5- NEVER: WILL I LET HIM TOUCH HER AGAIN?

ETHAN'S POV

Grey is all I can see.

It is all I am seeing right now.

I have been in Principal Michaels's office ninety-eight times since I got admitted into this school. I have been given a hundred chances, twenty threats of expulsion, fifty-three suspensions, and six hard strokes on my spine.

I have just two chances left, or else I will get expelled, and I am looking forward to it.

This place makes me sick. People make me sick. Aside from the disgusting human beings that walk the hallways of this school, I want to leave because I am afraid I may not be able to control my emotions any longer.

I can feel Violet's eyes staring into my green owns and for a moment, there is a swelling in my chest.

She called my name. Those lips curved at the mention of my name. She remembers me. She knows who I am. I saw her eyes. Grey, black, I am unsure because I have been hit too many times in the eyes. I am amazed how I have not gone blind.

I want to get out of the office. I want to run a million miles, laughing and dancing because I do not remember when last I was happy. I want to lay in the snow and imagine how it feels to look into her eyes again.

I am almost about to clutch my chest when Mum shouts at me.

" Aren't you listening to anything he is saying to you!"

I can see a vague image of the sun in the sky. The world used to be so beautiful.

" Ethan Reed!"

Mum used to be so happy. Grandmummy used to be alive. Emily used to love me. I used to have a heart and Dad used to have a space in it.

" Last warning Mrs. Reed, if your lunatic son keeps on acting like a physically disabled, I'll sign his expulsion letter right here and right now!"

I am freezing.

"Eth—"

He doesn't allow Mum to finish calling my name when he throws a document to her face.

My fists clench and I shift in my seat. My fists are shaking, I want to punch someone. I want to punch him. He claims to like her; that is the only reason why I have not been expelled, yet he treats her unjustly when he is upset.

He reminds me a lot of a man I used to know, and the thought makes me want to mess up this office and break things till his memory is out of me, and I am not still hoping he will return one day.

" Look at it. Depression, anxiety disorder, hypertension, and let me not go down the list of things that are wrong with this boy over here." He is pointing at me, at the paper, and around the room as he speaks.

He leans to his desk and rests his elbows on the desk with his jaw on two fingers. " A walking threat is a student of my school —"

" That's enough, Mr. Michaels." Mum cuts in, her voice sharp. Her hair is unkempt from the stress of putting food on our tables. She has a bag under her eyes. Stress lines on her face.

Breathe.

" You had no problem with his health status before, why now? The last I remember is that no one in the world is sane again, including you and I! "

Principal Michaels looks flattered. " Who can we blame?" He laughs. " You are undoubtedly stunning when you are upset but I can't look past your son's insanity because of that. Get him a therapist— and yes, his grades are nothing to write home about."

" Last year, I was looking forward to him graduating, but he— well, I wouldn't say he surprised me." He laughs again. " I advise you to get him a tutor because if he fails his exams this term, I will sign his expulsion letter. Also get him a therapist because if he pulls that stunt again, I'd personally beat him up."

I almost scoff. I am not proud of what I have done to people but I know one punch can knock him out.

Principal Michaels leans into his office chair and sighs. " You are lucky. The only consequence of your actions now is a threat of expulsion." He mutters something under his breath with a sour look. " All right, get out of my office, I need some time to myself."

Mum is up before me. She does not look at me as she exits his office. I follow behind her and stare at her. Her arms are folded around her chest as she walks down the empty hallway.

She made me promise I would change. I know I can never be okay again but I did not want to get her upset. Now I have disappointed her again.

" Look at your hands." She is still walking as she speaks. " Someone's blood is on your hands."

I want to tell her I have been through worse than I inflicted on Jacob but my mouth is sealed shut.

" How can you be so inhumane to beat up someone like that." She stops and looks at me with glistening eyes.

I am choking.

" He is sleeping with Emily," I say in a voice of forced calm and my blood begins to boil.

She is just fifteen and he is nineteen. She is a child and he is a man in the body of a teenager. He sleeps with every girl he sees just to appease his desire and my sister is one of them. How could she let him touch her?! And how does he know she is my sister?

Mum looks momentarily stunned. " I have failed." She continues walking again, and this time, I don't follow her. " God, what have I done?"

I know the cause of her problems started the day she found out she was pregnant with me. Maybe she would have been happy if I was not born. Maybe the world would not have changed. Maybe Dad would have been alive.

When she realizes I am not following her and she turns to look at me, I follow the opposite direction and begin to walk away.

She does not call my name nor chase after me. I have destroyed all the strength she has left in her. It kills me when I remember how happy she used to be. How happy we used to be. I, her, Emily and ... Dad.

The hallways smell like carbon monoxide mixed in vomit. I do not remember when last I smelt clean air. Enough hard drugs and poison are flying in the atmosphere to waste more purchasing some.

The air in Utopia is almost clean. Leonardo had scientists whom he captured and had worked for the Mafia for the past eleven years, and he is only eighteen.

They created a toxic gases sucker kind of machine that runs on a very high amount of fuel and electricity. The wastes are deposited into the Dystopic world. Electricity comes at most three times a week and lasts for two hours and twenty minutes—

I hit something as I walk and I am forced to come to a halt. It is the same clipboard Violet was clutching to her chest at the hospital.

I wonder what she would think of me after what I have done to Jacob.

I pick up the clipboard and then I realize something is written on it in cursive handwriting. I do not intend to read the content of it, but my eyes grab something that pulls my attention to it.

