Just Friends

September 2nd

NEW MESSAGE FROM MUM
We're boarding the plane now. See u soon. Love u. xxxxx

NEW MESSAGE FROM MADELINE
C U SOON SMELLY!!!

     I'm so excited for my Mum and Madeline's arrival. It's a shame Dad has to work. Ethan has driven over to the airport to pick them up. I think he's excited to be reunited with them, too. I logged into my email while I waited. No new emails. It's too early to conclude that Leonard Phillips isn't interested. He is on holiday. He doesn't want to be disturbed, I'm sure.
     When I heard the key in the door I jumped up. Madeline looked like she was entering Disney land for the first time. Her jaw was massively ajar. She sprinted off to view the apartment before even saying hello. My Mum clambered through the door with a bundle of bags and suitcases.
     "Mum!" I shouted as I ran over and hugged her.
     "August, at least let me get through the door first." She said as she dropped her bags. "Ooo, this is nice isn't it? I wouldn't mind leaving your Father and move in here." She wandered through the apartment as if she was a lost child in a playground.
     I looked at Ethan. He smiled. He's wearing his golden star tie I bought him for his eighteenth birthday. He picked up the bags my Mum had dropped on the floor and carried them upstairs. Madeline shortly followed behind him skipping up each step. My Mum watched them as they disappeared up the staircase and then ventured out onto the balcony.
     "Mum, Mum. There's an ice cream place not far from here. Can he take me, please?" Madeline asked, running back downstairs. Mum returned from the balcony and flicked her eyes at me before returning to Madeline.
"Don't have too much, ok?"
     Madeline frowned at our Mother, "Fine."
Ethan jogged downstairs.
     "Mum says we can go!" Madeline shouted to him.
     He smiled and grabbed his keys and wallet off the side. "Let's go Maddie!"
     Madeline rushed around and hugged me, allowing me to kiss her cheek before sprinting away. She struggled to open the heavy door to the apartment. Ethan assisted her, allowing her to run along the corridor to the elevator. Ethan smiled at Mum and me, and closed the door behind him. Silence flowed through the apartment, but Madeline's singing could be heard from along the corridor.
     "How the hell did he afford all this?" Mum asked, as she stood and examined the mantelpiece. She picked up the framed Polaroid picture Ethan and I took on my birthday. I wanted to tell her about Ethan and his money, but I knew it wouldn't be a good idea. Ethan would be furious with me also.
     "I have no idea. What's new with you?" I asked.
     "Oh nothing. My Daughter is in L-O-V-E."
     I blushed and buried my head into my hands. "Oh please don't." I cried.
     She leapt back onto the sofa beside me. "Why! Let's talk about it. We never have a gossip anymore!"
     I removed my head from my hands to her sarcastic sulking face staring at me. "I love him, he doesn't love me. There's nothing else to talk about."
     "What an absurd statement. He loves you. You've both been too stubborn and stupid to admit it." She reached for her handbag and pulled out an envelope.
     "What's that?"
     "These are all the photos from yours and Ethan's birthdays since you were ten. I didn't bring the earlier ones and Christmas ones because I was tired of taking them out of the big frame."
     She laid them out on the table in front of us. Twenty photos, including the framed one from the mantelpiece. "Look at the photos and tell me what you see, please." Mum said in a teacher like attitude.
     "Why?" I asked.
     She rolled her eyes at me. You can tell where I get it from. "Just do it."
     I did as instructed and scanned through the photos. I haven't seen them in a while. We looked so cute, bless us. In the first one my face is so freckly, and my teeth were still a little crooked. Ethan was missing one of his front teeth because I pulled it out when he kept complaining about it being wobbly. It was odd looking at the photos from being ten to the one we had taken a few weeks back.
     "What do you notice?" Mum asked. I shrugged.
     "They're all photos of me and Ethan?" I guessed weakly.
     "No you moron, look again!"
     Annoyed, I scanned through the photos again. Nothing stood out.
     "I really don't know, Mum... can you tell me?"
     She snatched at some photos and picked them up, fanning them out in her hands and holding them up.
     "Right. I'll explain this to you slowly. Here I hold six photos of you two, aged ten to twelve. On these photos you and Ethan are sat or stood beside each other looking forward and smiling for the photo, right?" She said this as if I couldn't speak English, but I went along with it.
     "Right," I elongated.
     She placed those photos back on the table and picked up the rest. She held them up and flicked through them one by one, holding them up again. "From thirteen to nineteen. Now he's looking at you, see? You're looking at the camera. He is looking at you. O-K?"
     "I still didn't understand what difference that made.
     "So? Just because he is looking at me, it doesn't mean anything?"
     "Ok, ok. Bare that thought in mind though, the fact he's looking at you."
     She rummaged in her bag and pulled out another envelope. "Now, these are photos of me and your Father from when we were younger. This photo was when we were celebrating being together nine months. Here your dad is looking at me, like Ethan was looking at you."
     She flicked along to the next photo. "This photo was the night your Father proposed, here he is looking at me, like Ethan was looking at you."
     She flicked onto the next photo. "This photo was on our wedding day. Here your Father is looking at me, like Ethan was looking at you."
     She viciously swept away revealing the last photo. "This photo, our honeymoon, again your Father is looking at me like Ethan was looking at you. Don't you see what the common connection is?"
     I sighed because I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
     "I don't know Mum. Guys look at girls weirdly in photo's after they reach a certain age?"
     She threw the photos in the air and ran her hands through her hair.
     "No. You bloody idiot. Ethan is or was in love with you. Like your Father was in love with me. It's very fucking clear in the bloody presentation I put a lot of hard work into it. Pardon my French, but I thought you were a lot more intelligent than this, August."
     She picked up the photos and stacked them on the table. I sat silently, staring at her.
     "I need a wee." She said in a fluster.
     I laughed and pointed towards the downstairs toilet. She smiled and rushed towards it. It shocked me a little that she swore. Mum very rarely swears.
     I returned to the photos on the table and picked them up. I compared the photo of Ethan and me at his seventeenth birthday to the photo of Mum and Dad on the night he proposed. Mum was right. They were both looking at us in the same unmistakable way. I can't believe I hadn't noticed this. Saying that, if I couldn't see it when Mum explained it as clear as daylight, I wouldn't figure it out by myself, would I? Does this mean Ethan loved me? Why didn't he say something? Does he still love me? Did he ever love me?