A/N: This is weird, I can't just make one big note anymore since I have more than one reviewer to recognize… this rocks! Well, good news, class! I signed up for my classes for next year when I'll be a sophomore. And hopefully I'll get creative writing! Think about it… I could graded for stuff like this! Of course it would be my own writing, with my original ideas and such, which I'm super excited about! Yay! But this time I actually did get an F in math. So it'll definitely take a while between chapters. I have to be a good little student and work extra hard this quarter or my life will disappear as I know it. I'll write as often as I can, but in the mean time, this will have to suffice. And I figured out the calendar thing! So far, it's been 45 days, and according to an actual 2005 calendar (yea, its still '05 in this story!) I'm only three days off! It's supposed to be a Tuesday, but this chapter starts on Friday. So, it's kind inaccurate, but it's close enough for me!

SuperSixOne- I don't think I'll go that far as to virtually slap you, lol. I was just getting worried, thinking, "Oh my God! Where's SuperSixOne!" But I'm better now. Thank you so much!

Autruwriter- Again, I'm so psyched you like this so much! As for the whole thing between Stokely and Casey… don't worry, you'll find out!

AllyKat2108- Heyy, you're awesome! I just love reviews! It's also good to know that I'm not alone when I fail Algebra, lol. We should start a club, heehee!

I can't thank you guys enough!

Disclaimer: See previous chapters

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Chapter 13

Friday

One Week Later…

Stokely slowly wandered through the hallways of Harrington High School. School was over. And it was about time, too. She left her Physics class and made her way down to the first floor, where her locker was. When school had started, she picked her locker in a secluded hall way near the back of the school. Not many people had their lockers there, but it was enough to annoy the hell out of Stokely. School was too damn noisy, frankly.

Girls talking about having sex with their boyfriends and guy talking about lacrosse practice ruined her mood. Which probably wasn't very good to begin with. Ever since she skipped those two days of school with Zeke, she was generally in a better mood. She lost her focus easily, but she wasn't as pissy and stand off-ish as she had been.

She found herself thinking of Zeke a lot, actually. Probably she was right to. I mean, you don't just make out with a guy and casually sleep in his bed for two days and call that nothing. They had something. They would sneak kisses in Zeke's car to and from school. Him giving her a ride and gradually become an everyday thing, despite Stokely's protesting at first.

And she would always find herself thinking of him when she was supposed to be taking a Calculus test, or when she was supposed to be listening to Mrs. Franklin drone on about the importance of symbolism in Steinback's work. She was supposed to be doing all those things, but she thought of Zeke instead. Even now as she was standing at her locker, fumbling with the lock, forgetting the combination, until finally she got it open.

Her and Zeke hadn't really been together in almost two weeks. Sure, she saw him every day, and he drove her to and from school… but it wasn't enough. It wasn't the same. And the lack of Zeke in her life was messing with her head.

"Psst! Stokely!"

She jumped.

A chuckle. "Oh. Sorry."

She took a moment to calm down, before she closed the door to her locker. Revealing who had been hiding behind it. Zeke. She looked at him and smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Yes?"

He grinned, lowering his voice, and shrugging his shoulders. "I have a proposition to make," he said coolly. The slyness of his intentions was creeping out into his voice.

Stokely was intrigued. And also excited. She loved how he was so spontaneous sometimes. Then other times he would sit, thinking hard about something all day before he decided to do it. This certain proposition happen to take all day to properly consider.

Stokely smiled as she began to talk down the hall. Zeke, all smiles, followed closely behind her. "Well, I'm listening."

Zeke took one last second to find the right words. But then remembered something that might be a teeny bit important. "Wait, what's today?"

"Friday."

Phew! For second he thought it might've still been Thursday. Friday was important. The next day was Saturday. Followed by Sunday. Which was good. Very good.

"Ok, cool. So… you wouldn't happen to have any plans for this weekend, would you?" He knew the answer would be no, but he asked anyway. And Stokely knew that too.

She laughed. "No. I don't."

"Good," he said satisfied. "Then everything will go according to plan."

Now Stokely was confused. "What plan?"

