James and I hadn't been sitting in our spot under the umbrella long when Ethan comes striding over, cracking jokes with passers-by while eating the loaded fries in the container in his hands as if nothing strange had happened at all.

"Want some?" he asks us when he plops down next to me, and rising from his comfortable slouch, James takes the fork from Ethan to have a mouthful of fries covered in cheesy chilli mince. 

"No, thank you," I decline his offer when Ethan holds the container out to me. Though I know how good these loaded fries are, I wouldn't be able to eat anything now, even if I had an appetite, which I don't. My guts are all twisted in knots.

I was acting brave, trying to voice the trust I was fighting very hard to feel when I told Burlap that I knew the scene between Ethan and Amber was nothing. My brain tells me that Ethan is a man of his word, and my heart tells me that he would never go back on that word, but the rest of me is a hot mess of doubt, fear and jealousy.

I really need an explanation. I would believe that explanation since it's Ethan, but I still need to hear it to unlace these twisted bands of dread in the pit of my stomach.

"Thanks, Kicks," he grins, taking the orange slush I bought for him, and I smile, silently watching him take sips with the thick straw sticking out of the lid of the cup. When exactly did Ethan become the most beautiful person in the world to me? He is positively breathtaking when the sun flares golden in his fair hair, and his long dark lashes cast shadows over his azure eyes.

He becomes aware of me watching him, and those soulful eyes narrow, alert to my change of mood. I try really hard to smile his concern away, but it is a battle I am sorely losing.

"What?"

"Nothing," I chirp and, lifting my glass, take the straw between my lips to suck some courage from the cold orangy mess.

"Is Amber all right?" James asks the question that might bring me the answers that I suddenly don't want to hear. I just want to sit here in the semi-shade cast by the umbrellas and watch Ethan wolf down his fries, at intervals handing James the fork and sipping his orange juice.

"She'll be fine," Ethan says, taking another huge fork full of saucy fries into his mouth. He chews, his eyebrows drawing together when he realises that both James and I are looking at him expectantly. I'm sitting cross-legged next to him, and James is reclining on his side in front of us, supporting his upper body on his elbow.

Ethan swallows his food and takes another sip from his glass, and then he shrugs. "Gibbs was getting a bit rough with her there near the food court, so I explained to him that though she can be seriously annoying, he shouldn't get violent with her; he should rather fight with someone strong enough to fight back."

"I bet he loved that," James scoffs, glancing at me and giving me an encouraging smile. He is really invested in the success of this relationship experiment I'm having with Ethan. I shouldn't be surprised; the guys are always rooting for each other, and he obviously wants this to be a success and help Ethan get what he wants. Still, it's a bit weird that he cares what I think about Ethan and Amber's interaction because, even if there was something romantic going on between them, it shouldn't matter that much. If Ethy and I break up, I'll be the only one suffering a broken heart. His buddy will be just fine. I'm pretty sure that Grandpa Alistair was just testing him. The man adores his grandson; he wants to give him the car, and I'm sure that he will.

"Yeah, he really took it to heart," Ethan grins. "And to his face when he decided to take my advice by attacking me instead. I stepped out of the way, and he crashed into one of the legs of the big billboard."

Both of the boys are laughing now, enjoying the story, and I suppose it is rather amusing. So, Marshall was beaten up by a billboard, and not just any billboard. The one Ethan is referring to becomes the subject of debate at every town meeting. One section of town wants it moved to a less prominent position, saying it destroys the harmonious lines of the sidewalk and the beach beyond it, while others feel that it should not exist at all since there's no need to advertise anything on that scale in a small town like Egret's Rest where everybody knows everything by word of mouth anyway. There is a third group who really couldn't care less one way or the other. These groups all have more or less the same number of members; the debate is, therefore, never-ending.

"I knew you didn't sucker punch him," I mutter absentmindedly, regretting saying my thoughts out loud when Ethan's laughter turns into a frown, and the look in his eyes becomes disturbingly intense.

"He spoke to you? Did he corner you?"

Startled by Ethan's reaction, I glance at James and see him grimacing, biting his lip.

"No," I hurry to explain. I get the impression that Ethan and Marshall will go another round if he thinks that the guy sought me out. "I stumbled over his feet, coming around the ablution block, and when I saw his swollen cheek, I asked him if he was all right."

Ethan visibly relaxes, gulping down several long sips of his orange juice. "And he said I sucker punched him," he finally says, lowering his glass.

"Something like that, but I knew he was lying; you don't just unexpectedly hit people."

"Well, except Jet," he shrugs, and James chuckles with him, sharing some violent friendship memory or another. Honestly, I often wonder whether Ethan and Jet are friends or enemies, or at least, I would've wondered if I hadn't seen them stand up for each other on more occasions than I could list.

