「故事·听力」I Switched Partners With My Best Friend

I Switched Partners With My Best Friend

Hello to all! My name is David and I am going to tell you the story about the strangest date of my life… which ended in the most unusual way. Just listen.

I am sixteen years old and I have not had a girlfriend for a while. I do not know why. I am not ugly, not a nerd, and I’m not dumb… at least I hope I'm not. But all my attempts to get a girlfriend ended up as a total fiasco.

And that’s why I was afraid to ask a girl I really liked out on a date. Her name is April and she is one of the prettiest and the most popular girls in school. We have history classes together, so we know each other and sometimes exchange a couple of words, a couple of books, or check each other's homework… you know, that type of thing. She's not a snob and she treats me nicely but… I was afraid to make the first move.

Help came from where I least expected it: my best friend. Her name is Zoë. Yes, you heard me right - my best friend is a girl. Zoë and I are friends from elementary school, and she is very easy to get along with. She is not a tomboy, but she hangs out with guys because she has more in common with them.

I can share any of my problems with her, including girl-related troubles. And she helped me find a solution… because she was in a similar situation!

Zoë liked one guy from our school – a Latino guy named Enrique. All the girls had a crush on him - he really did look like a movie star. I can’t say anything about his handsomeness, but Zoë seemed to like him a lot, and she was also afraid to ask him on a date, maybe even more than I was afraid to ask April.

Zoë decided that we should have a double date where we could support each other through all the awkwardness and first date jitters.

 As soon as we had a chance, we both found April and then Enrique while walking through the school hallways and we both asked them out. And, holy Heaven, they both agreed!

Well, all four of us agreed to meet at the mall. Zoë and me, two idiots, got to the food court before the arranged time, so that by the time April and Enrique arrived, we were both already really nervous and hungry. So we ordered the first thing that we saw on the menu – hamburgers with fries.

But we found out that there was no need to hurry, our sweethearts turned out to be a lot pickier. April studied the menu forever and finally declared that she was just going to get a green salad. She was going to a cool party soon and she was on a diet in order to look good for it, so she was just casting secret glances at my juicy burger.

Enrique ordered an enormous black bean burger, which accidentally or not, matched the color of his shirt. And for a little while he became occupied with shooting his meal and uploading the pictures to Instagram.

April also decided to take a cool picture and ordered a large ice cream with some really complicated toppings with waffles and cookies. She did not eat it because she was on diet, but together with Enrique, she had a great time taking food pictures.

 Zoë and I chewed our food and exchanged surprised glances."

"The conversation wasn't going anywhere so I just started to talk about everything that came to my mind. After all, Zoë was close and I wasn't afraid to look stupid.

I talked about the piloted “Dragon” that Elon Musk sent to space recently. It was so cool! And I thought it would be interesting to everyone.

April did not seem to express any interest. But when Enrique remembered another headline from the past few days, that Kylie Jеnner was officially acknowledged as the youngest billionaire in history, April got really excited. I did not understand what the connection was between Elon Musk's spaceship and this Kylie person, but then it occurred to me that the keyword was “billionaire.”

 Enrique and April started to discuss Kylie, while Zoë and I kept silent – we were not absolutely sure who this person was that they were talking about anyway.

Then we were supposed to be going to the movies. Zoë and I wanted to see a blockbuster with action, shooting, and chasing with a lot of epic scenes and characters that drew you in and made you feel something.

But Enrique wanted to see something intellectual. Or even, something European and art-house, so that you could leave the movies, shaken from the realization that your world was not the same anymore.

As for April… She seemed to not care since she was fully consumed by her iPhone.

Since none of us could agree on anything, we just attended the movie that was scheduled the soonest. April sat close to me and was on her iPhone, which totally blinded me during the whole movie. And when there was an exciting moment on the screen… she grabbed Enrique’s hand. Enrique’s, not mine!