HAPPINESS IS A BUTTERFLY; ethan landry x fem!reader

CHAPTER THREE; dark red

"only you, my girl, only you, babe."

---

y/n's pov

Mindy, Tara and I all headed into our film class together the next morning, Mindy being extremely hungover.

"God, drinking so much was a bad idea." She groaned as she slumped into her usual seat. Tara sat down at the desk to her left and I took the one on her right.

Tara shrugged, rubbing her forehead. "It's not that bad."

"Well, I don't have a single problem right now." I shrugged and watched as the last few students dribbled into the classroom.

Just as Professor Crane, or Laura as she asked me to call her, started up the lesson, Ethan Landry entered the classroom.

His curly hair was messier than usual, and his backpack hung over one shoulder. He rubbed his eyes with one hand and looked around the classroom, where the whole group of students were staring at him.

"Glad you could join us, Mr. Landry."

Ethan chuckled awkwardly.

"Sorry. I slept in."

He glanced around the classroom, his eyes lighting up when he saw me and started heading over to the empty desk next to mine.

Tara leaned behind Mindy to make a face at me as Ethan sat down.

Laura started the lesson, which began with discussing the 'final girl' trope.

That was the only downside of the class. We had been doing slasher films, and I could only think about Woodsboro each time.

"Hey." He whispered, unzipping his backpack and pulling out a notebook and a few other things.

"Hey, Ethan." I greeted back quietly, noticing Tara giving Mindy an amused look in my peripheral vision. Mindy rolled her eyes in response and leaned her head down on her desk.

"How are you?" He asked and I smiled in amusement.

"I'm good. Thank God my knight in shining armor was there to walk me home last night." I glanced at him, and he blushed, fiddling with his pen.

"You look, um..." He paused.

"I look 'um'?" I chuckled and his face reddened more.

"You look nice today. You look pretty."

Then it was my turn to blush, and I looked down at my notes. I didn't want to meet his beautiful brown eyes.

Not beautiful, you idiot.

Shut up.

"Thank you."

"Oh, my God." Mindy groaned quietly and Tara grinned.

She opened her mouth to say something when a voice cut her off.

"Hey, Tara." She looked away from me and over to Jason, another guy from our class, as he started talking to her.

---

"He's so into you!" Tara exclaimed as we left class.

"That's nice." I mumbled, looking down at my phone.

"Come on, Y/N. I saw your face after he called you pretty." She nudged me. "Admit it, you think he's cute."

"Yeah, sure, he's cute." Tara squealed and I sighed. "But..."

"But?"

"But I don't like him."

"You can keep telling yourself that as much as you'd like-- Does anyone have any painkillers? Please?" Mindy cut herself off, rubbing her temple.

"Yeah, come on, Mindy." Tara sighed and the two headed down the opposite side of the hallway.

I kept on walking forward to see Jason and his friend Greg bump into Ethan, knocking him down as he dug through his backpack.

I hurried over to help Ethan pick up his stuff, which was a little difficult given my limp, and he gave me a grateful smile.

"Thanks." He mumbled.

"It's no problem." I handed him his pens that had scattered across the floor. I glanced back at Jason and Greg as they turned the corner. "Fucking pricks."

"Doesn't matter." Ethan shrugged, picking up his last notebook and shoving it into his bag before standing up. "Thanks again, Y/N."

"It's fine, Ethan. You okay?" I asked and he looked down at himself.

"Pretty sure." He swung his backpack over one shoulder. "I'm in one piece, so that's good enough."

My mouth twitched upwards into a smile, and he chuckled.

"So, where are you off to now?" Ethan asked me. "Class wise, I mean."

"Um," I checked my phone for the time. "I don't have class for a few hours."

"Hey, neither." He grinned.

A strange feeling took over my gut at his smile.

"Uh, would you want to hang out or something?" I offered and he nodded.

"What did you have in mind?" He asked.

I grabbed his hand and started pulling him along with me. "No idea. But that's part of the fun, right?"

"Sure."

I caught myself quickly and let go of his hand. I couldn't do that.

We left the campus together and walked around for a while before stopping at a small, mostly empty, diner.

There we had a small lunch... thing.

We ate and were talking for ages about so many different things.

School, friends, movies, clothes, whatever we thought of.

"Okay, well I have class soon, Ethan." I gave him an apologetic look after we paid, and slowly started picking up my bag.

"Oh..."

"I'm sorry." I apologized as I stood up.

"Oh, it's cool. Don't, um-- Don't worry about it." He stood up too and checked the time on his watch. "I need to start leaving anyway. Well, actually I needed to half an hour ago, but whatever."

"Are you missing class right now?" I questioned.

"Yeah, but who cares?"

I shook my head and glanced at the time again.

"Okay, I really need to go." I laughed. "Thank you for being a little rebel and skipping class for me. I had fun."

"Oh, it was nothing." He shrugged and I leaned forward, letting my lips brush against the soft skin of his cheek. He went red and looked at his feet.

"Bye, Ethan." I turned and headed out of the diner and back towards the Blackmore campus.

As I walked down the New York streets, I realized.

"Oh, shit." My eyes went wide. "I fucking kissed him."

I mean, the only person I had ever kissed or shown any romantic feelings towards ever was Wes.

It was just his cheek, but it was still a big deal to me.

Especially considering how I had been avoiding showing any feelings towards Ethan. Or anyone, really. But especially Ethan.

At least Tara wasn't there to see it, or she would've gone berserk.

It didn't even click in my head that our lunch 'thing' was technically a date.