Forever Us (Chapter One)

(1) Driftwood



          “Come on, Ashlyn. Get your butt outside!” Leah shouted to me from inside the kitchen.

            “I’m coming!” I called back, walking down the stairs. “Geez, Leah, don’t have a cow.”

            She glared at me and motioned to my coat that was hanging up by the garage door.

            “The sooner you finish, the sooner you can be free, Ash,” Leah barked back, still angry with my cow comment.

            I repeated what she had said in a high, whiny, quiet voice to myself when I was sure she wasn’t looking.

            “You’re almost seventeen, it’s time you learn how to shovel the driveway.”

            “Yeah well you’re forty-seven, shouldn’t you know how?” I blurted without thinking, instantly regretting it.

            “Outside. Now.” She pushed me out the door. I barely had time to finish putting my jacket on to protect me from the harsh winter winds.

            I knew I should’ve been more appreciative… I mean, she’d been my mother as long as I could remember. I should have thanked her for that more often.

            I was about to turn around and open the door to go back inside and apologize, but I heard the click of the door’s bolt locking before I could enter.

Darn Leah. I was too late.

            I’m going to go ahead and guess that you don’t have a clue what I'm talking about, and if that’s true, here’s what you need to know about me.

            My name is Ashlyn McGregor. I’m sixteen, almost seventeen years old, and I'm a junior in high school.

            I like to think that I'm a good person, someone to be proud of…but I guess I can’t. See, my real mom, Nicole, didn’t care about me. At least not enough to actually take care of me. She put me up for adoption, where Leah found me.

         Leah always told me that while I was sleeping in one of those little baby-beds where they keep the newborns in the hospital, she instantly fell in love with me. And after she overheard a conversation Nicole had had about putting me up for adoption, she formally found a way to adopt me.

         She’d always wanted a baby girl.

            So that’s why I call her Leah, instead of Mom. But I probably should. After all, she’s the only mom I've ever known, and the only one I ever will.

            When I was four, Leah moved me from California - where we moved to shortly after I was born in Illinois - to Colorado, which made no sense. Leah hates the cold.

            I’m also a huge klutz.

            I have a lot of bad days. Let’s just say, my life is complicated. There’s the Nicole issue, of course, and then there’s Carter. Carter Callaghan.

            Carter Callaghan is my absolute best guy-friend. I’ve known him ever since seventh or eighth grade, and we’ve been close the entire time.

            I’m also hopelessly in love with him.

         Now don’t roll your eyes at me yet. There’s more to this than just a sappy love story. There’s heartbreak, pain, passion, and even death, laying somewhere in these pages…

            It’s a lot like a soap opera, actually, my life. The girl falls in love with her best friend, but is too scared to say anything because of the fear of rejection… there’s the evil ‘mean girl’ at school who is also in love with the girl’s best friend; and how could I forget, the missing mother who hated her daughter since birth, making the girl wonder why she was never good enough.

            Yes, definitely a teenage soap opera.

            I really shouldn’t have said what I just said, though. But hey, I guess that’s just more drama to add to my soap opera of a life.

But I am a teenager. It’s our job to say things we don’t mean. We are going through the awkward, post-pubescent stage after all. Shouldn’t that give me a free, take-back-what-you-said card?

            I sighed and breathed in the crisp air of winter, and my breath fogged up the glass window that was part of the doorframe.

            And then I smiled. I had an idea.

            Carefully, writing backwards so I was sure Leah could read it, I wrote “I’m Sorry,” in big capital letters on the fog that appeared on the window.

            She was sitting in the living room, the room closest to the door, and saw me smiling from the outside. Straight faced, she walked over to me. And then she read my note.

            Slowly, she opened the door, letting me inside.

            “I forgive you. I shouldn’t have been so harsh,” she breathed reluctantly.

            “Thanks,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.” I paused and smiled cautiously. “I’m almost done. I think I’ll finish today.”

            “Good. I don’t need to do anything until Saturday, and since school starts Thursday, you only have a couple of days left to do it, okay? Don’t forget, honey,” she reminded me gently.

            “I won’t,” I sighed, remembering that today was Tuesday and I had less than 48 hours of freedom left. “Well, better get going…”

I turned around and walked around the house to get the snow shovel we used for the driveway, flinching away from the bitter-cold wind.

           

  It was pure, unadulterated bliss.

  Almost.

  If it hadn’t been for that stupid job Leah gave me that morning – even though I told her I would have it finished by the end of the day, which was rapidly approaching – I would have enjoyed just the presence of the snow, absorbing as much of its beauty as I possibly could.

  I felt a gentle tug at my shirt. There was a light breeze that made the trees dance in a way that would cause any dancer to turn green with envy; a setting sun in the distance that I knew would be falling behind the mountains soon.

