Just Friends

by Billy Taylor

  I spent several minutes wandering down the maze like hospital corridors in a fluster. Luckily, I stumbled upon Angela, who pointed me in the right direction. As I opened the door and stepped inside Ethan’s room, I found Verity and her friends gathered around Ethan. I stared at them in silence. Verity walked over and hugged me. Squeezing me for a few seconds before I put my arms around her, giving her a comforting pat on the back. I flicked my eyes over at Ethan. His face has regained so much colour in these past few days. He smiled at me and gave me the thumbs up, settling my nerves.

  “Hi guys,” I said.

  Scattered replies of, “Hey August,” came from Verity’s friends. Five of them including her.

  “We didn’t see you at college yesterday, August. We wanted to check how you were doing.” Verity said as she released her grasp from around me.

  “Oh yeah, Ms. Andrews planned this last minute audition for me.”

  “The girls and I thought we’d pop by and see him. We were all shocked when we heard the news.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, thank you.”

  I appreciated them coming to visit Ethan, but I desperately wanted to be left alone with Ethan. Verity must have psychic powers as she walked back over to Ethan and sat down beside him. “I promise we’ll come and visit you again soon.” She rubbed his un-bandaged arm and kissed his forehead. I watched in discomfort. I felt a concerning jealousy come over me, like only I can kiss Ethan’s head. Ethan briefly smiled at Verity, then her friends. “Thank you ladies. It was nice to see you all.” His voice was croaky as he began his sentence, but it smoothened. “See you later Breakfast, bye Breakfast.” They shouted as they left the room. I shut the door behind them, resting my head on it.

  “You look nice.” Ethan said.

  “Thanks… How you feeling?”

  I walked over and sat on the edge of his bed.

  “Well, I’m being held together by metal. Other than that I’m fine!”

  Ethan winced as he shuffled over, patting the space beside him with his unharmed right hand. He raised his arm implying for me to sit beside him so he could put his arm around me. I rolled my eyes, then sat down alongside him. I didn’t want to sit on any important wires or knock him, a typical thing for me to do. He put his arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “Now we’re alone. Tell me what’s on your mind. I know you’re bottling everything up.”

  I rested my head on him and sighed. “Yesterday, was a really, really good day. I’m so sorry I didn’t come to see you, I was with Ms. Andrews, you know, my performing arts teacher, It turns out her best friend is Stanley Tennant, the well-known director who hired her to be his casting director. She got me an audition, and I think it went pretty well. Stanley seemed to like me.”

  He squeezed my shoulder. “Don’t worry. They’d be stupid not to choose you.”

  I know Ethan is in a lot of pain. I know he’s trying not to show it, but it’s so good to see him acting like his usual self. I’ve missed him.

  “Ethan you need to tell me what happened. It’s driving me insane, you can’t keep this from me and expect me to be ok with it. You’re in hospital Ethan. You could’ve died. That’s what I’m thinking about, it’s what I’m always thinking about.”

  I nestled my head in further onto his chest. Ethan exhaled heavily.

  “August, sometimes… these things, are best kept a secret. Believe me. I couldn’t have allowed you to be in the position I am. I spoke to the doctor. She explained if you were sitting in the passenger seat with your seat belt on, you would have most likely died. If not instantly, shortly after attempted treatment in hospital because you’re a little dwarf and your positioning would have been different. Tell me, what should I have done with those odds? So I switched with you. If anything ever happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. You’re all I have, August. I don’t want to loose you, not now, not ever.”

  His voice stuttered throughout his demanded explanation. I’ve never seen Ethan cry. Even now he wouldn’t break. I delayed my reply, unsure of what to say. “I’m sorry, I am a dwarf aren’t I?” I replied with a groan.

  “Yes, yes you are. But you’re my little dwarf. Listen, I’ll make you a deal. You have until Saturday to choose one of my tricks for me to reveal. All those year’s and you get to choose one. You’ll need to test your memory. Apart from how we switched seats. That’s the deal. Any mention of seat switching the deals off. You already know the one I told you in the truck about the apple. That’s a bonus one. Then when you come in Saturday, we’ll sit and I’ll reveal the trick of your choice.”

  “Ok.” I said and closed my eyes.

