1

I was laying across the couch in Jacob's basement upside down with my hair flowing down my face, looking at him write his homework that he always did at the last minute.

Me and Jake had been friends practically forever. We met in the first grade.

It was recess time and I was sitting on the bench eating an apple that my mom had packed for me. I looked around the playground and spotted a group of boys from the next classroom laughing and pointing at Jake. It made me really mad even though I didn't even know him at the time.

I remember walking up to the boys and telling them to stop laughing at him. They stopped at first then laughed at me and called me his 'girl protector' for the rest of elementary school.

No one talked with me and Jake, they always found us weird. Even in the middle school we just kept to our selves. But we got used it in time and it started not bothering us after a while. At least we had each other. We went through all the schools together and now we were in high school already. I had made a few friends but Jake still remained only with me.

Whenever I asked him if it bothered him that he didn't have any friends he always just answered "I don't need any friends, I have you. You have the number one place in my friends list. If I have you others are just useless."

"So what is the plan for today?" I asked him while playing with my hair. He always came up with something exciting to do when I was around on the weekends.

He shrugged and closed his book. "What about we take the bikes out for a ride?"

"Sure." I said and sat back up on the couch. But before I got up, my phone rang. I took my phone out and flipped it open. I saw the call ID; it was my obnoxious older sister Lindsey. I rolled my eyes and answered.

"What is it Lindsey?"

"You better come home soon; it's your turn to do the laundry this week."

I sighed. "Fine, I'll come now."

"I'll be waiting." She giggled and turned it off.

I groaned and closed the phone roughly throwing it into my bag.

"What's wrong Bells?" Jake asked while he put his books in his backpack.

"Lindz wants me to come home. I guess the bikes will have to wait until next weekend."

"Okay then, see you in school tomorrow."

I smiled and gathered my things into my brown bag and walked outside. He led me to my car and talked to me through the open window.

"See you in school; try not to get into trouble until then." I smiled a little and said to him.

"I'll try my best, but I'm not keeping any promises."

"I'll call you to tell you how laundry day went."

"I'll be gladly waiting by the phone for your call." He chuckled and leaned away from the car.

I waved at him and started driving down the road.

When I got home Lindsey was sitting on the couch with one foot over the other looking at me.

"About time you got home."

I ignored her and walked upstairs to our room. Lindsey and I had to share a bedroom because the house was only a two bedroom house. Even though the room was split in half between me and her, she still got the bigger half. It was good that we have two closets because if we shared one, it would be filled with her enormous collection of ballet flats.

She had the walk in closet in the bedroom and I used the small closet in the hall. I didn't have many clothes anyways so I never bothered to argue with her. We only had a one year age difference between us but she always looked down at me as if there was over a five year difference between us.

She walked inside and sat in front of the vanity mirror and started brushing her long ginger hair and applied lipstick.

"Are you going out?"

"Yep" She stood up and fixed her dress before walking downstairs. I followed after her.

"That's not fair. I have to stay home and do laundry and she can just call me whenever she wants and tell me to come home!"

"Well, I'm older than you!"

My mom walked in from the kitchen and put her hands between us before we started a fight. "What's going on here?" She whispered.

"She thinks she can do whatever she wants just because she's one year older than me!"

She rolled her eyes at me. "I'm going out. Period." She opened the door and walked out of the door.

"I hate my life!" I groaned and stomped upstairs to my room. I loaded the laundry into the machine and walked outside to the forest that was a few houses down from ours. I went a bit deeper in the forest and sat on a tree log.

I never liked where we lived. One small house and it was just me, my sister and mom. My dad had died when we were only just graduating from elementary school. It was a hard time for both of us because my dad was the only one in our family that was working at the time. I remember it like it was just yesterday.

June 12 Elementary school back yard 10 years old

I sat on one of the wooden benches in the school yard wiping my wet eyes with the corners of my blue dress that I had bought for graduation.

"Bells! Bells!" Jake ran up to me dressed in a fancy tux that he only wore on special occasions. He sat next to me on the bench and pulled me in for a hug.

I leaned into his shirt and started crying.

"H-how can he just… die. H-he did n-nothing wrong to deserve this."

"I know, I know." He patted my shoulder. "I'm sure everything will be fine."

Present

I got up from the log and stomped back home as the sky grew darker. It was talk time with my mom.