I didn’t say long sentences often.
I just didn’t like talking, but that didn’t mean I
didn’t have my own thoughts.
Ethan looked stunned.
I knew lots of people liked Ethan.
I could see it in their eyes.
But Ethan didn’t understand my feelings.
He didn’t know that I only let him into my
world.
He didn’t want to come in, so whatever.
I stopped talking to Ethan.
<
I didn’t listen to anything he said.
I could block out the world and live in my own
world if I wanted.
When I was little, I didn’t understand what
people said, and I couldn’t come out of my
world.
I didn’t get why my mom cried when she
looked at me.
I didn’t feel anything special when she left.
Later, after lots of therapy, I learned to come
out of my world.
Though I still didn’t get complicated feelings
sometimes.
<
thought?
But I nodded.
“Can’t we still be friends?”
“I like you, and it’ll make me sad if you don’t
like me.”
“It’ll make me sad if you like someone else.”
“So, I can’t be your friend.”
Ethan was silent.
As I was about to leave, Ethan grabbed my
wrist.
He said, “I don’t want you to be sad.”
L
I started dating Ethan.
He was the same as before: messaging me,
calling me, telling me stories, taking me out.
We rode the Ferris wheel, watched dolphins.
He held my hand when I was scared.
But my dad found out and didn’t want us to
be together.
He said Ethan was poor and just wanted our
money.
I didn’t know how to explain, I just kept
repeating, “No, no, no…”
Ethan wasn’t like that.
<
“He likes me, and I like him.”
My dad said, “Do you even know what love
is? There’s no way a normal person would like
you! He’s using you! I shouldn’t have hired
him!”
“No! No! No!”
“Ethan isn’t using me!”
“I know what love is!”
My dad locked me in my room, I couldn’t see
Ethan.
Ethan stood outside our gates in the rain, he
wouldn’t leave.
y dad wouldn’t open the deer
I shouted, but my dad wouldn’t open the door.
L
“Wait for Ethan.”
Wait for Ethan, he’d be great one day.
I went back to my world, I didn’t talk to my
dad, I didn’t eat, I just wanted to see Ethan.
My dad said, “If you behave and get
treatment, I’ll let you see him.”
“Together.”
Not just see him, I wanted to be with him.
“Okay, when you’re better, I’ll let you be
together.”
I went to the mental hospital, took my
<
Most of the time, I just watched the world
through the window.
I kept waiting, waiting to be normal so I could
be with Ethan.
Though I didn’t know what normal was.
I could do the graduation questions and get a
good score, but they didn’t ask me those
questions, they asked me hard ones.
“What do you think love is?”
“Do you understand the idea of love or
marriage?”
I didn’t say anything.
That day, a new patient came to the mental
nuspilai.
The nurse said she’d hidden her history of
mental illness. She had an episode after she got married, and her husband sent her here.
The nurse said she was hurting herself and
others.
Mental illness was genetic, that the man must
regret liking and marrying her.
I got scared.
It turned out liking someone wasn’t enough.
You could regret it.
Maybe they were right, and I didn’t know
anything.
r
I still didn’t know after ten years.
Why was I sent to a mental hospital for liking
Ethan?
Why didn’t anyone believe I really liked him?
Brooke suddenly got excited.
She said to her phone, “How about we start a
campaign, ‘Find Ethan!‘ Let’s dig up the story
behind this photo!”
She put the photo back in the box, and left
the mental hospital with it.
I was in a hurry, so I followed her.
“Give it back!”
L
“That’s my photo!”
But she couldn’t hear me.
Then I left the mental hospital and followed
her home.
I realized that it wasn’t the mental hospital
holding me back, but this photo.
I could only move around near it.
I watched Brooke post my photo online,
collect news, contact people, ask about
Blackwood Mental Hospital.
“Find Ethan” started trending.
I got scared, scared that Ethan would find out
I was dead
r
He’d be sad.
If Ethan died, I might never come out of my
world.
But I couldn’t stop Brooke.
Because, I was dead.
Then.
Brooke saw a news story.
Tech mogul Ethan Bell was coming home next
week for an Al conference.
“Ethan!” She sat up, her face mask fell off.
Then she said, “No way.”
<
I looked at the photo in the news, I didn’t
blink.
It was Ethan.
Thirty–year–old Ethan.
My first love, Ethan.
Had he been living overseas?
Had he forgotten me?
Why hadn’t he visited me at the mental
hospital?
And why didn’t he smile now?
Was he unhappy?
<
I wanted to see him.
I glanced at Brooke, then at her house, and
figured, nah, it was too much to ask.
Two days later, someone online said they
knew me. Brooke saw the message and
danced around.
Chapter 2
She really loved being dramatic; Ethan was
never like that.
After she calmed down, I nervously watched
the screen with her.
“The person in the photo was my high school
classmate. She stopped coming to school
much in junior year, and then we never heard
from her again. Her name was Ashley Parker.
She was a bit… off, but harmless. She just
didn’t pay attention in class, always turned in
く
Diank papers, and ignorea everyone. Looking
back, it was probably autism.”
That’s right, autism, not a mental illness.
“Other than not studying, talking, or
interacting with people, she was pretty
normal.”
Brooke immediately contacted the person
who posted the comment.
“Do you know Ethan Bell? What was his
relationship with Ashley?”
“No, Ashley didn’t talk to anyone. But the
name Ethan Bell sounds familiar, let me
think.”
I silently prayed they wouldn’t remember.
But prayers didn’t work.
“I remember! He was a senior in our school.
Top of the class that year! Look up the news,
you should be able to find his picture.”
After Brooke did, she cursed.
“Holy crap! Isn’t this Ethan Bell, one of the
く
biggest names in tech now? No way!”
Yeah, no way.
Brooke, please don’t find Ethan.
The day Ethan returned, Brooke contacted a
journalist friend of hers and went to stake
him out.
Spending the past few days with Brooke, I
discovered something: the Six Degrees of
Separation theory didn’t apply to her.
It seemed like she knew everyone; two
degrees of separation were enough.
I floated next to Brooke, super nervous.
Even though I was scared of Ethan finding out
I was dead, I could finally see him, even if it
was in secret.