"So, you didn't hit him," I nod, finishing my juice and planting the cup in the sand so that it cannot blow away in the wind before I get a chance to throw it in a bin.

"I did, but it wasn't a sucker punch; he saw it coming," Ethan admits, and I give him an incredulous look, surprised to hear that he would punch a boy who was already injured by a fat iron pole and seeing the look I'm levelling on him, he shrugs.

"I got him some ice from the nearest stall, and when I gave it to him... he said stuff..."

"About Amber?" I mutter, not enjoying this part of the story as much as the part where he saved a girl from being hurt, and the perpetrator took himself out of the equation by attacking the billboard.

"Amber?" he frowns as if he forgot that she was part of this sordid tale. "No. Look, Kicks, the guy hates my guts, and he is bad news. He knows that you and I are together, so if he comes near you, you run away and find me... or Burlap..."

"Any of us," James adds, nodding his head in agreement. He'd already saved me from the guy once, and after hearing this rather ominous speech from Ethan, I am even more grateful than I'd been at the time. Did Marshall say rude, suggestive things about me again, the way he did on Saturday? The thought makes my stomach churn uncomfortably.

Well, I have my explanation now, and I know that Ethan would've done the same thing for any man, woman or child being rough-handled by someone stronger than them, but this involved Amber, the girl he has a special history with that will probably always nag at me because I do not really understand exactly what that history is.

"Okay," I smile, looking from Ethan to James and back.

"I've gotta go change Grandpa's bedding for the night," James announces after a few minutes of silence, during which they finish Ethan's food and their drinks. He takes Ethan and my glasses from the sand and removes their lids, stacks them in each other and stuffs his soda can inside of the top one. Getting to his feet, he holds his hands out for Ethan's now empty fries container and puts the stack and their lids inside it when Ethan hands it to him.

"You're coming to the dance, right?" Ethan asks, looking hopeful. James isn't really the social kind who likes dances and other events. He always takes part in the activities of this festival, though, but like me, he always reaches a point where he feels he's had enough and wants to take a break from it all. I'm not surprised when he pulls a face and shrugs.

"Please? It will be fun," Ethan tilts his head smiling his dimples at his friend, and in the past, I've seen those work on boys too. Well, James seldom says no to Ethan, whether his dimples are involved or not, and he knows that if he decides not to come to the dance, Ethan won't hold it against him.

"Yeah, okay, I might come for a few minutes," he relents with a grin. "Someone has to keep an eye on you and make sure that dancing is all you do with this one," he laughs, pulling his foot away when Ethan growls and tries to grab his ankle.

"I'm not dancing with him!" I exclaim, suddenly startlingly overwhelmed by the idea of being in Ethan's arms, swaying to music.

"You're not?" Ethan gasps, looking rather devastated, and I cannot help but giggle.

"Well... I... We didn't cover dancing in our spreadsheet," I point out, folding my arms over my chest, and I glare at James when he laughs. Dancing with Ethan... the thought is causing my breath to catch in my throat, and my heart is speeding up, making me feel lightheaded.

"That spreadsheet needs some serious adjusting," Ethan grumbles, flinging a handful of sand at James, who is still chuckling, enjoying our strange conversation.

To be honest, seeing Ethan with Amber has rattled me more than I would like to admit, and it wasn't just because it was Amber... though that was a large part of it. Ethan has so many friends and admirers, and many of them are girls. He is very comfortable speaking to all of them. He is well-liked and sociable, and if I'm going to be with him, I'll often have to see him interact with the girls in his group of friends. Lurch has about a million sisters and cousins, and they're all friends with Ethan. I cannot stuff him in a box and isolate him from his friends. That would mean killing off half of his personality... and I rather like his personality... I think...

I cannot be this insecure and jealous if I want to have a healthy relationship with Ethan. I don't think I stand a chance of having something like that with him. I don't even know why I'm thinking about this now. I'm being ridiculous! This is just an experiment, a favour. I'm losing my mind.

"Just lay it all out, Ethe," James says, leaning over to pat Ethan's shoulder with his free hand and then he says goodbye, leaving us alone. Looking at Ethan's puzzled face, I wonder how much of what's going on in my mind was written all over my face for James to say something like that to him.

"Look, Kicks-."

"It's all good, Ethy," I hurry to stop the conversation I'm pretty sure I do not want to have. "It's all good."

"No, it's not," he sighs, rubbing the back of his neck, and I'm surprised to realise that he is nervous. "It feels like Amber is this giant moose hanging around between us, and I don't want that."

"Well, she's your first love, I get it and-."