  Arriving home late last night must have tired me out because my eyes woke to Angela nudging me. “Sorry to disturb you, August, your Mum is here to take you home.” I rubbed my eyes as I sat up. Ethan had fallen asleep, too. I stood and grabbed my things. I didn’t want to wake Ethan, so I stroked the hair off his forehead and kissed it. I dawdled out of the room still rubbing my eyes.

  “There you are,” Mum said walking up to me and patting my head as I exited Ethan’s room. “Come on, let’s go.”

  May 31st

  As soon as I woke Saturday I rushed to the hospital to see Ethan. He was still asleep when I entered his room. He was snoring which I thought was funny and somehow cute. I sat down on the chair. I tried to budge it closer to his bed so we could talk better, but it screeched as I tried to drag it. So I decided to leave it.

  “Either my pretending to be asleep skills are getting better or your spotting my pretending to be asleep skills are getting worse.” Ethan said with a smile as he sat up. I flapped my arms and raised my eyebrows at him.

  “Drag the chair up my dear, not a moment to waste.”

  I frowned at the chair and dragged it again. My face grimaced as the wooden legs screeched along the floor. I focused my sight back onto Ethan who had a straight face. “Finished?” I sat down in the chair and wriggled in it to make the legs screech one last time, just to annoy him more. My face was smug as I looked at him, he just shook his head.

  “Good morning by the way.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Can we eat before I begin?” He asked. I sighed in annoyance. I’d just sat down. Nevertheless, I returned to my feet and headed over to the Café to grab some sandwiches. The sandwich selection was a limited one. Luckily there were three ham and cheese sandwiches left. I bought all three because I’m sure the third would be eaten at some point. I gently threw the sandwich and a bottle of water onto Ethan’s lap as I retook my seat.

  “So, have you decided which trick I am revealing today?”

  I nodded as I was still chewing on my sandwich. “Yeah.” I said, spitting a tiny bit of food out – I tried to catch it, failing miserably. Ethan burst into an uncontrollable laughter. I laughed too because his laugh always made me laugh. “Stop, it’s embarrassing!” I managed to say with a mouth full of food.

  “Ok, I’m sorry!” Ethan wiped his face with his hands and sighed.

  He then grabbed his sandwich, taking a huge bite before looking back in my direction. I paused for a second before I told him the trick I had chosen.

  “I’ve chosen the frozen bottle one you did at Verity’s party. The situation makes it difficult to pull it off you know; first, you’ve got the crowd, so that means lots of people can spot anything suspicious. Then you have the possibility of whoever fetched you the two bottles over, fetching over the incorrect bottles.” I stopped rambling and looked over at Ethan, who was gazing at me.

  “Sorry what, I phased out for a second there.” Ethan replied in clueless manor.

  “Nothing, I was rambling.” I replied, tucking my hair behind my ear.

  He watched me for a second. “So, the bottle trick eh? Are you sure that’s your final choice?”

  I nodded a few times, “One-hundred percent final choice.”

  I’ve seen all of Ethan’s tricks. Most of them have been card tricks. To pick one out of all those card tricks wou
ld be very difficult. Finding out one will make me want to find out another and that’ll send me crazy. The explanation might not even be as good as I was hoping, too.

  “Excellent choice my dear. So lets recap what happened before – Verity opened the door and dragged me away from you guys straight away. So when you were upstairs she kept nagging me to do a card trick for her. I told her I would later after she asked for the fifth time.” I smirked and nodded as he continued. “But Verity had a big role in this trick without even knowing. I asked her to put a few bottles of beer in the freezer a couple of hours before we arrived as I mentioned I like beer ice cold. It requires about three hours of cooling for this to work. Otherwise after time they expand and shatter. I grabbed one and began drinking it for two reasons. 1) Because that’s what they were intended for. 2) I had to check they hadn’t frozen already. Beer takes a long time to freeze, so I didn’t need to worry about it too much. Then when you and Max joined everyone downstairs and witnessed me performing the card trick to Verity, which you so marvellously assisted me with.” He extended his hand towards me and I gave him the thumbs up. “The beers were sitting neatly in the freezer, cooling, waiting. So when I struck them together, the energy generated causes the liquid on the edge of freezing point, to instantly freeze. It’s all to do with science, I dunno, just thought it was cool. Basically when you hit cold beers together, they freeze instantly.” He handed me his bottle of water to open as he finished. I visualised the whole event. Picturing every stage and figuring how much had to go right for the trick to work

  “So, it could have all gone wrong? Had you practiced it before?”

