulled on my seatbelt and Ethan began to drive, I noticed something in his backseat. It was a poster, the words 'Chloe, you light up my world. Homecoming?' were written in large black letters, Chloe's name covered in golden glitter. Little stars were sprinkled all over the white paper. My brain short circuited a bit as I stared at the poster, my eyes then drifted to the red roses propped up in the car door.

"You're- you're asking someone to homecoming?" I stuttered. My heart started to beat into overdrive, a bitter taste in my mouth like I had chewed on a battery.

Ethan glanced at me, eyes narrowing at my face before focusing back on the road. "Yeah, Chloe Breckett, I met her in my English class. I don't know, she's really nice and her boyfriend dumped her right before homecoming, messed up right? So I just thought I'd take her so she wouldn't have to go alone."

I swallowed, my mouth becoming dry. I don't know what I was expecting. I wasn't planning on going to homecoming, and I wasn't exactly anticipating for Ethan to ask me, but a part of me was still painfully disappointed. My jaw clenched as I swallowed thickly.

"Wow. . . um, that's really nice of you," I attempted to keep the waver out of my voice, but I cringed internally at how pathetic and insincere it still sounded.

Ethan shrugged, resting his elbow on the door. "Doesn't the poster look nice? The girls helped me with it, and by helped I mean they pretty much did everything. I think the phrase is a bit cheesy, but what can you do?" He chuckled, completely unbothered.

"Right. . ." I mumbled, leaning my head against the passenger window.

~

"Sup loser," Vera grinned, sliding into the seat next to me. I raised my eyebrow at her, and shook my head.

"Why are you dressed like a fifty year old man?" I huffed.

"Oh you like it? It's my dad's old band shirt, it looks like ass and smells even worse, but it's edgy as hell, isn't it?" She grinned, tugging the hem down to stretch out the material.

I looked down at the black shirt, the words 'Pig Decapitation' were printed on the front in a blood red dripping font. "Definitely looks terrifying, isn't it a little cold out for t-shirts? It's almost October."

"That's what flannels are for!" Vera chirped, producing a crumpled up red flannel from her backpack that reeked of stale marijuana. Since becoming closer to Vera, I've discovered she's the biggest stoner in school, so this didn't come as much of a surprise.

"So, I saw Ethan drop you off this morning," she said while wiggling her eyebrows. I looked at her strangely, "you were at school early enough to see Ethan pull up?" I smirked.