"No, she's not!" he snaps, suddenly annoyed. "She's a mistake I made; I-."

"Don't worry about it, Ethan; everybody makes mistakes," I assure him. Why is he being so hard on himself about that? "You should forgive yourself and move on."

"Can you forgive me?" he asks, his eyes bright and blue, burning into mine.

"Why do I need to forgive you?" I ask, shifting uncomfortably under his intense gaze. "You didn't do anything to me. I'm just tutoring you, remember? It's irrelevant really, just... let's just forget about her..."

"Y-yeah... sure..." he whispers, his eyes losing their intensity, the fires dying into shadows. "Fine, be my tutor then and let me explain. In good relationships, people hear one another out, don't they? I need to practice."

I sigh, nodding my head since I cannot argue with that logic without making things even more weird, but I really don't want to be in this conversation anymore. What did James mean by laying it all out? I don't want anything laid out!

"When Aunt Marge moved in next door, I started helping her with her garden." 

I know that. Daddy, Uncle Ian and Ethan all work in the old lady's garden, sometimes together, sometimes by themselves. She's nice; we all do things for her since she's rather old despite being independent and pretty healthy. 

"One day, while I was working alone, she told me that her son and his ex-wife recently got married to other partners after being divorced for a couple of years, and she was worried about her granddaughter because she was taking it very hard. She asked me if I would introduce her to nice people when she came to stay with her for that school holiday since she'd taken up hanging out with the wrong crowd, and I agreed."

"I remember, Ethy. You tried to introduce her to Dell and me." Does he really think I don't know any of this? It happened about three years ago, and it did not go well. Amber did not want to be introduced to nice girls; she wanted to be introduced to Ethan only... and his friends... the male ones, at least; that's what Dell and I thought.

"Yeah, well... I'll admit that she excited me at first. She was very different from what I was used to, and I had eyes and hormones and stuff-."

"Okay, thank you!" I exclaim, slapping his arm.

"Sorry," Ethan chuckles, "but I'm trying to be honest here, Kicks. She fascinated me, and I was curious, and she liked kissing and stuff, and so did I, so..."

"Ethan, seriously!" I sweep my hand through the sand, shooting a wave of it at him.

"What? You're just tutoring me, right? This shouldn't bother you."

I narrow my eyes, glaring at him, but he does have a point; I'm not supposed to be feeling nauseous with jealousy. Is he trying to make me jealous? No, why would he? He doesn't know that he's torturing me; my reaction is probably not making sense to him. I also don't understand why he is smirking at me while he's looking so sad. People are not supposed to sad-smirk. It's weird.

"It doesn't bother me," I lie, shoving my nose defiantly into the air. "Please continue."

Ethan watches me for a few seconds, but when I continue to avoid looking at him, instead studying the clouds, the sand and the tiny flecks of orange juice on my t-shirt (injuries from almost falling over Marshall), he sighs and continues his story.

"For a very short time, I really thought I was in love with her and that we could start something special, but I woke up from that fast. When we were already over, I caught her making out with Jet... She had him thinking the same thing... Even though neither of us knew that Amber was 'dating', both of us and I were already over her; we were mad at each other. I guess we were mainly mad at ourselves. We fought every time we met until Lurch and Barn pulled us apart, and Burlap asked us what the hell we were doing, beating each other up over a girl who clearly played both of us. He reminded us that we're supposed to cover each other's butts, not kick it."

I didn't know about any of this. Ethan made a point of not talking to Delia and me about Amber since we didn't like her and disapproved of him hanging out with her. She was mean. She was always saying awful things to me, calling me a frumpy dirt nerd and saying that boys wouldn't date me because they'd be mistaken for paedophiles if they kissed me. I hit a growth spurt about six months after she said that to me, so saying it now wouldn't make sense anymore... especially since I suddenly sprouted pretty good boobs.

"He was right, but neither of us wanted to accept it at first. I was mad at her for messing with my head and I guess Jet thought she broke his heart. Maybe she did."

"I'm sorry," I huff. I really don't know how to feel about this news, it's irritating me to hear that he thought he was in love with her, but I also want to jump on Amber and pull her hair out for hurting him. Is this what Dell was talking about; why she told me to protect Ethan from Amber?

"Don't be, because she didn't break my heart. I snapped out of it in a couple of days because she was never the girl for me, and I was able to keep my promise to Aunt Marge without taking Amber and her charms seriously anymore."

"But you said you slept with her just last year..." I gag at my own words, surprised that I just blurted it out like that.

"Yeah... it's not really a fond memory, Kicks," Ethan mutters, turning his head away to stare at the thundering breakers washing up on the beach not far from where we're sitting. "Besides, I had no idea what I was doing. It was not very successful and over before it even started, and I regretted it right away... Do you really want the details?" he suddenly faces me again, rubbing a hand through his hair, looking dejected and somewhat irritated.

