feelings | cranksepticeye

30 - backstab

sean awoke from his long nap. he was getting some sleep now, but he was afraid he was beginning to sleep too much. he needed to find a healthy balance. he sat up slowly and observed his surroundings before stretching and letting out a huge yawn. he swung his legs out of the bed and planted his feet on the carpet. but along with the carpet, he felt a hard object too. 

he looked down and saw an open notebook on the ground; ethan's poetry book. sean smiled at the item and picked it up delicately. he was trying to be as gentle with it as possible. due to it being so full, some of the pages were starting to fall out, and sean didn't want to lose a single one. it meant a lot to sean that ethan had bestowed the book onto him. to sean, that book was a token of ethan's trust, and that was exactly what he needed in a world where he felt so alone. 

the boy realised that he must have fallen asleep whilst reading ethan's poetry, not because it was boring, just because there was a lot, and sean was tired as anything anyway. even though he'd only had the item for a day, he was nearly finished with it. reading the poems brought sean some happiness. he wasn't quite sure why. he decided since there were only a couple of pages left he would read to the end then and there.

he turned the page over to start the last poem that was written in the book, and noticed something about this one that was different to the rest: it was much longer, taking up nearly three whole pages! sean scanned the page for the title of the poem to get the general idea of what it was about. when he saw the name and read the first few lines, his heart stopped, and he felt like he was reading something ethan never intended for him to see. he realised how upset ethan would get if he found out and how he'd probably get super agitated.

"shit."

***

"ethan! took you long enough." felix cheered when he saw ethan arrive at the table with his food. he smiled weakly and sat down next to tyler nervously.

"we're going to the cinema after school today." felix announced, to which ethan sighed. lately the guys had been going out to a ton of different places trying to get ethan to go with them, and every time he turned them down. 

"we are?" ethan asked. everybody nodded.

"um...you guys can go without me." everybody sighed and widened their eyes, obviously feeling let down.

"come on dude, you've turned us down every other time we've asked you out somewhere! just come with us, it'll be fun!" felix said, to which everybody nodded.

"sorry, but i can't. I have plans." the boys at the table rolled their eyes.

"plans to do what?" felix asked.

"i've gotta go somewhere." 

"is this place the same place you've been rushing off to after school for the past couple of days?" mark asked. to everybody else this seemed like brand new information and they all leaned in closer to find out more.

"you've been sneaking off somewhere?" felix asked.

"i wouldn't call it sneaking..." ethan responded.

"where have you been going?" wade asked inquisitively. ethan's heart began to pound right out of his chest and his palms grew clammy. he felt trapped. he felt outnumbered.

"no where important..." ethan had no idea what to say, but he was certain he couldn't tell them the truth.

"well if it's not important why are you ditching us to go there?" bob asked. ethan knew this situation was only gonna turn into a shit storm. 

"why does it matter where i'm going?" 

"why can't you tell us? would we get mad at you if you did?" 

"probably!" ethan didn't mean to say that. he internally screamed at himself for giving them clues. the whole table was silent for a few seconds before felix spoke up with a hint of rage in his voice.

"you're visiting him aren't you?" ethan knew exactly who 'him' was, and so did everybody else.

"i knew it. how could you?! I thought we all established that we'd have nothing to do with him!" ethan began to grew angry himself, but he tried his best to hide it.

"because he's my friend." 

"no he's not. he's none of our friends, you know this." 

"just because you guys don't like him doesn't mean I don't." nobody else said a word as felix and ethan argued back and forth.

"he's a backstabber, a cheat, a fucking psychopath, and you actually wanna be his friend?!"

"he's not a psychopath-"

"you know what he did to me in gym."

"that was an accident, he didn't even mean to-"

"you saw what he did to greg!" 

"greg made a horrible comment about his dead father. I don't blame him for losing his temper." the others were on the edge of their seats.

"i just don't get why you care about him so much. you don't even know him that well."

"we're actually really good friends. i'd go as far as to say i'm better friends with him than I am with any of you." every single person on that table shared looks of disgust and offense.

"well if you're such good friends with him why don't you join him? actually, if you love him so god damn much, why don't you go ahead and kiss him like the guy he cheated on me with?"

"he already did!" everybody looked over to mark and didn't take their eyes off of him once. mark was...ratting ethan out. he couldn't believe it. he honestly couldn't comprehend what mark had just told everyone. he felt like he was going to cry, or throw up, or pass out, or all three at the same time.

"what's that supposed to mean?" felix. ethan silently begged for mark not to elaborate, but his prayers were left unheard.

"the guy sean cheated on you with...was ethan. they kissed on the night of the party. I walked in on them doing it." everybody turned their stare to ethan. nobody knew what to say; they were all struggling to process the news. ethan stood up, picking up his bag. he couldn't stay there now. he knew he had to leave. he turned to mark with tears in his eyes.

"I fucking trusted you." he cried before running away. he heard mark call him and tell him to come back, but it was already too late. the damage had been done. and there was no going back.