36 Inches (Size Matters 3)

“Em, you’re not going to like this,” Delia says.

Shiiiit. That’s not a thing I want to hear.

“What is it I won’t like?” I ask in a small voice. “Ethan has basically ghosted me.” I don’t mention going by his house and him not being home. That’s starting to sound a little crazy in my head, though I’m honestly fine with it…I remember how Ethan knew my schedule and I was fine with that. But Delia and I don’t need to debate stalker ethics. She knows something and I need to know it, too.

“I’m sorry, babe.” Delia says, and she sits on my bed.

I sit next to her and try to mentally prepare myself for whatever bomb Delia might be about to drop on me.

“You’re not the first student that Ethan slept with,” Delia says.

I’m shocked by this, but I’m not jealous. Am I delusional that I feel like I'm still special to him? I know he’s special to me, and since he’s disappeared off the face of the earth, maybe that is enough. “Ten years ago — I did some digging — he slept with a girl, a freshman student.” Delia stops, but there’s so obviously more.

“Well…what happened?” I ask. If Delia didn’t come right out and say it, then it must be bad.

“Oh, well, she died. The death was ruled an accident. The girl’s family blamed Ethan, and they tried to sue him, and it was all settled out of court,” Delia explains.

I raise my eyebrow. “Why would Ethan settle?”

Delia rests her palms flat on the bed behind her and leans on them. “Maybe he felt guilty,” Delia says.

Shiiiit. This has me so twisted up in knots.

“Maybe it's best that you just let things go with Ethan,” Delia says.

I sigh, my shoulders sinking.

“He seems to have walked away, and maybe that’s what you need to do, too,” Delia says, and she reaches out to give me another hug. “And don’t think that I don’t know you just skipped a class. I meant you could meet me afterward, girl. Get your ass ready for your chemistry lab.”

I chuckle. Can always count on Delia to have my back, kick my ass, or whatever I need.

“Thanks for digging into everything for me, babe.” I grab my notebooks and shove everything together in my bag. “Yeah, skipping class, screwing professors with murder dicks, that’s probably not the thing to get used to,” I say with a half-hearted chuckle.

I say that, and I know that I did bad shit. But I don’t believe that the heinous stuff about Ethan could be true. It makes me feel foolish that I’m still holding out the possibility that everything is just how it seems. It felt like more.

Am I just another girl who gave her virginity to a man and now everything went sideways?

I just can’t believe all of this. I know damn well that I’m not going to let this go. I don’t want to hide it from Delia, but I also don’t know what to say right now. I’m going to find Ethan because he can’t hide forever. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I just hope I can do it without further breaking my now even more fragile heart.

If everything bad about Ethan is true, I don’t even know if that will be enough for me to let go of him. That’s just damned foolish, but I can’t fight how I feel inside and hope to win. Should horrible things about Ethan may be true, and then I guess I have to hope that they can be powerful enough to kill my feelings.

But I can’t fight this overwhelming sense that I know Ethan…that I really do, and that none of this can possibly be true.

“Bye, Delia,” I say, heading out the door.

Delia follows behind me, heading off to her own class.

I’m hardheaded and while I’m going to my chemistry lab, I still know that I’m not over this by a long shot. Foolish as it makes me feel, I still think I’m going to be a breath away from drawing Ethan's name in little hearts in my notebook. I have it truly, seriously, bad and I don’t even want to be over it.

Ethan needs to be the one to tell me why he’s avoiding me.

And it's me, and only me, that he’s avoiding. So I have to find him. I know just the place. I will head to his office after my class. Just because there was a substitute professor in my particular session doesn’t mean there won’t be one later. As he must be avoiding me, this is the way for me to find out not just if that is true, but why the fuck he is avoiding me at all.

I want some answers.

I need to see his face.

Emmaline