Ethan Adams

Chapter 9

           

Ella sits at our lunch table with a smug smile on her face on Wednesday. I've just finished telling Anthony and Janet that Ethan's sick and probably won't be in for the rest of the week. All four of us stare at her dumbly and she only notices when she finishes her strawberries.

"What?" She asks, innocently.

"Why are you sitting with us?" Janet asks bluntly.

Ella makes a big show of answering, flipping her hair and opening some apple slices. "Well, can't I sit with my best friends and their friends every once in a while? I've missed you guys."

Janet and I share a look but welcome her back to the table. She beams at us and takes a bite of one of her apple slices, offering it out to us. I reject, opting for my chocolate pudding cup.

"Should we go visit him?" Janet asks, eating a granola bar.

I shrug. "If you want to. I get a free ride home either way."

Ella looks up at me. "Visit who? Ethan?" I nod. "Yeah, where is he?"

We fill her in on why he's been absent for the past two days but she doesn't seem that interested. While the conversation shifts, she touches my hand from across the table and asks me to look and see if Josh is looking at her.

Confused, I peek behind her to see both Josh and Jessica staring at her from their table. They catch me watching them and look away hastily, busying themselves in their own apple slices. I tell Ella this and even though I didn't think it was possible, the smug smile on her face gets all the more smug.

"My plan is working." She comments.

I just leave it alone. "Well guys, if you wanna go see Ethan tonight then I'll meet you there."

Janet pouts. "Why?"

"I've got auditions for the play tonight."

Anthony slaps his forehead. "That's today! Damn, I wanted to try out as well!"

The two of us begin geeking over the script Mrs Apendale gave us a day before while the other two leave us to ourselves. They chat idly while we end up going off on a tangent about applying to college and it turns out he's also applied to Julliard.

"At least I'll have you when we get in, huh?" I say with a grin.

"Promise me we'll become best friends?" He offers and the two of us chuckle and pinky swear. David sits next to Ella and does a double take when he sees her.

"Ella? Hey, I thought you were hanging with Jessica and those guys." He says nicely.

"Nah, they're not my type of people. Y'all are." She grins and then offers him an apple slice. He rejects nicely but then gives me a confused look over the table. I just shrug.

The audition goes super well for me. When we leave the theatre, both Anthony and I are buzzing because he did well too. He offers me a ride home and I remind him about the plan we made earlier to visit Ethan.

Ethan answers the door when we knock. He's wearing shorts and a basketball jersey. His hair is very messy and his nose is bright pink.

"Oh. Hey." He says, sounding stuffy. "Y'all finally came."

"Dude, you look terrible." Anthony says and laughs. He enters the house, leaving Ethan and I standing on the front porch.

"Hey." I say awkwardly. He raises his eyebrows but then gives me a closed mouth smile.