“What do you mean?” I asked cautiously.
“A day with you didn’t feel like a day spent with Juliet. Now don’t give me that ‘people change’ reason. I’m really curious. It feels like this is a totally different person. Juliet, are you hiding something from me? Because if someone had told me you’d be like? this? one day, I would’ve laughed in their faces and told them that they probably just visited a parallel universe.”
I stopped walking, my cotton candy long since gone in my stomach, and with as stern a face I could muster, turned to Ethan.
He stopped too, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. He had barely taken five bites of his cotton candy and I knew just what to do to rethink his words.
I reached out my hand for the cotton candy and smashed it in his face, the cotton candy caking his whole face and a little of his hair.
“I think this was confirmation enough for you to know that I really am Juliet Jenson, your childhood frenemy.”
Ethan opened his eyes, giving me a glare. “Yes, it was, and now you’re going to die.”
I expected that attack and before he lunged at me, I backed away from him. He rubbed at his face to get some of the crushed cotton candy off of his face.
And then he was after me. I sprinted our of the streets and into a park which was filled with little kids and their mothers. Ethan was hot on my heels and there were many times when he almost caught up with me but I pushed myself to run faster. Mothers in the park looked annoyed at us and kids complained about how we zoomed past an ongoing game way too many times.
Eventually I got tired and so did he. When we rounded up to a water fountain, I stopped momentarily to catch my breath.
“Can we take a break?” I asked, glancing over at his hunched over form on the opposite side of the fountain. He was panting for air too and with a glare my way, he lunged for me again.
“Sure, after I kill you.”
I groaned as he advanced towards me. We circled the fountain a few times and then suddenly he changed his route and went in the completely opposite direction, directly at me.
I yelped as I lost my footing, Ethan practically pushing me didn’t help either and with a loud splash, I tumbled into the fountain clutching Ethan at the last minute and bringing him down with me too.
The water was extremely cold and within seconds it felt like I was in a restaurants freezer. I groaned and pushed him off of me.
“Look what you did, jerk,” I wailed, looking down at my soaking clothes. A few more minutes and I was sure I’d be a human popsicle by then.
“It’s not my fault you’re so clumsy.”
In response, I splashed him with more water.
“What the hell, Juliet!”
“That’s what you get for-” my next words dissolved in the water which entered my mouth and I choked on it, desperately spitting it out. It took me a few seconds to realise he had splashed me back.
“How dare you!” I screeched, madly splashing water in the direction I hoped he was.
“Stop!” I heard Ethan shout over the water.
I slipped once again in the ice cold water and gasped.
I heard Ethan laugh and I kicked his feet from underneath him and he fell right on top of me.
“Couldn’t you have fallen somewhere else?” I groaned under his weight.
“Nope. Luckily fate chose for me to have a soft landing.”
“Get off,” I pushed at him. I quickly jumped out of the water and looked back, startled at hearing a loud scream.
“Not my damn iPhone again!” Ethan shrieked, sounding as if he was going to cry as he looked down at his wet phone which now flaunted a big crack on it’s screen along with several other cracks branching off of it.
“Does it still work?”
Ethan looked up at me as if asking if I was stupid. “Of course it’s not working.”
“I-I’m s-sorry,” I said through my chattering teeth.
Ethan sighed and pocketed his phone. “Let’s go back to the hotel.”
I shook my head. “We are quite far away from the hotel and I need to get out of these clothes like right now.”
“Let’s just find a clothing store, buy some clothes and change into it.”
“That is a good idea.”
The sky had started to darken and we were back on the streets. People looked at us weirdly and it was quite some time after we finally found a clothing store. It was small but it didn’t matter as long as it promised warm, comfortable clothes.
We walked up to the counter and the one behind it looked at us as if we were beggars. Ethan slammed his wallet down and carefully took out the dollars which were soaking wet. He laid out all the money he had to let it dry.
Then we went our separate ways, with me towards the woman’s section and him towards the men’s.
I quickly picked a dark blue hoodie because it was freezing out there.
I quickly changed into the clothes, dried myself off with a towel which the store lady was as so kind as to give me.
Setting my hair free on my back to let it dry off, I skipped towards the counter again where Ethan was already there with black jeans and a dark blue hoodie.
Once we paid for the clothes, we set out again, walking silently side by side.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, hoping the next second that he didn’t hear me.
“It’s okay. I’m sorry too, for acting so immature.”
“You don’t have to say sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have done that to you with the cotton candy.”
“I guess we are both equally at fault here.”
Silence fell between us and I racked my brain for a topic when I suddenly remembered the highlight of the day.
I grabbed his hand and led him to where we were supposed to go. He questioned me but I shut him up.
“Yes, that’s where we are going,” I said, pointing at the place when it came into view.
“A boat cruise?” He asked.
“Yeah, come on. It’ll be awesome.”
We paid for the cruise trip and soon set out with other people on the boat cruise across Seine river.
It was such a stunning sight from the boat. Paris looked a lot more livelier and enchanting at night with all the lights. We passed a lot of notable places. The air was cool and a nice atmosphere surrounded us as I let the moment soak in. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get to see this sight again so I let this absorb into my memory. This was one of the best days of my life, the day I felt so carefree and detached from any worries.
The whole cruise was a short journey to see the most panoramic views of the city landscape and places famous worldwide. It ended too soon.
Ethan had a huge smile on his face even after we got down from the boat.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“So am I.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Where should we go for dinner?”
“How does dinner on the Eiffel Tower sound?” He asked.
“It sounds amazing.”
So we went back to the tower, not racing to the top this time and taking the elevator. There were less people than before and even in the restaurant.
58 Tour Eiffel restaurant was so beautiful, located on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. We were given a table at a far corner away from the small crowd where its elegant ambience wrapped us in it’s warmth.
There was soft lighting and minimalistic furniture which upscaled its beauty, but of course it was nothing compared to the tower.
I enjoyed a scrumptious dinner with Ethan and I couldn’t help but wonder how we became such good friends. My first impression of him was so wrong. When you become his friend, he was like a totally different person, he was the real him. When we were at war with each other, he acted like a jerk but he really was not one.
After dinner, we finally decided to call it a day. We decided to return back to the hotel, especially after I pointed out how everyone must be worried sick over our absence for the entire day.
“Besides we don’t want Heather clawing my eyes out for stealing her boyfriend for the whole day. I really hope she doesn’t do that.”
“Don’t worry, she’ll do nothing like that.”
“I hope so.”
After a few moments, I came up with an idea. “Hey, let’s ride to our hotel on bicycles.”
“What?”
“Yeah, look there’s a bicycle shop right there,” I said, pointing to one across the street.
“Yeah, not happening.”
“Please. Come on, I promise this is the last thing.” I pleaded.
“I’m really tired,” he whined.
“Wow, and I thought you were a manly man.”
“Being tired has got nothing to do with my manliness. And besides we just had dinner.”
“Yeah, like more than half an hour ago.”
He groaned, finally giving in. We started racing down the streets on our newly bought bicycles.
We didn’t know where the hotel was as Ethan so inconveniently forgot so we kept on asking for directions and finally after another half an hour, we reached the hotel.
I felt exhausted and could say the same for Ethan. We wasted no time in bounding up the stairs, having no energy to inform someone of our arrival and without much of a goodbye, we turned towards our respective rooms, no doubt, to throw ourselves on the bed and sleep away all the tiredness. At least I did.