「故事·听力」My Friend Almost Died After Betraying Me

My Friend Almost Died After Betraying Me

This is Jeffry. Do you like watching TV? Well, he wants to tell you a story about how a TV drama helped him to save his friend’s life.

Jeffry is just a regular guy – the kind of person that studies well, but isn’t a total nerd. He has friends, and a girlfriend who he really like a lot. Her name is Caroline, she's a really successful figure skater and he’s so proud of her. He’s never missed any of her performances and even attends her training sessions. The only thing he hates about the whole thing is her skating partner, John. Caroline spends so much time with him, because of all their training and so on, and this makes him jealous.

At some point, Jeffry began to notice that Caroline had become increasingly irritable. He tried to ignore her bad mood at first, as he assumed that her busy schedule with all the training sessions and studying and everything was the reason she was so grumpy. So he decided that he ought to try and cheer her up. He invited her out to their favorite cafe, which had always sort of been “their place”, and bought her a present. But when she came, she suddenly began accusing him of having an “annoying interest in her life.” That’s how she said it. She said that they spent too much time together, that she was tired of his constant presence, and that he was overly jealous of her training with John. She ended by saying that if Jeffry had had a hobby of his own, everything could have been different, but since he wasn’t interested in anything aside from her life, that they would have to break up. And then she just left.

At first it was very hard for him to get used to the idea that Caroline and he were no longer together. Every day after school he would just sit in his room and think. He didn’t feel like communicating with anyone. He remembers how once he came home and found his sister watching one of those dramas on TV. He sat down next to her on the couch and tried to understand what was happening in that episode of “Gray’s Anatomy.” And guess what? It turned out to be a pretty good show, and not as silly as he thought it was. He actually became obsessed with it and started watching the series from the very first season – there were plenty of episodes to get through. And every Thursday he would look forward to a new episode and watch it together with his sister.

He began seeing his friends like he used to before he had Caroline, but soon he noticed that his best friend Jim was spending less and less time with the group. He said that he just had some family issues to deal with. But then one day he called Jeffry and said that they had to talk about something, and that he would drop by to see him that evening. When he actually showed up and Jeffry saw his face, he looked pale and almost sick. Then he finally said: “Me and Caroline, we’ve been seeing each other for a couple of weeks now.”

Jeffry felt his stomach twist somewhere inside. He was so angry that he just yelled at him, telling him that they were no longer best friends. At that moment, Jim collapsed on the floor and seemed to be unconscious. His sister ran into the room and started screaming something about needing to call 911. One thought after another was rushing through his head. He looked at his watch. It was 8:23 PM. Suddenly he realized what needed to be done. As if someone were giving him orders, he turned his unconscious friend over onto his back and tried to feel around for his pulse. He could tell that his heart wasn’t beating. Jeffry pressed his palms to Jim’s chest and began to do an indirect heart massage – no one had ever told him how to do it, but he’d seen it plenty of times on “Gray's Anatomy”. It seemed like a few hours passed before the paramedics arrived. He looked at his watch again – it only took them three minutes to get there. And even before anyone had asked him what exactly had happened, he told everything to the EMTs. They did their job, and Jim woke up even before they put him in the back of the ambulance.

The next day Jeffry went to visit him at the hospital. He said he had a recurring heart problem that got worse whenever he got nervous, and he was definitely freaking out about the situation with Jeffry and him and Caroline. But the doctor promised that he’d be alright after a few days in the hospital. He also said that things would probably have been much worse if no one had done CPR at the right time. “How did you know what to do?” he asked. Jeffry had to confess about his addiction to that medical drama. The doctor smiled. When he was leaving, he passed Caroline. They didn’t say a word to each other. But he noticed the sad and sorry look on her face, and strangely he didn’t felt like getting mad at her.