  But the sun, hidden behind the immense clouds that darkened the sky, wouldn’t help my situation this time. It laughed at me, finding it so freaking difficult to move only feet away from the clouds, letting its bright and wonderful glow shine through and liquefy the snow that was such a pain to me.

  I was exhausted, desperate for a break or a short nap, but Leah, my adopted mom if you remember correctly, basically demanded that I finish today, in her ‘oh, I don’t really care, anyways,’ reverse psychology strategy. Even though she never drove in it anyways.

  I sighed, worn-out, and shivered at the disgusting mess the weather had made of our front lawn. It was the dead of winter, just finishing up my high school’s beloved Christmas Break to be exact, and in the snowy shadows of the Rocky Mountains, there was never even a sliver of hope for the most recent snowfall to melt- leaving me, reluctantly, to shovel the rest of it out into uniform piles away from the driveway. Even if I was totally pooped.

  I did love the snow, though; playing in it, making snowmen, throwing it at friends, carving snow angels into its glossy surface, the warm hot chocolate after our jackets and snow-pants were soaked through with wetness — that was all great. It was fun.

  The aftermath was what I had a problem with. Shoveling it. Towing it all across the yard to make room for us to walk across it. That was the only thing I didn’t absolutely love about winter.

  It’d been a long time since the snow had piled high enough to reach my knees, and I was thankful for the toughness of the shovel I carted around. It made my hands weak under the pressure of the icy snow — I could only hold on for so long — but somehow I was able to summon enough strength left to heave the clumps into the correct piles.

  “Crap,” I mumbled to no one in particular. “I shouldn’t have waited so long to shovel the snow...” I turned around, frowning at my unsteady progress, to glare at the mounds I had formed in the three hours I had worked so far. There was little improvement in my eyes, but, although it felt like I couldn’t be moving any slower, there was at least a path for people to walk in and out of the house, and with another day’s work on Wednesday I could finish enough for the car to squeeze out of the compact driveway. Not that it would matter at all; Leah was way too terrified of driving on the roads, with their thick sheets of glassy ice, to even need a clear lane for the car to pass through.

  Then what was the point of all this? My younger – sort-of, not by blood – brother Todd absolutely loved playing in the snow, and it wasn’t really that hard to walk through. If you got your balance just right, you could easily glide across it with no problem. So what was Leah’s issue with snow? Maybe she was just a paranoid freak.

  My soundless fuming was interrupted by the sensation of my cell phone vibrating, pulsing to life in my pocket. I unwove the thick layers of my gloves, and then, careful not to drop it in the pools of almost-melted-but-not-enough-to-make-a-difference snow by my feet, I warmed my hands with my breath.

  I flipped open the hand-me-down cell phone to discover that it was Carter who was trying to talk to me. At first I was pissed. I mean, he knew I had chores to finish!  Why the heck was he calling me? I hadn’t made much improvement, and already he wanted to interrupt it? I was furious with him, just about ready to answer and yell at him for being such an idiot, until I remembered the last time we had talked on the phone. I sat there for hours just listening to the sound of his voice; so soft, smoother than slow-churned butter… it mesmerized me.

  Of course just that thought sent me into a flurry of memories, and I wasn’t in that world anymore. I was with Carter, launching snowballs, warming our feet by the fire, catching the icy snowflakes on our tongues… and after the third pulse of movement snapped me out of my daydreaming, I decided I couldn’t let chores get in the way of my social life.

  If it had been anyone else, I would have ignored the call and finished my chores. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Carter.

  So I hit the talk button and pulled the phone to my ear.

  “Hey Carter, what’s up?” I asked, not faking the happiness in my voice.

  “Aw, you already knew it was me? Damn. I was hoping for the element of surprise,” he whined.

  “Well… yeah, I just discovered this thing called caller ID. It’s amazing, really,” I laughed dryly into the receiver.

  “Ugh,” he groaned, and I knew he was trying not to laugh.

  “Um, did you want something?”

  “You’ll never guess what me and Rachael found at Wal-Mart yesterday.” His voice now had an excited edge to it.

  “Oh, I can only begin to imagine what you might find in the humbleness of our 50,000 square feet Wal-Mart…” I teased sarcastically.

  It was like I could hear him rolling his eyes, the motion was so profound.

  “We found a whole Back to the Future box set. Every movie, all for just ten bucks! Sweet, huh?”

  I remembered the snow under my feet and thought bitterly to myself, and what does this have to do with me? Why don’t you go find one of the thousands of girls who are prettier than I am and are madly in love with you? Go watch it with them.

  “Yeah… couldn’t be more perfect,” I lied unenthusiastically, remembering the greedy hold my chores had on me until they were done.

