Day 2101

Almost there.

          Almost there. Almost there. Halfway there�"no, more than halfway there…if I can just….

“Almost where?” Kylie asks me, jolting me out of my daze.

“Huh? Oh…nothing,” I mumble. “Just homework.”

“You need to stop doing homework,” she says sagely.

“Kylie. It’s Monday. I can’t not do it. I’ve got a project due Wednesday….”

“A project? What kind?”

“The worst kind.” Not only do I have to write a paper, but I also have to make a poster…I’m no good at s**t like that. “I’m trying to figure out this paper…and then I have to do the poster, but I’m not sure how….”

“What’s…what about paper? It’s just paper.”

“No�"like an essay. That’s what they’re called, papers.”

“What’s an essay?”

“It’s like when you write a book. Only it’s not about something you make up, it’s about something real. And it’s between one page and ten pages, but this one is two.”

“What is it about?”

“It’s for English…it’s about this book I was supposed to read. I need to write two pages about symbolism, and then make a poster about the book.”

“What’s symbolism?”

“Stupid crap that doesn’t matter. It’s like�"when people are writing a book, sometimes they say, oh, they lit a candle, but they mean something else by it too. Not sure what. I hate English so much.”

“Oh. I don’t get it. What’s a poster?”

“It’s like…a big piece of cardboard, like this big�"” I lift my hands for a moment to show her�"“and you’re supposed to put stuff on it. But I’m not any good at artistic stuff.”

“Well…I’ll help, if you want.”

I pause from my outline and look up at her. She meets my gaze with innocent enthusiasm. “Really?”

“Really,” she answers with a smile. “Just show me what to do, and I’ll do it!”

“Okay….” I get up, slowly, from the kitchen table, shaking the numbness from my feet. Stupid crappy circulation. “Here….” I get the poster and markers I bought on Saturday�"and got in a huge amount of trouble for�"and give them to her, along with scissors, tape, and a pile of black and white pictures I printed out on the school computers. Better than using Dad’s, at least.  “D’you want the table or the floor?”

“Floor’s fine,” she says brightly, taking the things and arranging them in the patch of sunlight streaming from the open door. I always argue with myself about asking her if we can keep it shut; but she likes the fresh air, and it isn’t that cold, not if I’m out of the way of the breeze. Besides, it makes everything seem a lot more cheerful. “What do I do?”

“Well, just cut the pictures out and tape them down, to make them look good. You know how to use tape, right?”

“Yep.”

“And scissors? Don’t hurt yourself with them, okay?”

“They’re easy! It’s okay. So I just make them look pretty?’

“Yes. That’s all.”

“Do I need all the pictures?”

“Nah, you can do whatever you want. I don’t even need any writing on it, except the title and my name.”

“Okay. Will you write those for me? And I’ll put that on there too.”

I have to stop and think this one over; Kylie can copy pretty well, but she isn’t familiar with the English alphabet, so if she tries to make it look fancy it might just come out weird. But I do as she asks in the end; she’s an artist, after all. She takes the piece of paper with reverence, looking over my handwriting (as neat as I could make it) with the look in her eye she gets when she wants to draw something. This makes me feel better.

“That’s the title,” I tell her, pointing. “And that, at the bottom, that’s my name.”

“That whole thing’s your name?”

“Yeah�"the first one says Evan, and then that’s my last name.”

“Oh….” She nods and holds the paper carefully to her chest, returning to her spot on the floor. I turn back to my essay, frowning at it. Now for the hard part, filling in the blanks between topic sentences. Why can’t it just be the outline? The point still comes across, right?

“Hey, Evan?” Kylie murmurs. “Do I have to use these pictures, or can I make my own?”

“Um. I’d rather you use those, ‘cause you haven’t read the book or anything.”

“Yeah, I know�"I mean, can I draw these pictures instead of cutting them? ‘Cause they’re not that pretty.”

“Sure. If you want.” Other people do that�"artsy people. One girl in the library was even doing little anime people on hers. It looked weird, but our teacher’s the type who would eat that stuff up. “Just make sure you get that�"that small one�"right by your foot, see it? That’s the letter ‘A’, it’s really important, so it’s gotta be in there somewhere.”

“Ohh. Okay. What’s it mean?”

