When Brooke walked into the Lachance's home after school, she had trouble breathing.

I shouldn't be here.

The house felt completely empty, like it had been abandoned years ago. A chill tightened the skin on the back of her neck as she felt as though she'd walked into somewhere haunted. Then she realized, the person that had kept this family alive was dead. And the survivors really were just barely more than his ghost's shadows.

When she went home, she would be returning to be man who had killed the life of the Lachance's.

"You okay?" Gordie asked. He'd thought she was following him down the hall to his room, but stopped when he discovered she hadn't even left the front landing. "You're not going to puke, are you?"

She smiled softly, but she was shaking and couldn't believe she'd been able to find a smile to give him. "No, I'm not going to puke."

"Well you look like you're going to puke."

Swallowing her overlapping feelings, she walked quickly to his side. She wanted to take his hand because she was feeling almost frightened. Maybe it was the fact that up and down the hall she was in were pictures of Gordie's family when they were still actually a family. Denny's smile in each of the pictures he was in was the brightest--a reminder of what they all were still missing and wishing to have back again. "I'm okay, Gordie. I just felt dizzy for a second."

"I hope you don't puke when you get dizzy."

"Err, no. I don't think I do." She laughed nervously. "Where's your cat?"

"In my room, I hope." Gordie looked over at her and smiled out of the blue.

There was a light in his eyes and it sparked something in hers. Standing in the hallway of a house haunted by the death of love, Brooke realized that she had never felt more alive.

What the hell was he doing inviting Brooke Aarons into his bedroom? This was the daughter of the alcoholic who had killed his big brother, for God's sake.

Suddenly something occurred to him, just as he was putting his hand on the doorknob of his door. Brooke had nothing to do with Denny's death. She had probably been sitting at home that night he had died in the wreck of metal and broken glass. Maybe she had even been doing her homework. She had cried at the funeral; he remembered that. He also remembered hating the way she shook while she cried silently because not a single tear touched his own face.

How could the death of the person he loved most make him hate?

There was no malice in anything Brooke did. She tried. She never gave up on trying to reach him, no matter how hated she must have felt.

"Umm…" Brooke said quietly. "Are you having a private moment with your doorknob?"

"Yeah," he sighed. "But I'm done now, don't worry." He pushed opened his door and was greeted by Cat, who rubbed against his leg, purring contentedly.

"Hi Kitty, you missed me, huh?" As an after-thought, he added, "I really wish you wouldn't do that with my leg."

Brooke beamed. "I thought you named her Cat."

"Uhh, I did."

"You called her Kitty!"

"Perhaps I did, but you will forget immediately that it ever happened," he laughed bashfully.

"You love her."

Pretending to ignore her, Gordie scooped Cat up and held her out to Brooke, who smiled and took her into her arms.

"So, you actually have fur under all that dirt," she giggled. "You're almost kinda pretty for a little ragamuffin."

"Okay, Brooke. What the hell is a ragamuffin?" Gordie demanded.

"I don't know; something scruffy, maybe. My mom always calls me that when I first wake up."

He couldn't reply. It was all her fault. It was the smile on her face and the look of simply joy in her eyes as the kitten playfully batted her pale hair. It was everything about her, and it just killed him.

Gordie's room was tidy and impersonal. There was a desk, a bureau, a bed, and a black bean bag chair, which Gordie immediately sat down on. A poster for Invasion of the Body Snatchers hung above his four-poster bed.

Brooke decided that she should sit on the desk chair rather than on his bed. She was still reeling from the fact that she was in his room. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to sit on his bed and restrain herself from bursting into high-pitched giggles.

Silence hung over the room while Gordie let Brooke play with Cat. Suddenly he heard her ask, "Why is there a life-jacket under your bed?"

He grinned. "I have drowning dreams."

Her blue eyes searched his face, waiting for him to continue his explanation, but he never did. "Good enough," she murmured with a wry smirk. "Ow. Ow. Ow!" She held Cat away from her, but her claws clung to the fabric of Brooke's white cardigan sweater.

"Are you okay?" Gordie asked, ready to give his cat hell.

"Yeah, your kitty was just trying to grope me, that's all."

He laughed. "So, Brooke?"

"Hum?" Her eyes were wide, blank and extra blue when she looked at him.

"Do you want to stay for supper?"

Gordie couldn't believe himself the moment the words were out of his mouth. Why did he ask her that? His parents would have strokes and die upon seeing Brooke at the dinner table.

Brooke looked just as surprised as he felt.

"I get it," she said after an unbearable utter silence.

"You get what?"

"Well, I was just thinking to myself, 'his parents will cook me and eat me when they see me,' and then it occurred to me that you're in on their evil plot and you want to…eat…me…?"

Gordie stared at her, flabbergasted. "Holy crap. For someone as smart as you are, you're surprisingly insane."

"So you don't want to eat me?"

He smiled slyly. "I hope you know my mind is permanently in the gutter, Brooke. Unless you actually want a crude and probably degrading remark from me, I suggest you refrain from inviting me to eat you."

"I want not inviting. I was frightened."

"Just warning you," he said. "So, are you interested?"

"In what?"

"Having dinner with my happy family," he said slowly.

"Oh." She shrugged, her fingers fiddling with the coils on one of Gordie's writing notebooks, which he had left on his desk. "Sure, I'll have supper with your family. I hate mine."

Relief flooded Gordie's mind.

"What do your parents usually think of the girls you bring home?" Brooke asked with a cringe, knowing she wouldn't be well received by Mr. and Mrs. Lachance.

"I guess I'll find out tonight," Gordie replied ambiguously.

"Huh?"

"I've never really brought a girl over for them to meet," he said quietly. "Except for Anya, but she's quite different."

Brooke's normally confident voice squeaked as she asked nervously, "Why did you pick me?"

"I didn't pick you. And I don't think you picked me either. I think we're just together and that's the way it is."

Brooke watched him as his eyes drifted to a framed picture of Denny at his graduation. She wondered how he could stand to be with her when Denny was still hurting him so much.

But they were just together and that's the way it was.