  “You sound bored. I thought you’d be excited,” he thought aloud.

  “No, I am, really. It’s just, Leah’s got me stuck here shoveling the driveway ‘til it’s spotless, and I still have, like, another three days’ left of work to do...” I emphasized the word spotless, glancing back at the unfinished yard with dark eyes and a terrifying expression. If only looks could kill. Or at least, melt snow.

    “Oh. Well that’s okay. I mean, if you already made other plans for after you’re done, I’m cool with that…” I could tell he was lying. He didn’t want me to choose someone else over him.

  When did I even mention wanting to do something after I was finished?

  That thought brought a smile to my face. He was jealous! I never thought Carter Callaghan could get jealous. Because really… how could he even think I would choose my other friends over him, anyways? We’d been best friends since before we were in high school, and he thought I’d just randomly decide one day to go out and make new friends, leaving him behind? He was insane. Completely and totally insane.

  “But I’ll ask anyways,” I promised after a few seconds of silent laughter.

  “Really? Awesome.” His voice was back to the same loud, childlike pitch that I loved.

  “Yeah, I’ll text you when I find out, okay?”

  “Sweet. Talk to you then, Ash.”

  I hung up the phone, wondering how strict child labor laws were in the small town of Selmer, Colorado where Leah had moved me to since before I could remember.

  Not strict enough.

          “If Leah honestly expects me to finish all of this in one day, she’s just plain crazy. Not even a snow plow could find its way through this chaos…” I grumbled, as if that justified my impulsive request to leave before I was done.

I could hear her words now, ringing through my ears…

  “If you hadn’t spent all that time procrastinating instead of actually doing your chores, maybe they’d be through already!”

  Ugh. There was no winning with her, no matter how hard I tried. But I still had to, even if there was only a slim chance of her saying yes. After all, I made a promise to Carter. I couldn’t back out now, no matter how afraid I was of her. I mean, who knows, maybe she could have a sudden change of heart?

  Don’t get me wrong. I loved Leah, like she actually was the woman who gave birth to me. Even though she could be demanding, she was my mom. I loved her.

  So no matter how hard I tried not to, I always felt bad when I asked if I could skip out on my chores. I mean, Leah didn’t have to take me in after Nicole left me. She didn’t have to give me food or water or shelter… but she did.

  Still… I was a teenager. I didn’t have to be a complete saint all the time… right?

  “Hey, Leah?” I called out shakily from the mound of snow that had trapped me while I was debating on whether or not just to lie and tell Carter Leah had said no. It was so deep, so thick, that my feet were caught up in its heaviness. I could feel my boot slowly slipping off.

  “Crap!” I whispered angrily again, partly at the snow, partly at myself.

  “What is it, hon?” she replied from the open garage.

  “Umm,” I struggled with the task of staying balanced enough not to fall in the freezing snow pile I was now inevitably stuck in. “One second!” I called back, an idea forming in my head. I used the shovel for balance mainly, leaning on it with most of my weight so that I could thrust myself upward enough to break free of the mound’s hold on me. I was proud of myself — I still had my hiking boots firmly tied on my feet, right where they belonged.

  I couldn’t help but grin as I weaved my way through my works in progress to where Leah stood, hiding in the cozy warmth of the garage. “What do you need?” she leisurely questioned me while she put a new coat of stain on one of our barstools.

  “I was wondering, when’s the next time you wanted to drive?”

  She stared at me with a skeptical look on her face. “Saturday, remember? I don’t have any errands at the moment.”

  “That’s good…” That way I don’t have to feel guilty for not finishing on time, I thought. “’cause Carter’s having a Back to the Future marathon at his house, and he invited me! It sounds like a lot of fun…” I glanced at her expression to check if she was still in a good mood. It looked like she was, so I kept going. “Do you think I could finish the driveway tomorrow? I only have a few more piles to do,” I lied, happy that Leah hated the cold enough to never go outside in weather like that.

  “Is that such a good idea? I know how forgetful you can be when you’re around Carter, Ashlyn,” she replied, trying to sound adult-like but failing. I always knew she liked Carter.

    “Oh, come on, Leah, break is almost over. And Carter said something about a late Christmas present last week… I won’t forget, I promise! I’ll do it right when I get home, even, if you want me to.”

  Even though it gets colder and colder every stinking minute I waste talking to you… I grumbled internally.

  She sighed, giving in. “Fine… but I want you home before eleven. Who knows what could happen to a girl, as pretty as you are,” she lifted my chin to smile at me, and also to lock eyes with me to get her point through. She knew I was barely paying attention throughout the conversation. Leah always lost me at ‘fine.’ “—alone in dark streets at night.” I saw a small a small shiver involuntarily throb through her body at that thought.

