Hating and Loving
[Friday]

"I miss my family," I say to Talim as we walk through the hallway.

"I miss mine too," she says. "I haven't seen them in months."

"I wish I could get my family to come together again," I say. "I wonder if I could ever get Edoran to come home."

"Maybe," Talim shrugs. "I would at least try once."

I nod. "I don't think he ever talks about mom or dad. He has tons of pictures of us when we were kids, but he never has any of mom or dad. If only I could make everyone in my family accept one other."

"Maybe you can do something about it," Talim says.



"What do you need?" the principal asks as I enter his office.

"Mr. Enduin, is it possible that I can be dismissed from school for a few days?"

"Why would you want to be dismissed?" he asks, searching through papers.

"Because..."

"Talim and you have skipped more school days then anyone in the school this year!" he says. "I'm not willing to let you skip more."

I sigh. "But sir, I always make up for it really quickly."

"Your teachers have never complained," he says slowly. "How long were you hoping to skip?"

"A week. I could do my school at home. I desperately want to visit my family," I say.

"So do most of the kids here," says the principal.

"Yes, but my brother and parents haven't seen each other in years. My older brother rebelled and he was kicked out. I just hope to bring them together somehow. I promise I'll catch up in my schoolwork."

Mr. Enduin sighs. "If you promise that when you come back, you'll have most of your work done."

I squeal. "Yay! I promise to do all my work and..."

"Ms. Goldring, please leave your principal in peace," he says. I nod and slip out. Now all I had to do was figure out how to bring Edoran and our parents together.



"Just a random question, Edoran..."

"Yea?" This takes me a while. "What is it?" he asks.

"Well," I begin. "Would you go with me to mom and dad's house this weekend?"

"Oh good god, no," he says. I can tell he's really uncomfortable with the subject. I grip the phone tighter, as I do when I'm nervous. "One, I've got work this weekend and we're already behind. Two, they hate me! My own parents wouldn't want to see me, so why would I want to see them?"

"I could talk to them!" I argue. "They would want to see you. They have to love you."

"They would have hated you too if you had become like me," he says.

I pause. "Edoran...what did you do that was SO wrong? All you did was join a punk band and became not very Elvishly. Is that against the law?"

"No, that's not all I did," he said slowly. "You want to know the truth?"

"Yes, I'd like to know about my own BROTHER!"

"I did a lot of things," he says, his voice cracking. "I slept with a few girls with good reputations. I picked up on all kinds of drugs. I thought I was so cool because I never got caught. My friends would say how I was awesome, the kid that never got caught. Then one night I was out at the lake, drinking with friends and some girls. We started getting loud, screaming and laughing. It so happened that dad was going by on his horse when he heard me laugh, so he found me. Sure, I was only drunk, right? Well, that wasn't half of it..."

"What?" I asked. "What happened?"

"Well, we were skinny dipping by then. Do you know how horrible that is for the king's advisor's son to be skinny dipping, drunk with girls? Well, I hardly remembered it and none that were there that night told, except dad told mom. You were young and mom and dad were afraid I would ruin you. They told me to stop being crazy and start acting like a gentlemen or dad could lose his job. I didn't stop. I ran away a few times, stole the horse, and a bunch of stuff. It was becoming known that I was a wild, crazy brat. I got too wild for my friends and they saw what was happening to me. They started growing up a little. We stopped drugs, but it was too late for me. I was banished and lived at Rolland's house.

"Wow," I say. "I didn't know half of that."

Edoran sighed into the phone. "That's why I cant see them. I've tried to go back, but my mom looked at me as if she knew me as a thief or murderer...and not her own son."

Everything is quiet for a moment. "I love you, Edoran," I say.

"I love you too," he says. I can almost hear the smile in his voice.

"Can I come to visit Monday through Friday? I'm taking school off."

"Yea, sure, you can crash at our place, but you wont have much to do when we've got work."

"I've got the phone, TV, and a buttload of school work to do...and a town to explore! Don't worry!"

"All right. Can't wait to see you punk ass bubbles," he says. I roll my eyes. Boys are so strange!



I curl up in bed, but cant sleep that night. I'm not sure where Talim is. Last I heard she was at the mall with Arwen. I probably should have gone with them.

The phone rings. "Hello?"

"Hi dear," says my mom. "Just checking up on you as usual. It's so hard to get a hold of you these days."

"Yea, I know mom, sorry."

"How are things going?" she asks.

"All right... now, mom, you need to set some things straight with me. Why do you hate Edoran?"

"Hate is such a strong word," my mother says.

"Do you hate him or not?" I snap.

"I never hated him. I don't know how to explain it. I felt like he died. The part of him that I knew died, and he became someone else. You never seemed to see that. You still looked up to him when he was going bad. I hated to kick him out, because I remembered the good that was in him. I don't think there is any good left in him."

"Don't say that!" I find myself yelling at the phone. "I love him, mom. He's great! He's not what he was before, at all. He's long quit drugs and he's stopped messing with girls..."

"But how do you know? He lied to me every day! How can you trust he's not doing crazy things with his multi-colored haired friends?"

I sigh. "Mom, because I know."

"No you don't. You might be right, but you might not."

"Mom, I really don't want to talk to you right now, okay?" I say. I know she's hurt that I said that, but I'm mad at her. Why can't my screwed up family get along? How was it that once I remembered everyone saying our family was perfect? I hang up. "It's a screwed up piece of nothing, that's what this crap is! Life sucks!" I say, tossing the phone into the blankets on Talim's bed. I jump into my own bed and curl into a ball. "I want my Legolas," I say, dialing his number.

"Hey," he says.

"Come over," I say. "I need a hug and there's no one here to give me one. Eowyn wanted to take Cash for a walk, so he cant hug me."

I think he's smiling. "All right, I'll be over in a moment."

I hang up. "Maybe life doesn't suck SO bad," I say to myself.