-I'd like to thank everyone for all the great reviews, you guys rock! Nine reviews for one chapter is great for me!-

Clare began to tear up as she read the letter written in her mom's own handwriting.

"To my dearest Clare,

I know that right now you're wondering what I'm thinking, leaving you with someone you've never met before. But don't freak out. This guy is cool. He was my best friend for pretty much all my life until college.

I know this isn't fair. To leave you with Zack. But it isn't fair to me either. I'm never going to see you do...well, you know, all your teenage girl rites of passage. But don't feel like I'm controlling your life now, because I'm not. You do have a choice. Try to live with Zack. If things get really bad, you can go and live with your Aunt Grace.

I'll miss you, Clare Bear. Don't ever forget that I will always love you no matter what.

Love,

Mom"

Meanwhile, Zack was reading his letter as well.

"Dear Zack,

I know this comes as a shock to you. You probably never would have expected that I would dump my little girl on you. But I am, because it's one of the only things I have to give you. We used to be best friends and at one point we were even in love (even if it was only for a very short time). I wanted you to have more than just one of my belongings. I wanted you to have a real part of me.

I want you to take care of my Clare Bear. I gave her a choice, and if she wants to leave, let her. But make sure she turns out good. Make sure she turns out better than I did.

I'm also giving you my bass. You can hold onto it if you want, or you can teach Clare. It's up to you. But she doesn't know too much about music. I hope you can care for her like she was your own. I'll always be watching both of you.

Love,

Katie"

(a/n sorry if those letters were boring!)

Zack walked over to Clare to introduce himself.

"Hi Clare. I'm Zack." She just nodded. "You can move into my house as soon as you want. Can you be packed and ready in two days?" She nodded again. "Okay. And I live here in the city too, so you'll be going to the same school and everything."

At that moment Aunt Grace grabbed Clare by the wrist and dragged her out to the car. She didn't protest; she was too numb. The car drive was silent. When they got home Clare started to pack her things. Shirts, pants, shorts, skirts. All those went into her large duffel bag. Her stereo and the few CDs she had went into a box, along with other things like her bedside lamp. The really big things, like her night stand and dresser drawers, were going to be picked up by a mover. Clare had to go through everything in the apartment, because it was all hers. Most of the stuff would be sold in a garage sale that Aunt Grace would be doing.

Clare picked through the whole place, putting things in either a garage sale pile or into one of her bags. She'd explored every part of the apartment except her mom's room. She didn't want to go in there, but she had to. The room was pretty nondescript, a bed, a dresser drawers, a couple frames. Clare moved those things out quickly. She went into the shoe closet, which held only a few pars of shoes and a lot of shoe boxes.

When the shoes were in the garage sale pile, Clare went to throw away the shoe boxes, but found that each one had something written on the top. She first found the one with her name on it. Inside were photos of her at every stage of her young life. She got an old grocery bag and put the photos in there. She didn't recognize the names on any of the other boxes, but she put the contents of each in the grocery bag.

There were two boxes left, and both caught her eye. One was titled, "Zack", and the other, "School of Rock". She opened the Zack box first. It was nearly overflowing. There were tons of pictures, all from when her mom and Zack had been small children or teenagers. There were Valentine's Day cards and concert tickets, anything and everything that could have been put in the box was in there. At the very bottom, there was a little gold cardboard box. Curious, Clare opened it to find a silver necklace with a little guitar charm dangling from it. She put it back in the box and put the little box in the bag.

Maybe when she lived with Zack she could ask him all about her mom. He seemed like he would know a whole lot. The last box remained. Clare opened it up and found pictures of a large group. There were concert bills and clipped magazine articles, even a CD. Apparently this band had meant a lot to her mom, and Zack too, because they were both in a lot of the pictures. Maybe they had followed the band across the country, meeting them at every stop on their tour. It was another thing she would have to ask Zack.

The next evening Zack came to pick her up. He drove past all the apartments in the area and got into a neighborhood with large houses in it. Clare was amazed, as she had never even lived in a house. The car stopped in front of a white house with a circle drive way. Zack got Clare's things out of the trunk and led her inside, where he put the bags next to the stairs. The movers had already brought her other things.

Zack started to give her a tour of the house. On the main floor there was a living room directly on the left when entering, and a computer room directly on the right. After walking a few steps they entered the kitchen, which connected with the den. Next they took the stairs up. Zack's room was on the left. In the middle of the hall was another den, smaller, with some video game systems hooked up to it. The bathroom was just a few steps further, and right across from it was Clare's room. It was roomy, with her bed, night stand, and dresser drawers hardly taking up any room. Zack had carried her bags up and placed them next to her bed.

Right down the hall from Clare's room was a game room with a stereo, tons of CDs, a record player and some vinyl, a pool table, and a bumper pool table. Framed album covers were on the wall, along with one of those glued together puzzles, this one of the Simpsons. There was even a mini fridge.

Finally Zack brought Clare back to the den on the second floor. He pointed to a flight of stairs that she hadn't seen earlier. "Up there is my son Sean's room. He's a good kid, you'll like him. He'll be driving you to school and stuff like. He's only a year older than you, he's sixteen. You'll meet him soon, he should be home in a half hour. You can go unpack if you want."

Clare went to her room, still not quite over how large it was. She also wasn't quite over the fact that she'd be sharing this house with another kid. And a boy, too! It freaked her out a little bit. What if she hated him? What if he hated her? She was thinking about this as she unpacked. It didn't take her long, she didn't have much to unpack. Clare left the grocery bag full of pictures next to her bed and went to see if Zack would be making dinner.

She started looking for him. He was downstairs in the den watching TV. Rather timidly, she asked him, "When will we be having dinner?"

"I'm going out tonight, but Sean will fix you something. He's a really good cook, that is, if you like Easy Mac and microwave ravioli. Or anything that only needs to be microwaved. Sean should be back, well, any minute. Once he gets home I'll leave you two to bond."

Clare was pretty hungry, so she was really wanting Sean to get back. Not like she couldn't microwave anything for herself, but she didn't want to be too bold. She didn't have to wait for him long. Just a few seconds after sitting down on a stool in the kitchen, she heard the door open. Sean had arrived.

-Yay! My longest chapter in quite some time! Sorry it took so long. Review!-