  It was hard not to laugh at her paranoia. We lived in a town with, maybe, two thousand people. The crime rate was as low as our population.

  “Deal!” I began my way towards my yellow suburban Leah had helped buy used for me last year.

  “Did you catch a single word that I just said, Ashlyn?” she rolled her eyes, joking, but still slightly annoyed, at me. 

  “Yeah... home, before eleven. Got it.” After sending a quick message to Carter letting him know of Leah’s unexpected approval, I entered the warm embrace of my car’s – aka the Gas Behemoth, as Carter liked to call it – heated cab. It groaned to life as I turned the key in the ignition, the engine almost as old as I was, and then I pressed the gas pedal, flying off onto the snow covered oil-black pavement.

  “Love you!” I heard her call out to me over the roar of the engine.

  “Love you…” was all I could think of to add. “Oh, and thanks!” I beamed.

  “Be back before eleven…” she waved behind, calling out to me, but I didn’t hear her. And it wasn’t because my beloved Behemoth bellowed out a ghastly chug due to the intensity of the cold. It was because I was already there in my mind, at Carter’s house, watching movies with him and his sister, laughing and playing and munching on buttered popcorn and candy that was so good it shouldn’t be legal.



  It was a long drive down the curvy road to Fair Oaks, the neighborhood where Carter lived. I slid a few times, smiling at how well I handled the icy patches. I guess after almost a year of driving in the snow, I was finally getting good at it.

  When I first got my license, however, Leah wouldn’t let me drive. Like, at all.

  It wasn’t one of those, “Oh, we’ll deal with my teenage daughter later,” type of things, though. It was that she hated the ice. It terrified her. And she hated the bitter cold. The wind. The snow drifts.

  Sometimes it seemed like she hated everything.

  I wasn’t really paying attention anymore at that point. All I could think about was my first experience driving in the snow.

  It was a whopping twenty degrees outside, and I had to bundle up in all my winter gear to stay warm. We were planning on driving to the only shopping center in town to look for a Christmas present for Todd, which, coincidentally, happened to be right next to Fair Oaks.

  I knew Leah would flip out and cancel my driving lesson if she saw how icy the roads were, but, hey, I had to learn sometime! So I took advantage of the cold, and gave her a hat that was about two sizes too big so she could barely see; then shoveled all of the ice in the driveway out onto the corner, so she wouldn’t have any reason for suspicion.

Believe it or not, it worked. We were out in no time, soaring across the unpaved roads I liked to call home, out towards Fair Oaks Boulevard.

  I was turning the corner onto the main highway, watching for squirrels or deer or tiny children, and not really focusing as much as I should have been. Then again, we were literally going twenty miles per hour in a speed limit fifty zone.

  To keep it short, we could just say that I had a little closeness with a stop sign. Luckily, neither my car nor the sign was injured. All I needed was a little bit of yellow and red paint to patch things up.

  So that was my first snow experience. Not very exciting, I admit. No near-death experiences, head on collisions…

  Those came on later. Much, much later.

  I snapped back into my own little reality as I twirled around the bend, looking for the big stone-covered house I thought of as my second home.

  I pulled The Behemoth into the driveway, careful not to block the garage door’s exit in case Mrs. Callaghan needed to drive somewhere. Then I hopped out of my cab, and carefully made my way up the walkway to Carter’s front door.

  My knock was faint, light, compared to the usual pounding rhythm my pale knuckles would echo on the wooden door to his ancient, massive house. I felt so small compared to it.

  “Who is it?” I heard his mother’s soft, gentle voice calling from somewhere inside.

  “It’s Ashlyn, Ashlyn McGregor?” I laughed at the questioning tone that had seeped its way into my voice. Even though I knew, so well, that Carter’s mom approved of me, almost even liked me, I was still nervous when I was in her presence. I didn’t want to make a single mistake around her.

  But not messing up was hard.

  You could say she was easy to upset, delicate, almost. Short fused, even. But not angry.

  No, never angry.

  Even though her husband abandoned her with a young boy and a crying baby; even though she was left to care for two needy children all alone, a bad comment was never spoken from her lips.

  Although, it was by no means what she said that made me melt to pieces with guilt. It was the way she looked — that pained expression that rested on her normally soft face — that killed me every time I glanced in her direction and saw her twisted gaze.

  But despite the bad things, it was impossible not to love her. She was wonderful, so very kind that a stranger, simply fleeting an indifferent look as she crosses the path in front of them, would want to pick her up, cradle her in their arms, tell her everything would be alright…

  So to call her delicate would be an understatement. More along the lines of fragile, breakable. Like aged, glass china plates. Beautiful to admire, they seem friendly, open, but in the split second it takes for a person as clumsy as me to drop the plates, a thousand tiny pieces of pointy glass have already shattered across the ground.

