Summer: Undefined

I dropped the phone immediately and ran up to Jude’s room. I didn’t even bother pounding on the door, I just burst right in.

He was lying with headphones on and his eyes closed on his bead. His head was bobbing a little to the beat of the music.

“Jude!” I yelled at him while I pulled the headphones violently from his ears. “There’s some crazy person on the phone!”

“What?” He shot up from his pillow.

“The phone! He’s still on there! Pick it up!”

He held my hand tightly as he turned on all the lights and led me downstairs to where I dropped the phone.

“Hello?” He bravely asked into the phone.

There was a voice on the other end.

What happened next was something I’d never expected in my entire life. Jude burst out laughing.

“You’re so bad!” He roared in between laughs. “I can’t believe you did that!”

My jaw hit the floor.

It was a prank?

Who was it?

I reached for the phone but Jude protected it with his other hand.

“Yeah. Yeah she’s right here!” Jude’s smile widened as he handed me the phone. “Here, it’s for you.”

I cautiously took the phone.

“Hello?” My meek voice whispered into it.

“Delilah, I’m so sorry about that.”

“Who is this?” I asked again.

“It’s Gerard. I believe you lied to me yesterday.”

“Shit… Yeah, sorry about that.”

“So, Jude told me you were a fan of scary movies,” Gerard went on to explain his prank. “Every scary movie fan has seen Scream, so I thought I’d get a little revenge. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Please, just don’t make a habit of it,” I whispered a little louder into the phone.

“Don’t give me a reason to do it, and I think we’ll be fine,” I could hear his voice smiling at me.

I collapsed on the floor from the shock of it all.

“Delilah?” Gerard asked. “Are you okay?”

“You really scared the shit out of me,” I whimpered into the phone. My voice shaky and on the verge of tears.

“I really am sorry,” He pleaded with me. “Can I make it up to you tomorrow?”

“What?” I asked the tears disappearing a little.

“Tomorrow, I’ll see you at the party, right?”

I nodded.

“Delilah. I can’t hear your head nod,” He joked with me.

“Sorry,” I faintly laughed. “Yeah, you’ll see me.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” He said sweetly. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” I said with a nod.

“Great. Looking forward to it!”

I looked up at Jude who was flipping TV channels.

“Do you want to talk to Jude?” I asked Gerard.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll see him tomorrow. And you too.”

“Bye, Gerard,” I choked out.

“You can call me Gee if you want,” He playfully added. “All my friends do it.”

“I didn’t know I was a friend.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Bye, Delilah. See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, Gee.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Jude with a look of disbelief in my eyes.

“He’s pretty cool, isn’t he?” Jude asked me without looking up from the TV.

Sure enough, on the screen was the infamous movie that was spoken about only moments ago.

Scream was just starting and my brother found it appropriate to watch it now.

“Yeah, he’s great,” I half mindedly answered as I slipped up onto the couch.

For the next two hours we watched Scream together. Every time we watched it we always saw something different that contributed to how something was done.

“You see!” He shouted pointing at the door that the heroine, Sydney had left open. “He slipped through the door while the other guy was on the phone in the woods!”

“No, no!” I shouted back at him. “He’s been in the closet the entire time! Then when she hangs up Billy makes his way to the window! It’s all very carefully planned!”

Just then the murderer jumped out of the closet and chased Sydney around the house.

When Billy emerged from the window Jude decided to go make popcorn and left me all alone.

In my still fragile state I turned on the table lamp next to me and anxiously awaited his arrival. I loved scary movies to death but I needed to watch them with someone.

I jumped when Duey was at the door with the Scream mask and that was when Jude reentered the room.

“That part always gets you!” He laughed handing me the bowl of freshly made popcorn.

“Shut up! I keep forgetting it’s there!”

All the popcorn was devoured by the time Sydney found her friend dead in the garage door.

From that point on we basically had the movie memorized so we started playing along to the parts.

I hate to brag but I made one kick-ass Sydney and Jude, he could be real intimidating at times. Especially when he was playing Billy’s part.

“You hit me with the phone, dick!” Stu yelled at Billy when he went raging into the living room after Sydney had escaped into the closest.

“Did you know that that wasn’t in the script? He added it because… well it just happened!”

“Really?” I asked, surprised by Jude’s incredible knowledge of this movie.

“Yeah and they killed the principal just because someone hadn’t die in a long time!”

“Ha-ha! That’s crazy!”

The ending chase scene continued on until both Stu and Billy were dead.

“Oh this is my favorite line!” I laughed at the screen. “Wait for it!”