Zeke grinned again, looking straight ahead as the walked out of the school and guided her towards the parking lot. "You'll see."

"Oh great,"

Zeke looked down at her and smiled, not realized someone was coming, and they bumped into each other. Not even looking to see who it was, Zeke brushed it off and kept going, uttering a simple, "Oops." Stokely, however, turned around to see Stan glaring at the two of them together. When he noticed Stokely was looking at him, he quickly turned and walked away.

She shrugged it off and noticed Zeke scandalously moving his hand to the small of her back, guiding her to his car. She normally would have pushed him away and loudly insulted him in front of everyone in the parking lot, but she decided to put the game on pause for this one time.

As they got in the car, Stokely couldn't stand it anymore. And by the time they had turned out of the school parking lot, she was already pressing him for what he was planning.

"What's going on in that head of yours, Zeke?" she asked him.

He tried to light his cigarette, but the lighter wouldn't work. "Things." His cigarette still wouldn't light. He looked at the lighter, seeing that the fluid was all gone, so he threw in the back seat. "Dammit."

Stokely reached over and plucked the unlit cigarette from between his lips, and placed it back in the pack until they could get their hands on a new lighter.

"Are you gonna elaborate on those 'things'?"

Zeke sarcastically sighed. "Do I have to?"

"Yes. Cuz you know what'll happen if you don't."

"Oh yea?"

"Yea," she said firmly.

"What?"

She bit her lip. "Um…" she looked around the car, then at the pack of New Ports in her hand. She held them up. "I'll hold your cigarettes for ransom."

He shrugged. "You're gonna have to do better than that."

Crap, she thought. What would be really, super drastic?

"I'll never kiss you again," she challenged.

He held up his hand. "Hey," he looked at her with a serious face. "Now let's not get carried away here." She laughed. "Ok, here's the plan."

"Yea?"

"How about we spend the weekend at my house?"

"Doing what?"

"Whatever you want. The whole weekend."

"The whole weekend?"

"Yep."

"Doing nothing?"

He nodded. "Yep."

She sat, dumbfounded. "It took you all day to think of that?"

"Uhh…well…" he stop his useless sputtering and looked at her. "You know what? Let's not go there. What do you say? Yes or no?"

She thought about it for a moment. "Mmm…..yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"All righty then. Let's go have some fun."

"Ok, but this time, I would like to have some clean clothes."

He sighed, "Fine, fine." He turned onto her street, acting frustrated. "You realized this is wasting time right?"

"Hey, do you want me to brush my teeth sometime this weekend?"

Zeke laughed. "Good point."

So after stopping at Stokely's house for weekend at a guy's house necessities, they scooted on to Zeke's house. Stokely loved driving with Zeke. She found a bag of Bugles in the glove compartment. The whole way to Zeke's house, they tried to make whistling noises out the cone-shaped corn chips. That was entertaining.

They got to Zeke's house and slept for a little while. The week had worn them out. They woke up around six o'clock and ordered some Chinese take-out. So they spent the night on the couch watching old movies and eating pork fried rice and Kung pao chicken.

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The morning doves were what woke up Stokely the next morning. She slowly moved around to find that she was lying on her stomach, her head resting on her arms. She distinctly remembered falling asleep on her back. When she tried turn on her side, she found that Zeke had his arm draped across her back, his fingers loosely gripping her waist. She turned her head to face him.

He looked so angelic while he slept. His lips were slightly parted and his hair was all messed up. But he looked so peaceful. Stokely lifted up his arm while she moved to lie on her side, facing him. She accidentally woke him up.

His eyes fluttered open to see Stokely smiling as she settled back down. She let go of his arm as he lifted his hand to her face. He began stroking her face, then down to her neck, then her shoulder, until he finally reached the small of her back, where he pulled her towards him, making them even closer together. The tips of their noses were almost touching. Zeke smiled at her, and she closed her eyes and cuddled up to him, nestling her head against his collarbone.

"I wish I could just stay here forever," she said, her voice just barely above a whisper.

"Me too," he answered back. He sighed, closing his own eyes. "Me too."

