The temporary separation of activities seems to have strengthened Tonia and Lurch's relationship, or it made a dent in Lurch's confidence and caused him to realise that he could potentially lose his girlfriend. He definitely does not want that.

Whatever it is, the balance seems to have shifted a little in Tonia's favour. If she plays her cards right and doesn't abuse that shift, they could have that close, strong relationship she's craving. Sometimes, it is necessary to take a stand and make yourself heard on things that are really important to you. One just has to go about it wisely, and Tonia did it in the perfect, gentle but firm way.

They probably had a lovely evening together after our swim because they'd been whispering together a lot whenever I saw them today, sharing sweet smiles, and during break time, Lurch wasn't quite as touchy-feely as he usually is. He was sweeter if a barbarian like him could be called sweet.

Dell was playing hockey during lunch, so Simon and I joined Ethan and his group in their usual spot. Ethy wolfed down his food and made himself comfortable with his head in my lap while I read my book. It was quite lovely. I no longer felt like a sore thumb sticking out uncomfortably... unless I looked up and saw the less-than-thrilled looks Wendy was giving me. She didn't say or do anything nasty, but it was clear that she would love nothing more than to have Ethan sleeping in her lap.

She seemed happier when Jet decided that she'd make a good pillow, and he followed Ethan's example. I don't think he slept, though, because I heard Wendy giggle quite a bit. At that stage, they were no longer in my scope of view; I can, therefore, not say for sure what he'd been up to. Monday's two plotters of my demise did not sit with us today. It seems that there is a consistent core group, and the others just come and go at random.

Ethan's circle of friends is not the exclusive clique I always thought they were. I guess I'd always had that impression of them because I never felt like I belonged with them. I probably don't, but I belong with Ethan.

Oh, my word! What?! No, I don't!

Today felt pretty much like any other day (except for break time). Ethan didn't send me any weird text messages during class, and people were no longer giving me curious or confused looks... well, not as much. I understood those looks; I'm confused too, after all. Ethan misbehaved in most of the classes the way he always does, except for maths, where he sits at the desk next to mine.

During maths, his mischief was a lot more subtle and consisted mostly of him trying to hold my hand while I was trying to write and stealing kisses, making me blush so much I wanted to crawl under my desk. Since he got all caught up with the basic rules and principles of algebra and Trigonometry, Ethan seems to really enjoy maths. Today, he even paid attention while our teacher was explaining new work and only misbehaved when we were supposed to be working.

Since Simon had basketball practice and Ethan had rugby after school, Delia and I walked home alone. She's always been very perceptive and is clearly worried about me, so she kept on asking me probing questions, trying to find a chink in my extremely advanced emotional armour. I finally surrendered and told her that the whole thing between Ethan and me was starting to become too confusing because it felt too real.

She gave me a sweet smile, hooked her arm through mine and simply said: "It feels so real because it is so real."

That made no sense, and I told her as much.

"Kiki, if there's one girl on this planet that could have my brother's heart and soul, it's you. Just go with it. He loves you."

I wanted to explain to her the many ways in which that statement was completely warped, but none of my arguments came out right, and she just kept on batting them away and saying silly things like I'm her sister-in-law after all.

It's not a joke!

Honestly, I'm a little mad at her. She usually cares more. I don't understand why she is being so cavalier about the possibility of me getting my heart broken by her brother. According to her, it is impossible.

True, in her eyes, Ethan can do no wrong. But this is me, her best friend; she should care more. I won't force her to pick sides, but it hurts that she is being so careless. Yes, sure, Ethan loves me in his way. I'm virtually family, and I know he doesn't hate me. He won't hurt me on purpose, but if I am actually falling in love with him and he is not doing the same from his side, I'm bound to get hurt.

I tried to say something in that line to Delia, telling her that if one of us developed feelings for the other one and it is not reciprocated, it could lead to disaster. She just put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug, and said that it will never happen.

I should've just told her that it was already happening, but to me, it feels as if our entire relationship is balancing on a thin knife's edge, and I don't want to mess it up by telling her explicitly that I am falling in love with her brother; a concept that even I still find hard to believe.

This is becoming too difficult.

"'Just go with it?!' She's insane," I grumble, switching off the moon and turning on my side. Delia is not the one lying here in my bed, talking to herself so much that she's having a hard time falling asleep. Maybe I should speak to Aunt Gemma about this. Can I? I would've if Ethan weren't her son.