  “Yes. It didn’t go to well though. The bottles smashed in my hands, I’m surprised they didn’t slice all my hands open. Sometimes magic is all about luck. I took a shot, and it paid off, everyone would’ve been too drunk to notice a difference either way.”

  I was too shy to tell Ethan how grateful I was for him opening up to me like this so I said, “Thank you, Ethan,” placing my hand on his. I meant it. I truly meant it.

  June 3rd

  Three more days until Ethan is released from hospital. I’m happy and terrified. It’ll be nice to have my bestfriend back. Max spends his time in the library and Mark and I don’t speak much. I want to prevent the news about Mark and me from reaching Ethan because I want to tell him myself. I’m not sure how he’ll react. That’s why I’m afraid to tell him. I don’t mean he will freak out. I mean he may think our friendship will be affected and we’ll soon see less and less of each other. Who knows what will happen. Honestly, spending much more time with Mark isn’t something I intend on doing. He’s a nice guy, but relationships are about finding that someone you want to spend the rest of your life with. I certainly can’t see myself getting married or having kids with him. That is how you’re supposed to feel about someone. Isn’t it? I’m telling myself that’s why I’ve not told Ethan yet. Mark and I went for a walk the day after Ethan told me the secret to his bottle trick. There’s nothing I can say about it really. It was nice, but there’s no spark between us. When I picture myself sat next to the person I want to spend the rest of my life with, I always see Ethan sitting right next to me. Maybe it’s because he’s been sitting there for the past twelve years.

  I’m furious with his Dad for not visiting him. After he wandered off to Italy to play poker, he turned off his phone so no one can contact him to prevent distractions. The hospital has tried calling him countless times, and so have I. What can kind of Father does that? I know he’s been doing well and fetching good money home. Still, his son is in hospital and he doesn’t even know. His son could have died and he wouldn’t have known. Two weeks. Two weeks, not one call, not one text to check on his son, the last of his family. Ethan deserves so much better. It’s not that I don’t like Ethan’s Dad, he’s a great guy, or was.

  June 9th

  Monday, the day before Ethan returned to college. I’ve missed him. I visited him Thursday, the day before he was due to be released from hospital. He asked me to give him until Tuesday. That he had things to sort out. I offered to help although his stubborn self refused.

  Mark walked over during lunch today and we ate together. The awkwardness of it all didn’t allow me to enjoy it as much as I should’ve done. He kept saying, “So.” Like a weird amount of times. At least ten times. Then he asked me out to go out with this evening, which I stupidly accepted. I should’ve cut it off with him there and then, but I didn’t have the courage. I decided I’d tell him later at dinner. I’m rehearsing over in my head what I’m going to say to him to stop our dating. We’re meeting at the restaurant we had our first date in. I’ve never done this before, never. I at least wanted to give him the decency of telling him in person, surely that is the right thing to do. I’ve heard people end it over the phone and it doesn’t end well. My palms were sweating as I grabbed the handle to the restaurant door. “Deep breaths, deep breaths.” I’m sure Mark will be fine. He won’t be too heartbroken losing little old me. I recognised the back of his head as I entered the restaurant.

  “Hi.” I said as I slid onto my seat.

  “Hi.” He replied.

  “How are you?” I asked, the only thing in my head was, how long do I leave it until I tell him? Do I tell him now or leave it until later?

  “I’m dreadful, what about you?” He replied.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He sighed, “Turns out my mum has been cheating on my dad with our neighbour for the past three weeks. They’re getting divorced, it’s like a war zone at home right now.”

  I glanced down at his hands. He held a glass of scotch in his hand. His eyes were watery. A mixture of tears and alcohol. How could I break the news to him now? The last thing he needed was more bad news. Maybe I was being too considerate.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that Mark, but I really need to talk to you.” I sucked in all my courage and decided to go for it. It would give it time to marinate. “With everything that’s going off right now, I’m not ready for a relationship. There are too many things happening in my life and the time isn’t there for you. I’m so sorry to tell you this now, it’s the last thing you need, but I didn’t want to mislead you.” I felt so bad telling him this now although I knew if I didn’t tell him now I’d feel ten times worse later. It’d only mislead him more.

