Friendly Dating 2 - Ethan

Chapter 11 - The Answer

"What do I tell Delia?"

I blink at the text message from Kira. I was excited for a second when I saw the notification... and nervous, thinking she'd made up her mind and was finally giving me an answer. I did not expect this question.

Why is she asking me what she should tell my sister? Kira and Deli tell each other everything all the time, and I mean everything. One cannot pick her nose without telling the other one all the gory details. Sometimes I think it's Kira and Delia who are the twins.

"The truth," I reply, because to be honest, Delia and I also tell each other everything... well, almost. For some strange reason, she doesn't want me to tell her about the things I find up my nose... and other places... Besides, there are some things I really don't want her to know and things I know she wouldn't want to know about.

I drop my phone on my desk and tearing off my school shirt, I step into the bathroom, bundling it up and tossing it in the wash hamper. Seeing the scrapes covering my arms, I'm stressing about the state Kira must be in. Her skin is a lot softer than mine. As funny as it was lying on the ground with our legs up in the air, I'm really relieved that she wasn't seriously injured.

For the few seconds it took to fall off that boulder, I had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach; I was really scared that the fall, though not far, would be rough enough to damage Kira severely.

I shove the memory of that sickening feeling aside and step into the shower, opening it full blast. It feels amazing, as always, and while the soothing water runs over my hot skin, a smile starts to tug at the corners of my mouth as my brain runs over all the memories of our outing today. I love being with that girl. I never know what she's going to say or do next, which is weird because, in some ways, I've always found Kira to be comfortingly predictable.

She is so cheeky!

When the shower starts to make me feel muggier than the summer heat, I shut the water off and dry myself with one of the towels hanging on the rail and walk into my bedroom to grab some clothes from my closet. I'm completely dressed by the time I realise that my curtains are not drawn, and I can see the girls in Kira's room. I don't think either of them noticed me. If she'd seen me, Kira would've been screaming at me by now and closed her curtains.

She might not believe me, but I don't try to freak her out with uninvited scenes of nudity. I genuinely seldom think about closing my curtains. Whenever they're drawn, I start to feel claustrophobic and anxious. I've not been able to sleep with the drapes or the door closed at any time in my life, and I'm not used to closing them at all. It's strange because I don't generally suffer from claustrophobia. When I was still in the bedroom downstairs, it didn't matter; my window faced a wall and a section of the back garden.

If I want to convince Kira that I am a civilized human being and not the cave dweller she thinks I am, I really need to get used to closing the curtains when I'm getting dressed. I'll never forget the first time I realised that my bedroom window is facing hers. I knew it, of course, but I somehow didn't know it. 

This used to be my aunt's room, and I never really came up here except when she needed a hand with something. Breeze is not really the hang-out-with-my-nephew kind of aunt. Yes, her name is Breeze; Grandma Fay had a thing for names related to nature, except when it came to my dad, he got his father's name. My dad's other sister, Aunt Misty, was my favourite aunt. I was just a kid when she died, but I still remember her funny stories and the games she used to play with Deli, my cousin and me. Nobody ever fully recovered from her death. I know it still haunts my father.

Breeze is a completely different story. She's only seven years older than I am, and my dad virtually raised her because Grandma Fay's health took a really bad turn when Aunt Misty passed away. In some ways, Breeze is more like an older sister to me. One who finds her younger brother barely tolerable. Long story short, I didn't spend much time in Breeze's room.