I wish I'd never started this. I was so much happier when I thought I hated Ethan and that he was a boorish nincompoop. I still think he's a boorish nincompoop, but now I'm finding it rather endearing. Everything is complicated and messed up now.

"Liar!" I wasn't happier. These last few days being Ethan's girlfriend had been strange, but it was fun, and I don't hate the weird butterflies that keep on hatching and fluttering around in my stomach. I like how the world just brightens up when he enters a room. That is part of the problem. I don't think I could face having that brightness taken away. How am I going to file Ethan back in his place as just the guy in my life that I'm stuck with because he's my neighbour and my best friend's brother?

I am so caught up in my mental wrestling match I don't immediately notice the movement at my window. I didn't close my curtains tonight because Ethan now closes his curtains when he's going to do offensive things like getting dressed. I enjoyed watching him sitting at his desk creating model buildings from plywood and wire and plastic and sometimes actual garbage. Every now and then, he'd lift his creation to show it to me. It was fun.

I should get out more...

When we were kids, he and his dad used to create funky-looking towns using clay and paper mâché and some build-it-yourself models all around the tracks of his train sets. They were quite beautiful, and some of them are actually still in existence. Ethan no longer plays with trains or small cars, but he still likes to construct interesting-looking buildings.

A few hours ago, he closed his curtains to get ready for bed, and for some reason, he didn't open them again. A while back, I heard him having another serious argument with his father, and I closed my window because I couldn't handle hearing it. I've never liked it, but up until this weekend, I was able to drown it out with earphones and music.

Now I hear it with my heart more than with my ears, and hearing it hurts more than ever before. I miss the days when Ethan and his dad hung out with my father, laughing and doing silly male things. They occasionally went camping. I don't even know when the last time was that Mr Fletcher... Uncle Ian went with Daddy and Ethan on their camping trips.

I jolt upright when I realise that I'm hearing my window open and that Ethan is trying to break his neck again.

"Ethy, why don't you use the kitchen door?" I gasp, jumping from my bed to help him raise the window and climb inside. There's a house key stashed in the hollow of a decorative rock in the flowerbed near the kitchen door. Ethan often uses it to sneak into our house and sleep in our spare bedroom. I'm not entirely sure why he does it, but we're used to it and don't even question it anymore.

He never has a real answer anyway. Sometimes, he just needs to be in our house. If Daddy is still awake when Ethan comes in, he often stays up a while, chatting with him. Perhaps I should sneak into the Fletchers' house and go chat with Aunt Gemma...

"What would be the fun in that?" Ethan grins at me. "I kinda like climbing this wall now."

"You are such a weirdo," I groan and turning away from him, I get back into my bed. The guest room is always made up, and he knows how to help himself to what he needs. Apparently, what he needs tonight is one side of my bed because he crawls in after me, scooting me over.

"What are you doing?" I squeak, a little freaked out by this sudden invasion of my territory.

"Isn't it obvious?"

I'm not sure, is it?!

"We don't have that kind of relationship, Ethan," I state reasonably because it really isn't obvious to me. "I already told you that I cannot be that girl for you."

"The girl who looks into my ridiculous eyes, and then all her clothes fall off?" he chuckles.

"So, you do remember."

"Yeah," he grunts. "And do you remember that I told you that I'm not expecting you to be?"

"Yes, so, what are you doing now?"

"I just wanna sleep, Kicks." He says it as if it explains everything.

"In my bed?"

"Yes."

"With me still in it?"

"Yes," he is chuckling again now.

"Not in the bed in the spare bedroom?"

"No, you're not in the bed in the spare bedroom."

That was either very sweet or very silly, or the guy bumped his head during rugby... again... He's had way too many concussions in his young life. I wish he'd give up rugby, but he likes it, and it helped him get a scholarship for next year.

"Ethy, this is not a good idea..." I can barely breathe when the guy stands too close to me in class; how am I supposed to survive an entire night with him sleeping next to me in my bed?

"I just want to hold your hand for a bit," he says, and there is something not quite right about his voice. Alarm bells clanging in my head, I rise and lean over him to grab my moon off the nightstand on his side of the bed. "Hey, I seriously just want to sleep, holding your hand, but I'm game for whatever it is you're planning now," I can hear the grin in his voice, and it is putting me at ease a little.

"Shut up," I scoff, pushing myself out of the arms he'd wrapped around me. I turn on the moon I've got in my hand and slap it a few times until it reaches a colour that gives enough light so that I can see his face but isn't quite as glaring as the white. It's a very light blueish colour now.

