CHAPTER 2 - BEATRICE

I wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of sirens.

What?

I slip out of my cozy bed and tiptoe over to my bedroom window and peek through the blinds. A white ambulance with blaring lights and siren sits in front of my neighbor's house, paramedics running from the truck and into the house with a gurney.

Tobias' house.

I grab a sweatshirt and my Converse, shoving them on as I bolt out the front door of my house. I spring across the front lawn and head towards Tobias' house. What happened? Did he get hurt?

I reach the Eaton's front door just as the paramedics push the gurney out the door and quickly make for the ambulance. Oh my God.

It's Evelyn. Tobias' mother.

But her face is deadly pale and her eyes are closed tightly, as if she is in deep pains but doesn't want to show it.

Marcus Eaton, Tobias' father, runs past me and climbs into the ambulance with his wife and the paramedics. As soon as the doors close to the back, the ambulance immediately takes off. The sirens are louder than ever. I see neighbors turning on their lights and peeking through their windows to observe the scene.

I turn around and walk into Tobias' house, closing the door softly behind me. "Tobias!" I call out. No response.

"Tobias!" I say louder. I walk into the elaborate kitchen, no one. The living room, no sign of his other than a backpack overflowing with homework assignments for the next day. "Tobias!" Nothing!

I sprint up the stairs, two at a time, and make my way to his bedroom door. I press my ear up against the shut door. There's no noise.

"Four, are you in there?" I ask softly. More silence. A minute passes.

The door clicks open and Tobias pulls the door open slowly. Tobias' eyes are red - he was crying - and he lets me step into his room.

Unlike any other high school guy, Tobias keeps his room impeccably clean. A small bookshelf sits in the corner with all his books organized by favoritism. His closet door is always shut tight and his bed is always made. A poster of the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team is plastered on the wall above his overflowing desk. That tiny desk is stacked with so many college papers and applications that it looks like it is going to snap any second now.

"What are you doing here Beatrice?" he asks rather angrily.

I drag my fingers through my tangled bed head.

"I came to see what happened. You're my best friend Tobias. I want to know what happened and that you didn't get hurt or anything."

Tobias sighs and closes the door. He sits down on the edge of his bed and I sit down next to him. His bed is still made and he still wears his street clothes from earlier when we sat in the park. He must have been doing his homework late.

"It was Evelyn," he starts, "she had a heart attack." He wipes a tear off his face. I've never seen Tobias cry; it makes me hurt too much.

"My parents were upstairs sleeping and I was finishing up my homework for tomorrow. I heard something going on upstairs and then Marcus was shouting for me to call the medics. I dialed them and went upstairs to see Evelyn clutching at her chest and pale."

He takes a deep breath. I reach for his hand and his fingers slip in between mine. I give his palm a squeeze.

"I didn't see the rest. I just came in here and locked my door."

I don't know what to say. What do you say when your best friend's mother is carried out of the house on a gurney to the hospital, trying to survive a heart attack? I am sorry doesn't really cut it.

So I just sit there with him as he mourns his mother's pain. It's the most and least I can do. I want to give him more, anything, but I can't.

We can never escape the boundaries of friendship.

But I want him.

Badly.