  And they’re impossibly difficult to clean up, too.

  “Coming!” I heard her light footsteps grow louder as she approached the door.

  It groaned to life, an immense noise shuddering out of the entrance.

  “Oh!” she gasped, startled. “It’s been so long since I last used this thing. Usually I come in and out through the garage,” she explained. “I think it needs some good TLC.” Her lips curved into a smile.

  “It’s about time Carter got some chores to do around the house,” I chuckled sarcastically. “Did you know Leah had me shoveling snow all morning today?”

  “Ha, ha, ha… Hear that, Carter?” she called across her shoulder. “Looks like Ashlyn’s suggesting chores for you to do!”

  There was a scrambling noise from behind the wall that separated us from him.

  “Wait, what?” he half-shouted, and in the corner of my eye I saw Carter glide around the corner from the kitchen. He had a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his right hand. “Oh, Ash, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” He shook his head in fake warning, a little bit of the jelly spilling onto the floor. “If I remember right, you still have some chores to finish at home. Wouldn’t it be…” he paused to add to the mirage of tension that lingered in the entryway. “Unfortunate, for Leah to find out that you haven’t finished yet?” he smirked.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I already told her I wasn’t finished, you spaz,” I laughed, leaving out the fact that I had actually lied about it. “And besides, we both know you’d never go through with it.”

  “Nah, you’re right,” he half-smiled, “I wouldn’t have the guts.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I chuckled, “I don’t think I would either.”

  “Yeah, no offense, but Leah’s ‘kinda crazy…” he teased, Mrs. Callaghan scowling in his direction, and I smiled in response. I knew all about crazy.

  His face lit up then again, and I wondered what he was thinking.

  “Hey, did I tell you I got you a Christmas present?” he grinned, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

  “You did?” I faked surprise – his sister Rachael had already spilled the beans to me weeks ago, leaving what exactly it was, of course. “You didn’t have to do that, Carter.”

  “I wanted to. Here, follow me into the dining room. I think I left it on the table.” He led me across his house and through multiple rooms before we found the kitchen table that was big enough to seat twelve.

  He handed me a red and green wrapped present, with a bow tied across the center. It was small, somewhat light; I heard it thumping around as I shook it gently.

  “Open it,” he grinned again.

  I carefully tore the paper around the edges, trying to preserve as much of its beauty as possible. Finally, the last piece was ready to be torn away.

  “Oh my gosh… Carter!” I squealed.

  “Do you like it?”

  “Um, yeah!”

  “Ha ha, take it out of the box, Ash. It’s even cooler outside of the wrapping.” He took the brand new iPod Touch he had bought for me out of its box, and set the remaining plastic and paper trash on the table.

  “You didn’t have to do this for me!”

  “Man, I wanted to. No, I needed to. Your old iPod sucked, Ash. Consider it a favor to everyone who had to listen to it.”

  “I love it…” I breathed, ignoring his sarcastic jokes. “Thank you so much!” I gave him a hug impulsively, practically tackling him, holding him tightly against my body.

  He held me close, and I was ignoring the awkwardness that was creeping up inside me.

  It felt nice, being with him like that; standing there in his arms, breathing in the sweet smell of his cologne – I never wanted it to end.

  The emotion I felt right then… it was something I’d experienced so many times before. I hated it. I mean, I wanted to kiss him. To kiss Carter, my best friend for so long! Carter. Why did it have to be Carter?

  I stared into his eyes, still held in his stable arms, and he stared back. It felt like we were quiet for a lifetime, just staring.    Watching, waiting for when the right moment would have been to…

  “Oh, would you just kiss her already, Carter? Seriously, it’s not that hard.”

  The silence was broken, at possibly the worst moment in time. Ever.

  “Rachael?” Carter half-shouted, as surprised as I was by his sister’s voice appearing out of nowhere. He spun around the room, looking for his nearly sixteen year old sister who could sometimes act like she was twelve.

  “Well, it wasn’t like I was interrupting anything…. or was I?” she asked slyly as she glided out from the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. The room suddenly felt very full.

  “No… of course not,” I lied, wishing that I didn’t have to. “Look what he got me,” I whispered, trying to take the focus away from Carter as he released me, still breathless from the encounter that left me stunned.

“  I know, I helped him pick it out,” she beamed.

  “Thanks. I mean, both of you. I didn’t think it was going to be something this big.”

  “You’re practically already family, Ashlyn. Of course we’re ‘gonna give you something amazing.”

  “Well, still, I wouldn’t have guessed an iPod. An iPod, Carter? How long have you been planning this?”

  “A while.” He wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked like he’d just taken a blow to the gut.