“The book’s about this woman who lived in like�"like Pocahontas times. Remember what I told you, about the English people? But these people lived really differently, they were very…well, they didn’t like to have fun, they thought it was a bad thing to do. And they were really strict about religion, and going to church, and following the rules.”

“Church? You mean like�"like with the singing. Right?”

Oops. I’ve only been to church once, and I kind of had a panic attack halfway through the service, so I guess I wasn’t able to explain it that well. I really shouldn’t answer her questions with half-truths, or at least I shouldn’t make her think they’re true. “Um. Sort of. But these people thought singing was a sin.”

“What’s a sin?”

Ohh jeez. Back up, Evan. Fast. “A bad thing to do. Don’t worry about it. But anyway, this woman lived in a place like that, and she was married, but her husband went missing. But they still considered her married, so when she had a baby, they made her an outcast, ‘cause she cheated on her husband.”

“Cheated?”

“Yeah.” She’s probably thinking of tests, or games, or something. “That’s when�"when you�"um. Well. If you’re married, or dating, but you do stuff with someone else.”

“Oh. Like sex.”

I cringe. “Yeah, like that,” I mutter. “How’d you know about that?”

“Mama says that’s what married people do. To make babies. Or just for fun, sometimes.”

“Oh…great.” So they had ‘the talk’ after all. Well, I hope it was interesting for her, at least. Better than the way kids my age all know: we found out when all that stuff sort of leaked into our heads and fumbled around until it made sense. Osmosis. Sort of. “Um…when’d she tell you about that?”

“Like, yesterday. Or�"or, no�"it wasn’t yesterday, it was a few days ago. I don’t remember.”

“Oh.” I get the feeling that had something to do with our fight. Or, more accurately, how we acted after the fight. “Well. That’s good.” What else am I supposed to say?

“Yeah, it explains a whole lot, even if it’s real messy, like all that stuff, when it’s your moon time, and�"”

“Kylie, shut up!” I groan, covering my ears.

She giggles maniacally, but only half-changes the subject. “Do boys have stuff like that? ‘Cause Mama, she was explaining, but it sounded really weird�"”

“Kylie, stop. It�"it’s�"” But I’m at a loss for words. This is so beyond disturbing. I mean, I know her mom got married at sixteen, so she probably thought it was perfectly logical for Kylie to know all this at thirteen�"but still�"ew. “We don’t really�"no, we don’t,” I mumble. There’s no way in hell I can explain the boy version of puberty to her. She’d never understand. Hair in weird places, bizarre sex dreams, uncontrollable and inexplicable arousal…. Not fun.

“Not fair,” Kylie decides in her innocence. “So, there’s something, though, it was bothering me�"when�"”

“Kylie, shut up, I don’t want to talk about this stuff,” I say hastily, hiding my face from her. How embarrassing….

She looks up at me, her expression composed. “It’s very natural, Evan,” she tells me sternly. “There’s no need to feel uncomfortable.”

Wow. Impressive, for a teenager. Usually girls start giggling uncontrollably when this subject comes up, or they get mad. “It’s just too personal,” I mutter. “It’s like…like you’re asking what I look like without clothes on, or something.”

She shrugs gracefully, turning back to her work. “Nothing wrong with that, either,” she murmurs. “Not really. ‘S not like it matters, what you look like.”

“It’s not like that…not for most people, anyway. You wouldn’t understand. It’s like…it makes you really vulnerable. I mean, it doesn’t make much of a difference, but it makes you feel different. At least for most people.”

She ponders this for a moment, nodding slowly. “Okay…but I wondered something, though. It’s not like that, I promise.”

I don’t believe her, but I give in anyway, heaving a sigh. “Fine. What is it?”

“Well…when boys want sex with someone…does that mean they’re in love with them? That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?”

I can feel myself blushing almost all the way up to my hair. “It’s…maybe it should work like that, but it doesn’t. Most boys…and some girls, too…they don’t mix up love and…and lust. It’s…one’s emotional, but another’s only chemical. Biological. You know. And you feel that, and you go with it. But if you really want to love someone, you need both.”

“So…if there’s not both…why would people do that?” Kylie wants to know.

I shrug helplessly. “’Cause they want to. I guess it feels nice. Maybe it’s…stupid of me…but I think I’d rather…I mean, I wouldn’t want to do something like that with a stranger.”

“Yeah,” Kylie muses. “Yeah. You’d have to really trust them I think.”

