Hippy
By: Ellie Arrow
"Have you seen Benny?" Ethan asked. I rolled my eyes.
"No, not that I would really want to right now anyway," I said. Benny just tried to hit on me, again, and next time, I was going to hit him.
"Not funny, Sarah. He hasn't been in school for almost a week, and every time I try to call him, his cell line is busy," Ethan said. He looked distressed, and I wanted to make him feel better.
"I bet he's just sick or something. Why don't we go to his house after school and go check on him?" I asked. Ethan looked relieved for a second then was distracted again.
"In this town, the only thing he could get sick of is boredom," Ethan said. I looked at him hard, but he wasn't looking at me. I was starting to really worry about Ethan. He had been talking like this for a while; you know saying stuff like he was bored, that he wanted to leave, and like he hated it here. I really wanted to help, but I wasn't sure how.
"Ethan…" I tried.
"Don't start with me Sarah. You've already given me the 'life is too short, don't waste it' speech. Just leave me alone," he said. I hit him on the arm, maybe too hard, and he snapped out of his pity party.
"What is the matter with you?" I asked. He just kinda shrugged and walked away. I followed him to his class and made sure he went there and was fine. He was going to science, while I was going to English. I walked away thinking about where Benny could be.
If Benny was sick, he would be at his grandma's house, and if Benny was missing, Benny's grandma would've called Ethan, who would have told me. Well, Benny's grandma could have preformed a spell that went awry, but then she would have fixed it and he would have been here by now.
I got to English class and pretended I was listening. Ever since I became a full vampire, I realized that Benny and Ethan were right. I was always going to be 17, and I was always going to be in high school. So why try so hard to learn and study?
As usual, whenever the teacher called on me, I had the answer, and I went about my business. English was the last class of the day, so now we would have to go and check on Benny.
My confidence in Benny being okay was waning, and I knew that if my confidence was waning, Ethan's wouldn't be far behind.
"Class dismissed," the old lady teacher ordered. She was small, smaller than me, which was saying something, and had glasses. She looked like a dinosaur, and everyone called her that when she wasn't around. "But, Sarah, please stay," she said.
My heart dropped to the floor. Or was that my stomach? What would Ethan think? Would he think I let him down?
"I'm sorry, but I really have somewhere I need to be," I explained, but she cut me off.
"Don't care. I need someone to help me with cleaning up the classroom, and I picked you. So get on it," she said and left. The room was a wreck, and I didn't have time for this, so I just left.
I ended up catching Ethan right before I left.
"Were you going to leave without me?" I asked. He nodded.
"If you didn't show up. I figured you probably had something better to do than to help me find my best friend," Ethan said. He didn't stop yet, so I stepped in front of him and blocked his path.
"He's my friend, too, you know. I have been spending more time with you guys than I do with Erica," I said. If he was trying to hurt my feelings, he was doing a bang up job, and it didn't help that I liked him.
"So? You said yourself that you really didn't want to see him anyway!" he said and tried to move around me. Lucky for me, vampire powers include fast reflexes.
"Stop it, Ethan. You know very well that I didn't mean that," I said. He snorted.
"It really didn't seem like you were kidding," Ethan said. I huffed and scowled.
"Let's just go and see Benny's grandma's house," I said. He nodded and we walked along in silence.
When we got there, Ethan led the way and walked straight in. What we saw was kinda, well, interesting is the only way to describe it. Benny was tied up in a chair with his grandma trying to feed him something. Benny was screaming loudly and babbling nonsense about needing to kill Ethan. Ethan looked somewhat relieved that his best friend was okay, but when Ethan tried to come nearer, Benny went berserk.
"What's the matter with him?" Ethan asked loudly over Benny's erratic screaming. His grandma was so focused on feeding Benny that stuff that she didn't really pay attention to Ethan.
We watched silently as Benny and his grandma struggled, and Grandma won. She finally got his mouth open long enough to force the food in. She rammed his mouth together so that he would have to swallow it.
As soon as he did, he passed out. Grandma wiped the sweat off her forehead, and turned to us.
"What happened?" Ethan asked. Benny's grandma looked at Benny.
"I don't know. One minute he was going to go to your house Ethan, the next he was back here screaming that he needed to kill you. At first, I thought you had just made him mad, but I found that one of my knives were missing, and so I called him back and saw that he had already tried to hurt you," Grandma explained.
"When did that happen?" I asked. Benny's grandma opened her mouth, but shut it and pointed at Ethan.
"About two nights ago, I found Benny standing over me with a knife. I thought he was just playing, but he stabbed my arm and I knew he wanted to kill me. But just as I was about to call down to my parents, he was gone. So I went to Benny's grandma and she healed it for me," he said. I took a step away from Ethan.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. He shook his head, making memories disappear.
"Because Sarah, now that you're a full grown vampire, you can't be around me when I bleed or you might go into a feeding frenzy," he said.
"So do you not want me around you anymore at all, or just when you need me?" I asked. He shook his head, but wouldn't look me in the eyes.
"I want you around, just not when we're fighting things," he said. I snorted and tears were now brimming at the surface.
"Okay then, I'm outta here," I said. Nobody tried to stop me, and so that's when I knew that I needed to save Benny so Ethan could trust me again.