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Editor Note: The images used for this story were purchased and used under royalty-free license* from iStockphoto.com . ~Sephrena
Author Note: Please email me at AngelJediGirl (at) gmail (dot) com before posting this story to any other site. Posting to a pay site is prohibited.

Comments and suggestions are also welcome at the above email address.

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Sarah Carerra Book 2: Summer Medley

Chapter 2.31 - Golden Friendships

I had hoped to sleep in on Tuesday morning, since it was the only day I had off. But Emily wasn't going to let that happen. It was the first day that we both had off in several weeks, and she wanted to make sure that we spent the entire day together. I was fine with that. I just wish she would have let me have some more sleep first.

After she shook me awake, and I finished groaning and glaring at her, I rolled out of bed to get ready for the day. A short shower helped me to wake up, and after getting dressed I found her in the kitchen helping Mom prepare breakfast.

"Morning, sleepyhead," Emily greeted me.

I grumbled something that wasn't very nice. She chuckled along with my mom at my words. I just sighed and grabbed a plate.

"What do you two have planned today?" Mom asked while we sat around the dining room table eating. I didn't know, so I turned toward Emily to hear the answer too.

"I thought we could go to the beach this morning," Emily told us. "Then we can catch a movie this afternoon. I'd like to go shopping, but I do not want to set foot into the mall if I can help it."

It was my turn to chuckle at her. Emily loved shopping. It was weird to hear her say that she didn't want to go to the mall, but I understood why she wouldn't want to go there on her day off. She spent too much time there at her job..

"What about Ethan?" I asked a moment later. I hadn't seen him since the CD signing.

"He has to do some chores first thing this morning," Emily replied. "But he said he'd come down to the beach with us. Anna wants to come too."

I smiled. I hadn't hung out with Anna for a while. I still didn't know how or when to tell her about my alter ego, but it would be nice to see her again.

Once we had finished eating, I returned to my room to get everything ready for the beach while Emily left to grab her stuff and make sure Anna was ready. As I slipped a lightweight dress over my head to cover my bikini, Mom came into my room.

Without saying anything, she wrapped her arms around me.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, returning her hug.

"Yes," she replied, letting go and holding me at arm’s length. "I'm just so glad to have you in my life."

My eyes started to mist up, and I had to laugh to help keep myself from crying. "I feel the same way," I told her.

We stood there in each other's arms, enjoying the moment, before the doorbell rang indicating Emily's return. Mom let go of me, and I gave her a loving smile to let her know how much she meant to me. She returned one of her own. Then we walked out of my room and headed down the hallway toward the front door.

When I opened the door to let Emily in, I was almost knocked over by the bundle of joy that careened into me. I laughed at the joy on Anna's face as she wrapped her arms around me.

"Hi, Anna," I said.

"Hi, Megan!" she nearly screamed in excitement. She eventually let go of me and stepped back. Her happiness at seeing me again was hard to miss as we walked through the house to the garage and climbed into my car. Anna gazed around the vehicle in amazement as we backed out and made our way down the street to Ethan's house.

"This is your car?" she asked after I had blown the horn to let Ethan know that we were there.

"It is," I replied to her question sweetly. "Nice, huh?"

"It's awesome!" was her response. I laughed lightly at her and watched as Ethan exited his house and made his way to my car.

"Hi, Ethan," I smiled at him as he opened the front passenger door and slid in. Emily and Anna were sitting together in the back seat.

"Hi," he said back awkwardly. My mood deflated immediately. I had hoped that Emily had talked to him and helped him get over whatever problem he was having with me, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Emily reached forward and smacked the back of his head. He turned around and glared at her, upset.

"What was that for?" he screamed at her before reaching a hand up and rubbing where she had connected.

"She's one of your best friends, Ethan!" Emily screamed back. "Yes, she's changed! That doesn't mean you get to treat her like a pariah! Try again!"

He turned around, sighed, and looked out his window as he leaned back against his seat. It didn't look like he was ready to speak yet so I backed out and started driving toward the beach. I could see in my rearview mirror that Emily was livid with him and Anna looked really confused and slightly scared.

We drove in silence for a few minutes before he looked back at me and finally spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Megan," he said. "I just..." He paused for a moment before he could speak again. "I just don't know how to interact with you anymore," he finally said. "I mean, you're still my best friend. I know that. I still want to be your friend too. But you've changed! You're a girl now! And you're hot! I don't know how to handle that!"

There it was - the real reason that he had been so awkward around me since the concert in Salt Lake City. He was attracted to me! I had hoped that wasn't the reason, but I had feared that it was.

