A friend indeed

Valentina’s P.O.V

“G-Good Mo-Morning.” One of us needed to start the conversation, I guess, I was trembling from both the fear of Ethan and the pain in my head. “I-I am sorry for bumping into you, I didn’t see you, and please can you remove your feet from my phone?”

“Good morning?” His voice rang out musically as he stood confidently like he was a god or something, he was similar to a portrait sculpted to perfection, his voice, his face, his hair, every single thing about him oozed with elegance and arrogance.

Everything about him was perfect, except for his rotten attitude, he pressed harder on my phone and I heard another sharp snap, I gasped as I stared back at his feet in horror.

“Please stop!” I cried out. “At this rate, you are going to break my phone.”

“What do you mean? It was already broken.” He murmured stepping harder into it, I could still hear the breaking of the glass that was probably my phone screen.

 “Stepping so hard on it will make you break it even more,” I explained, my voice raised a little higher than intended. “I still need that phone.”

“You should have thought about that before you bumped into me.” He scolded his voice cold and controlled.

 “I-I didn’t do it on purpose, I-I just didn’t see you!” I stuttered, I was afraid for my phone, I needed that phone so I could go to my interview tomorrow.

Surprisingly, he lifted his feet, and just as soon as my fingers found my phone, he stepped right into my hands.

 “Have I become so small that you don’t see me?” He chuckled again and I couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t his usual self this morning, he was having a lot of conversation with me, and even though I was talking back to him, he didn’t seem to be angry. “Or have you become more confident and bolder lately to be glaring at me like that?”

Only after the accusation did I take my teary eyes away from him, I bit my lips in frustration and I tried to endure it just like I have always done.

“I am sorry,” I muttered in the lowest voice I had, a minute or two passed and he just left, like nothing happened. I picked up my phone from the ground and fresh tears well up in my eyes when I noticed it was in terrible condition.  “God…” I whispered as I tried to turn on the phone.

Please turn on, please turn on! Even though I tried repeatedly to turn it on, it didn’t come up, Ethan had broken my phone just because I bumped into him. Tears slipped out of my eyes, even though I had promised myself last night that I wouldn’t cry for anything here I was crying because my phone was broken.

  “That bastard…” Melissa cursed fisting her hands and raising it at me. “You should kick that son of a devil in the balls.”

“You know I can’t,” I murmured as I continued to scrub the oil from the used pans, Ethan would kill me first before I even got to his balls, but it wouldn’t be so bad to try.

I chuckled to myself I am too much of a coward to even try.

“That’s why I should come to your school one day, I will give that beast a piece of my mind on your behalf.” I hadn’t seen Melissa this angry in a while, she was shaking with fury, and for a minute I believed she could murder Ethan if she put her mind to it. “How dare he bully you just because you are poor, don’t we poor folks deserve to live like normal people? If he is so great being rich, why don’t he lend us some money?”

“Don’t be like that Mel,” I muttered and it made her even angrier, she slammed the pots into the sink. “Mel, It would be terrible if you broke one of the ceramic pan, we would be forced to work without pay for a few weeks.”

“As if being poor isn’t enough, you come here to scrub oils away from pans every four hours after school and somehow you need to study to make sure your grades are not affected.” Mel’s voice broke at the end, she sniffed back and wiped the tears away from her face. “I don’t even want to talk about how unsupportive your family is, why don’t you just quit the damned school instead of enduring their bullshit?”

“Quitting is the same thing as dropping out.” I corrected, I stared into the dirty sink, my vision getting blurry and I felt myself stagger, I hadn’t had a decent meal in a while. “I have six months left to the graduation; I can endure that much.”

Suddenly, she grabbed my hands even though they were soapy and slippery, she pressed on them slightly looking deeply into my eyes.

“I am going to help you, I’ll give you, my phone.” She gripped my hands even tighter. “And you can’t refuse it, I need you to get that job, I’ll also let you have my sister’s ID, as long as you can get a good photo of yourself, we should be able to forge a college ID.”

 “Really?” I asked in surprise. “But you only have one phone, how can you give it to me?”

“You need it more than I do, I need you to get that job.” She insisted. “If you can earn that much money then you can transfer out of that zoo you call a school.”

She is right, if I had enough money, I wouldn’t need to rely on the school’s letter of recommendation and suggestion, I could get into any university of my choice, as long as I can afford it. “I hate to bother you though.”

“It’s not a bother.”    

“Then, thank you so much.”