  “Oh no, it’s fine. I’m seeing somebody else anyway. At least let’s have something to eat and let me walk you home?”

  To be honest I’m surprised I didn’t throw my drink in his face. He’s seeing someone else and just dismissed it as if wasn’t a big deal. I wanted to stand up and leave. Instead I stupidly stayed and as time passed Mark continued to drink more scotch. He attracted more and more attention to our table so I called the waiter over to pay for our bill. I tried calling Mark a taxi although he insisted on walking me home. He was managing to walk rather sensibly so I let him walk with me to save causing a scene. I called him a taxi once we arrived at my front door.

  “Well, you take care Mark.” I said as I placed the key into the door.

  “I will do, August.” He slurred his words to the point they were almost unrecognizable.

  I nervously laughed. The taxi couldn’t arrive soon enough. I know Mark was going through a tough time at home, but it’s no excuse to be an asshole. I’m going through a tough time too, but I don’t solve my problems with alcohol or see other people. I guess people solve their problems differently. I stayed with him to make sure he got into the taxi ok. I didn’t like the idea of him hanging outside my house drunk. I leant myself against the door and closed my eyes for a moment. I opened them to find Mark’s face attached to mine. He was kissing me. I immediately tasted the scotch and felt like throwing up. I pushed him away as hard as my arms allowed me.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” A few alterations may have been made to what I said.

  “Come on babe, don’t be frigid. Let’s go inside.” Mark grabbed me by my waist, pulling me in to him,
kissing me once again, and groping my behind.

  I used all my strength to try and release myself from his grasp, but I wasn’t strong enough. I shifted my head away from his. The only part of me capable to force away from him.

  “Mark, get off me! No!” I yelled.

  I nearly called for help before I remembered a program I watched on TV about self-defense. There wasn’t an alternative, I readied my knee and jolted it between his legs. His grasp instantly released. He stumbled backwards holding himself. As I turned to open the door he swung me back and smacked me across the face. Causing me to fall and hit my cheek on the side of the door handle. The pain shot through me like a bullet, I quickly returned to my feet in a panic. My hands struggled to turn the key as I fiddled with the lock. The door came to my saviour and finally opened. Madeline stood there wide-eyed with shock implanted on her face. I pushed her back and slammed the door behind us forcing my back against it.

  “Lock the door, lock it.” I shouted.

  She lifted the handle and turned the key. I dropped to the floor with my head in my hands. “Thanks Sis, you’re a real life saver. Me and my friends were playing a game, and I was trying to hide from them.” I could sense her looking down at me silently. I parted my fingers and glanced up at her.

  “Tag?” She asked with a blank expression poised upon her innocent face.

  “Yes, yes, tag, I’m the winner!” I murmured through my hand.

  I turned and peeked through the keyhole to check if Mark had gone. The pain running through the corner of my left caused me to squint. I caught the back of the taxi speeding away. I sighed and returned my face back into my hands.

  “Madeline, why don’t you go upstairs? Is Mum and Dad home?”

  “They went out for food. I’m getting ice cream, don’t tell Mum or Dad and I won’t tell them about you and your friends playing tag.” Madeline said, she’s exceptional at making arrangements.

  “Deal,” I shouted. I peeked through my fingers to see her skipping towards the kitchen. I stumbled to my feet and ran upstairs. The pain on the side of my face gradually increased with each step I took. I closed my bedroom door shut and raced over to the mirror. The whole side of my eye had gone red. No cutting or bruising surrounded my eye, just redness. Tears had filled my eyes, blurring my sight. I walked back downstairs. My face required something frozen to help numb the pain. Madeline had stood on a kitchen chair, reaching into the freezer for her beloved ice cream. I leant past her, grabbing a bag of frozen vegetables, gently placing it against my tender skin. I returned to my bedroom, closing the door behind me and sat on my bed and cried. As the tears rolled down my face, reality sank in. I’m so disappointed and disgusted. I genuinely believed Mark was a nice guy. The thought of seeing him at college tomorrow terrified me. It’s Ethan’s first day back tomorrow as well. I rolled over, sinking my head into my pillow. What is he going to say if he finds out? I hadn’t even told him about seeing Mark. I felt like crawling into a hole and never coming out. I tucked myself into a ball, resting my hand under my face to keep the frozen vegetables in place and shut my eyes.