“Careful,” Randy said as they lingered over the dead Billy. “This is when the supposedly dead killer comes back to life, for one last scare.”

At that moment Billy jumped up and Sydney immediately shot him directly in he forehead.

“Not in my movie,” She said superiorly.

“Favorite part! Right there!” I smiled at the screen.

The credits were rolling and Jude turned on the overhead light.

“We should get to bed,” He said. “Tomorrow’s gonna be pretty busy.”

“Yeah,” I agreed and got off the floor. “But I’m still hungry.”

He pursed his lips to one side in thought.

“Me too,” He smiled.

We rushed into the kitchen and began searching for something to eat. Both of us always got really hungry at nighttime and a lot of the time had a second dinner around midnight.

“Hm,” I said examining the contents of our refrigerator. “What do you think? Home made pizza? Or chicken Alfredo?”

“In an Italian mood, tonight, eh, De?” He joked as he got out the pizza pan as if that was his answer.

I smiled at him and got out all the cold ingredients.

We had quite a bit of an argument over what exactly to put on our pizza. But we finally agreed on just putting anything we could manage on it.

Jude never failed in making a mess whenever we cooked. He liked to throw flour everywhere and stick his fingers in the marinara sauce. My brother really was a true child at heart.

And in true twin nature, I was neat as a pin and very precise in my cooking. Everything had to be measured. I can say without hesitation that it annoyed my brother to the point of insanity.

When we finally finished preparing our masterpiece we stuck it in the oven and struck up conversation as we waited. Jude mostly told me of his amazing plans for tomorrow.

“I just have one question,” I piped up after the explanation of why exactly Jude wanted to play ‘Seven Minutes In Heaven’. “Who’s Mikey?”

“Mikey is Gerard’s younger brother, by about… two years, I think. I don’t remember…”

“And Gerard is our age?”

He nodded and went over to check our pizza.

“How’s it looking?”

“Fine, could use a few more minutes.”

Jude slid back up onto the island countertop. We sat parallel to each other on the counter. I was next to the oven and he was directly across from me.

“Are you sure you like Vince?” He asked not looking me in the eyes but gazing at the ceiling.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m just saying, are you sure you really like him. Like you want to get back together.”

“Of course I do,” I said as seriously as I could.

His head snapped back down and our icy eyes locked on each other’s.

“Cool…”

That got me to thinking. Did Jude not like us together? Was he trying to play tricks on me or something? Am I over thinking the situation? Perhaps…

“What do you mean?” I repeated again, without thinking.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care less if you’re dating my best friend. I just wanted to make sure it’s what you wanted, is all.”

“Oh,” I muttered and gazed at the cold stone floor.

Another moment of silence followed that. What I loved about my brother is that you can sit with him and not say a word, but still feel like your having an intimate conversation.

“Do you know who he’s bringing tomorrow?” I asked.

“Who? Vince?”

“Yeah.”

“I dunno, probably a couple friends or something.”

“What about Gerard?”

“What about him?”

“Who’s he bringing?”

“Um, well when I talked to him he said he was going to be bringing two of Mikey’s friends. Ray and Franklin or something… And one of his friends, Matt… I think. Surprisingly Gee’s not very social.”

I laughed. “Why do I find that hard to believe?”

“You caught him on a good day,” He smiled. “Also… I told him you were cute. And you sound cute over the phone.”

I looked at him. My eyes grew wide.

“What?” I asked in amazement.

“When we talked about you yesterday, I told him you were cute. You can’t deny it, De. You are cute. So now he probably has a crush on you…”

“Thanks, Jude. That’s defiantly what I wanted right now.”

He shrugged his shoulders and went back to staring at the ceiling.

I slid off the counter and opened the oven door. The pizza looked done so I slid it out and turned the oven off.

We ate our pizza in near silence but still talked about some things, just not as much as we usually talked.

“You like Elle,” I stated taking a bite of the hot pizza.

“Shut up…”

“How much?”

“Shut up.”

“Come on, Jude. You know you like her. She likes you! She told me!”

“How do you know?” He asked with almost a whole slice hanging out of his mouth.

“I’m her best friend, Jude. You’d think I’d know these things.”

He glared at me. I wasn’t one to bring up things he’s said in the past, but this just seem so appropriate I couldn’t pass the opportunity up.

We finished the entire pizza within ten minutes. Surprisingly, it was actually really good.

After we, well I, cleaned up we departed for bed. I could tell we would need all the energy we could manage to get through tomorrow.