Zeke wasn't too sure what was going on with him lately… but he liked it. He never thought he and Stokely would ever be together like this. Until one day, he looked at her and it was all over. He lay there, holding her, as he thought about it.

Ever since she and Stan had broken up, he started to consider her. Even before they had broken up. It seemed to start out as just lust, but then, he felt a need to be around her. That's why he went looking for her that night, when he ended up at Casey's house. And he had been thinking of her, not even noticing she was coming when he bumped into her on the sidewalk that day.

Zeke would go right to calling this "love." He didn't think she would either. But it was something. Something he wanted to hold on to as long as he could.

He opened his eyes, and looked down at her. She had fallen asleep again. Somehow, he could tear his eyes away from her beautiful sleeping face. He thought about how people always avoided her. Years before, when they all started high school, was when she "came out," and ever body thought she was a lesbian. He wondered, why did guys avoid her? Why did they think she was so ugly? Why did he even think she was some outcast no one would ever truly love? But that was a long time ago. Almost a year ago. Before the invasion. He wondered why he never saw any of this about Stokely before.

He finally shook himself out those thoughts, and closed his eyes. Once again, drifting off to sleep.

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They spent Saturday in about the same way as they had spent their other days together. Stokely loved how they spent their days. They were so calm, and relaxing. So out of the ordinary, yet so plain. Not really plain, but simple. Stokely noticed how much she appreciated things now. How when they were watching Jack Finney's 1956 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, she thought about how good it was. How even though it was black and white, and low budget, people took time in making these movies. How they had an actual plot line, instead of blood and gore and weird-o masked psychos who throw you in a room with a saw.

When she'd wake up in the comfort of Zeke's arms, listening to the winter wind blow through the Evergreen trees and the morning doves cooing outside the window. Or how Pop-Tarts seem like the best things you ever tasted, when you hadn't had one since the sixth grade.

How good the sun feels on your face after being trapped inside a school for hours.

Or the way she felt when Zeke looked at her, knowing that she was the reason for making him smile like that.

The feeling of youth she had, running around his yard with him, throwing around crunchy fallen leaves as he chased her. Jumping into the piles he had raked but never bagged up and threw away. She had jumped in the pile of leaves, bringing Zeke down with her. As they crashed down together, he had claimed her mouth in another kiss. They lost track of what was happening, and ending up getting their clothes covered in smudges of wet soil.

They sat on the couch after they their clothes in the wash. They drank Carona with lime slices as their clothes dried.

And one of the best feelings was sliding into crisp, clean sheets after a long, tiring day of goofing around outside. They watched each other in silence until Zeke fell asleep.

All this was also way out of the ordinary for her. It was certainly better than her real home life. She thought about it as she tossed and turned, while Zeke slept peacefully next to her.

She wondered if her parents cared that she was gone. Or if they noticed. She thought about her parents. They were probably arguing about something. Her mother would be in the kitchen, washing dishes as she argued with her father about something. But her father would be in the living room, watching ESPN, not paying attention to her. So her mother would get mad and smash a dish on the floor and scream at him. To which he would grab a beer and walk out of the house. Where he then disappeared for a few days and come back as if everything was fine.

Stokely had lived with it her whole life. Her parents fighting was like comfort to her. Comfort in consistency. But then after a while, it turned from bad to worse, where at least one parent would vanish from the world for a couple days and return and do it all over again. She stopped relying on both her parents when she was at least eight years old.

She wondered over and over again if she should tell Zeke about her life, and why she was the way was. But she quickly dismissed the thought, thinking he might be too protective of her, and something even worse might happen.

She decided not to think about her home life any longer. She didn't have to go back to it for at least another two days. She didn't want to ruin them with overly realistic thoughts. She went to sleep that night, dreaming of the life she wanted someday. Far away from this place, where she didn't have to deal with the demons of her past. Much to her surprise… Zeke was included in those plans for a perfect life. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

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Phew! That took a while! I wanted to write out the whole weekend, to make a long chapter, but I think this is good enough for now. I want to give you guys a chapter before it takes forever for a new one. So I'll see you guys soon!

-BLE

Appreciating