“Yeah…but it doesn’t matter until you’re older, anyway,” I tell her, purposely making it sound condemning. No way I want her thinking about stuff like that. She’s way too gullible to be around boys armed with that kind of knowledge. “Really trust” for her could probably happen in a couple of days.

She half-nods, half-shrugs. “Hey Evan, what’s dating mean?”

“I already told you. Like, last week.”

“Yeah, but…is it just when two people go on…on dates, a lot?”

“More or less. And that makes you boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Ohhh. And then you get married?”

“Um. I don’t know. Maybe,” I mutter uncomfortably. “If you wanted to. And you were old enough.”

“Old enough?”

“Yeah. Legally, you can’t get married unless you’re both eighteen.”

“Wow…that’s weird. That’s a really long time!”                    

I laugh shortly. “No, it’s not. Most people won’t find anyone they love enough by the time they’re eighteen. Believe it or not, people usually get married in their late twenties, or early thirties, now….”

“But that’s…that’s so old! That’s how old Mama is right now!”

“Yeah, but she’s not getting married,” I remind her. She’s got a point though�"how old is her mom, now? Twenty-nine? Then something occurs to me, and I ask before I can think about it. “Were they�"were they ever married, Kylie?”

“Huh?”

“Your mom and dad. They are married, right? Because she doesn’t have a ring or anything.”

“Yeah, they’re married…what ring? Why does she need a ring?”

I sigh. Honestly, I bring this on myself, don’t I…? “That’s just…that’s what people do. They give each other rings when they get married, and you wear it forever, so people will know.”

“Wow. Weird.”

“Why? What would you do different, to show you’re married?”

“Um. Nothing. If you’re married, you’re married, and that’s it. You don’t need to prove it.”

Wow. “That’s deep, Kylie.” I can’t even argue with that one. Once again, little-girl logic trumps hundreds of years of culture.

We’re silent for awhile�"which is normal for me, but not for Kylie. I keep waiting for her to say something, but she doesn’t. Maybe she’s just really absorbed in her work…after all, when she’s drawing at home, she hasn’t got anyone to talk to, has she? So silence can’t bother her that much. I think she just has a lot to say.

I take a few inconspicuous peeks at the poster; from what I can tell, it’s coming along very nicely, but I can only see a few square inches of it. Green. Lots of green.

“What’s ‘saret’ mean?” Kylie murmurs.

“You mean ‘scarlet’?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s another word for red. Or, um, a shade of red. Dark red, you know.”

“Oh.”

An even longer silence. It feels almost…unnatural; I mean, I like it, ‘cause I can concentrate, but I keep wondering what she’s thinking. And it’s weird for her to be quiet, or even sit still, for so long; I keep expecting her to jump up and say she’s bored or hungry or she wants to do something fun. Maybe this is fun, for her? If so, I owe her, big time; I’ll make it up to her somehow. Today, even, since we’re going to be done a lot sooner than I thought.

“Almost where?” Kylie asks out of nowhere.

I pause for a moment, losing focus on my embarrassing travesty of a paper. It takes me a moment to figure out what she’s talking about.

“Nothing,” I tell her.

It’s not true, of course, it’s definitely something, a very important something. She wouldn’t understand, though. And I don’t want her to. I could tell her most of the truth, and not the most important part, and it’d be okay, but it would still make her feel sorry for me�"or worse, make fun of me. No way in hell do I want that to happen.

You see…my mom, because she was a total angel, never really minded that I had this obsession with numbers. Other people got annoyed, or scared, or angry, when they had to deal with that, because if I didn’t know what time it was, or I wasn’t able to finish counting something (like how many footsteps from our house to the store, or how many steps I’d just climbed) I would get really upset and start crying. It used to terrify me if I let an opportunity to count something go by, as if I’d be tested on how many birds there were in the parking lot, and if I didn’t know the answer I’d get in trouble�"or as if the things I didn’t keep track of would disappear forever, and so would I if I didn’t know exactly what was around me, and where I was, and in which minute of the day. I felt like time was all that was holding the world together, and if I didn’t watch it, it would fall apart.

