First Comes Friendship

Chapter 5: Fear and Trust

Monday morning my phone rang bright and early. I picked up on the second ring, it was Elle, finally.

"Hey you! I was beginning to think that you were dead or something." I was only half joking, Things had been too quiet without Elle and I had missed her more in the last few days than I would have liked to admit

"Ya sorry about that, I sort of went MIA for a few days"

Just from the tone of her voice, I could tell she was blushing, it made me smile.

"Sort of MIA..."

She sighed.

"Okay, I went totally MIA, but you can't pick on me, you would have done the same in my position!" she huffed.

I paused for a moment, pretending to think about what I would have done if I were in her shoes.

"Ya, most likely!" I chuckled.

She giggled. God, how I had missed that sound in the last few days, I closed my eyes, taking that sweet sound in.

"Totally"

We laughed

"Anyways, it's a good thing you called. I wanted to invite you to go to the amusement park on Friday." I was trying to change the subject. I know a true best friend would have asked details about her time with Matt, but the truth was I didn't want to know. "There is a whole bunch of us going and I know just how much you love going on rides so I thought you might want to join us. Are you in?"

Elle was the type of girl who would pretend to be a thrill seeker when really we all knew that she was a big chicken, so I could not wait to see how she was going to try to get out of that one.

There was a moment of silence as she was probably considering her options. Putting on a brave face for now or admitting her fears right away, avoiding embarrassment later when time came to go on a ride.

"Ah well, I'll have to see, I think I have something to do this weekend, I'm not sure..." her voice trailed off. She was trying to buy time to come up with a good excuse.

"Ah come one, you don't want to miss this, those guys are a riot, it's gonna be a blast!"

I could hear the fear in her voice

"I'll see what I can do"

"Elle are you scared of going on the rides or something?" I teased.

"No, not me, I love going on rides!" Denial, denial, denial! I did not buy that for a second as I could hear the tremble in her voice!

"Come on be honest!" She was going to crack eventually.

"I swear I love them." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself and she was failing miserably.

"Then you'll come?"

She hesitated and sighed.

"Sure why not!" I could not believe she actually said yes.

"Great, I'll see you then!"

"See you!" she said with fake enthusiasm.

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When I picked her up on Friday morning, she looked like she had seen a ghost. Although she was dressed for a day at the park, shorts, a cute t-shirts and runners, but her face said something else entirely. It also seemed like she was getting her wisdom teeth pulled out that day.