Learning to Fall

15: Close Save

"So, Aiden..." Uncle John began as we began eating out food.

I swallowed. Uh-oh. Here comes the blow...

"What are your plans for college?" Uncle John asked Aiden.

BOOM! And there it was.

Aiden glanced at me knowingly before turning his attention to my uncle.

"I've already been accepted into the school I want to go to," Aiden replied, casually.

"Really? And which is that?" Uncle John asked quizically.

"Julliard," Aiden replied simply.

Uncle John choked on the piece of fish he had just stuck in his mouth. Aunt Meredith hit him on the back, glaring at Aiden as if it was his fault my uncle choked.

"Julliard?!" Uncle John exclaimed, clearly caught off-guard.

"Yes, sir," Aiden said, nodding his head and nudging me with his elbow. I kept my head down, not wanting to make any eye contact with anyone.

Currently, Laura was making winky faces at Aiden, which he ignored. Simultaneously, she was shooting me devilish looks. I already knew what her plan was. She no doubt thought that Aiden was more than just my 'friend'. And she was making it extremely obvious that she was attracted to him, because, well, any girl would be. He was just an attractive person. What she was going to try to do, then, was 'steal' him from me.

But joke was on her. Because Aiden and I were the farthest thing from 'together'. We were hardly friends. I just kept saying that he was so that my aunt and uncle wouldn't kick him out of the house, which I knew they no doubt wanted to do.

"How on earth did you manage to get in?" Aunt Meredith asked, rubbing her husbands back as he gulped down water.

"I applied early, filled out an application, sent in a video with a demo of a song I wrote and a few weeks later, I got my acceptance letter," he answered simply.

"Julliard is like the best--" Kara began to say.

"School for the performing arts. Yes, that it is," Aiden finished for her.

"You have to be really amazing to get in," Brandon said.

"Well then, they must have thought I was really amazing since they let me in," Aiden answered.

"I bet he is. He just looks like a rockstar," Laura piped up, smirking and winking at Aiden. I could tell he was fighting back a retort. He wouldn't be rude, though. He already understood my crazy relatives.

"I'm not really a rock star. I like acoustic stuff," Aiden corrected.

"Even better. I love indie music," Laura said.

"No you don't. You like Ke$ha. That's like, the farthest thing from indie," Kara pointed out. Laura sent a glare at her for blowing her cover.

"Well, although Julliard is an excellent school, it's still only a performing arts school. The music business is a tricky and unreliable one. What if you can't make it big? What else will you do?" Uncle John asked, interrupting the unnecessary banter.

"Well, music isn't the only thing they do over there. They've got programs for audio engineering and other things of that nature," Aiden said. "I happen to be pretty good at that stuff, which is why that was one of the programs I'm enrolled in, in addition to my music," he added. I raised my eyebrows and looked at him. I had no idea he was into sound engineering. I guess he was more intelligent than I gave him credit for.

"It's still performing arts," Uncle John said.

"No, technically, it's engineering. And I bet you value engineers, Mr. Dubois," Aiden replied smoothly. If I was the same girl I had been a few months ago, I would have smirked broadly at this comment. But my lips seemed unable to form any sort of smile, so I internally smirked.