Chapter 5

"Hey, Craig," Craig's girlfriend, Ashley Kerwin said, walking into Mrs. Kwan's first period class.

Craig had stuck a picture of Sammy in his pocket before he had left the house and was sitting there with it out.

"Hello, Craig," Ashley repeated.

"What? Huh?" Craig asked. Craig looked up at her and stuffed the picture of Sammy back into his pocket.

"I said, hey," she replied.

"Sorry, Ash," Craig said. Craig leaned over and kissed Ashley on the cheek. "I was in my own world."

"Thinking of you, Ashley," Paige Michalchuk mumbled under her breath. She wished that Spinner had English first period with her. She was sort of sick of seeing Craig and Ashley together in the same classroom as she was.

Ashley gave Paige a look and Paige grinned at her.

"What were you looking at?" Ashley asked Craig.

"N-Nothing," he said.

"Come on," Ashley said. The corner of the picture was sticking out of his pocket. Ashley reached over and pulled it out. She stood up with it.

Craig jumped up after her. "Ash!" Craig exclaimed.

Ashley looked at it and looked up at him. "Who is this?" Ashley asked.

"It's…no one," he said. He didn't want to talk about Sammy. Sammy might've forgotten him by now.

"Who is this?" Ashley asked, again with a tone.

"It's just a girl I knew," he said. He tore the picture out of her hands and held it in his hand.

"Really?" Ashley asked. "Someone you met over the summer?"

"Ash, don't act this way," he said. "She moved to Germany three years ago. She was my best friend when I was younger."

"Oh," Ashley said. "I'm sorry if I got a little jealous."

"Yeah, you should be," Craig said, he sat down in his seat and smoothed out the picture.

"Craig," she said. "I said I was sorry."

"Yeah, I know," Craig replied. "I heard you. I'm not deaf."

Ashley looked at him. She turned away from him for a moment and then looked back at him.

"Craig?" she asked.

"Yeah? What?" he asked, looking up at her.

"Take a chill pill. I was just going to ask you if you'd heard from her over the years."

"Yeah," he said. "She and I kept in touch by e-mail and a bunch of letters."

"Do you miss her?" she asked.

"I hadn't really thought about her until Angie pulled out the box she gave me when we were younger. That's something we did then. I gave her one with my name on it and vise versa."

"Oh, how sweet."

Craig rolled his eyes. "We just did it because we had a feeling we wouldn't be together forever," he said.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

The bell rang and Mrs. Kwan closed her door. "Welcome to English-11 class. For the first few weeks we'll be—" Mrs. Kwan was interrupted by a knock on the door.