Just Friends (8 page)

“You’re in a bit of a hurry aren’t you?” Stanley said, leaning forward.

“Well, she runs to the station. I figured that would make her rather flustered, so I thought I’d see if it’d help to run from the eighth row.” I replied, out of breath.

Stanley sulked and then raised his eyebrows, realising my actions kind of made sense. “Did it help?” He asked with a blank face.

“Not really, I just feel a little sweaty now.” I answered with honesty.

He smirked, and rotated to Ms. Andrews and then back to me.

“So you came with Jasmine, did you?”

I didn’t know who Jasmine was, but then it clicked that must have been Ms. Andrews first name. “Oh yes, we got the train together.”

“Interesting, whenever you’re ready.” Stanley said, offering his hand out, as if he dismissed my knowing of Ms. Andrews. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My heart was pounding double time, and the butterflies in my stomach felt as though they were about to erupt. But as soon as I opened my eyes, all those nerves had vanished. It was like I was on autopilot. I was being controlled by a remote. When I regained control of myself I had tears rolling down my cheeks, and I was scowling deep into Stanley’s eyes. He scowled right back at me. I wiped my eyes and sat upright, unsure to whether or not I had just produced the worst audition ever. Stanley leant back on his chair. His dark eyes faded innocently.

“Where on Earth did you find this girl?” He asked.

“I taught her PA at the job you stole me from, Stan.”

Stanley smirked, and returned his focus to me.

“Incredible.” He said. “Incredible…thank you, August.” He stood and shook my hand before standing and making his way towards the exit.

I opened my mouth, there was so many things flowing through my mind, that I just didn’t say anything. My jaw just moved up and down, as I couldn’t select a sentence.

“Steve is waiting for me outside. We’re having dinner. I’ll call you tomorrow, Jazz.” Stanley said over his shoulder.

And just like that, he was gone. I didn’t know whether to consider him cool or rude. I remained poised at my chair. Baffled by what had taken place. I took a deep breath out and dropped my shoulders.

“How did I do?” I asked nervously.

“Like he said, you were incredible.”

May 27
th

B
y the time I climbed into bed last night, and rolled over to check Ethan’s clock, it was 12:36am. What a long, bewildering, and exhausting day yesterday was. I finished college early today. Which meant I could visit Ethan earlier since I broke my promise of visiting him every day. I felt awful for breaking my promise. I wanted to see him so badly. To tell him about Stanley and the audition, and to reassure myself that he’s ok. We need to talk. I’ll force it out of him somehow. This isn’t a show anymore. He will tell me how he switched seats or I’ll be very mad. Even though I can’t really be mad at him.

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 31
st

A
s 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 would 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