Silenced by the Night

My Best Friend

After meeting him two weeks ago in Sylvia Young’s theatre school we started hanging out as friends. Well since we met we were really close. Students in school started thinking we were dating for a young age. Who would think about that?

My name’s Ellie Collins, I’m just 11-yeas-old. I have brown hair and blue eyes. You saw my age; I’m not even available to have my own phone yet. How can I date someone this young? My sister Hanna that’s 13 can’t even have her own boyfriend but now she does. Anyways, my best friend is Nathan Sykes. There you know half about me. I got more to tell you later if you read through the story.

“Ellie, can you get in here?”

Nathan smiled at me before standing up and pulling me inside the house.

“Ellie, come inside”

“Coming, coming”

I feel like Cinderella while living with my step-mother. Yes, step-mother; my father married a jerk named Caroline and when he died, that’s what I heard I don’t know if it it’s true. I was treated wrong. Nathan was my only company. Well even my step-sisters. They’re also my company; they act lovely behind their mother. The eldest in my stepfamily is Paige and the one as the same age as me is Caylah.

“Ellie, one last call”

The living room doors were heavier than usual. Well because I got a bit thin. Nathan helped me pushed the door and hid on the side of the door.

“Hello Ellie, the girls are having a party tonight. And I want the pool cleaned by you and your sister Hanna. The clock starts now and it ends at eight”

“But Hanna has a date in an hour. How dare you cancel it?”

“You don’t want your precious sister and you being torn apart can’t you? So if you don’t, get cleaning”

There wasn’t a choice. I had to clean it before eight struck and I’m gonna have to tell Hanna about canceling her date. She was the only family I had left; the full blood.

“Thanks for helping Nate, instead of Hanna actually helping”

He stroked his hair and took off his jacket before going back to cleaning the pool.

“No problem, besides my mom told me I can stay here. Even sleep here”

“With that nightmare, don’t. You’ll end up having a death sleep”

“I’m use to it. Living with my little sister for eight years, please”

I enveloped him in a friendly hug and went back to cleaning. He was the kind of friend that isn’t afraid of anything. He would fight for you when you’re in trouble and he’s not afraid to be in trouble.

“Ellie, you have thirty minutes!”

Caylah and Paige went in the cabana holding two glasses filled with granita. Caylah handed me one and gave another to Nathan. Hanna was already out with her boyfriend. Still Caylah and Paige weren’t really with me anytime. But they were my best friend. The three of them were.

“Are you done with the pool, Ellie?”

“Yes Caroline”

“So I can tell you’re not lying can I come in?”

I handed Nathan the glass and pushed him to the closet with Paige and Caylah. Caroline went in the cabana while I was storing in the tools and faking a smile at her.

“Good work, now did you see Caylah and Paige?”

“No”

She turned around and walked upstairs shouting their names.

“Thank you”

They handed me my glass and went outside. I climbed up the stairs and into my attic bedroom with Nathan behind me. Hanna has a friend she stays in with, she only comes here to get a little bit of her things everyday. But it’s a small outing that she’s moving out.

Monday mornings were always my worst nightmare. Nathan rolled over the single bed on the side of the window and took his knapsack from under the bed and started scattering his things for some clothes. He handed me my hairbrush on the nightstand and made his way to the door.

“Don’t you wanna cover for me?”

“Yeah give me a minute”

I grabbed my clothes from my desk and walked in front of him and into the bathroom.

“Hurry up before Caroline wakes up and gets in the bathroom”

He raced to the shower and turned on the water before tossing his clothes out and me turning around. I scanned my clothes for ten minutes and heard the water not running anymore.

“Are you done yet?”

“Duh, can you please hand me that towel?”

“Fifteen coos in one hour”

Nathan whispered in my ear before going to his locker which was just beside mine.

“Make that seventeen, the teenagers beside both of us keeps cooing”

“You’re right”

I walked to my next class while watching Nathan go down the hall for his first class. This was what I hate about school as well; we go to the same school but only different classes. The two eleven year olds are walking in school both being cooed by popular or unpopular students. Jacque approached with her evil friends laughing behind her.

“Well, if it isn’t it Ellie”

“Duh, who does it look like?”

I sat down beside Caylah in class and opened up my book.

“So what do you want to do when we get home? I mean mum isn’t home”

“Hit the beach with Nathan”

She gave me a high-five and looked back to the teacher.

The sun’s ray was burning through my skin and making me feel relaxed from all the work I’ve been doing in Caroline’s house for the past two years. Nathan jumped in the water making Paige and Caylah wet.

“Nathan, you are gonna pay for this!”

Something stupid played in my mind while Caylah was looking at Nathan. Caylah was a great friend and Nathan was telling me the same. But somehow there wasn’t something right about her when we hang out with Nathan. When we would talk about him in the middle of the night or when we would just look at our photos in her scrapbook. Even when Nathan would pass me a small note, we would read it and she wouldn’t stop bragging about it. I brushed that off my mind and walked closer to the edge of the beach. While I was thinking about my thoughts I was walking to the point of the beach.

Caylah wouldn’t be in love with Nathan, can’t she?

“Ellie, get in the living room”

I put down my book and walked to the living room where Caroline was sitting on the loveseat all on her own.