Nobody understood, except for mom. She believed me when I told her what it felt like, and never lost patience with me, never forgot about my fears; she asked me to count out loud when I was with her, so she could help me. And when it was too much for me, when I lost count, or when the numbers changed, she calmed me down and told me that I could always count my breaths, to make sure I had something to count�"or maybe to prove to myself that I was still breathing, and everything was okay. I think she thought it would make me stop crying, or hyperventilating; whatever it was, though, it worked.

4000 was the magic number for us. After 4000 steps, you’d walked a mile; after 4000 breaths, whatever was bothering you would be over with, and you’d be safe. The breaths were what really confused me, at first, even though I found out that she was right�"I’d count backwards from 4000, and somehow, magically, everything would be right with the world long before I reached 0.

Checking her math later, I found out why. A mile really is 4000 steps�"if each step is 15.84 inches long, which they usually are. And if each breath you take lasts 0.9 seconds, which they do if you’re a child or if you’re scared, then after 4000 breaths, an hour will have passed.

An hour. The length of a class, the time it takes to finish my homework, the time it takes me to clean half the house, the time it takes me to fall asleep when I’m sore…and Dad’s attention span when he’s pissed off. He’s never bullied me for longer than about forty-five minutes. Not even when it gets really bad. It really is over by the time 4000 breaths have gone by, even if they’re short, gasping, shallow breaths.

I think she knew that, somehow.

It doesn’t make me any less furious with her, really…actually it makes it worse, because she knew, but she still left…. But it helps. It’s the only thing that does. That’s all I need: time.

Which is why I’m counting days.

I realized long ago that counting 4000 breaths might not solve all my problems�"because not all of them could be solved in just an hour�"but counting 4000 of something else might. So I tried counting minutes, once, when they said I’d be in the hospital for “a couple of days”. And it worked�"I was only in there for 3842.5 minutes.

After that, I started counting days, adding onto the count I’d already been keeping in my head.

I had just turned eight when Dad started…being the way he is. I figured out soon enough that when I was eighteen, and out of high school, I wouldn’t have to live with him anymore. I’d be free. That was ten years away.

4000 days is 10.95 years.

That’s all I need. That’s more than enough. If I can make it for that long….

I’m halfway there. More than halfway there. I’ve been telling myself that for the past 101 days. It’s a good thing, right? If I’ve made it this far, I can easily do it again….

Whether I or not I can make myself believe it, though, is another issue altogether.

But I can’t explain this to Kylie. She’d never understand. I can’t even explain to her what my deal is, with all the numbers, even though she asks every once in awhile. People just can’t understand what’s alien to them, and if anyone in the world shares exactly the same obsessions as me, it’s definitely not her. And I want her to keep liking me the same amount, our friendship is perfect just the way it is, so if I have to pretend to keep it up, then I’m fine with that. There’s really only one thing I’ve got to make going through each day actually enjoyable, and that’s her, and I won’t lose her because something went wrong with my brain when I was little�"especially if it’s so easy to hide.

“How was school?” Kylie asks me, startling me out of my train of thought. I look down and see my pen doodling a thick cluster of spirals down the margin of the paper, for no particular reason, and certainly not by my consent. Shoot. I try to tell myself to focus again, but then I remember that Kylie asked me something, if I can remember what it was.

“Um,” I say, thinking fast. “Good.”

“Good?” she repeats, surprised. I realize my mistake a moment too late: I never say “good”, just “okay” (or “horrible”, or I make an annoyed sound, which counts as an answer), and there’s a big difference to her.

But it was good. More than good. Not the best, but certainly not bad…. “Yeah. It was fine. I guess.”

“Did something happen?” she asks at once, sitting up and looking at me, curious. I carefully avoid her gaze.

“Um. Not really.” Nothing important. Well, maybe to me. But nothing in particular.

Kylie sees through me in a second, though. “What about that girl?” she says shrewdly. “Did she talk to you again?”

She isn’t able to keep her voice all the way casual…so I decide to lie. Or rather, skim over the truth. “Not much,” I say as mildly as I can.

The truth is, though, that she did�"as much as ever. And I loved it. She’s really smart, really interesting, and I like how she always has something to fill the silence with…. I feel really weird around her, but in a good way�"and I feel worse than I did before, when she leaves. And I’m thinking�"hoping�"wishing I could hope�"that she might, possibly, feel the same about me. Today she kept asking me question after question about myself, without pause, and maybe that’s the reason she’s so interested….

