knives out, ethan landry

xx. JUST TALK

CHAPTER XX:

( just talk )

THE END OF THE WEEK HAD FINALLY ARRIVED SINCE SAKADI HAD BEEN MOBILY SECLUDED TO HER WHEELCHAIR. Tomorrow she would leave the hospital back on her own two feet and Ethan Landry would finally be put out of his nursing misery to return to the comfort of his own apartment and bed.

      Of course, having him take care of her maybe, possibly, slightly, by minuscule chance, made her hate him less. The morning after Ethan told Kade about his sister she thought about the possibility of telling him about every little thing about herself. Why she quit criminology. Why she enjoyed bedazzling things so much. How she hadn't spoken to her parents in four months. That she could never pick between whether purple or red was her favorite color but it was purple when people asked.

      What was she thinking? The guy talked about his dead sister and now she was willing to let him examine her bone marrow in return. It's not like he gave her his social security or said he was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with her.

Sakadi sighed as she readjusted herself on her bed from her seated position on her mattress to lay flat on her back.

      "Fair Maiden, Ethan!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. A loud groan from the living room passed through her open door and in followed Ethan looking annoyed as ever.

      "What."

      Kade stared at him from her upside-down view and squinted at him. "Lose the attitude, missy. It's not appreciated."

He rolled his eyes shaking his head. "Oh, I'm sorry," he cleared his throat, "dearest, Kadi, I apologize for leaving you for so long at your grown age! How ever do you need me to help you?" There was that nickname again.

"You can calm your tits, Ethan," Kade retaliated. "I just wanted to talk."

Ethan's brows furrowed. "Then why not call Cal?"

She shrugged, the action almost sending her tumbling into another wheelchair sentence but the boy caught her by the shoulders and pushed her back up. "Thank you," she said. "And geez, am I not allowed to want to chat with my gorgeous nurse?"

Gorgeous?

Ethan situated himself on her bed after helping her to where their heads lay on opposite sides. "What exactly do you want to talk about?"

The girl thought about it for a moment. "I don't know, come up with something."

He sat up on his elbows with a disbelieving expression on his features. "You're literally the one who wanted to talk."

She did the same. "In my defense, I didn't actually think you would say yes."

The two lay back down and remanded in silence for less than five minutes but more than two before Ethan finally spoke up. "Tell me about your scholarship."

      Kade froze staring up at her ceiling when he said that. She was so ready to open her ribcage to him a few minutes ago but now that the opportunity presented itself she felt like a knight wearing the highest level of armor to protect herself.

      The girl swallowed the bile in her throat when she realized she had been silent for too long. "What do you want to know?" Her voice was quieter than she liked it to be.

      Kade could feel him shrug where her legs were. "I don't know... why'd you drop it?"

      "Oh, now you believe I was in Criminology?" she scoffed with a slight laugh to her words.

      "I might as well ask so I can get my story straight when I try to convince everyone it's true." Kade could laugh at this, as loud as her heart was beginning to get, Ethan would be the person to do that to her.

      She let out a dramatic sigh of exasperation. "I guess I could tell you." Ethan hummed in response.

The different ways she could spit her words out had been teetering at the tip of her tongue.

"I slept with my professor."

That sure was one way to confess.

The silence that followed her statement made her restrain herself from sinking into her mattress and smothering herself with her satin-covered pillows. Kade hated silence. Why wasn't he saying anything? Say something. What was he thinking? Maybe he didn't hear her. Maybe that would be for the best. God, why did she say that?

Ethan sat up on his elbows again, disbelief swirling with a shocked grin on his scrunched face. "What?"

"Ok, I didn't know who he was when it happened, I mean I did, but I didn't know who he was," she rushed to rationalize not wanting to look him in the eye. "My actual professor had just gone on leave because he was old as shit so we were getting someone new. I met him at some club and we got to know each other really well and then when I walked into my class for the new semester he was at the front of the class writing on the board doing whatever the fuck he was doing."

      Ethan was quiet again, watching and listening to her tell her story. Why was it now that he decided he didn't have anything to say to her?

      "Ow! What the hell, Kade?" His hands instinctively covered his calf muscle which Sakadi had sunk her teeth into in retaliation for his silence.

"Speak, asshole! You can't let me say that I almost threw up at the sight of my professor that I slept with, got shamed by my parents when I told them about it because I wanted to switch majors, and on top of all that, that he wanted to continue the relationship, and just stay quiet!" Now the girl was sitting up scolding him and pounding her fists into the bone of his shin. Ethan's face was unreadable to Sakadi and she wanted to shove him deep into her mattress to never see him again. "Say something, Ethan!"

      "I just have one question," he finally stated.

"Please, just anything," Kade pleaded.

"Was the sex good at least?"

Sakadi Renaux blinked. Heat rushed to her olive cheeks and made them rosy with each blink she had. "What?" her voice cracked. The corners of Ethan's mouth quirked up at the sight of her and Sakadi threw everything within her reach that she possibly could. Pillows, chargers, gemstones, her phone, and then almost her lamp before he slid off of the end of the bed laughing with a bruising bicep. "I hate you so much."

      Ethan sighed laying on the floor calming his laughter down. "I know you do, Kadi."

      The girl maneuvered her body to slide to the end of the bed and hang her head over it so she could see Ethan sprawled out with his arm over his stomach. "I hope you know that if it's possible to be reincarnated as animals that I will hunt you down and eat you."

      The curly-haired boy turned his head to look up at her. "You've probably done it before in our past life so I wouldn't even be surprised."

      Kade nodded satisfied pushing her loose strands of hair behind her ears. "Good, so be ready when you hatch right out of your egg for me to eat your legs and then decapitate you," she matter-a-factly said with a finger pointed at him.

      His brows furrowed at her proclamation, "I think that if I was in your mind for an hour that I would strangle myself."

      Kade grinned widely. "I hope that happens so you do."