"No, thanks," I admit, drawing my knees to my chest and resting my chin on them.

"I love... someone else," Ethan breathes, smiling wistfully when I give him a surprised look. "But I'm not good enough for her, and no girl I've tried to date could ever fill that void... and then, last year, I thought she was in love with someone else and completely lost to me and... I got a little drunk and made a mistake with Amber, and I wish I could take it back, but..." he trails off, suddenly unable to meet my eyes, his long fingers drawing lines in the sand.

Now I feel as though I've been sucker punched!

Hearing about Ethan getting drunk is startling enough since he never drinks more than one beer on the few occasions that he drinks any. Hearing that he got drunk because he loves someone else, and she broke his heart is more than I can handle right now. I should point out to him that he is failing this lesson because you don't tell your girlfriend that you're in love with someone else. I'm alarmingly close to tears now.

How could I so foolishly let myself fall in love with Ethan?

Is that the real reason why he has me tutoring him? He wants to become worthy of the girl he loves... well, he did, in a sense, say that from the beginning, telling me that he wants to become a better version of himself and the ideal boyfriend. Why isn't he worthy of her? Who is she? What makes her so friggin' special that he would not be worthy? I hate her already! Is it someone I know? One of Lurch's family members? Does Dell know about this? She wouldn't be telling me that it's alright to fall for Ethan if she knew he loved another girl! She wouldn't do that to me. She couldn't know about this!

Wait! Is it me? Me?! 

No, he couldn't possibly be talking about me. If it were me, he would've said so... he asked me to be his girlfriend, after all... besides, I never broke his heart. No, it cannot be me... That would be ridiculous! I've always been right here within his reach. It cannot be me, so... who?

The thought of Ethan loving another girl is making my head spin and my heart ache. I need to know who she is, but I also don't want to know because then she will have a name and a face and a body and a personality... and I hate her! I'll be hating an actual person, then.

"Ethan, have you actually asked this girl to be yours?" I ask him, covering my anguish with annoyance. Why is he wasting time messing with my heart if he loves this other creature so friggin' much? Why did he kiss me like that? He doesn't need practice! Is he trying to fill that void with me? Is it working? The question pops into my head in a pathetically hopeful voice. Am I really willing to be Ethan's substitute girl? I shake my head, trying to rid myself of that thought.

"Did she say no? Maybe she just doesn't know how you feel. Maybe she loves you too."

"What?" he is gaping at me, blinking his eyes, looking completely baffled. "Kicks-."

The entire sandy horde that was playing near us suddenly descends on us, snapping the uncomfortable tension that's been building between Ethan and me, and I blink, getting to my feet, angrily swiping at the tears threatening to spill from my eyes.

I dodge the puzzled look Dell is giving me and join in as everybody works together to pack up the umbrellas and blankets, gathering their possessions. It's time to leave and get ready for the dance. A dance I really do not want to go to anymore. I'll deal with Delia later; I'm not entirely sure how I feel about her right now.

Ethan is in love with someone to such an extent that he got drunk and did regrettable things with the girl who previously broke his heart... or at least bruised it a little. I hate knowing that he had ever been in that much pain. I remember the dark depression he fell into last year. Was it because of this girl? I hate knowing that he is hurting, and I hate knowing that he is in love with another girl. I hate him!

No, I don't... that's the biggest problem here.

I silently gather my bag and towel and follow Delia and Simon up the beach to the car park, no longer seeing the beauty of the white sand and the sun glittering silver on the calm surface of the blue bay. The state of my mind and my heart is reflected by the chaos I see in the area where those stalls that will not function during the dance are being dismantled and packed up.

How do I handle things from here on out? Ethan shared his deepest secrets with me, saying things that he'd never been willing to speak about before, not even to Delia, unless she just kept it to herself, which is understandable. She has a very special bond with Ethan and with me; she doesn't spill our secrets, and we keep hers too. If she knew about this great love of his, she would also know that Ethan and I could never be together. I was right in thinking that she was just teasing me about being Ethan's true love or whatever she called it.

"Kicks," I gasp in fright when Ethan appears by my side, grabbing my arm and turning me to face him. He has a pack on his back and a huge, red, folded beach umbrella resting on his shoulder. "I just need you to know one thing. There's no Amber and me, and there will never be an Amber and me, and I'm not even sure that there ever was an Amber and me. There's only you and me..."

Choking on a myriad of emotions, I nod my head, offering him a strained smile.

"Thank you for sharing all of that with me, Ethy. I know it wasn't easy."

♂♀