"Don't," he grumbles, trying to turn away from me, but I push down on his shoulder, keeping him in place. He is going to have to be rough to get me off him now.

"Did he hit you?!" I exclaim in shock, seeing the scuff marks on his left cheekbone. I'm horrified. I know Ethan and his dad argue a lot, and Mr Fletcher often says mean things to him, but he's never hurt him physically before.

"No," Ethan says, pushing the moon out of his face. "We had an argument in the kitchen, and I had enough of it, so I ran to my room and was closing my door. I didn't realise that he'd followed me, and he shoved the door open, not knowing that I was standing right there. Its edge caught me in the cheek.

"Really?"

"Really, I don't even think he noticed," he takes the moon from me after I've inspected the abrasion a bit more closely. He might be telling the truth. "Please don't tell him. He'll feel awful."

I hardly ever speak to his father these days.

Turning off the moon, Ethan puts it back on its stand, and since I've lost most of my brain cells the first time he held my hand, I lean over and touch my lips to his injury.

"Okay," I whisper, moving way out of his range. "You can sleep here, but no funny business... and keep to your side of the bed." I weave the fingers of my right hand with those of his left hand and wonder how I'm supposed to sleep lying stiffly on my back like this.

"We can spoon," he offers, apparently thinking the same thing.

"No!" I turn on my side to face him, startled to find him already facing me. Great, now we're lying here facing each other, holding hands, and I am very grateful that it is too dark for me to see his face clearly. I definitely don't want to look into his ridiculous eyes and... well... whatever...

"Okay," I say after a couple of minutes. "This is not weird at all."

Ethan chuckles and runs the fingers of his right hand through my hair, gently stroking the side of my face, causing goosebumps to spread out over my skin.

"It's really not; we've done this before... many times."

He's right, but we were children back then. When I was barely seven years old, my mother died during a terrible storm. She was hurrying to her car after work and was struck by lightning. I've been terrified of storms ever since.

Whenever Daddy is working late and there's a storm, I stay over at the Fletchers' house. I also always find either Delia or Ethan or both at my door when I'm home alone and a storm starts up. I truly appreciate that. The fear goes away to become vague white noise in the distance when they're with me.

When my mother died, I couldn't stop crying for days. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't eat. I would've been hospitalised if Aunt Gemma didn't spend hours patiently feeding me liquids and broth. Uncle Ian didn't know what to say or do to comfort me. He gave me Mr Big Bear and said that I could hang onto him, that he was not going anywhere and will never divulge any of my secrets. I could cry in his arms as often as I needed to.

It helped a little. I've cuddled that bear, cried into its fur and told it my secrets so many times through the years.

Delia and Ethan spent a lot of time here in my bed with me during that horrible time. They were crying with me, reading to me (well, Dell read, Ethy and I just listened), and just cuddled me. I ate pieces of cake fed to me by Ethan and took baths with Delia, letting her wash my hair, and eventually, I started to face life again.

While I spent my days in this room with the twins, my father was in a broken stupor, trying to arrange the funeral and all that went with it. Aunt Gemma and Uncle Ian kept him going through all of it, being there for him as much as their children were there for me.

I smile as I watch Ethan fall asleep now. I swear the guy can sleep anywhere, any time. When he was a kid, he used to sleep with their dog in his doghouse. When Lazy-Bones started to grow older, he was given a special pillow in their living room, but Ethan still slept in that doghouse for a while. These days, I sometimes find him sleeping with the old dog on his pillow.

The last time Ethan went camping with his friends, they dropped him off at home in James's parents' hatchback and had to unpack all their luggage to get him out because he was asleep wedged in amongst it. I still don't know how that scenario came to pass.

I listen to his breathing, enjoying the feel of his hand, and tranquillity washes over me, dragging me into sleep as well. It doesn't last long because Ethan is a wild sleeper when he's actually in a bed where he has space to spread out, and I'm soon wrestling with wayward limbs. He didn't act like this when he was sleeping on my back or with his head in my lap. I started to believe - optimistically - that he'd been cured of this affliction.

Grunting in frustration, I roll out of bed, grab Mr Big Bear from his footstool in the corner of my room and plop him in bed between Ethan and me. He immediately becomes the proud recipient of all Ethan's limbs wrapped around him and freed of the burden; I finally get to travel on the tranquillity cloud all the way to dreamland.

♂♀