  “Wow. Just… wow. Thank you so much.”

  “Yeah,” he replied stiffly, angry almost.

  “Really, it’s so great.” I tried to keep my tone level, painfully ignoring Carter’s sudden shift in mood. “So do you guys want to watch the movie yet?” I asked, putting the uncomfortable feeling in my stomach – was it butterflies? – away to be ignored.

  “Yeah. The DVDs are on the counter. Go get it,” he commanded Rachael as he nodded in the direction of the kitchen, and she responded indignantly, put off by his demand.

  “Okay… I guess I’ll just meet you there, Ash.” She sourly waved goodbye and left through the kitchen doors where she came from.

  “Come on. We can get some popcorn and then head to the movie room,” he said after Rachael had left; leading me out of the dining room, through the hall, down the stairs, and past a gigantic archway into an enormous library room. His anger faded with every step we took.

  It was his mother’s office, I remembered him telling me about it sometime before, but he never did describe exactly how incredible that place truly was. Usually we took a different route into the room in the basement used for watching movies – there were two doors that led into it – so I never really got to see it for all that it was.

  Leather bound books lined the shelves, coming full circle around the entire space, making me feel tiny again.  There was a small ladder that was harnessed to the wall resting in the corner, and less than a yard away, sat a large, oak framed desk. On its top was an advanced computer. Near the edge, on the hardwood floor, a set of file cabinets and a trash bin relaxed with ease, leaning against the massive desk for balance and support.

  “Phew,” I whistled through my teeth. This place was HUGE. So huge, that I felt claustrophobic. Could that make sense?

  Carter thought my exasperation was funny. I was glad that he was acting like himself again, even if he was laughing at me. I missed that Carter. The fun one. The one that I absolutely could not like more than a friend, no matter how much I wanted to... even if it felt right…

  I made myself think those unbearable words.

  He doesn't love you. He can't love you. He never will. Suck it up and move on.

  I laughed bitterly in a hushed tone, fighting back tears. I forced myself to listen to Carter's explanation, to be happy, and ignore those raging emotions inside of me.

  And for a while, it worked.

  “Yeah, she spends most of her time in here,” he replied after a few agonizing seconds. “Every few weeks she adds another book, and after a while, you get this,” he waved his arm widely through the vastness of the library.

  It made me wonder how he could talk so normally about his mother. She was amazing, having such bad things happen to her, and then getting back on her feet so quickly…

  Mrs. Callaghan worked from home as a stockbroker. You’d be amazed at how much people will pay to have someone manage their investments. It was enough to pay for three people, two sets of braces, a number of health costs, and even costs for funerals.

  That was how they could afford to keep the colossal, expensive house on a single income. Of course, she had help in the beginning. After her parents died, they left her this house, along with thousands of bonds and savings they’d stowed away, never ending up using them. I guess being an only child had its benefits.

  “How long has this place been here?” I wondered aloud, completely baffled. I’d been to his house plenty of times before, but not once did I see the room I was standing in at that second. How could I have missed it in all those hours I’d spent there? It reminded me how unobservant I actually was.

  “Since the house was built, probably,” he smirked, pointing out the obvious.

  “Wow.”

  “I know… even though I’ve lived here since I was three, it still gets to me.”

  “I can see why.” We stood in awe for a few minutes, just taking in the largeness of the room. “How are these organized?”

  My hands brushed the spines of the books on the shelf closest to me. They felt… old. Like, by touching their aged backs, I could suddenly know all the knowledge from centuries before. Like they weren’t just books, but stories from long ago.     

  Not stories, but somebody’s life, compressed to fit into two hundred pages.

  “By author, then by title. Alphabetical, I think.”

  “That must have been fun to sort,” my eyes widened sarcastically.

  “It actually wasn’t that bad. We only started out with three hundred or so, and we sorted them as we bought a new book.   

  But we moved here when I was just as kid, so I might not—”

  “Three hundred?” I gasped, interrupting his sentence. “Only three hundred…” I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Yup, but that’s not even the coolest part.”

  “What is?”

  He paused, to add dramatic effect, I supposed. “She’s read every single one of them at least once, maybe twice. Sometimes even three times,” he was now in disbelief, too.

  I resisted the urge to say, “She needs a life,” because I knew Carter wouldn’t think it was as funny as I would have. I settled on repeating the word, “Wow,” wishing that, among the layers and layers of books that surrounded me, a thesaurus was hiding. I needed a better word to describe the admiration I was feeling than “wow.”

  “Yeah.” He let out a gust of air from his lungs. “Well, we better head out. Rachael’s probably already made the popcorn and got the DVD set up. We should beat her there if we want the good seats,” he smiled, leading me through another doorway, into a high ceilinged room with a large television in the center. Rachael wasn’t there yet.

