Highly Strung

Befriending Cole Hays

“I think my dear brother has a thing for the smart girl.” Alex winked, plopping down next to me on the hard wooden bench. She slopped her pop all down the front of her shirt in her usual clumsiness.

“Not possible.” I denied, handing her my napkin and pushing away the disposable plate of half-eaten potato salad.

But did I hope it was possible? That in some alternate universe the musician who was bound to head down a path full of drugs and heartache would fall for someone like me? The smart girl who hoped to be a Marine Biologist? It just didn’t add up. He was only showing interest because we were so different. There were probably so many girls in Europe, foreign musicians who knew the difference between instruments.

“Let me tell you something.” Alex said seriously, setting aside her dirty napkin and folding her hands together nervously in her lap.

When I didn’t stop her, she plowed on. “Cole doesn’t .. he isn’t exactly open, if you know what I mean. I guess that’s why my parents sent him away to boarding school on a whole different continent. They were hoping he’d open up to somebody.”

“But he seems so happy most of the time - carefree.” I struggled to understand what she was trying to say. It didn’t make any sense that he would have trouble opening up to anybody, I watched him laugh with one of his family members across the party where people were dancing to a battery-operated radio blasting sugary pop songs.

“That’s the thing..” She trailed off, looking in the same direction, lost in thought.

“Alex?” She frowned, shaking her head as if to clear it of thought.

“He had his heart broken over there.” She mumbled so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right.

Somebody as good looking as Cole had his heart broken? There was no way.

Being twins, Alex and Cole shared the same curly, dark hair, Cole was growing his out it seemed. It almost touched his shoulders. The one thing they didn’t share was their eye colour. Cole’s were a bright forest green, where Alex shared her mother’s eyes, a deep ocean blue ringed with gold.

No, it didn’t make any sense how anybody could break Cole’s heart.

“He uses the fake cheer as a wall to block everybody from seeing how unhappy he really is. We’re twins, and I can tell when he’s as upset as he is.” She looked as if she were about to cry.

“Why is he constantly so in my face?” I questioned, wanting to steer the conversation from that upsetting detail, for my best friend’s sake.

“He likes you. You should see the way he stares at you when you laugh. He’s terrified of messing things up. He thinks you could do so much better than him because he feels like he’s not going anywhere in life and you’re going to do great things.”

“How do you know all this?” I was shocked. I always felt so plain in comparison to all of the girls around me. They worked so hard on their looks, while I had always favoured grades over anything else.

“He told me. So don’t tell him I told you or he’ll kill me.” She stood up from the bench, stretching. “Ease up on him okay?”

I nodded mutely, as she walked away, turning back to watch as Cole picked up his guitar and started strumming away.

There was no way.

* * *

Needless to say, with all the new information weighing on my mind, I couldn’t sleep that night.

Pushing the covers back, I slid out of my bed silently, pulling on shorts and a light shirt and grabbing my flip flops before creeping out of my room and down the stairs.