He was blushing horribly now at his revelation. I could feel my own cheeks warmer than normal. I concentrated on the road for a moment, trying to figure out what to tell him. Obviously, we weren't going to get together. He was my best friend; I couldn't see myself in a relationship like that with him. Yes, I knew he was attractive. He had the same dark brown hair and dark brown eyes that I had loved on Josh. But I was talking about Ethan!

I sighed. "I'm sorry, Ethan," I finally said to him. "I know I haven't made it any easier. But just because I'm a girl now doesn't mean that I have to be your girlfriend."

Ethan grimaced and his mouth twitched. I didn't like how his mouth twitched at my words. Had he already thought about asking me to be his girlfriend?

I shuddered momentarily at the unwanted thought, and he continued to grimace. It wasn't that I didn't think we could be a couple. I just didn't want to become involved with anyone right now in my life. Especially Ethan! I knew I had considered the possibility more than once over the summer, but the last thing I wanted to do was to jeopardize our friendship by taking it to the next level.

But what if it did go to the next level? Would I be okay with that? I couldn't imagine it. I had wondered about such a thing, but I couldn't see him as anything other than my friend right now. I didn't know if that would always be the case, but that was the way I felt now.

"Look, you guys," Emily spoke up. "I know that this must be difficult for both of you. Your relationship has completely changed. I don't know what that will mean in the future, but right now you should treat each other as the friends that you are. Obviously there is some attraction happening here, and that freaks me out! And if you start kissing in front of me I'm going to punch both of you. Just be friends and if something happens later, we'll deal with it then, okay?"

Her words made a lot of sense, even if I didn’t want to hear her talk about that topic. I nodded. Ethan was doing the same. We were friends. There was no use letting what ifs and speculations ruin that. The car stayed mostly silent for the rest of the trip down to the beach. Despite the conversation, I could feel a change in Ethan's attitude toward me. I hoped that meant that we could get back to being friends.

I pulled into the parking lot and found a spot that I hoped would keep my car from getting scratched, and we all piled out. After getting my board and bag from the trunk, we started walking toward the beach.

"Are you guys still going to be friends?" Anna asked me.

I laughed lightly while turning toward her. "Yes, we are," I replied. I smiled when I saw Ethan nod in confirmation too.

"Good," Anna said. "Then let's go have some fun."

I couldn't agree with her more.

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We spent the morning playing in the sand and waves. When we started to get hungry, we packed back up and headed for a nice Italian restaurant that was just off the beach. The plan was to eat and then head over to the nearby theaters for an afternoon show.

After placing our name on the waiting list, we turned to take a seat in the small waiting area. That's when I knew we were in trouble. Sitting there, glaring at us, was Jared Lumbart. He was sitting with another boy and two girls I had never seen before.

I stopped short. The last time I had seen Jared he had pushed me to the ground and kicked me in one of the halls at school. He had been suspended that day. The glare that was on his face told me that he still held a grudge for what had happened.

With a quick look at Emily and Ethan, I sat down quickly as far away from him as I could. My friends sat down next to me, trying to shield me from what they knew was likely coming. Anna nervously sat next to me, worry in her eyes. Not surprisingly, Jared stood up and started walking toward us.

"I don't want any trouble, Jared," I told him before he had taken more than two steps.

"Well you're going to get it!" he replied with a snarl. "I almost failed all of my classes because of you!"

"This is the guy that you beat up?" one of the girls asked. She had a perplexed look on her face that was easy to understand. Obviously she had heard Jared's side of the story, in which I definitely wasn't portrayed as female.

"Obviously, he was mistaken about her gender," Emily replied wryly. Jared didn't like that, and glared at her before stepping closer to me. The girl stood up and quickly ran to where Jared was advancing on me.

"Jared!" she yelled at him. "Don't do this!"

"Shut up, Kristyn," he replied. "You don't know what this...this...THING took from me!"

"I didn't take anything from you, Jared," I replied calmly. I was scared to death and ready to run, but I was trying to not show it. "You attacked me, plain and simple. I did nothing to you."

He raised his fist, and Kristyn latched on to his arm immediately, trying to prevent him from doing anything he would regret. "Jared!" she yelled again. "Stop it! Leave her alone!"

I was impressed that Jared had managed to find a girlfriend who actually seemed like a real person. Most of the cheerleaders he usually dated wouldn't stand up to him like this girl was doing. Jared turned his ire on her for a moment, shaking his hand to try to dislodge her, but she held on tightly. He turned back toward me before doing anything else and took another step forward. Any closer and he'd be standing right over me!

