CHAPTER 1

The day was a swift October 12th, 1995. Caroline was just walking home like any average girl would on a Monday afternoon. School had let out early because of storms approaching the area, so she walked, and walked, and walked further. Caroline lived about 6 miles from the school and since it had to be Monday the school let out early she couldn't get a ride from anyone and well let's just say her parents were less than fitting for pickup from school.

Her mother was a drunk and her father a druggie. Or that's what the kids at school thought when they saw them. They really weren't that bad; her mom was really a FBI agent who had been gathering information from local bars over the past two years they'd lived in D.C., her dad on the other hand was actually addicted to some drugs. He was a recovered heroin addict and a current crack addict.

So caroling walked home. The wind blew softly and Caroline looked behind herself, surprised to see Luke, her lab buddy in science, staring at her.

"h-h-hey" he stuttered

"Hi, what's up?" she responded trying not to notice the eyes that wouldn't go away.

"Um, just walking home, yeah that's it, I'm walking home!"

"Oh, well ok, do you want to walk with him then?"

"Um, yeah that sounds nice, that sounds real nice" his eyes fell to the ground as he shuffled over to where Caroline was standing.

"So um, where do u live"" she asked him while she silently prayed it wasn't far.

Luke was the nerd of the grade, the kid who sat alone at lunch, the kid everyone made fun of just because he was smart.

"I-I-I live on Carmon Ave. um, w-w-what about you?"

"I love on Murrays Dr. so just on street down from you!" Caroline replied

"Oh, we should d-d-do something sometime!" his smile growing bigger by the second.

"Yeah, that would be great. Hey, this is my street but we should walk home together more often this was fun."

"You really want to!"

"Yeah" she said smiling sweetly at him.

As Caroline turned up her street walking away from Luke she knew she had just made on boy very happy.

ℓ ℓ ℓ

"Hey honey, how was your day at school?"

Caroline's mother would ask this everyday and everyday Caroline would reply with the same low toned, angry voiced "FINE!" they would make-up later when other families on the street had gone to sleep. Her mom and she were supposed to be mad at each other, a feuding family. Well, according to her mother's employers that was. They actually had a very nice, sweet, loving family. They had family game nights and went on vacation together. The family Caroline lived in was an average family on the inside, but there public appearance was way out there, completely wacked.

Caroline stomped up to her room and slammed the door. A quiet beeping was coming from her computer on the other side of the room. She walked past it, hitting the spacebar so it would wake-up; on her way over to the windows which she opened just a crack. The cool air rushed into the room, rustling papers on her desk and knocking over a jar of pencils.

"Well then", she mumbled slamming the window closed again, "no fresh air today!"