Ethan Haile

~Chapter Five~

In English, I  was barely paying attention. I already knew everything Mr. Parson was talking about.  Blah blah... Easily the biggest waste of time in all of my career. I don't need to know about this in my future plans. I don't know what I want my plans to be, but it definitely doesn't involve any of this. I sketched out a bunch of random doodles as he went on and on about useless things. I kept doing what I was doing until, before I knew it, the bell rang and everyone was getting up. I gathered all of my stuff and left the room, taking a short trip to my locker. I dropped all of my stuff down on the dirty carpet in front of it, and looked up, punching in my combination. 

"Hey Ethan." Alec said as he passed by. I looked back to answer him, but he was already too far away to hear me. I crammed my things into my locker and quickly made my way over to Myra's. Sure enough, she was there waiting for me, brown lunch sack in hand.

"Shell we?" I said.

She smiled. "Sure." We walked down to the cafeteria. On our way I broke the silence.

"So have you made any other friends yet? I mean, I assume we're friends. We're hanging out and eating together, and I think we-"

"Yes!" She said, laughing. "Ethan, of course we're friends. And no, I haven't talked to anyone else, other than the people saying stuff like, 'Oh, are you the new girl?', and pretty much a lot of strange looks. But no, you're the only on I consider a real friend."

"Oh.  Cool. Same goes for me." I said, looking down at her. She looked up at me. We both smiled.

I averted my eyes and continued walking forward, trying to be careful no to run into anybody or anything... again.

We finally made our way to my table in the cafeteria. It was away from everyone else, and there was usually only one chair, because the custodians knew I didn't usually sit with anybody else. I walked over to a different table and "borrowed" another one. I pushed it over to her, and she moved it to where she wanted and sat down. I walked around the table and did  the same. She opened up her bag and it was one of the best lunched I'd seen all year, even if we had only been here for Four months. She saw me looking and smiled, but it looked more like a confused smile than a sincere one. "What?" She said.

I snapped back to reality. "Oh! Nothing, I've just never seen a lunch that good this whole year."

She laughed again. "What's so great about it?" She said as she removed her perfect sandwich from the Ziploc bag.

"Well, You see..." I said, as I dumped out my sad, crappy lunch. A sandwich, with just mustard in a sandwich bag, no Ziploc, just a bag. An applesauce, no flavor, just apple. A drink, a tiny water bottle. That's it. But her lunch. A sandwich with ham, mustard, mayo, lettuce, and cheese. A squeeezable cinnamon applesauce. An Arnold Palmer Half-and-Half. A little Debbie Zebra Cake. A bag of baby carrots. and a Clif Bar. "Yours is the god of lunches, and mine is a peasant who prays to yours." He laughed, grabbing the Clif Bar and opening it.

"Oh," She said, I looked up from my sandwich. "What happened today? You said you'd tell me at lunch."

"Oh yeah." I answered, setting down the sandwich. "Well, there's a girl at the school, a popular girl, 'ya know? Anyway, she said something that really pissed me off, so  I... um... threw her phone at the wall and broke it.

Myra almost spit out the piece of Clif Bar she had bit. "Seriously?!" I nodded. "That's actually cool. what did she say"

I shook my head, thinking back to what happened with Jayden again. I walked into the bathroom, and what I saw would scar me for the rest of my life. You might know, ad you might not know. But chances are you don't know what it' like. What it's like to walk in on your friend, sitting fully clothed in a bathtub, once full of clean water, now red. His wrists cut open with blood still slowly seeping out, only making the water a darker shade of red. You probably don't know what it's like to see a face, that just the day before was laughing and having the time if it's life, now covered in tears and sadness. Someone that you thought that you could trust with anything, only to find out that they were suffering so badly that they couldn't take it any more. You don't know what it's like to fall to your knees and cry in front of the body of the person you loved more than anybody or anything. The body of someone who couldn't tell you the one thing that could've saved his life.You don't know what it's like to know that the death of the most important person to you's death could've been prevented if you'd only known what was wrong. Ethan? Ethan! The voice of Myra brought me back from my terrible thoughts. I felt a tear dripping down my cheek. I wiped it away and looked at Myra. She was up from her seat right next to me, her Clif bar dropped out of its wrapper on the dirty tabletop.

"Ethan? What happened? Where did you go? You were looking off into nothing, then you started crying, I was so worried!" She leaned down and hugged me. I was shocked at first, but then I hugged her back. Not like a real hug though. I just lifted up my arms and put them on her back.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking." I said back.

She kept hugging me. "What were you thinking about?"

"Um, I think that story is for a different time." I said back. She let me go.

"Okay. Just don't scare me like that again. Please." She said.

"I'll try. But no promises." I said. She sat back down and ate her God lunch, while I ate my peasant lunch.