I woke up. 8:27 AM. I showered, got dressed, ate breakfast,and biked over to Leigh's house at 9:54.

I rung the doorbell. As I waited, I shifted impatiently from foot to foot. FINALLY she opened the door. I was bursting with excitement. With me I had the article,a camera in case we saw him, my notebook,and my pen.

"Which way should we bike today?" she asked.'

"Well, since we have all day, I figured we could bike from here to the park about a half-mile from the 7-11, search the park and the surrounding area up to the 7-11, buy a sub or something for lunch, and then search closer to our houses, and be back around 5 or so." I replied.

"Okay. Check with the 'rents, meet here in 5?" She asked, but I was already on my way out the door.
****

Mom said okay, so I headed to Leigh's where she was already waiting. We left.
****

We biked the first 20 minutes or so silently, each lost in our own thoughts.

I thought of Marco. Maybe, somehow, if he was really alive, if my hopelessly lovesick mind wasn't playing a horrible trick on me, he could like me. Yeah, right. He could really like this mediocre, less-than-wonderful teenager, who was a year younger than him, that was me. Yeah, right.

And so I thought the same things, over and over, a carousel of depressing thoughts that never stopped...and it reminded me of a song. I heard it all too frequently. My brother Chris was obsessed with Lifehouse. Since our rooms were right next to each other, I heard it through the walls because he played it so loud. "Sick Cycle Carousel" was the name...a fragment drifted through my mind, "over and over, and over again." My thoughts were all: Marco, Marco, Marco.

"Faith? Are you alive in there? Hello?" Leigh was giving me a reality check. "We're at the park. Let's look!"

We were biking around when I saw the lady from the 7-11, with the scars. She had the guide dog, with the big handle and harness, too. Approaching from the other side was Marco with an IDENTICAL dog on a regular leash. The dogs were exactly the same. Down to the last patch of brown fur they were totally identical.

I did the only thing I could.

I waited until they were fairly close. We were behind a large rock, the kind kids play King of the Mountain on, about 3 feet away from the tunnel. I took a zoom-in picture of Marco's face, then of him, then, when the dogs were close enough, I took a picture of the identical dogs. Then, a few minutes later, the lady emerged with a dog, Marco (**sigh**) emerged, and a hawk left. Only one dog. I took a picture of the hawk. I didn't use the flash for any of them,because it was sunny and they would have noticed.

I crept up to the tunnel and took a picture of the empty tunnel. I put the camera in my easily-accessible pocket and hopped on my bike, and we followed Marco out of the park.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A/N: The next part requires some imagination, because I'm following the plot in the book, and that does not say what happens to Marco. It'll be up soon. Remember, if there are no reviews, I'll abandon this. SO REVIEW!