  This was a room that I recognized.

  There were three rectangular windows on each wall, with light tan curtains to block the sun’s intense rays from shining into the house. In the back corner, a small refrigerator was hidden underneath a counter. On top of the counter was a shiny silver soda fountain. It beckoned me.

  “Hey,” I pointed to the machine that spewed out delicious tasting liquid. “Do you mind?”

  “Take whatever you want. There’s food in the cabinets if you want some,” he smiled distractedly.

  I wandered to the cupboard with a glass cover. Inside were large glasses specifically designed for luscious flavored drinks. Carefully, I reached for the glass cup in the first row, being extra sure not to let it slip out of my easily loosened grip. Then, in the cupboard next to it, I grabbed a bag of chips. I gingerly placed the cup and chips on the countertop, and looked over at all the different brands of liquid happiness in the soda fountain. There were several names I didn’t recognize.

  I chose to fill my glass with Sprite. Pure, lemon-lime goodness to drown away my insecurities with.

  God. I sounded like an alcoholic.

  “Do you want me to get you something?” I asked awkwardly, instantly regretting it. There was no way I could carry more than one cup and a snack at a time without dropping something. I think that he knew that too, and, not wanting to clean up after me, replied with a polite, “No thanks,” and I was able to walk back to the couch without fear of breaking anything valuable.

  “It’s amazing you stay so thin, with all this crap food lying around,” I teased lightly, sitting down as I spoke.

  “Fast metabolism,” he patted his stomach with a grin. “I wonder where Rachael is. The kitchen isn’t that far away.”

  “Maybe she got lost?” I chuckled.

  “Ha ha, probably. She’s directionally challenged.”

  “Hmph. I’m not that bad!” Rachael retaliated from the other room.

  “Woah, guess she didn’t get lost! What a surprise!” His voice now sounded like leather as he taunted her, stretching out the second sentence to last for three. I guessed that he was getting his revenge for interrupting what might have happened if…

            She rolled her eyes and glared at him playfully.

            There was a short pause before I interrupted the staring contest between brother and sister.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s pop that sucker in!”

Um, I thought awkwardly. That really wasn’t how I wanted it to come out.

But I was anxious to start the movie, not wanting to have to cut it short due to the rapidly approaching darkness, or the exhaustion that reigned over me. I was still tired from the toll shoveling had done to me.

            Rachael very much took her time — or maybe it just felt like she was moving so slowly because of my impatience — and, after much anticipation, reached the sleek looking DVD player. It had so many different colored buttons and lights; it would put a flight deck to shame. I stared in awe at how easy it was for her, pressing one key to open the disc tray, pushing it again to close it, adjusting the TV so that it would show the DVD screen — that took many more different maneuvers. It all seemed so complicated, but she did it with ease.

            “Alrighty then,” she strode back to the couch to sit down, careful not to choose the seat in between me and her brother. She squeezed into the side with the armrest, pushing him closer to me in the process.

I wished that I didn’t like every little thing she was doing to make him touch me. But I couldn’t. I did.

            “Would you pass me the remote?” she pointed to the longest of the three remotes, the most complex. I gladly handed it to Carter, who handed it to her, relieved that she hadn’t asked me to start the movie. I didn’t need another opportunity to look even dumber.

            I watched as she, still with such ease it amazed me, pressed the buttons gently. The TV screen turned a light shade of blue; it was the main DVD display now.

            I was still so dumbfounded at the complexity of their home theater system that I didn’t notice Carter reach over me to set the remote back on the end table.

            It was because I wasn’t rich, I realized then, that I didn’t understand how to work any of their electronics. But that didn’t really matter, most of the time. They were usually the ones to set up whatever it was we were doing, and my job was to get the food. Easy enough, right? Unless I tripped, making a complete fool of myself…

            At least I made life interesting for them. Even if it was at my own expense, I was still happy that they laughed. We all need something to laugh about.

            Leah and I never had that much spare cash lying around the house. She kept a steady job at the hospital, working as a nurse that specialized in neonatal care. Sure, it wasn’t the fanciest job out there, I could admit that, but it paid the bills, and she was happy just to keep us going strong.

         We lived in an average middle-class house in one of the ‘normal’ neighborhoods in Selmer. There weren’t really any ‘poor’ neighborhoods there. Just less rich. The only difference between my neighborhood and Carter’s neighborhood was that his was fancier, and ours was simple. We lived in a regular, two story house. Except that we were one of the only houses to have two decks.

         There was one tacked on at the end of my room, looking out at the mountains. You could get to it through a glass door across from my bathroom, which was also connected to my room. I loved the family that had owned the house before us, because they had added it on for a better view. Originally our house didn’t have very many windows. I don’t know why I was so proud of that deck. Maybe I just had a thing for houses – and people – that were different.