Bucket List.

" So what is it this time?" Ashton is walking towards me and I quickly hide the clipboard behind me. I do not understand why I am hiding it.

His brows furrowed as he stopped in front of me. " Don't bother hiding it, I've seen it. It's just a clipboard."

He shakes his head with a teasing smile and rests a hand on my shoulder. I flinch slightly but I do not push his hand away.

" You beat up Jacob pretty bad," Ashton laughs loud enough for it to echo through the empty hallway. " You ruined his pretty face. Thank God."

I begin to head for the back door and Ashton follows me. I do not want to imagine what Jacob has done to my sister. My fists clench, and I run it through my hair.

I have not done enough to him yet. I want to drag him to the ring and beat the life out of him. I want to beat him so much that he would never think of touching Emily again.

" Do you know what he did to Emily?" I force the words out of my mouth.

I notice from the corner of my eyes that Ashton's shoulder becomes taut. He throws a quick look at me.

" Huh?"

My fists are shaking so much the clipboard almost falls out of my grip. " I have no idea how he knows she is my sister and I do not want to believe what I am thinking —"

" Ethan, what the hell are you talking about?" I can hear Ashton's unsteady heartbeat. " What did Jacob do to Emily?"

I open my mouth to speak but something cracks in my jaw. A million impulses of pain electrify my body for a millisecond before I quickly swallow it away into a shallow pit of my emptiness and pretend like I do not feel anything.

Rule number eleven of fighting for the Mafia: Do not let them see your pain, do not let them see your fear. If they do, you give them the perfect hint of what can break you.

Five seconds later, I reply to Ashton. " He slept with her."

Ashton's legs fail him as he is brought to a halt. I do not stop walking because I want to know urgently why Emily would let someone like Jacob touch her or possibly why she would tell him, we are related.

Ashton is beside me again. " This must be some joke right?" He chuckles. As if I have ever made jokes. " Wait, I thought you beat up Jacob because he was bullying Violet— Shit! I thought you finally told her how you feel about her and Jacob overheard it and got made, so he waded into her and…"

The rest of his words hung in his throat. His jaw is tight and I can see the flicker of pain in his eyes.

I wince and look away. He does not make a complete statement for the rest of the journey to our homes.

I watch him as he walks down the deplorable road leading to his home. I have no right to tell Emily who she should be with but I know Jacob is not good for her. He is using her for fun. I do not understand why she cannot read the handwriting on the walls.

When I return home, Mum is already there. She is sitting on the green couch, her face in her palms. I glance over at Emily's room and the door is locked. I can hear the faint sounds of wailing. They must have gotten into a fight.

" Go and speak to your sister, she doesn't want to listen to anything I tell her," Mum says.

I give her a light nod when she looks at me. I'm relieved I hid my scars behind this hoodie and ankle-length sweatpants. The last time she saw my scars, she nearly lost it. She went to school and shouted at Principal Michaels for allowing someone to beat me up. He kept on telling her there was no fight in the school but she did not want to believe him.

I had to lie to her that I had been attacked by a Mafia man. She was skeptical but took what I told her as true.

My feet are rooted next to Emily's door. I release a breath before knocking. " Emily, open the door please."

" Leave me alone. You are a beast." Her tone is crying.

" Emily—"

" I saw what you did to Jacob. How can you do that to a human being?!" Click. Click. Click and the door flung open so quickly, the image of her glare and the door opening alternates in my vision for a fraction of a second.

" You almost busted his eyes! If someone hadn't stopped you, God knows, you would have killed him." Her hair is tousled. Her red, puffy eyes hold nothing but resentment towards me, and I am holding on to the last band of self-control in me not to bark at her.

" Did you tell him we are related?" I change the topic.

She wastes no time to respond. " Yes, I did. It's so hard keeping it in any way. I'm glad I told someone how much of a bad brother you are. "

" I told you not to tell anyone. Why the hell are you so difficult?"

" I'm not difficult! How do you think I feel walking past you every damn school day and pretending like we aren't related? I see Charlotte and Madison with their brothers—"

" You are not them, Emily. You are different. Do you have the slightest idea what would happen to you if people found out we are related?" I pause when I realize I am saying too much. I quickly alternate the subject. " Worst of all, you had to tell that asshole about me while you gave him your virginity."

Emily opens her mouth, but no words come out. Tears well up in her eyes as she grabs the door.

" He is not an asshole. You are the asshole!"

" I will tell him myself you are not interested in him anymore."

" Try it and I'll tell the world you are my brother. I love him and you have no right to tell me to stop going out with him." She turns on her heel, enters her room, and slams the door so hard I flinch, and the clipboard falls out of my hand.

I exhale and bend to pick it up. I can barely feel my hands anymore. He must have fed her with so much sweet poison that makes her oblivious to his true intentions…

The thought of Emily and Jacob slides over me when I descry words on the clipboard. I pick It up quickly, and I do not stand as I read the content of it.

105 days? Ten wishes? Cancer?

Something is twisting in my chest. Someone is wringing my lungs. My hand is shaking as I make sense of everything Violet has written.

I want to desperately believe it is not her who wrote this, but it is her handwriting on the clipboard. Suddenly, the clipboard becomes a mirror and I can see her in it.

I can see the blue-yellow patches on her skin. Her lean figure. The suffering in her eyes. The reason behind her sudden silence. She wanted to speak to someone. She wanted to speak to me because she won't see past day 105.

Violet Griffin has terminal cancer.