Disclaimer: Erica and Ella are mine, everyone else…well…I wish they were mine. :D
Author's Note: Hey everyone! Although this is a Slam Dunk fanfics, the Slam Dunk characters don't get into the story until Chapter 1. I just thought it was important for me to give a background of the new character before she enters the actual Slam Dunk backdrop because she's going to have a new standpoint after six weeks. Hehe…please read and review.
Prologue
"I don't see what you're so upset about. It's just a six-week exposure trip. I'll be back before you know it."
Erica leaned forward from where she sat on the soft, cushy mattress, pouting and giving her best friend her signature puppy-dog look.
"Six weeks?" she complained, sighing deeply. "What am I supposed to do in six weeks? That's practically the whole summer!"
"Take an art class!" Ella suggested exasperatedly, tossing a handful of her things into her suitcase. "Your mom should allow you that much."
"Are you kidding me?" Erica laughed, the original bitterness that came when she discussed her mother long lost in the humor of her situation. "She'd tell me that an art class wouldn't elevate my work from the status of my prep-school stick drawings."
Ella laughed with her, though behind her best friend's infectious humor she saw through to the real cause of Erica's reasoning, and what she saw made her pause.
Erica was going to have to go through six weeks without the support system that she had depended on since their sophomore year. Communication was open via phone and mail and internet, but the solid assurance of her physical presence would be gone…and Ella knew how much that counted. Whenever she was around, Erica's antagonistic mother was much more livable. Not to mention that they'd be going out most of the summer so her mother would have a limited time to torture her.
She threw the last of her things in and slammed her suitcase shut, coming around to where Erica sat and sitting down next to her. She took Erica's long, tapered, artistic fingers and laced them with her own, her friend's frail white hand stark against her own honey coloring.
"I promise I'll call everyday," she said reassuringly. "It'll be like I was never gone."
"What will it be like when you get back from Japan?" Erica asked sadly. "You'll know so much more things than me by then."