I wish I could have walked her home, like before. Or that I could at least have talked to her for more than a few seconds when we met up outside after school. But Kylie was waiting for me, and I knew she wouldn’t understand if I were late. She would’ve been worried that something bad happened , and then pissed off when I told her what I’d really been doing….

Kylie seems grumpy about my answer, but says nothing about it; I get the feeling she’s playing nice, since I never really did anything wrong in the first place. I turn back to my essay with a sigh.

Twenty minutes later, Kylie says, “Hey, I’m done�"look!”

She brandishes the completed poster at me; I turn away from my failure of an essay to look.

“Damn, Kylie….”

It looks fantastic�"like nothing I could’ve done, that’s for sure. The title is printed in red at the top, with the “A” in scarlet made to look like the “A” Hester has to wear, and the borders are the leaves and trunks and grasses of a forest; and in the center she’s morphed together a bunch of different pictures, small but very detailed, and colored about as well as you can color something with markers.

“You like it?” she asks with a delighted grin�"of course I like it. She already knows I like it.

“Yeah! It’s great! Will you do my art projects, too?”

I’m joking, but she doesn’t catch on to that. She just shrugs and says, “Sure. It’s fun, you know. I like doing stuff from pictures, ‘s easier than the other way.”

“Yeah…I guess….” I kneel down on the floor beside her and gingerly take the poster from her, studying it more closely. There’s barely a patch of white on the thing that isn’t intentional; she did a great job. No way I’m not getting a perfect grade on this thing. Maybe it’ll make up for my train wreck of an essay. “Wow,” I tell her. “I’m going to have to mess this up just to convince her that I did it.”

“What? Don’t do that!” Kylie wails.

“Oh�"no, I’m not going to�"it was a joke. Never mind. Thanks so much, Kylie,” I add, giving her a one-armed hug…which she returns with five times my enthusiasm, and a suddenness that startles me. I let her squeeze the breath out of me, awkwardly returning the gesture.

“Um,” I say, when she still doesn’t let go, “d’you wanna…write my essay for me too?”

She shakes her head, tightening her grip on me; I can’t see her face�"she’s pressed too close to me. It feels weird, to have her hanging on me like this…not unpleasant…just strange. Very, very strange.

It occurs to me, suddenly, that she might need a hug like this…for some reason. “What’s up?” I ask her quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she mutters back, her voice muffled by my shirt. “I just missed you, that’s all….”

“Kylie, we saw each other on Saturday,” I remind her, but nicely. That can’t be the real problem�"can it?

“No, I mean…I meant that….” She sighs and gives up, letting go of me only to throw her arms around my neck. “I hate when you’re at school,” she confesses, sounding much, much more serious than she ever has before. “I wish you never had to go.”

“I…I hate school too,” I say uncomfortably�"I’ve got that bad feeling that you get when you know you’re supposed to say something, because the other person wants to hear something, but you don’t know what. And if I knew what it was, I’d say it, I would, because I know I’d mean it…but I just don’t know….

No, it was the wrong thing after all�"she sighs again, making to let go of me. But I wrap my arms around her back to keep her where she is, on a reflex….

And then I realize what I’m doing, and hastily let go, pulling away from her.

“Um,” I say, to cover up the awkward moment, “did you want to�"to do something fun? Since I don’t have homework….”

“Oh�"yeah,” she agrees lamely. I can’t bring myself to look at her, but I can imagine her expression.

“Um�"oh�"I forgot to tell you�"the new Harry Potter came out,” I inform her, and the delighted expression on her face makes me feel instantly, substantially, better. “D’you want to read it?”

“Yes!” She jumps to her feet, grabbing my hands and pulling me up, too. Of course she wants to read it�"or rather, she wants me to read it to her. We finished with the fifth book awhile ago, during the summer, and she’s been waiting for the sixth one ever since�"which actually came out a week later, but I didn’t tell her that because I was waiting for it to be cheap enough to buy. I also didn’t tell her that I bought the audio version for her�"she’ll find out at Christmas.

She tries to drag me off somewhere, but then she realizes that I know where it is and she doesn’t, so she waits, twitching impatiently, while I get the book from my backpack and settle on the living room couch.

“You started without me,” she accuses when she sees the bookmark halfway through the book.