Leah had a busy life, working at the hospital and also taking care of two kids. It seemed like she spent half of her time taking care of Todd, my still quite young little brother. He was nine… and a half. He constantly reminded us about the half, thinking that as long as that additional part of a year was tacked on, he was more of an adult. Right.

          It’s odd, Leah and Mrs. Callaghan’s relationship. Even though they were best friends, Leah wasn’t as sensitive as Mrs. Callaghan was. Most of the time, their differences were quite obvious — I could tell after coming home from spending a day with them — but, like Carter’s mom, Leah once had a husband, who was actually Todd’s real father. His name was Mike. But he left some time ago too, when I was thirteen, before Todd could remember. I never liked him anyways. To me, it was a good thing he left.

            Mike’s parting was probably one of the best things that had ever happened in my life. Leah’s… maybe not. But it made mine much more amazing.

            I’m by no means encouraging abandonment, not all, but if it weren’t for Mike’s fear of commitment, I would never have met my best friend.

See, there’s a support group just outside of Selmer for single parents, adoptive parents, and widows. They all meet at the same time.

            When Mike first left, Leah was having a rough time. So she joined that group, and met Mrs. Callaghan, Carter’s mother, and they’d been friends ever since. Despite the polar oppositeness of their personalities, they were inseparable. Just like me and Carter.

            By the time Todd was old enough to make actual friends, opposed to the common play dates a child has when they’re two and unable to talk well or use a flushing toilet on their own, Carter and him had bonded. Carter was Todd’s most favorite ‘big kid.’ And Carter was good with him, too. I loved that about him.

Rachael pressed a round button in the center of a remote — I once again wasn’t paying enough attention to notice Carter hand it to her another time — and the first sound I heard was the deafening subwoofer behind us powering up.

            The previews were starting, and I tried to wait patiently for the opening credits. They always took the longest to appear. For me it was the most tedious and annoying part of a movie; like you have to sit through ten billion or so new shorts before the movie even starts.

            “Can you fast forward through the previews?” I begged. There wasn’t much time left for me to stay, and I was going to see that movie with them. Even if it killed me.

            “Sure,” she lightly tapped the remote, and suddenly the people on the screen were moving at light speed, their faces just a blur, their voices only indistinct hums.

            “Thanks,” I said as she pressed another button, causing the actors to slow down to normal pace again. She touched the controller once more, and to my shock, the lights began to dim.

And as the lights faded, so did my consciousness…

            I knew I should have stopped her from turning down the brightness then and there. The dull lights, my lack of sleep the night before, a spongy and comfy pillow to snuggle up against… it’s not a good combination if you’re already exhausted from shoveling snow all day.

            I was like driftwood, letting my peaceful thoughts carry me away, wishing that someone else was there with me. Someone who I could laugh with, and play with; someone who could share my dreams.

I put forth an effort to stay awake for the movie, I really did. But it was just so warm, so impossibly comfortable in that room — I wasn’t going to last. I knew I couldn’t keep my eyelids from gently falling to block the light, but it was all okay, because I was there with my two favorite friends – one of them maybe even more than friend…– in the world, and everything was perfect for that moment.

            But only for that moment.

“Ashlyn Marie!”

I woke to the sound of Leah’s pissed-off voice. I could tell she was possibly the angriest she’d ever been… she only used my middle name when she was about ready to kill me. Or worse, ground me for life.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?! You didn’t answer your phone. I thought you were stranded in a ditch!” she spat at me angrily, and it was like I could feel her eyes burning holes into my back.

            But how could she see my back? Wasn’t I leaning against the pillow on the edge of the couch?

            My eyes unwillingly opened, and my face flushed to a deep shade of red the moment I realized what position I was in.

            My head was resting on Carter’s broad chest, just inches from his beautiful face, my fingers laced together. His hand was wrapped around my shoulder tightly, just like the hug we shared a few short hours ago. I knew there was a problem with my position before I had even fallen asleep.

My pillow had grown an arm.

            I jolted upright, pressing my hands against his chest. “Oh crap... Leah, I am SO sorry... I fell asleep in the middle of the movie….” I bellowed apologetically, waking Carter up. I grimaced as his angelic face transformed into a look of fear.

            “Come on. We’ll talk about this when we get home,” she replied bitterly.

            I was hesitant to leave Carter’s comforting embrace, but I didn’t have a choice. Leah was tapping her foot impatiently, annoyingly.

            “Alright, I’m coming.” I left him, lying there, still wearing that shocked expression.

            I turned back to face him for a split second, mouthing “I’m sorry,” as my own personal warden escorted me out of the now crowded media room.