Ethereal | RJ (HSMTMTS)

Part 2

EJ's POV

That boy must be really popular where he's from. He'd probably be popular anywhere. I doubt it will take long for the girls here to notice him and make some kind of girl pact, deciding which of them gets to be with him. Girls seem to do that. I wonder if it's something they do everywhere or if it's just here. I don't know, but I know that once they've made their choice, the options for a guy become way narrowed down. You now can only date one girl from each friend group, and which girl is already preselected by the committee of girls. If you want to find out who it is, you have to be tapped into the girl network, or else you have to be really good at reading signs. I'm really not good at that, but my friends have said it typically involves something like a twirl of the hair or a flirty touch. I expect those kind of actions to start soon with that boy. 

Ricky was his name. I couldn't forget it if I tried. He's been on my mind the whole day, and I kept comparing all his qualities to mine, trying to find the matches in there. I don't know how to skateboard, but he knows how to skateboard. He has brown eyes. I don't, but I bet all the girls would love his. And he had a really attractive smile, another quality I'm sure girls would swoon over. But I'm not a girl, so obviously I'm not swooning. I just think about it sometimes, how a girl would react to seeing a boy like him. 

"Hey, EJ!" shouts my dad as soon as I step in the house. 

I take off my shoes and hang my jacket on the hook before responding, "Yes?"

"I'm taking Peter out for a driving lesson before dinner. Can you do the dishes while we're out?"

Peter is my younger brother by a year. He's really determined to get his licence and be able to drive without an adult, but I really don't get why he cares so much. You could walk across the town faster than drive with all the J-walkers who get in the way, and it's not like he needs to go to Magresborg frequently. His bike takes him there fast enough when he does need to go. 

I glance over at my youngest brother, twelve year-old Ethan, who's currently sitting on the couch in the living room, playing games on his Xbox. 

"Why doesn't Ethan ever have to do anything?" I question. 

"He emptied the dishwasher today," my dad replies. "He did his share."

"That's, like, not at all the same amount of work, but fine."

"Thank you," he says, giving me firm eyes. 

I walk over into the kitchen where he's busy grabbing a glass of orange juice. 

"How was work?" I ask him. 

"Pretty good. The new guy, Mike, is great."

"Yeah, I met his son," I comment. 

"You did, eh?"

"His name is Ricky. He's really cool."

"I'm glad you're becoming friends with him."

"We're not really friends yet," I respond.

"Well, you should get there, because he's new here, and being new in a small town, it can be hard to make friends. It'd be great if you'd hang out with him, be his friend."

I really don't have a problem with that. "Yeah, sure."

"Good." My dad takes a gulp of his juice before setting the glass down and saying, "By the way, there's a message from Freya."

Oh, yeah. Freya's kinda my girlfriend. She is my girlfriend, not kinda. We've been dating for a bit over five months. The only reason I remember that is because she always makes plans for us to have a date every time another month of us being together passes. She's cool. She's really nice. My friends all say she's really hot too, and she's on the track team, so that's kinda neat. She's probably about as good a girlfriend as I could get. My parents love her too, and my brothers like her because she brings over cookies sometimes. She already knows what she wants to do in life. She's going to go to UBC after grade twelve to study oceanography, and she wants to own a house on an island with a dock on the ocean. I'm not that organized. I don't know what I want to do. I think I'll want to do drama, but everything past that is just too open-ended to tie shut right now. 

"Thanks for letting me know," I say. "I'll call her back."

I go over to the living room and grab the telephone from its holder on the table. The shouting from video game characters would probably get in the way of the call, so I take the phone down the hall to my bedroom. In there, I close the door and sit down on my bed. My room isn't anything special. It was painted grey when I was little, because my parents didn't like how white showed the dirty fingerprints that touched it. I have a school photo of myself on my bookshelf, but other than that, my room is pretty neutral. I've thought of putting stuff up, but I can never think of what. Some of my friends have posters of rock bands or athletes, especially the female ones, or movies they like. There are lots of things I could put up, but I never find the motivation to put up a picture for something I'll probably stop liking in a month anyway. 

I press the digits on the phone, and it rings for a few seconds before Freya picks up. 

"EJ?"

"Hey."

"Hi, what's up?" I can hear that she's smiling, which is cute to know, but it always makes me feel a little awkward, because I don't have that same response when I talk to her. Must be a girl thing.

"My dad said you called earlier."

"Yeah, um, there's a musical being shown in two weeks on the Wednesday in Magresborg. It's just, like, an amateur production of The Buddy Holly Story put on by some university students, and I am about to go get tickets if you want to go with me."

"That sounds awesome!" 

"So you'll come?"

"Of course I'll come!"

I'm a sucker for musicals. I've been doing musical theatre since I was little, and although Freya isn't really into that, she supports me doing it, and she comes to all my shows. I'm also a big rock and roll fan, so naturally I'm excited for this musical. I've only seen the film, but I've heard the musical is great. 

"Cool," she says. 

"Cool," I agree. "Is that all?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Okay, well, I'll talk to you another time. Bye."

"Oh, yeah, uh, bye."

I hang up the phone, excited about the musical I'm going to get to see. And for free, too! Sometimes having a girlfriend has perks, like when she pays for things like this.

A/N: Hi. I hope I introduced how awkward everything is for EJ well. The next chapter will hopefully be more interesting now that the basic introductions are done. I love you all, and have a lovely day.