“Yeah. I got it because I was so bored without you,” I say, to appease her. And it works: she smiles with an unusual bashfulness, and doesn’t ask if the book actually came out last week, which means I don’t have to lie. I hate lying, especially to her, and I’m really horrible at it….

I open the book to the first page, intending to jump right in, but Kylie, as usual, stops me.

“You’re skipping stuff! Look�"look at all that, that’s like six pages�"”

“Kylie, I told you, it’s just boring stuff�"”

“They wouldn’t put it there if it was boring!”

“Oh yes they would�"look, this is just the title page, it says ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’, you could’ve figured that out for yourself�"”

“What’s a half prince?”

“You’ll find out, won’t you? Look, here’s the first chapter, let’s�"”

“Nooo, you’re skipping more stuff!”

“But this is just the copyright page! Remember, about when it was published, and not to steal it?”

“Oh yeah…well, you can skip that then. What’s the next page say?”

“It’s the table of contents, but if I read it I’ll ruin the story for you.”

“Can’t you just tell me what the first one says?”

“Sure I will, and it’s right here on the first page, see? ‘The Other Minister.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“You’ll find out, Kylie. Now…chapter one….”

Once I actually start reading, Kylie becomes very quiet�"for such a hyperactive girl, she can get really absorbed when you’re telling her a story. After about a page, she’s barely recognizable; she’s sitting very still, watching my finger move across the page with wide eyes, listening carefully. I never liked reading out loud, but I decided when she turned eleven and didn’t understand my joke about the Hogwarts letter that it was worth it to help her grow into a full-fledged human being. I mean, come on. It’s Harry freakin’ Potter.

She loves it, though. She listens to the audio books all the time�"I got her a little Walkman to go with them�"and she still bugs me to reread them, even though that’s what I got the audio books for in the first place. I told her I would when the series ended, but I’m kind of hoping that she’ll forget. Still, maybe by then she could start reading them herself; I know she picks up a word or two, memorizing what they look like rather than their components, because I point to each one as I say it, but that’s no way to teach her how to read. If only she wanted to learn….

After about half a chapter, I start getting really into it too; you pick up stuff the second time around that you really couldn’t before. And this one is a really good one…a bunch of stuff has happened already….

In the middle of the sixth chapter, I notice the fading light and look up: it’s almost seven. I sigh, too disoriented by the sudden switch back to reality to be stressed.

“Gotta make dinner now,” I tell Kylie, my voice a little hoarse.

She nods sleepily, rubbing her eyes. I can never tell if it’s my voice, or the book, or the process of being read to that always makes her so tired. I hope it’s not me. I try to make it sound good when I read it, but I feel like it’s kind of difficult if you’re not the author.

“Tired?” I joke with her, looping one of my arms around her shoulders.

“Kinda,” she murmurs, yawning. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mean to put you to sleep.”

“’S not you. I just get…’s like, all that’s going on for him, and then there’s here, and it’s not the same at all…and it’s getting dark, too….”

“Oh…yeah, it is.” Shoot. I keep forgetting that it’s going to get dark a little sooner every day. And Kylie has this weird thing about proper lighting; she’s not scared of the dark, she just can’t function without bright lighting, and even then she’s a little edgy until she can get out into the sun. She tried to explain it to me once, but it made her sound like a plant, and she gave up when I reminded her that people don’t need sunlight to survive. Her obsession with it is a bit abnormal though…it might just be a Cherokee thing, but I worry that she has Seasonal Affective Disorder or something. It would explain why she’s always slower and sleepier (and a lot more manageable for me) in the winter. “You can go home, if you want. I can take care of dinner.”

“Oh, please,” she tells me, and I have to grin back at her�"we both know how disastrous that would be for the food. “I’ll help, it’s okay. C’mon.”

I follow her into the kitchen and start helping her make dinner, scowling occasionally at the dimming light from the windows. I can’t let her go home at night, even if she didn’t have the weird sunlight thing, so now each day that I spend with her will get cut shorter and shorter….Great. Just great.

I wish I could stop time. Or even better, control it. I’d drag Kylie back with me, to when I was little, and we’d still be best friends, but everything would be perfect again, and Mom would…and Dad….

Yeah. That would solve all my problems.

Too bad it isn’t gonna happen.

 

Author's Note

thinking about editing the ending for this chapter; I just wanted to cut it short, but I wasn't sure how. So the last few paragraphs aren't final yet.