DISCLAIMER: this is one.

*****

It was lunchtime, Embry's favorite time of the day. Why? Because he got to talk to the girl he was in love with.

Or so he thought. Because who really ever knows what love is at the age of eleven?

But for Embry, love was the petite strawberry-blonde haired girl that he talked to at recess (only ever at recess, for their paths never seemed to cross anywhere else) who always had a book in her hand (ALWAYS) but would put it down just to talk to him.

Maybe that's what love is. Having someone who will always stop what they are doing, no matter what, to talk to you.

For Samantha, however, only eleven, just as Embry was, love was different. Love was the only friend she'd ever had, even if he didn't know it. Love was the only person who could give her a reason to put her book down to come back to the real world.

So there they were, both subconsciously eating lunch as quickly as they could so as to see each other faster. Once they were finished (and if you'd asked them five minutes later, neither of them would have been able to tell you what they ate), they rushed to the playground, Samantha somehow always managing to beat him there, her book already in front of her face when he got there.

But she always put it back in her backpack when she saw him.

"Whatcha reading'?" This was always the firs thing Embry ever said. It was how they had met, and he never wanted to break that tradition.

"Harry Potter," she said, this particular day. Every few days, her book would change. "The first one."

"Cool," Embry said, and he meant it. "What's it about."

And Samantha would tell him, breaking out of her shy, quiet shell to talk to him with lots of arm gestures and grinning. She would get so excited that her bulky glasses were constantly falling down her nose, and she had to stop every few minutes to push them back up.

Embry didn't like reading, but no one ever knew, because when asked what book he'd read lately, he could simply describe Samantha's latest book. She could tell a story so well, she held his attention longer than anything else ever could, and he could almost perfectly recount everything she'd said.

"So what did you do last night?" This was another thing Embry always said. And as surely as he would ask the question, Samantha would lie about the answer. Not that Embry ever knew. Embry was too young to know what all the adults said about Samantha's drunk father, and her mother who was too scared to leave him.

"I watched a movie with my family," she said today. "We had popcorn, and me any my older sister had a popcorn fight."

Embry would laugh at this, then it was his turn to talk. He would recount everything that had happened to him the previous day. He usually talked about doing this with his two best friends, Jacob and Quil, but occasionally he would mention his mom. Samantha loved hearing these stories. She liked imagining she lived at Embry's house instead of her own.

Then lunch would end, and Samantha and Embry would say goodbye, see you tomorrow.

But that night, something happened at Samantha's house. Though so many things could have happened to stop it, it happened.

If Samantha's father hadn't gotten fired, nothing would have gone wrong.

Or if Samantha's mother had left her father long ago, it would have been fine.

Or even if Samantha's sister had been out with her friends, instead of getting home before her mother or Samantha, they would all still be the same today.

But Samantha's father did get fired, and her mom didn't leave him long ago, and her sister was home. And Samantha's father, after getting fired, had drank far more than he usually did, and he hit Samantha's sister, Cathy. And Cathy was unconscious when Samantha got home.

When her father saw Samantha, he was angry. He yelled at her, even though she had no idea what she'd done wrong. She was scared and her older sister was unconscious, so she did the only thing she could think of. She ran.

She didn't have to run far, only to her next door neighbor's house. She was crying and shaking by the time she got there, but it was okay, her neighbor already had an idea what had happened.

And so after that day, Samantha's mom had done something she had never had the strength to do. She packed up her two daughters and moved them to San Antonio, Texas. And Samantha hadn't seen Embry since.

*****

In case it was unclear, Cathy didn't die. I couldn't do that, it was too horrible.