Untitled
Prologue
There is no possible way to sum up what happened that summer. It was everything I could dream of. That summer came with lots of fun. So much that by the end, my life was overflowing with it. That summer, I truly experienced hate and love alike. Not once in my love could I have experienced total opposites at the same time. No one in my live could do that to me. But she could. She grabbed my heart, and then ripped it out with hurricane like forces. Never did she give it back…never. How could one girl do so much damage? Make me feel so much sorrow?
I soon found out.
I lived in Charleston, South Carolina before I knew her. Before I even knew she existed. But that had changed three weeks before my fourteenth birthday, when my parents and I packed up the Jetta after my dad’s novel “made it big time”, and puttered on up to a city called Charlotte, on the bottom of North Carolina. I remembered thinking how it was to live there. The nights were starless, the days were loud, and the people were, let’s just say, assertive.
Horrible.
But I could never guess that now, almost five years later, I love this place. It’s alive with people, cars, lights and sounds. Or it could be the fact that she lived there. Her. Emily.
Emily.
If you thought she was the popular, black haired girl who has riches and popularity, you’d be wrong. But to me, she was a super model. Not too tall or skinny, beautiful and crazy smart, like me. She also loved reading. She read all the time. All kinds of books, too. Big ones, small ones, short ones, tall ones. Yup. The whole shebang. In fact, if it weren’t for books, we would have never met. Maybe if my dad wasn’t an author, my mom an editor, and I a book-loving maniac, she wouldn’t have the chance to pull out the old ticker, and stomp that sucker flat.
My neighborhood was coincidentally named after Scarlett’s plantation, but Emily wasn’t Scarlett in my story. Nope. I didn’t leave her like Ashley did to Scarlett. She left me. In the fog…waiting.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. You need to hear the whole before judging her. She isn’t really a bad person. She is just so unique, that no person alone can keep her down; can keep her from life. She made sure that the both of us actually held life in our hands. She made sure we actually felt it course through our blood, our body, so that we knew that it was there.
Like she always said, “If you hold life too tight, it crumbles in your palms, and if you don’t hold tight enough it is taken away from you on the morning breeze.” So that summer, I learned just how tight it has to be held.
Chapter One: All the right moves.
Daniel:
Our 1986 Jetta screeched as it pulled off of the highway and on to a smaller road. I was deep into my copy of Flipped when I looked up at the rearview mirror to see my dad staring back at me. I looked back at my book and started to read when I felt the car slow, then stop altogether. My mom, who had been sleeping for the past half-hour, woke with a start.
“What’s wrong Stephen?” she asked
“Nothing, Kim. I just thought we needed some fresh air. So I stopped here.” He gestured around him, with is arms spread wide. It was a rest area, for what state I was not sure, with big trees that were encircled in ivy and vinca. He leaned back through the car door. “You comin’?” he asked
I looked up from my book, shook my head, and then looked back down. Even though I could still feel his presence in the car with me, I kept reading, trying to ignore him. He sighed very loudly, as if to get my attention, but I paid him no attention. I guessed he was angry because he pulled his head out of the car and slammed the door shut.
.........
I don’t really remember what happened after that because I fell asleep reading. The next thing I knew, my mom was shaking me and calling my name over and over. My quilt was gone and my box of novels was not in the floor of the car anymore. I looked out the windows to see an alien world. The houses had small yards, which weren’t very wide either. I heard cars buzzing by at the end of the neighborhood, where the road ended.
Our house was normal-sized, with a porch and red shutters. The house itself was a yellowish tan and had a small fence surrounded by peonies and primroses. Bees flied around, playing tag with one another as dogs barked somewhere in the distance. I also heard a lawnmower sputter on, go for a little while, sputter off, then some muffled curses.
Weird.
“See, this isn’t so bad.” My mother said
“Yeah, right.” I said as I very clumsily climbed out of the car. I stretched, then started again. “Where is all of my stuff?”
My mom smiled. “Honey, your dad had everything unpacked.” She laughed to herself then began again. “Well from the car that is. The mover called and said they be here soon. But until then, why don’t you go get acquainted with the neighbors. After all, today is the first day of summer.” She turned and walked inside without another word.
I turned to see who she was talking about. I looked right across the street to see the source of the string of profanity. A girl about my age trying to mow the lawn, struggle with her iPod, and play with a hyper Black Lab.
Now is where my life turned. I never really liked a girl back home. Yeah I had some crushes back home, but not serious. Not like what I had felt then. When I first met her. So for kicks and giggles, I walked over to offer my help. I sure wasn’t walking back to my new home. My new torture chamber.
My new purgatory.
When I looked both ways down the street, she looked at me. Actually, now that I think about it, she was looking at me the whole way over. It was like, she was some kind of microbiologist looking at me through a microscope, watching my every move. But I finally reached her yard. She raised her hand as a gesture to say hi. “Hiya, new neighbor!”
And like an idiot, I just stood there. I guess I was looking at her, Looking at everything about her. Her dark hair, torn jeans and in the distance, a book laying on the stone walkway. It looked like a copy of Twilight.
One of my favorites.
I finally snapped out of my revelry and gestured toward her book. “Is that yours?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s what I do pretty much all summer. You know, read.” She ran over and grabbed the book, then ran over to me again. “Listen. I know you just got here and all, but I know this great little park right up the road that is a great reading place. Lots of shade….or sun, if you like that.” She choked a little as she said the last part. A part of her seemed nervous. But I knew someone like that couldn’t nervous…ever.
“Uh, yeah. That sounds great.” I piped up.
A grin spread from cheek to cheek. “Do you wanna go grab a book?” she asked
I nodded and ran across the street, to the car, grabbed Flipped out of the seat and ran back to her. “Ready to go!” I said. Then we walked down the street discussing our favorite novels.
Perfect.
………
Emily:
When I saw him climb out of the car, I had to meet him. He looked so handsome with strawberry blond hair and worn jeans. His face showed utter
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