Someone cleared their throat nearby, and we all turned to see the hostess standing there with a large guy next to her dressed in a waiter's uniform. "Sir," she said calmly. "If you can't sit down nicely and leave the girl alone, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Jared turned his glare on the hostess for a moment before sizing up the waiter she had brought with her. The waiter simply stared at Jared, giving him a look that said that Jared was no match for him. It didn't look like Jared was in the mood to fight him, so he turned back toward me.

"This isn't over, Campbell," he said before pulling Kristyn toward the door. "Come on, we're out of here."

I heard the boy and girl still sitting down sigh and stand up to follow. They didn't look pleased to be leaving.

"I'm sorry," I told them as they passed. I was surprised to get a smile back from them.

"It's okay," the girl spoke. "My cousin has a bit of a temper problem. Have a nice meal." Then she stepped out the door with her date.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that had been racing around at the thought that I might have been attacked by Jared. The last thing I needed was to get into trouble with him right before we started preparing for the concert tour.

"Are you okay?" Emily asked me a moment later. I looked up into her eyes and saw the concern she felt for me. I nodded back and smiled.

"Yeah," I replied. "But I think school is going to suck this year."

She grinned momentarily before her face turned solemn too. She probably felt the same way.

"Campbell, party of four," the hostess said, interrupting any other discussion.

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We were laughing when we walked through the garage door of my house later that evening. It had been a fun day. We'd caught a movie after lunch, and then we decided to come back to my place for a while to hang out. Anna wanted to go over to one of her friend's house, which left just Emily and Ethan to spend the evening with me.

It felt like the old days. It was like the excitement and chaos of the summer had never happened, except that we had a nice set of wheels to run around town in. Even Ethan seemed to be back to his old self. I was not completely sure if he was pretending, or if our talk this morning had really helped, but he treated me like a friend all day. He no longer did whatever he could to get away from me.

Austin and a number of his friends turned to look at us as we walked from the kitchen into the front room. I had hoped that we could turn on the TV or something while we lounged around, but they were already playing video games.

"Come on," I told my friends. "We've got another room to hang out in."

Ethan groaned, but he started following me down to Sarah's room anyway. I knew he didn’t like spending time in the feminine room, but it was a nice place to lounge around in with the large TV and stocked mini-fridge.

"Megan, is that you?" I heard my dad ask as we passed his office.

I stopped and looked in the door. "Yes."

He had a large smile on his face, and there was some kind of flat box on his desk. He stood up when he saw me and picked up the box before coming over to the door. With a smile, he handed the box to me.

"This is for you," he stated quietly. "But let's go down to the privacy of Sarah's room to open it. I don't want Austin's friends overhearing us."

"Okay," I said. Now I was really curious to see what was in the box. The mailing address said it was for Sarah, but I couldn’t think of anything that someone would send her.

Once we were safely inside Sarah's room and the door was closed, I sat down on the couch and opened the box. I gasped before reaching in and pulling out a black framed award that had a gold-coated copy of my CD on the left, a picture of the album cover on the right, and a small plaque below the two.

"Presented to Sarah Carerra," I read the inscription on the plaque. "To commemorate the sale of more than 500,000 copies of the Olympic Records album 'Intuition'."

I stared at it, mesmerized for a moment before I was able to turn it and show it to the others assembled in the room.

"That is so cool!" Emily yelled and reached out to take it from me for a closer look. I handed it to her before turning back to my dad.

"This award is just from the record company," he said. "We can't apply for certification with the record industry until thirty days after the album is released. But Olympic Records likes to award their artists sooner than that. You hit the 500,000 mark on Saturday. Right now sales are around 700,000. Scott thinks that you'll hit the million mark by sometime next week."

I sat there, staring at him in complete shock. I had been stunned when he told me that I had sold 428,000 that first day. I was stunned to hear the numbers now! I was blown away that my music was so popular!

Dad had apparently already placed a nail in the wall to hang the award on, and when Emily gave it back to him, he walked over to the previously vacant area of wall and hung it up. I noticed that there was a lot of room available for future awards, and I had mixed emotions; I was both excited and scared at what my future might hold.

"Congratulations, Princess," Dad said before kissing me softly on my forehead and walking out of the room. I was still speechless.

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I was happy when I climbed into bed that night. I had gotten Ethan back, I'd received my first award from the record company, and I'd survived my encounter with Jared Lumbart without injury. Altogether, it had been a great day. I knew that I wouldn't have many of these days off before school started. I was disappointed that the day was already over, but I knew that even if I was working for the rest of the summer, it was also going to be a lot of fun.

From the concerts, to the sightseeing while we were traveling, to the rush that I got from performing, I couldn't wait to get started!

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