15. Coming to an End

.One month later.

"Luke! Luke! Put on the breaks!! The breaks!" Joan yelled. Luke slammed his foot down on the breaks.

"Oh my God," Joan said, breathing heavily. "You're a genius, shouldn't you know how to drive a car?"

"Cars and science have nothing in common Joan," Luke told her.

"Why do I need to teach you how to drive?"

"Because Kevin can't, and mom and dad wont. They said they had enough teaching you and Kevin. Look, if you don't want to teach me how to drive I'll ask someone else," Luke said.

"No, I don't care if I have to teach you how to drive or not. It's just, I'd really like to live to see seventeen."

"Am I that bad of a driver?"

"Luke, you're the worst driver I've ever met. Besides, you're still fifteen, you can't even attempt to get your permit for three more days."

"The key words being three days. I'm just tired of having to be driven everywhere or taking the bus everyday."

"Yeah, I get it. Why don't we call it a day?" Joan asked just as her cell phone went off. "Hello? Oh, hey. Three bags? Okay. Bye." she turned to Luke. "We've got to got to the store. Mom wants three bags of hamburger buns. Kevin forgot to pick them up last night and people are just starting to show up."

"You want to drive?" Luke asked.

"Considering it's illegal for you to be driving right now, yeah."

"Good point," Luke said, getting out of the car. Joan slid into the drivers seat and Luke got in the passengers seat. Three minutes later found them at the local 7-11. The two entered the store and Joan immediately looked to the cash register, to see if 7-11 God was making an appearance. When she saw he wasn't, Joan followed her brother to the bread isle.

"I don't believe our parents are throwing an 'end of summer Bar-B-Que'," Joan said, picking up two of the bags.

"Well, if it gets too horrifying we can plead sanctuary in the house," Luke told her, grabbing the third bag.

"You'll probably be too busy making out with Grace to notice," Joan smirked.

"I could say the same about you and Adam," Luke told her.

*

"Hey, mom, we got the buns, they're on the counter," Joan called to her mother.

"Thanks Joan. Can you get some of you CDs and the stereo so we can get some music?" Helen asked.

"Yeah, sure," Joan told her. She returned with the stereo and a stack of CDs a few minutes later and hooked the stereo up on the porch, turned the volume up and started the CD, then looked around the back yard. Her father was grilling things, her mother talking with Toni and Erika, Kevin off near the back with Rebecca, an assortment of her parents friends talking with other people, and then she spotted Adam and Grace sitting down at one of the tables throwing straw wrappers at each other. She walked over to the table and pulled out the seat next to Adam.

"Hey guys."

"Hey Girardi," Grace said, ripping a straw wrapper in half and chucking it at Adam.

"Hi Jane," Adam said, pulling the rapper out of his hair and throwing it back at Grace. "How was teaching your brother how to drive?"

"It was awful. I feared for my life," Joan started as Luke came to the table and took the seat next to Grace.

"I'm not that bad of a driver!" Luke protested.

"You two can't feel my pain," Joan joked.

"Accually.." Adam started, looking at Grace and raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, Rove, don't make me come over there," Grace warned.

"What?" Joan asked.

"Grace refused to let her parents teach her how to drive, so I did, and she almost killed me, yo."

"I did not almost kill you!"

"You almost crashed the car into the tree in my front yard," Adam said, causing Joan and Luke to start laughing.

"I'll deal with you two later. Rove, I'm giving you a three second head start," Grace told him.

"Grace-" Adam started.

"Three." Adam stood up. "Two."

"I'll be right back," Adam said, kissing Joan breifly, then heading off towards the porch, Grace running after him. Joan and Luke looked at each other and laughed again.

"Hey," Mark said, taking the seat where Adam had been.

"Hey Mark, what's up?" Joan asked.

"Well, before we came here, my mom and I stopped by the school to get me enrolled. Is the vice principle always like that?"

"Yeah, Price is always a loser," Joan told him. Luke nodded.

"Okay! I surrender!" Adam called, running up behind Joan.

"Good. And I sware, if you ever tell anyone anymore stuff that happend in the past I will hurt you," Grace threatened, aprroching the table.

"I can't even tell them about that time in your living room with the purple dress-" Adam started, a smile forming on his lips.

"Rove!" Grace yelled, and the two were off again.

*

Fifteen minutes later, the five teenagers were all seated at the table. Joan had moved onto Adam's lap to allow enough room for Mark to remain at the table, and was attempting to eat her cheese burger without smacking Adam in the head. Luke and Grace were also mastering eating their food one handed, as they were holding each others other hand.

"I don't believe it's August 26th already," Joan said.

"I don't believe school starts in 13 days," Grace muttered.

"You know something guys? I think this was one of the greatest summers ever," Joan said.

"Why's that, yo?" Adam asked.

"Well, not only did one of my best friend from my old town move to Arcadia, but I got the guy," Joan said.

"I love you Jane."

"I love you too," Joan said as she and Adam kissed.

"You two are making me ill," Grace told them.

"Hey, like you two are any better?" Joan asked.

"We don't make out in public," Grace pointed out.

"That's probably only because my brother smells like onion," Joan responded.

"I do not," Luke said.

"Accually, you really do," Grace told him, causing him to look offended.

"Hey!" The track on the CD changed and Joan looked down at Adam.

/I throw myself into the rain

as we run down these old train

tracks again

The moon is naked in the sky

so maybe you and I could fly

or pretend/

"Hey Adam, wanna dance?" Joan asked.

"Sure," Adam said. Joan and Adam stood up and made their way to the center of the yard where people were dancing.

/As the stars fall from grace

and light your glowing face

I'm teachin' myself to dream

I'm holding' my breath to scream

I'm teachin' myself to belive in the world

and it goes around in the sky so blue

That's what dreamers do

Can't say what day it is or year

but thou shalt have no fear

for I know your name

You can't believe what I did

and maybe I'm just a kid

but the we're both the same

I watch the hours through the glass

and now the time will finally pass/

Luke watched his sister and Adam dance among the other couples and turned to Grace.

"Hey, Grace? Do you.. want to dance?" he asked. She stared at him like he had lost it, but as she was about to tell him she didn't dance, the words to the song made her change her mind.

/I'm teachin' myself tro dream

I'm learnin' what love can be/

"Sure," she told him. Beaming, Luke led her to the centre of the yard.

/I'm teachin' myself to

belive in the things I don't understand

I don't even know if they're true/

Joan looked around the yard. 'I don't believe my first year in Arcadia is already over. I don't believe everything that happened in my first year here.' Joan felt Adam pull her closer and she placed her chin on his shoulder. 'And my first official summer in Arcadia couldn't have been any better. Even my friends and family had a good one.' Joan though, looking from her parents, to Kevin and Rebecca, to Luke and Grace, and then to the table where Mark was sitting, talking and flirting with some guy she regonized as a friend of the family's son, and she had suspected when they first met that he wasn't straight. Joan let out a little laugh.

"Hm?" Adam asked.

"Nothing," she told him.

/That's what dreamers do/

-End-