It was 2 am and John couldn't help but feel like he had lost his best friend. He couldn't let things end like this, quietly he got out of his bed and crept down the stairs and out his front door. He hurried across his front lawn and hopped the chain link fence into her front yard. Cursing to himself about not putting a pair of pajama pants on over his boxer shorts he began trying and very badly failing to climb the tree directly next to her window. He finally took one big breath and gritted his teeth against the pain caused by his exposed skin against the rough tree bark. Breathing heavily he reached out and knocked on her bedroom window. She looked up and became wide-eyed. She shot out of bed and over to her window, she opened it and stared incredulously at him.

"What are you doing?" she hissed panicked that somehow her parents were going to find out about this.

"Let me in it's cold out here" he insisted. She moved out of the way so he could climb through her window only because she didn't want him falling out of the tree and breaking his neck in the process.

"You can't be in here Steve would freak if he knew I had a boy in my room" she whispered furiously.

"Relax ... he won't find out and I only came here to talk to you"

"Well I don't want to talk to you" she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a dirty look. "I may be only 15 but I know you are a jerk and I also know that all I have to do is yell for Steve and believe me I will never have the misfortune of seeing you again".

"Please AJ I'm sorry ... it's just that I don't know how to act around you anymore" he replied exasperated.

"What do you mean" she kinda cocked her head to one side.

"I dunno you aren't the same little girl with the pig tails that moved next door all those years ago and part of me knew that but now that we are in the same school it's just made me realize that you are growing up."

"John you are only like a year and a half older than me" he reminded him.

"Yes but I'm also a junior, where you are a freshman".

"So basically you don't want me at your school is that right?" she asked him even more irritated than she was previously.

"No ... no that is not what I want at all ... can we just chalk it up to I'm an idiot and have that be it" he pleaded. "You really are my best friend and I don't want to lose that"

"I dunno John I don't think I can be your friend if your girlfriend is going to say all those horrible things about me and you say nothing to her about it"

"I swear I'll say something to them … I'll be the friend I should have been today … please AJ I need you in my life" so there the most popular kid at "The Fed" was standing in the middle of her bedroom in his white wife beater and boxer shorts begging her, a mere freshman, to stay in his life.

"John … I'm tired"

"Can I stay with you please … nothing funny I just want to stay here with you"

"Steve will murder the both of us if he catches you in here"

"He won't catch me" he assured her making his way over to her bed and lying down. "I'll be gone before you even wake up"

"Fine whatever just don't drool on my pillows" she climbed into bed next to him. Out of some sort of instinct he wrapped his arms around her. She was a little freaked out at first but she was also really tired and even though it was against her better judgment she fell asleep with a boy in her bed.