✓ 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 , ethan landry

THIRTEEN

— NEW YORK CITY

STELLA'S POV

    We had a few hours to spare time. Ethan had an idea to bring snacks along the way in case I had gotten hungry, due to the medication. Taking a taxi, we were on our way to his dorm room again. We were sitting in the back of the cab—I had my head rested against his chest.

"You feeling better?" he asks me.

"Kind of" I reply, "the more I walk the pain goes away which is helping. They told me to walk to keep myself steady".

"Good, okay" he said. The cab approaches to a stop. Ethan moves me to the side for a bit, "wait let me go on the other side and help you". He quickly gets out of the cab and rushes over to my side—helping me out of the cab, he then takes his tip and hands it to the driver as he waved goodbye.

    He sees the smile that forms across my face because he then reveals a small smile back to me.

   I hand him my crutches as I tell him I'd walk without them to try and get used to it. Surprisingly it was fine, I didn't feel like falling whatsoever which was good. Though, he stayed behind me at all times in case I had fallen.

   As we reach his dorm room I immediately sit down on Chad's bed. I watch as Ethan grabs another backpack, putting in all his snacks such as more cheetos , gummy worms , a drink , & blueberries.

    "Um, Ethan?" I speak, I furrow my eyebrows at him. "Don't add the blueberries....that's just gonna get nasty since it's not cold".

    "Hm you're right".

    He walks away to the bathroom and leaves the bag next to me. Double the bag package the more we had to carry, but it wasn't too big of a deal. Theo and Kirby were the ones bringing in the weapons to handle the situation. Both, Tara and Sam were out to find any other stuff to capture ghostface—as we'd be meeting them later on at the subway with Chad and Mindy, Danny was racing off to get a better location to find Gale.

   "Why do you and Chad have a baseball bat in here?" I ask, never noticing the baseball bat in the corner.

    I hear him from the other room as he says, "when Chad explained the whole attack back home I got scared...so you know...just in case something were to happen, you know?".

    I simply just laugh. He hears me and gets out of the bathroom and sighs. I wish I could tell him I had that exact thing back in woodsboro, but I hated going too full into detail about my attack with Richie. As he knows some parts of it—he made sure I was okay, telling me that if I ever needed to talk to someone about it, he was all open ears.

   "We still have a good three hours left" he marks, as he sits down on the bed with me.

   "Oh good" I let out a breath of relief. "We're in this together".

   "Yeah, we are" he says, taking my hand and intertwining his with mine.

   I look down at our hands. Whatever we were I loved it and I wanted to tell him that—but I was scared. If I had told him my feelings, a huge fear came in me about getting rid of ghostface once and for all. "Um" he begins, as he faces towards me. "Stella, I like you. I really really like you".

   Holy shit.

   "I like you a lot, Ethan" I say, letting out a small laughter. This time it's not him that's blushing to an embarrassing extent, it was me. Which, he does take notice and begins to laugh at me. "What are we?".

   "Will you be my girlfriend" he quickly says as he closes his eyes.

   "Yes" I reply. "I will!".

    He opens his eyes and sighs, "After this. I promise to take you out on a date" he says, the smile on his face grew wider. "I'll take you anywhere you wanna go. We're gonna get through this!".

   As I was about to reply to him, my phone started ringing. "One moment". I flip my phone around to face it towards me, it was an incoming call from an unknown number. My heart begins to race as we're the only two here—with no one else.

    "Hello?" I say, answering the phone either way, placing it on speaker. Although this was definitely not the right idea—it was the only way to get another clue.

   "Stella" the voice says, with such evil laughter. "Aren't we just nearing the end, according to your little friends, eh? I find it funny who you're sitting next to".

   My expression changes. "What's that supposed to mean?".

   "He's weak" they laugh again. "What good will he do to you? Do you even trust him?".

   "I..I do" I stutter, "I..I..I trust him".

   "What do you want from us" Ethan angrily says.

   "Funny that you're speaking" they say, as they start humming. "You see, you're just a couple of kids. One has dealt with this situation before, the other hasn't. You're gone before you know it".

    Ethan grabs my phone and hangs up. "No, don't listen to that thing. We'll be okay".

   "Fuck" I mumbled, "Ethan we need to get out of here".

    "Okay, okay, let's go" he says, picking up both of the bags. I stood up from the bed carefully and we both dashed out the door. There was no sign of ghostface whatsoever—not at this moment. My fear was increasing again, I was hurt. Being hurt again was not on my bucket list. Though, seeing Ethan getting possibly hurt was also something I wish I wouldn't see.

—> LENA SPEAKS 💌🎟️
ooo the more i write the more anxious i get
to the near end !!!

just wanna say again, thank you so much for the reads and the lovely/funny comments on this book! it means so so much :(